Yoga to control your weight

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Published: 05/02/2013 - Updated: 10/15/2018

• Author: Miriam Reyes

Yoga is a philosophy of life that helps the physical, mental and spiritual individual. The poses also known as asanas have curative, preventive and recuperative properties.

Each works on certain organs and glands, and through their practice can help improve the functioning of the endocrine system, which is the one that has the overall control of our body.

Fighting obesity

Stress and anxiety often accompany the obesity status, generating a bad use of the times of the meals, which often consist of unsuitable food.

Yoga promotes relaxation and helps the motivation to carry out a diet, resulting in a lower rate of abandonment to the meal plan, and which sees a set of dietary guidelines that will help improve your quality of life.

Slimming yoga postures

Below we recommend several yoga postures that will help you lose weight.

Fish Pose (Matsyasana)

To do it:

1. Sit in the lotus position and take the thumbs of the feet with hands.
2. Leaning back to back, supporting the body in the arms and elbows, until the head touches the ground.
3. Put the head back and pull your chest to form an arch. If you can, stretch your legs and arms.

Benefits: It regulates the functioning of the pituitary, thyroid and adrenal glands.

Head posture (Shirshana)

To do it:

1. Lie on your knees, interlace your fingers and forearms supported on the mat, elbows too unseparated.
2. Place the top of the head in the hollow of the palms.
3. Lift your knees holding onto the feet soles, and walk to the head
4. With momentum, rise off the ground while the thighs are close to the chest, raise your legs slowly.
5. By stretching the legs, glutes are contracted.
6. To go back, bend legs slightly and heels on the buttocks. Bring both legs bent forward and stretch them to the ground with your feet.

Benefits: This posture helps to dispel anxiety, and has an action on the thyroid gland, promoting healthy weight.

Cobra Pose (Bhujanghasana)

To do it:

1. Lie down, feet and knees together, the toes, elbows bent and hands resting on the floor, at the height of your shoulders.
2. Exhale and inhale through the nose, raising the head, chest and trunk.
3. Keep your belly to the floor, and lay your head back.

Benefits: Helps to balance on body weight, as it acts on the adrenal glands and thyroid.

Plough Pose (Halasana)

To do it:

1. Stand on your back with your feet and knees together, arms at your sides, palms down and your chin towards the projected sternum.
2. Inhale, raising your legs and hips.
3. Exhale, dropping the legs behind head gently, trying to touch the ground with toes.
4. Hold the pose for five seconds and, with practice, increase time gradually.
5. To return to the starting position, inhale, down the spine, vertebra by vertebra. The legs should get really close to the body without pressure you. Support the back and buttocks legs stretching upward, and exhale, slowly lowering your legs.

Benefits: It acts on the thyroid, massages the abdomen, reducing fat deposits, helps improve digestion and fights constipation.

Recommendations for doing yoga

If you practice yoga, then surely you know the asanas (postures), however, if you've never practiced, be sure to have the advice of an expert who can guide you, and perform at your pace, respecting your body, and thus avoiding injury.

• Miriam Reyes

  Miriam Reyes is a professional expert in nutrition and dietetics. She has more than 12 years of experience in caring for patients with overweight and eating problems. She studied at the Universidad del Valle de Atemajac (UNIVA), where she obtained a degree in nutrition. Linkedin profile.