4. It Is a Long-Term Weight Loss Solution
Yoga teaches awareness of the self, which is important for a long-term change.
A 2005 study from Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre demonstrated that yoga can alleviate ‘middle-age spread’. According to this study, people between the ages of 45 to 55 years, who had been doing yoga for over ten years, experienced weight loss, compared to a 14-pound average weight gain in this period for those who didn’t do yoga.
Alan Kristal, the author of the study, said from his experience this had to do with the way that yoga made a person more aware of their body.
Yoga practitioners were on average slimmer and this ‘yoga mindset’ resulted in a lifestyle of healthy weight control. They simply ate more mindfully — and had a lower body mass index – than non-practitioners. In other words, they notice when they’re full, and avoid eating for extraneous reasons, such as stress or boredom.