In his blog today, Andrew Weil reflects on a study that indicated a connection between yoga and a lower BMI. Researchers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle found that yoga helped practitioners maintain a lower weight than a control group. Rather than this being a matter of calories, the study determined that it was mindful eating that made the difference.
I started practicing yoga about 2 1/2 years ago and my personal experience is in keeping with those findings. Before I started taking yoga classes, I was a couch potato. I was over 20 pounds heavier than I am today. My goal in taking yoga was simply to start to feel better physically. But what happened after a few sessions was that I started to . . . well, the only way I can explain it is to say that I started to feel my body. As a result of this new awareness, I was finally able to hunker down and do what was necessary to lose weight. It was easier to avoid foods that were unhealthy because it didn’t feel right to eat them.
I think that mindfulness was certainly part of it, but it was more than mindfulness of what I ate. It was also mindfulness of my body. And that awareness made it possible to maintain a healthier weight.
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