Conscious fitness
Why conscience fitness is the key to losing weight.
Mind-body fitness expert Suzanne Deason gives her take on why mind-body fitness is more likely to take you back to your workout day in day out – and take off pounds for good.
If you think huffing and puffing your way through a workout is the best way to burn off excess weight, you may want to think again. Exercising the body is just part of the picture, says yoga and pilates instructor Suzanne Deason, author of Weight Conditioning for Weight Loss. “If losing weight was just a matter of burning more calories than those consumed,” she points out, “we wouldn’t have an obesity problem.”
Cardio isn’t the only weight-loss solution
While cardio workouts do burn calories, Deacon says. “for someone who is overweight it can also be an extremely stressful and discouraging experience.”She explains that a person who is relatively fit can more easily stay within her fat-burning zone as they run or bike, maintaining a target heart rate at least 20 – 30 percent below their maximum heart rate. But an overweight person may surpass that ideal range quite quickly, becoming anaerobic: At a higher intensity, the muscles stop taking in oxygen and lose their ability to release stored fat for use as fuel. “People can exercise for months and not lose a pound,” says Deason
Yoga and Pilates practices feel good while you are doing them. They require the involvement of your mind, so you don’t get bored. This has an immediate impact on your sense of well-being and your desire to feel good and look great. Feeling good is more likely to take you back to your workout day after day.
Yoga and Pilates will indeed strengthen your muscles and make you leaner. When you create more lean muscle, Deason points out, you burn more calories and fat whether you active or not, 24 hours a day.
Mind-Body fitness focuses on the cause, not the symptom and stands apart from other cardio workouts because it does more than address the outward physical results of overeating and imbalance. The precise body positioning called for in Yoga and Pilates requires focus – your body and mind have to work as a team. Simply tuning into the back-and-forth between your mind and body makes it easier to get to the cause of weight gain, versus just the symptoms.
“Mind-body fitness tunes you into the messages between the body and mind and interprets them more clearly,” says Deason. “It helps you identify your overeating triggers and bring to light the real issues at the core of the battle to lose weight.
This article is courtesy of Running4Women.com
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