Yoga and you:

Yoga has touched the lives of men and women across the world and instilled a new hope. It has made people physically fit. Everyone can enjoy its great benefits once he or she is engaged with Yoga. There can be no benefit more better than feeling good, and Yoga makes you feel good, physically, mentally and spiritually. It is not just meant to shape up one’s body or shed weight, Yoga is meant to make you realize that life is good. When you start Yoga you soon realize that your depression, stress is not as great as it used to be prior to engaging with Yoga. It lowers fat and burns calories and you feel a changed person.

Yoga and Ayurveda:

It must be kept in mind that Yoga is a branch of 5000 years old Ayurveda, hence engaging with Yoga for weight loss also calls for engagement with Ayurveda. Various yoga practices are used for maintaining or achieving equilibrium between the mind, body, soul and cosmos. Yoga exercises (yogabhyasa), yoga postures (yogasanas) and breathing practices (Pranayama) energize and revitalize the internal as well as external organs of the body, bringing peace to the mind. They help in the unrestricted flow of the body’s energy and bring harmony with cosmic energy. For an Ayurvedic way of life, it is essential to comprehend yogic principles and learn some fundamental practices. However, if you are not prepared to do the yogic practices, you would have to force yourself to be successful and therefore do more harm than a good. In yoga, it is forbidden to use any force, all movements involve concentrated breathing and thought on the particular practice. The practices coordinate the body and the mind and assist in achieving self-awareness as described in Verma.

Yoga Practice and types:

Yoga practice may be personalized for dosha type. Vata doshas suffer from a lack of flexibility, dryness and stiffness. Arthritis is common in this dosha type as well. This dosha benefits from regular oil massage, taking herbs for flexibility, tonic herbs for improving energy and laxatives (see next section). Vata has a tendency to rush things, therefore, key words for Vata are calm, slow, steady, grounding, strengthening and consistent. Yoga positions for Vata include slow Salutation of the Sun, both sitting and standing, inverted poses (it should be avoided by women during menses), simple back bends, all forward bends, fetal positions, lying spinal twists and corpse pose. This last position should be done for a long time because Vata requires time for relaxation.

Pittas usually have internal heat and blood that requires detoxification. They benefit from cooling and detoxifying herbs. Nervines, substances that impact the nervous system, are also helpful for cooling Pittas overheated and emotional mind. Pittas have a full range of fiery actions and emotions. For this reason, key words for yoga poses are cooling, relaxing, surrendering, forgiving, gentle, and diffusive. Yoga positions for Pitta include most sitting postures (except

Lion Pose), moon salutation, standing poses, forward bends with legs open, shoulder stand, fetal pose, bow pose, setting forward bends, twists, yoga mundra and corpse pose.

Kapha types suffer from stagnation and benefit from herbs that improve circulation, which counter complaints of heaviness, such as obesity, diabetes, asthma and heart disease. Spicy herbs are also recommended. Kapha key words for yoga practice include, stimulating, moving, warming, lightening, energizing, and releasing. Asanas for Kapha may include Lion pose of sitting poses with pranayama (breathing), Sun Salutation, standing extension poses, downward and upward dog, full inverted balancing poses like handstand and peacock feather pose, plow pose, all backbends, head and shoulder stands with variations, invigorating twists and short reclined positions.

Yoga is a complete exercise, it strengthens muscles and bones, it helps reduce your tummy, it helps make you fit, but all without the need of a single accessory used in gymnasiums or clubs. It is done by making use of one's own body weight against gravity-resistance. But it is challenging also. Yoga helps in the increment of blood and lymph flow through various asanas thus the toxic chemicals are purged and metabolic activities turn smooth and enhanced. Remember that when the lean muscle mass is increased you start losing weight and that is exactly what the Yoga asanas do. It helps the body to burn its own fat and each asana counters your sedentary lifestyle.

You can start Yoga asanas whenever you want and whatever your weight. It will not just help you shed your extra pounds but also in saying good-bye to your addiction to food. The mode of activity can range from lifestyle activities (e.g. gardening or mowing the lawn) to specific exercises (e.g. running, swimming or and physical activity).These activities must be examined in light of the intensity demands of the activity, with more physically demanding activities providing the greatest results.

Many asanas like Dhanurasana, Naukasana, Matsyasana, Bhujangasana, Ardha halasana, Ardha matsyendrasana help in the reduction of the stomach fat. Twisting exercises stretches the oblique muscles and helps to burn the extra fats from the sides of the stomach as well as what are deposited in various organs of the body. Breathing exercises helps in reducing the fat deposits near the stomach. Reular Yoga exercise also helps in reduction of the belly fat and also provides the lost zeal to the body. As the stomach lifts up and down with continuous breathing exercises, you will discover these simple exercises results in making the stomach tight.

Yoga and Diet

Diet remains the most important of all factors in any human aliment, including obesity, because whatever exercise you choose to shed excess weight but neglect good eating practice, then no amount of exercise is going to work. Diet and exercise go hand in hand. It is important to understand that Ayurveda is a much more than just a healing science. Cooking for constitutions is equally a science. With regard to eating, Ayurveda prescribes that first you want to regularize absorption, assimilation and elimination. Ayurvedic recommends foods that are easily digested.

Next, any imbalances (vikriti) need to be corrected. Finally, foods should be chosen to suit physical constitution (prakriti). It is most important to attend to appetite, digestion and elimination, then you can work to balancing the finer parts of constitution. Ultimately, food needs to taste good and this is the chief Ayurvedic premise. Five Elements. If you are out on a camping trip, you have built a fire and that fire gets too big and too hot, you use either enough water or earth to bring it back to where it is under control or you put out altogether. You are applying the basic laws of the elements here; the same laws that operate within your body. If the fire inside of you gets too big, your system is out of balance, heat and pain result in the form of ulcers, inflammation or fever and sweet earthy foods and cooling liquids are needed to quench the fire. However, if a great amount of these foods and liquids are used, you may quench the digestive fire altogether and need to build it back up.

Ether or space plays a part in bitter taste and in the constitution Vata. Air is present in three tastes: pungent, bitter and astringent and also plays a strong role in the Vata constitutional type.

With the right amount of fire present in our bodies, in balance with all the other elements, we digest smoothly and well. Too little, things sit there in the gut. Too much, and foods can charge through too quickly or with inflammatory reaction. Fire plays a part in three tastes: sour salty and pungent. It is intimately connected with the constitutional type Pitta. Water is strongly present in the tastes sweet and salty. It manifests in the constitutional type Kapha and also in the prakriti Pitta. Earth element shows up in the tastes sweet, sour and astringent and is part of the Kapha type. Food in general has a lot of earth element in it. Taking in too much earth, we are likely to increase our mass and possibly douse the digestive fire.

Food for weight loss:

The quality of food: Sattvic foods—organic, fresh, homegrown, fresh-picked and raw dairy foods—are most preferred. Rajaic foods should be eaten in moderation and Tamasic—rotten, under or overcooked, burnt, unripe, overripe, stale or junk food—should be avoided if possible. Other harmful foods that are considered Tamasic and should be avoided are canned, rancid, artificial, prepared with additives, preservatives, frozen foods, irradiated foods, meats and poultry containing steroids. Generally, animal meat products are not advised because once slaughtered, meat begins to decompose and quickly becomes Tamasic. By the time it reaches your table, it is undeniably so.

The quantity of food and leaving for God. The Ayurvedic belief is to fill your stomach 1/3 with food, 1/3 with liquid and leave the last 1/3 for God. Overweight people should drink before they eat, believing that liquid, preferably pure water, will fill them up and assist in weight loss and restoring balance to their body. Underweight persons should drink after eating, with the hope that they consume sufficient food to gain weight and restore their balance. Those of normal weight should drink with their meals to get the balancing 1/3 and 1/3 and maintain their balance. Previous meals should be digested completely before commencing on the next meal because

mixing of meals can upset the doshas and personal balance and the digestive fires also need time to regenerate to be fully available for the next meal. In some cases, especially those where there are problems with the digestion or digestive fire, smaller more frequent meals may be advised. This can assist in better digestion, increased metabolism and gradual elimination of digestive problems altogether.

Combining foods: Some combinations of foods, such as vegetables combined with fruit or milk, can cause digestive problems. Therefore, you need to be careful selecting food while still getting a daily balance. Eating smaller more frequent meals may assist in this. Other combinations which cause problems are eating dairy products with sour foods, cold food after eating ghee, eating equal amounts of honey and ghee or eating fish products with cheese (this creates unhealthy toxins). However, stews and curries are more easily digested than vegetables cooked and eaten separately.