Over the next few months, we will be adding more things to our website for you to enjoy, including more articles, videos and other information.

Our first new feature is an interview with Michael Wohl, the President of bodywisdom media. In this interview he offers some insights into yoga and health in general.

CLICK TO READ INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL WOHL

What about weight loss - can yoga be used for weight loss and if so, how does it work to help one in one's weight loss efforts.

Absolutely. Yoga affects weight loss on a number of levels, as you might begin to expect at this point.

1) Physically yoga builds muscle and burns calories (depending on one's intensity of practice, duration, etc).

2) Physiologically yoga affects our body's chemistry. In connection to weight loss, the most commonly studied mechanism is cortisol levels. Once again, thinking about this from an evolutionary stand point, it makes sense. For millennia, if early humans were stressed, it was often associated with conditions that might limit the availability of food. So what would our bodies do? Take whatever food comes in and store it as fat to be used during difficult times. It turns out that cortisol levels seems to be the linking mechanism between stress and holding on to fat. In our modern lives where stress is a day-to-day mode of living, our elevated stress levels cause an increase of cortisol and hence weight retention. Yoga counteracts this whole process.

3) Perhaps most importantly, yoga brings awareness to our actions. So much eating is habitual and somewhat unconscious. When asked what is enlightenment, a master responded, "Eat when you are hungry, sleep when you are tired." Though this is deceptively simple, the underlying truth is that most of us eat when it says so on the clock and sleep when our TV shows are done. Healthy, conscious eating is probably one of the single greatest benefits of yoga relating to weight loss.

What are some yoga no-nos (people with certain injuries, and those who are pregnant - what positions are they to avoid)?

There are many no-no's, pretty much every person has to figure this out by themselves with the help of a teachers. People with lumbar injuries have very different needs and abilities than people with cervical issues. A twenty year old woman has very different needs than a 70 year old man. This is why our DVDs adapt and change to fit as many people and their changing, daily needs as possible. Pregnant woman should avoid deep twists and forwards bend. Our Prenatal DVD suggests routines that are appropriate for each trimester. The needs and no-no's of a first trimester woman is very different than the needs and concerns of a third trimester woman. Menstruating woman should avoid twists and inversions.

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