Can Yoga Help With Weight Loss? (Step by Step Breakdown)

Can yoga help with weight loss?

We've been told for the longest time that weight gain- loss is a simple equation of calories in and calories out. But we can see now with the research that it's actually a slightly more complicated picture than this!

The reality is that loosing weight doesn't just depend on what we eat or how much exercise we do, but also what our mind is doing.

Chronic stress will absolutely have an impact on your ability to loose weight and keep it off!

Transcript

Thanks so much for tuning into this video. I'm going to answer a question I get asked all the time, and that is, can yoga help with weight loss. I'm not going to stay surface and I'm not going to talk tools and techniques in this video. What I want to talk about is one of the main hurdles and issues that people have when it comes to not just losing weight, but also keeping the weight off. So that's what I'm going to be looking at and how yoga can really form the cornerstone of your weight loss program and why it is so useful. So, let's jump in and take a closer look.

Stress Affects Weight Loss

So the first key point I want to make here is that stress is a significant factor when we're looking at weight loss and being able to maintain a healthy weight. And I want to explain how and why. When you're stressed, you release multiple hormones, one of them being cortisol. Cortisol, we know actually affects your blood glucose levels, your blood sugar levels. And it does this in several ways. One inhibits the action and release of insulin, which is the hormone that's responsible for helping to regulate and remove, um, glucose from the bloodstream. So that's one.

Manage The Glucose In The Body

The other thing it does is it actually stimulates the release of glucose stores in the liver. So it stimulates the release of sugar that is in your liver. And so what happens is you get a real increase in the amount of sugar that's running around in your bloodstream. So what you might say, well, when you have all of this extra glucose running around in your bloodstream, it becomes much more challenging to actually lose weight.

 And so we get this, um, picture that we often see where you go through periods, where you might lose a little bit away, and then you go ahead and gain it all back, and then you lose a little bit of weight and gain it all back. And there's this real, yo-yoing this up and down that tends to happen. And for a lot of, um, clients that I see, it tends to correlate to periods of time when their stress levels are really increased.

Manage Stress Levels

So I really want to make that point. And I want you to start thinking about if, if weight is something that you've struggled to maintain, start thinking about how stress might be playing a role in your weight gain and or weight loss. So there was a study conducted and it happened over a six month period. It looked at some 300 plus subjects. And what they were concerned with was effects of things like cortisol, high cortisol levels in the body, um, insulin and chronic stress.

Be Mindful

 Now what they did was they looked at how these things really, uh, predicted weight to gain over a long period of time. As I mentioned, the study went over six months. Now, in this study that was published in the obesity journal. They actually found that those subjects that had increased cortisol, insulin and chronic stress were more likely to have a greater future weight gain. So they actually experienced more weight gain over the months that they followed these subjects. Very interesting study.

 And I really think it helps to highlight this point that you can be eating really well, you can be moving really well, but if you're not addressing what's happening in between the ears and really, um, dealing with that anxiety and or stress, then your weight loss is going to be much slower and you're going to be much more likely to put on weight.

Okay. So what can you do about it? If you're feeling stressed, you're feeling overwhelmed and you're also struggling to keep the weight off. And then that's also contributing to your stress and your overwhelm. And then we've got this really vicious cycle that just continues to unfold.

How To Manage Anxiety

What I want to say to you here is small things done regularly are going to have the greatest impact. Things like diaphragmatic, breathing, things like positive visualizations, meditations, mindfulness, anything that's going to bring you into the present moment and really prevent that future worry, future anxiety and ruminating is going to be really helpful.

Consider an Anti-inflammatory Diet

I want you to consider things like an anti-inflammatory diet, um, because we know that whenever there is inflammation in the body, cortisol levels also go up. So anti-inflammatory diet can be very helpful. Um, getting adequate amounts of sleep is key. And I know this is also something that is a real issue for a lot of my moms, um, that are really struggling to lose weight and keep it off is sleep.

Choose The Right Exercise For Your Body

The other thing too, is there have been some forms of exercise that have been linked to increased cortisol. So you've got really high intensity interval training has been linked to higher cortisol levels, and a lot of heavy lifting has also been linked to higher cortisol levels. So if you're struggling with a lot of weight or you're finding that it's very difficult for you to lose weight, then please look at the types of exercise that you're doing. Make sure that you're balancing it out. If you're doing high intensity training every single day, you could be overstressing your body and actually it could be working against you with the weight loss. So making sure you're incorporating, um, rest for forms of exercise is key here.

Cut Back on Social Events

The other thing I want to mention is to consider cutting back on social events. I know this is going to make me really unpopular, but if you're out socializing all of the time, you're more likely to drink alcohol very high in calories. You're more likely to not sleep well at night because of the excessive social socializing.

Make Healthier Lifestyle Choices

Um, the other thing too is you are also more likely to be, um, out of control with what you're eating and consuming in terms of, you know, making healthier choices with your food. And of course, then if you are constantly out and about this can also be quite overstimulating for the system and can lead to an increase in the amount of cortisol running around in your blood. So I feel like sometimes clients will say to me, but I'm not stressed. I'm I don't feel stressed. I don't feel overwhelmed. Now, one of the key areas that I will often refer to, if I think that cortisol and stress is, is, is playing into this await, um, either weight gain and, or just a real difficulty in, in budging with the weight or losing the weight despite moving well. 

Consult a Naturopath or Nutritionist

And despite eating well is if you're carrying that weight around the abdomen, then it is more likely to be linked to cortisol because that's the area where we tend to see the weight gets carried when it is linked to stress. So I just wanted to make that as a point might be something for you to consider and have a look at. Now, the other thing I want to mention here being a naturopath and nutritionist is that you can actually have your cortisol levels tested. Um, there's, um, functional pathology labs that will actually send test kids out to your house and you can have your cortisol levels assessed to see what they're doing at different times of the day. And to see if this is actually a factor that could be playing a role in your inability to lose weight and keep it off. So those are the key points I really wanted to drive home in this video, consider stress management and how you're going to do that on a daily basis. 

Consider having your cortisol levels checked to see if they are playing a role in your weight. And then, um, finally do a little checklist of those key things that I mentioned and try and incorporate as much of that as you can, to keep the cortisol down, which will also help with regulating your blood glucose levels. I hope you found that video useful. If you haven't already please subscribe to the channel, I've got a list of videos over here that you might also be interested in and in the meantime, move well, eat well and think, well, I'll see you real soon.