ANTI-AGEING YOGA
THE SERIES THAT COULD CHANGE YOUR LIFE
SUMMER’S here and, with it, all the usual guides to getting a ‘bikini body’ — fast. The same old faddy diets are brought out again, not to mention instructions for gruelling exercise regimens, which, it is claimed, are the only way you can shift the pounds in time for your beach holiday.
This always makes me smile rather ruefully. Because I know all too well that you don’t have to go hungry, or sweat buckets, to lose weight. A few simple yoga stretches are all you need to get the waistline you’ve longed for.
What’s more, yoga can even shift the pounds in double-quick time — as much as 10lb in 28 days, with just ten minutes of yoga every day, when combined with my healthy eating plan.
I’ve advised many of my pupils over decades of teaching yoga to follow this combination of exercise and healthy eating — and even wrote a diet book on the back of it — and can assure you that the proof is in the pudding! So many women and men have lost weight quickly by following my advice.
Thanks to my daily stretches, I still fit into clothes from decades ago, and have largely preserved the same shape I had as a teenager. At 5 ft 5 in, I weigh 8 st 2 lb and have a 26 in waist — the same midriff as supermodel Cindy Crawford, who is years younger than me.
Creating a slim, youthful figure is just one of the many ways yoga can help us turn back the clock. As I explained in the first part of this series in Saturday’s Mail, I believe yoga is the most powerful anti-ageing activity of them all.
It can give wonderful flexibility and help us to avoid many of the conditions associated with ageing — from a lack of libido to osteoporosis — as well as rejuvenating skin. Today, I’ll show you the ultimate weight-loss workout and explain how yoga can help beat your junk food cravings.
If you’re a yoga virgin, don’t fret. Anyone, at any age, can do these exercises. Indeed, I have pupils into their late 80s in my classes. With practice, there’s no reason why you won’t be able to improve your flexibility, too — all while losing weight.
HOW YOGA HELPS SHED THE POUNDS
PEOPLE frequently ask me: ‘If yoga doesn’t burn fat, then how on earth am I going to get slim?’
It’s true that, in yoga, we don’t huff and puff with repetitive movements to burn off calories and fat. Instead, we work on fine-tuning the entire body. But there are several ways that even the most gentle yoga movements can help you trim down.
First, yoga works on 100 per cent of the body — toning, firming, sculpting and realigning. It helps correct our posture — and a stronger, straighter back means a tighter tummy and less of a spare tyre around your middle.
With improved posture, any fatty deposits you have in your body start to spread out nicely. The slow, precise movements of yoga also allow you to develop long, slender muscles, giving a lovely, lean figure.
Yoga helps to calm any niggles, aches and pains in our joints — and the less achey we feel, the more likely we are to move more in our everyday life, thus burning calories and losing weight.
Second, yoga helps to stimulate the thyroid gland in the neck, responsible, among other things, for regulating hunger, cravings and controlling metabolism.
Indeed, by working the entire body through yoga, we can truly energise a sluggish metabolism.
Moves such as the Cobra (see overleaf) are excellent at stimulating the thyroid. With a little regular practice, you’ll find your cravings become naturally controlled, as your appetite-regulating system works better.
And it’s not just the thyroid that’s boosted. Our whole system of glands, which control the chemistry of our bodies, can be rejuvenated by regular yoga.
Take the adrenal glands. They produce adrenaline and cortisol, the stress hormones that place your body in ‘ fight or flight mode’. Thanks to the strains of modern life, more and more of us have too much adrenaline and cortisol zipping unnecessarily around our bodies. Cortisol, in particular, is linked to weight gain and increases in appetite.
Yoga helps your adrenal glands in two ways. First, movements such as the Crescent Moon (see overleaf) help keep them in tiptop condition. Second, the deep relaxation it encourages, as well as the practice of meditation, can relieve the stress that leads to the excessive production of cortisol in the first place.
The more relaxed we are, the more balanced we feel — and the less likely we are to seek out a nightly tipple to help us relax or
comfort- eat to satisfy our stress-fuelled cravings. Indeed, yoga is a complete body
and mind workout. As any dieter will tell you, the mind is just as important as the body when seeking to lose weight.
Because yoga gives your health an overall boost, you naturally won’t want to indulge and ruin all its positive effects. When people start my classes, and I tell them that yoga will stimulate healthy eating, few believe me. But, by the end of the first term, they’ll say: ‘Do you know, I used to have three glasses of wine, and now I only want half a glass.’
That’s because once you start feeling good, you won’t want to ruin your body by shoving junk food or lots of alcohol into it. Pupils often tell me junk food they thought they couldn’t live without has lost its appeal.
As you become healthier through yoga, you’ll find you stop ‘tension-eating’ — grabbing high-calorie snacks at all hours. Your body naturally leads you to healthy habits, because yoga is a system of positive health.
And with a trimmer waistline and better habits come proven health benefits. One piece of U.S. research by Dr Dean Ornish, a cardiologist and professor at the University of California, found heart disease can be
reversed through yoga and dietary changes. He found even advanced heart patients could shrink the fatty plaque deposits that were progressively blocking their coronary arteries with simple yoga exercises, meditation and a low- cholesterol diet, instead of using the conventional treatment of drugs and surgery.
A DELICIOUS EATING PLAN TO BOOST YOUR WORKOUT
AS I’ve explained, yoga can keep you on the straight and narrow when it comes to food.
It undoubtedly has for me. For many years, I’ve largely followed what’s become known as the Paleo Diet — where you eat only delicious, fresh foods that would have been consumed by our Stone Age ancestors, and avoid anything packaged or processed. I find it the perfect complement to yoga.
I started my healthy eating plan when I was 19 and it is much the same as it was all those years ago. It has kept me feeling great, and I am pretty much the same shape and weight as I was back then.
I also follow the wonderful ancient yoga saying at every meal: ‘ Only half-fill your stomach with food, leave a quarter for water and a quarter for digestion.’ Basically, it means eating slowly and leaving the table when you are satisfied, but never full.
This will leave you feeling energised and light after food, not lethargic and bloated.
Your diet can still be varied and delicious. I never go hungry — and it works. In fact, it’s easier for me to tell you the foods you should avoid, as you can eat everything — as long as it’s fresh! You can even have a glass of wine.
STEER CLEAR OF: Beers and spirits; biscuits, cakes, sweets, pies, pastries; bread (except wholegrain); canned, dried or frozen fruits and vegetables; chocolate; ‘diet’ products; fruit squashes and fizzy drinks; hamburgers; ready meals; ice cream; jam; jelly; noodles; packaged cereals (except organic wholegrain ones; pasta (except wholegrain); pizza; potatoes; white rice; sausages; and sweetcorn. The only other rule I follow is no snacking.