Why we need Yoga, Meditation or whatever

[no2atkins]

You know what a huge cause of obesity is?

STRESS!!! When our ancestors felt stress it usually meant a drought was coming, or a big hungry tiger was on the way to eat us..something bad!!! So it was typical to eat everything in sight and get ready to fight or flee.

how do we do that now? In front of a TV or computer...at our desks..etc...same process, different results.

We all need something that relaxes us, takes us away to that special place. where we can chill out, take a moment to reflect. ease our tensions.

Through Yoga, Meditation, working out, biking , spending quality time with the people that we love..whatever.

Take a moment to relax and enjoy at least a small slice of each day.

Peace.

[RedRox]

No arguments here! There are a lot of synergies between a regular yoga practice and weight loss and weight management as well. And the more active and physical types of yoga build cardio, strength, balance, lean long musculature, core strength and functional fitness. Some estimates for a 90 minute power vinyasa class run as high as 600-700 calories expended.
????: South Beach Diet Forums http://www.southbeachdietbulletinboard.com/south-beach-diet-forums/5678-why-we-need-yoga-meditation-whatever.html

My current signature on another SB board is from a yogini by the name of Judith Hanson Lassater and goes:
"Yoga is not about touching your toes; it is about what you learn on the way down."

Much like making a fundamental lifestyle change in how we eat and in our relationship to food and our body images, it is about the quality of the process and what we learn about ourselves as we go through that process, not with the attachment to a specific result. (Although if the process is true and practiced regularly, the results we seek tend to happen on their own anyway! )

[no2atkins]

Originally Posted by RedRox

No arguments here! There are a lot of synergies between a regular yoga practice and weight loss and weight management as well. And the more active and physical types of yoga build cardio, strength, balance, lean long musculature, core strength and functional fitness. Some estimates for a 90 minute power vinyasa class run as high as 600-700 calories expended.

My current signature on another SB board is from a yogini by the name of Judith Hanson Lassater and goes:
"Yoga is not about touching your toes; it is about what you learn on the way down."

Much like making a fundamental lifestyle change in how we eat and in our relationship to food and our body images, it is about the quality of the process and what we learn about ourselves as we go through that process, not with the attachment to a specific result. (Although if the process is true and practiced regularly, the results we seek tend to happen on their own anyway! )

I'll go ahead and say this, i want your input red. I value your thoughts.

I think without exercise one is doomed to fail in regards to ones weight. and if you can incorporate ones "happy place" with calorie burning and muscle building then even more the better.

some of these people rely on food as the only means of maintaining their weight.

i am inclined to think 90% will fail without exercise.

just my thoughts.

[RedRox]

Well I posted my response in that other thread with my own experiences so you can read it there.

I don't know I guess because everyone is different, maybe there are some that can do it purely with diet, but they won't be as healthy as they could be without regular exercise or activity. (one of the primary ways of increasing good cholesterol (HDL) is through exercise and the benefits only last 24-48 hours, so it needs to be repeated frequently!)

I will say that virtually everyone I know from other boards I belong to who have successfully lost and successfully maintained for some lengthy period of time in terms of multiple years, has developed a passion for some type of regular exercise and many seem to enjoy taking it to a competitive level running, biking, entering fitness/body competitions, becoming instructors and so forth.

Part of that I think is a sort of a necessary goal transference process as we move into P3/maintenance mode. We've typically expended all this time and energy and effort over many months (15 for me) just trying to get to our goals and then we get there and there is sort of an "oh crap is this all there is?" moment where we realize the only place we can really go from that point is to either maintain or get fatter again. So we are kind of faced with all the same effort, only none of the positive feedback in terms of seeing the scale move, seeing body changes in ourselves, moving into smaller clothes or seeing other incremental improvements in our lives is there any more. We've kind of fed off a lot of that positive feedback to sustain us through the process and then poof it's gone to a certain extent. I mean it still feels great to have accomplished all that, but then it's like "OK, what's next?" and I think the answer to that for many is to take our new found wellness and health and expend it into physical endeavors that continue to challenge us and provide us with new goals and a new process to work with, whatever that is we have found along the way that we enjoy and motivates us to keep coming back to on a regular basis.
????: South Beach Diet Forums http://www.southbeachdietbulletinboard.com/showthread.php?t=5678

So yeah I think you can likely lose weight with diet alone, but to be truly healthy and continue along in a successful maintenance mode, there also needs to be a strong exercise component. For me that is primarily heated power yoga, so for me there really are no "yoga competitions" but there are always more advanced poses, arm balances, inversions and generally weird crap to get into that keeps it fresh and sets up those personal challenges for me to keep working on along my own journey and my own process. There is always another level that I can take it to. It just takes time, persistence, practice and finding the joy in the journey itself!

[no2atkins]

Originally Posted by RedRox

Well I posted my response in that other thread with my own experiences so you can read it there.

I don't know I guess because everyone is different, maybe there are some that can do it purely with diet, but they won't be as healthy as they could be without regular exercise or activity. (one of the primary ways of increasing good cholesterol (HDL) is through exercise and the benefits only last 24-48 hours, so it needs to be repeated frequently!)

I will say that virtually everyone I know from other boards I belong to who have successfully lost and successfully maintained for some lengthy period of time in terms of multiple years, has developed a passion for some type of regular exercise and many seem to enjoy taking it to a competitive level running, biking, entering fitness/body competitions, becoming instructors and so forth.

Part of that I think is a sort of a necessary goal transference process as we move into P3/maintenance mode. We've typically expended all this time and energy and effort over many months (15 for me) just trying to get to our goals and then we get there and there is sort of an "oh crap is this all there is?" moment where we realize the only place we can really go from that point is to either maintain or get fatter again. So we are kind of faced with all the same effort, only none of the positive feedback in terms of seeing the scale move, seeing body changes in ourselves, moving into smaller clothes or seeing other incremental improvements in our lives is there any more. We've kind of fed off a lot of that positive feedback to sustain us through the process and then poof it's gone to a certain extent. I mean it still feels great to have accomplished all that, but then it's like "OK, what's next?" and I think the answer to that for many is to take our new found wellness and health and expend it into physical endeavors that continue to challenge us and provide us with new goals and a new process to work with.

So yeah I think you can likely lose weight with diet alone, but to be truly healthy and continue along in a successful maintenance mode, there also needs to be a strong exercise component. For me that is primarily heated power yoga, so for me there really are no "yoga competitions" but there are always more advanced poses, arm balances, inversions and generally weird crap to get into that keeps it fresh and sets up those personal challenges for me to keep working on along my own journey and my own process. There is always another level that I can take it to. It just takes time, persistence, practice and finding the joy in the journey itself!

oh for sure, like i said...I lost 100lbs on atkins without exercise, it just came back so i lost it again, and again and again...i guess some people can stay skinny with diet alone, ive never met anyone, my trainer hasnt, my YMCA friend has not..so i dont know..maybe 10% can? 20% i dont have figures..i just know out of the say thousand people that i have talked with, met etc...nobody can come up with a single soul that maintained it without exercise...but hey if you can and you dont want to be truly healthy thats fine by me.


i exercise every day so the benefits are with me all the time.

alot of people dont understand how hard yoga is...I do.


to me exercise reassures me that the weight wont come back. and it completes the overall healthy package i want.

bottom line, we are all here to get healthy, it took me multiple times before i realized exercise was the key that i was missing..im great at diets..i can lose 30 pounds in a month!!! but...i can gain it back so easily.

i burn so many calories Red I have to make sure I am not losing too much too fast to be honest....tonight i would not be surprised if i burned 1000 calories...

[RedRox]

sweet! it sounded like a fairly intense workout!

And glad someone gets the physical effort involved in some forms of yoga. Most just think we sit around chanting and stretching for an hour or so and that it is fairly low effort and that has not been my experience! It really has kind of an image problem in that regard, esp. among men.

[no2atkins]

Originally Posted by RedRox

sweet! it sounded like a fairly intense workout!

And glad someone gets the physical effort involved in some forms of yoga. Most just think we sit around chanting and stretching for an hour or so and that it is fairly low effort and that has not been my experience! It really has kind of an image problem in that regard, esp. among men.

haha nah man, Yoga is way tough..its a heck of a workout...yeah some people think its wimpy but they are ignorant, after doing it they sing a different tune..hehe....if they can make it through a workout that is!!!

A long long time ago...I weighed like 282..yeppers..lol...lost 100 pounds and for about 15 months or so i did not gain a pound back despite eating like a family of four...then one day i couldnt see (edited) lol..while i was peeing and i was like wtf? fat? again? (at this time i didnt work out, late 20's now 40) so i went back and forth over the years of being skinny and then fat...

The desire to eat high quality meals with the knowledge of how to eat them plus intense workouts = never being fat again...

I just might try some Yoga too!!

Currently I jog, fast walk, workout with weights, swim and mountain bike.

Looking to incorporate more..always.. maybe do some rock climbing.

[RedRox]

hehehe... our studio does several completely free level 1 classes every week and we had to go to X number of level 1 classes during our teacher training program since that was the sequence we were learning to teach. Anyway there was a kind of funny moment during one of the Sat. free classes where the instructor stopped about 1/2 way through the class after one of the tougher segments in the class to give the class a chance to catch their breath and solicit questions and this guy in the back kind of groaned out "Yeah, are you sure this is a beginner class!". It tends to be a very humbling experience most days!

I kind of took a different path. I was a HS athlete and even continued to play some intercollegiate sports in college and then went on like a 25 year lifestyle of eating and drinking whatever I liked and not doing much of anything physically and slowing morphing over time from an athlete to a couch potato. But on average it was just a few pounds a year I guess so it just never seemed like much of a change. I hit my late 40s, got some signals and warnings that I was technically obese and likely insulin resistant and possibly pre-diabetic and then I flipped the switch to lose weight and get healthy again.
????: South Beach Diet Forums http://www.southbeachdietbulletinboard.com/showthread.php?t=5678

So far I haven't gained anything back. (well other than what appear to be sort of normal seasonal fluctuations of up in the winter and down in the summer!) It just became apparent to me I could eat off of food list A and control my weight, be active, look good, feel good and avoid daily prescription meds or I could return to food list B and feel like crap, look like crap, be unable to enjoy some of my favorite activities like skiing and now yoga and likely join the ranks of the prescription meds club to control blood sugars and cholesterol. For me the choice is really always that simple. Food list A or Food list B? I already know the results each will produce. I do not entertain the insanity that I can engage in food list B for any length of time and continue to get the results that are available from food list A!

Now that I will get a free membership at the health club I am teaching yoga at I am thinking of adding in more things too if I can find the time! Like to try some spinning and they do have a climbing wall too!

But enough about me!! LOL!!

I do think there is also the danger of those who exercise intensely to not watch their diet as much or to engage in more "food rewards" as a balance to their workouts and while they can probably do some of that in moderation, it can ultimately sabotage their efforts as well. I know for awhile I used to "treat" myself with a Larabar after tough yoga classes quite regularly and it stalled my weight loss or I might start gaining. I just don't have that high a margin for error given my normal exercise and diet patterns. And you can see overweight people engaging in high levels of intense exercise all the time and they don't or can't lose weight because they don't really have the dietary component under control. So I just think people need to be aware of that "I work out like crazy so I can eat a bunch of crap foods" mentality too.

[no2atkins]

I do think there is also the danger of those who exercise intensely to not watch their diet as much or to engage in more "food rewards" as a balance to their workouts and while they can probably do some of that in moderation, it can ultimately sabotage their efforts as well. I know for awhile I used to "treat" myself with a Larabar after tough yoga classes quite regularly and it stalled my weight loss or I might start gaining. I just don't have that high a margin for error given my normal exercise and diet patterns. And you can see overweight people engaging in high levels of intense exercise all the time and they don't or can't lose weight because they don't really have the dietary component under control. So I just think people need to be aware of that "I work out like crazy so I can eat a bunch of crap foods" mentality too.[/QUOTE]

Red,

Now we are talking about people whom have an eating disorder. Not people that got caught up with time passing, getting older, less exercise, sloppy eating habits etc.

There is a HUGE difference...I dont have an eating disorder, dont use food as a reward.

[no2atkins]

also...I think i eat much better because i work out...after working on my muscles for an hour or two I am really careful about what fuel I am giving them...it makes me much more careful of what i am putting in my body..

Red,

Now we are talking about people whom have an eating disorder. Not people that got caught up with time passing, getting older, less exercise, sloppy eating habits etc.

There is a HUGE difference...I dont have an eating disorder, dont use food as a reward.[/QUOTE]