Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Yoga - Weight Loss Made Easy With Yoga Stretches

By Julia Denham

Are you tired of weight loss programs which just don't work? It's time for a change: try something different. Yoga can help you to lose weight because it helps you to change your lifestyle. Forget about dieting, just do some simple yoga stretches every day.

1. Find a Beginner's Yoga Class

You don't have to be an expert yogi to lose weight with yoga. You can be a complete beginner. What matters is that yoga will change you, and the weight will vanish over time. It's not a process you can force, you simply allow it to happen.

Start the process by finding a beginners yoga class in your area, and make a commitment to go to class at least once a week.

2. Spend Ten Minutes Morning and Evening on Your Favorite Poses

In yoga there around 10 primary poses with endless variations. Pick your favorite two poses, and do them morning and evening. This should take you around 10 minutes.

For example, let's say you picked downward dog and the cobra as the poses you'll practice outside class this week. Start your 10 minute session in mountain pose, paying particular attention to your alignment, and relaxing as you stand in the pose. Then do cobra pose. Perform the pose four times. Completely relax between each pose.

Complete your session by performing downward dog pose, increasing the length of time you spend in the pose gradually, until you're spending around 90 seconds in the pose.

3. Allow Yourself to Lose Weight: Forget Dieting

You gained weight gradually. You didn't have to think about gaining weight, it just happened, because of the habits you created. Changing habits is very difficult, especially if you try to impose change from the outside. Yoga helps you to change from the inside.

Within a few days of starting your yoga exercises, you'll find that you no longer crave fast food. However, buying fast food is a habit. You may still find yourself buying fast food even though your craving for it is gone. Don't try to force yourself to stop. One day you would just drive right past your favorite fast food eatery. You won't have to think about it.

Is it really that simple? Can you really lose weight with just a few yoga stretches each day? Yes, you can. The key is to enjoy your yoga, and to forget about dieting. Weight loss will happen, and more quickly than you can imagine.