Fight Fat with Yoga
Mindfulness = a whittled middle
By Deanna Michalopoulos
Calorie counting is the go-to strategy to subtract numbers from the scale and shed unwanted pounds. And in a country where two-thirds of adults are overweight or obese, it seems like adhering to a tough diet is the prescription. But a strict eating plan - whether it’s self-imposed or stemming from a program - isn’t always the answer.
One study published in the journal American Psychologist reviewed all previous research that tracked dieters for two to five years and found that at least one- to two-thirds of dieters gained all the weight they lost (plus some) within five years. Other studies show that strict dieting triggers people to eat more than those who aren’t on a diet at all, creating a vicious cycle of undereating and overindulging. In other words, if you skip cereal in the morning, come noon you may inhale a cupcake or two without thinking twice.
So what can you do if you want to look svelte while rocking a pair of skinny jeans? The answer is yoga. Research published in the journal Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine found that people who practiced yoga regularly for four years or more actually gained less weight as they get older. What’s more, overweight individuals who practiced yoga for four or more years managed to lose weight over a 10-year period.
But as it turns out, it’s not just breaking a sweat during yoga class that helps whittle your middle. “Losing weight isn’t just about physical activity and it isn’t just about cognitive skills like counting calories, weighing portions or not stocking junk in your pantry,” says Alan Kristal, Ph.D., researcher at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle and co-author of the above-mentioned yoga study. “If you’re going to lose weight and keep it up, you need to be mindful in addition to these things.”
In fact, there’s been a surge of programs that promise weight-loss success based on a mindful approach to eating. These programs encourage people to weigh their hunger levels against emotions, such as anxiety, loneliness or anger, to make sure they are eating for the right reasons. So rather than chomping on chips to tame tension or reduce stress, you can learn to calm your body and mind with meditation and deep breathing.
“Mindfulness gives people a better sense of control over food and makes eating a more comfortable experience,” says Donald Altman, M.A., LPC, who runs his own online mindful eating training program, mindfulpractices.com, and is author of Meal by Meal: 365 Daily Meditations for Finding Balance Through Mindful Eating. The same techniques you use to stay focused and breathe through a challenging pose during yoga class can come in handy when you’re in the kitchen or a restaurant. Since yoga practitioners feel more in tune with their bodies, they are responsive to their body’s sensations - including hunger and satiety. When you’re more aware of why you’re eating or not eating, you could lose weight almost by accident.
An avid yoga practitioner himself, Kristal developed a scale that measured mindful eating, and his research found that the longer individuals practiced yoga, the higher they scored on the mindful eating scale. And high mindful eating marks were strongly correlated with a low body mass index (BMI). Want to slim down mindfully? Here’s how yoga can help:
Yoga helps you bear discomfort without reacting to it.
Sometimes we encounter awkward or almost painful postures — for some of us it’s Tree pose and for others it’s Pigeon. Rather than grit your teeth and hold your breath, yoga trains you to observe the tension and breathe deeply into it to coax your muscles or joints open - or to deal with it as is. You can apply this same technique to other uncomfortable situations, such as an intense craving for ice cream or cookies.
“I suggested to one of my program participants to try sitting with her feelings instead of eating junk food when she was unhappy,” says Altman. “The next time she had a craving, she drove into a fast-food restaurant’s parking lot and sat in her car for 40 minutes. She realized that she had never given her unhappiness a name. That day she realized she was lonely and that a burger and fries wouldn’t make that feeling go away.”
Yoga teaches you to de-stress - on the spot.
Deep breathing from your belly has an immediate calming effect on your mind, which is why pranayama is useful when we start freaking out in the middle of Half Moon pose. We normally take spills when we’re worrying about losing balance. Concentrating on your breath clears your head so you can align yourself deliberately.
Similarly, if you don’t manage stress, it can drive you to making poor choices, says Altman. That’s why, when high anxiety induces a fight-or-flight response in your brain, you zoom to the vending machines to divert yourself from mental anguish. Taking a pause with a deep breath during challenging parts of your day help you take a detour from the Doritos. Try this breathing exercise the next time you need to center yourself.
Yoga coaches us to change.
Think about your very first, second or third Downward Dog and how far and fluid it has become in your practice. Yoga can cultivate the confidence needed to take a step toward change in general, such as making healthier food choices. “We create new neural networks in our brain every time we do something unfamiliar,” says Altman. “It gives us hope that we can eat a meal and approach it in an entirely new way - and that helps us keep at it.”
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