Slim Calm Sexy Yoga: 210 Proven Yoga Moves for Mind/Body Bliss

short attention span. When the diet and workout plan is over, your attention fades and you go back to old patterns. Maintaining a healthy weight and a healthy attitude is all in your attention. A regular yoga practice will train your attention and keep your body and mind healthy, focused, and calm for the long haul.

YOGA INTERVENTION

Fernanda Hess
THE ISSUE: STRESS EATING AND WEIGHT GAIN
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Breathing consciously during yoga movements connects my mind to my body and keeps me focused on the present. It resets the thinking patterns that get me in trouble with food—fear, anxiety, sadness—which usually relate to my past or future, never my present. So if I keep myself in the present, I am happy. I make better decisions about food and my life.”
    Brazilian native Fernanda Hess has always had to watch her diet to maintain a normal weight. “It’s been a constant struggle over the years,” admits the 26-year-old, “especially during times of stress.”
    The problem came to a head when Fernanda moved from Rio de Janeiro to Boston in 2004 to attend college. The combination of relocating, experiencing college life, and adapting to a new culture was beyond stressful. “I used food to cope,” Fernanda says, and her weight skyrocketed from 120 to 155 pounds during her first semester. On her 5-foot-5-inch frame, the extra heft was hard to ignore. “The change in my body really upset me,” she admits.
    “I began walking, running, and lifting weights,” Fernanda says. “I even worked with a personal trainer.” But it was a lot of effort with little result. “Even though I was burning 500 to 600 extra calories a day, I could not control my impulse to eat,” she says. “Maybe I lost 7 pounds.”
    The gym also offered yoga classes, and one day when Fernanda’s stress was out of control, she tried one to see if it would help her relax. “The class was extremely challenging, but afterward I felt amazing and came back the next day for another one,” she says.
    After a few sessions, Fernanda realized her compulsion to eat was starting to diminish, and eventually she ditched training altogether for yoga. “In 8 months, I lost 35 pounds,” she says.
    “Yoga makes me feel connected to my body in a way that helps me control what I eat,” a fact that would be confirmed just a few years later in 2009, when Fernanda moved to New York City to start a new job as a voice and speech coach and she stopped going to class. The result? She regained 17 pounds. “I guess I don’t react well to moving!” she says. Once Fernanda settled into her job, determined not to go through a repeat of her “freshman 35,” she got back on her yoga mat and made regular practice a priority. Within a month, she’d lost 5 pounds. “Yoga does amazing things for my impulse control when it comes to eating,” she says.
    NIX THE QUICK FIX
    Quick diets and fitness fixes don’t work, because they contribute to a short attention span. When the diet and workout plan is over, your attention fades and you go back to old patterns. Maintaining a healthy weight and a healthy attitude is all in your attention. A regular yoga practice will train your attention and keep your body and mind healthy, focused, and calm for the long haul.

CHAPTER 05
calm
yoga
Om improvements for maximum chill

    In the previous chapter, I talked a lot about the connection between stress and weight. But stress messes with a lot more than your middle. It has a negative effect on so many other parts of your life, including your health, which makes it that much more important to control.
    Stress is like the laundry. It will always be there, and if you don’t deal with it regularly, it gets out of control. Skip the laundry and the resulting mountain of dirty clothes makes it impossible to find anything to wear. Avoid dealing with stress and you develop a frazzled mind prone to outbursts and meltdowns, making it impossible to deal with any challenge, from little bumps in the road to major life decisions.
    Of all the things yoga can do for you, chilling you out is probably the benefit that’s easiest to grasp. After all, even if you’ve done yoga only once in your life, I’m sure you felt the bliss as you lay prone in corpse pose at the end of class. So it’s no surprise that yoga’s effect on mental health is one of its most studied benefits. A few examples:
    In 2009, researchers at Harvard Medical School looked at the effects of yoga and meditation on performance anxiety