Yoga for Weight Loss

December 7, 2020
In this practical and persuasive guide, physician Fishman (Healing Yoga) argues that yoga can help “people at any level of experience” lose weight. Fishman, who has practiced yoga for four decades, writes that diets don’t work and that most people “end up right back where they started.” Yoga, Fishman contends, works physiologically through poses that inhibit appetite and improve metabolism, and guide the practitioner toward “a clarity of mind.” He explains that weight loss happens best through a practice that is emotional, spiritual, and physical: in time, the yogi approaches life with a new point of view: “you respect yourself and everything else more than you did before,” he writes, and suggests that this perspective makes sticking to self-care plans easier. Fishman provides pose-by-pose instructions, with photographs, and outlines how each pose affects weight loss (locust pose, for instance, “stretches the anterior portions of the esophagus, stomach, and duodenum, curbing appetite by sending inhibiting signals to appetite centers within the brain”). Those looking for a well-rounded approach to weight loss will want to give this a look.