By Helena Lucas

Alongside feeling great and having fun, weight loss where necessary comes naturally to students through consistent yoga practice. This is triggered by stimulation of specific body organs and glands directly involved in weight loss / regulation processes through postures, by producing optimal adjustments in your metabolism, by regulating your intestinal transit and by building up your muscle tone making it easier to rid off excess fat from firmer areas. Also by enhancing detox processes, by promoting a relaxed state whilst increasing your awareness and focus, and by shifting your attitude towards increasing positivity.

Yoga practice in great part aims at optimising your endocrine system. Here, your thyroid gland plays a central role in weight loss / regulation, and is responsible for the smooth tempo of important body functions and metabolic processes. The yoga Shoulder Stand stimulates your thyroid gland by bringing an increased supply of blood into your throat area. This and other inverted yoga postures, whereby organs and glands which are normally above the pumping heart are positioned below it, improve your blood circulation and the functioning of glands and organs.

Regular bowel movements are essential for health and for needed weight loss. The yoga Abdominal Lift in the standing and all-fours position acts as a massage for your stomach, colon, intestines, liver, kidneys, gall bladder and pancreas. Alongside a proper diet, this yoga exercise does wonders to relieve constipation.

Yoga practice includes breathing techniques (pranayama) to promote expulsion of toxins through your breath, burning of excess fat, and relaxation a la par with heightened awareness and focus. Tension relief through yoga practice permits compulsive eaters replace their harmful habit with more constructive ones while achieving their desired weight loss. As you learn to listen to your body, you become acutely aware of what types of food do more good or harm to your life-force. Here comes a breakthrough enabling your weight loss and optimisation of energy levels by unmasking food allergies so as to avoid foods that have a most detrimental effect for your health. These vary from one individual to another and can range from oranges to wheat- any food type can do it.

As your yoga practice promotes cleansing of your organism, your body becomes increasingly efficient at nutrient uptake from ingested food. You will meet your daily requirements from a more moderate ration of balanced food, avoiding need to overeat or cause harm to yourself through deprivation for weight loss. When your brain chemistry is unbalanced your mind and body crave nutritionally deficient foods. You eat junk and crave more junk. As a healthy mind automatically generates happy thoughts, a healthy body secures healthful foods. Imbalances in serotonin and dopamine neurotransmitters, responsible to a great extent of addictions, can be improved through intake of certain good foods. Important brain chemicals are produced from specific amino acids contained in the proteins we eat. Doctor John Gray goes into comprehensive detail on this matter in his enjoyable read ‘The Mars and Venus Diet and Exercise Solution’.

Your body’s metabolic processes are unique. You will thus benefit from a unique combination of effects offset by yoga practice’s powerful techniques. Grasp this all-important truth: “Only I can determine through experience what amounts and type of food work to fuel my healthy body, and what amount of exercise I require to maintain my beautiful figure.” Your unique bone structure determines your optimal weight. Definitely do not attempt to evaluate your attractiveness or well-being through universal charts in fashion magazines. This could bring you not only frustration, but serious physical problems too.

Look to your proportions, work on toning your muscles and on making your skin taut and firm, develop an erect posture and move with grace and balance. Achieve this through pleasurable and simple yoga practice starting today. Your radiating vitality, harmony, and confidence is what others perceive as your unique appeal. This makes you, as an individual, universally attractive.

Helena Lucas is qualified in psychology and is engaged in the practice of alternative healing techniques and treatments. She has traveled throughout Europe and Africa to care for rescued chimpanzees in primate sanctuaries, always sharing her bed with her two cats Fairy and Aisha on board. Be it in jungle or metropolis, Helena greets each sunrise through Yoga for strength and motivation. To open your life to ancient techniques that will see you shine visit http://yogainyourlife.com