Yoga won't help you lose weight!

A regular practice of Yoga has not just helped me achieve better by physical health but better balance and outlook on how to lead my life each and every day!

There are multiple things that absolutely excite me, that have affected (not effected :D) me and helped me navigate the ups and downs of life. Music had been the soul of my life during college – just like my father’s – and you’d find Metallica, Avril Lavigne and everything in between blaring loudly from my room at all hours. I had already owned five playback devices by the time I graduated from college, from the Sony Walkman to the first iPod ever released! And if music was the soul of my life, books and particularly fiction was its food. I used to be that person who’d manage to read anywhere, in the car, on the beach, during meals, at weddings and even during a boring conversation!

But today, what I really want to talk about is the transformation that yoga has brought to my life. I was introduced to yoga as a teenager when I chanced on the coffee table book titled “The Book Of Yoga” in my mom’s enormous book collection – now you know the source of my love for books. I attempted the various asanas, constantly amazed at the flexibility of the yogis in the book. But of course, I lost interest after I couldn’t even manage a single Hatha Yoga pose for more than five seconds.

?In the last decade though, I have come to realize the truly transformative powers of this practice after I developed a constant knee pain aggravated by years of driving in Mumbai traffic. Strengthening my quads was important but exercising in the gym was not an option for me. So like most people, I looked for videos online till I landed on Yoga with Adriene, the American yoga instructor Adriene Mishler’s YouTube channel which has become my daily go-to choice. A few years of practicing and I am now 100% pain free. Yoga has become my solace for maintaining a healthy and fit body while daily practice has helped me achieve better menstrual health, pain-free joints and a healthy posture. I no longer suffer from random neck pain after sleeping wrong!?

I see people constantly trying yoga and giving up because they see it as a way to lose weight. I wanted to take this opportunity to state that I haven’t lost a single kilo doing yoga but that is not what yoga is about. Yes, you can do “power yoga” and lose weight but that's mostly aerobic exercise done with some yogic technique. True vinyasa practice is transformative and highlights the importance of yin-yang; the balance of life. You need to be calm in your mind to achieve balance in the body and that is what yoga can bring to your life: balance. If we learn this precious virtue, most of our stress will melt away. We will develop the ability to consider both sides of a situation and be more moderate in our actions.?

Yoga teaches us to find peace and relaxation in even the most difficult poses, which in turn teaches us to be at peace in the most difficult situations in life. Yoga to me is a way of life, it is how we choose to live, how we choose to behave, how we choose to make everyday decisions. And only when one realizes this, can one truly embrace yoga.