Patricia Bacall - Easy Weight Loss Yoga: 12 Best Poses to Get Lean, Strong, and Calm

If you struggle with dieting and have been unsuccessful at losing weight via a diet or other restrictive calorie plan s , youre not alone. If you are reading this book, youre looking for a different way to achieve both HEALTH and a slender body and an answer to the frustration you feel about your body, eating , and your weight. And this is a good thing . I t shows that you are highly motivated and will keep trying until you get results. Good for you!

R emember that you cannot literally starve yourself into losing weight. (Actually you can, a la TVs Survivor program, where you see the contestants shrinking every week before your very eyes while they survive for weeks on a diet of rice, coconuts , and the occasional cheeseburger or donut binge, but you will notice that they also cannot think very clearly, have no energy, and lose a lot of muscle as well) . Weight loss brought about by simply limiting intake of food is one of the most energy-sucking, life-deadening, unpleasant ways to become thin. It saps you of the fuel you need to run your most basic metabolic functions. You simply need to be smarter to achieve your weight loss goals and keep the weight off when the diet ends.

Diets dont work. They never have , and they never will . N ot only does your body become accustomed to performing the same tasks on the lowered calorie intake, but when you starve yourself, you begin to eliminate your calorie-burning furnace (your muscles). For example, if you normally consume 2 , 500 calories a day, when you diet and suddenly reduce your caloric intake to 1 , 000 calories a day, your metabolism will adjust itself so that your body begins to burn only 1 , 000 calories a day and not the 2 , 500 that it had expected to burn before . Your body is outsmarting you in dealing with the (self-imposed) famine. It becomes thriftier with every calorie taken in . E very function slows down, especially burning the excess fat that you prefer your body would burn for fuel. Instead, your body saves its energy stores for important activities for living, such as breathing, eating, digestion, sleeping, procreating, walking, and so forth. Each calorie you take in becomes precious and is very carefully spent to save the fuel for survival. So when you diet and cut your caloric intake drastically, even if you think you can trick your body into giving up all your fat store s for energy, your energy actually goes down. Plus, when you feel lethargic and low in energy, you will probably crave the foods that will juice your energy even more: sugary, dough-y, quick fix foods. (Invariably, the foods with which you try to boost your energy will cause your blood sugar to shoot up and then crash even lower) .

Its only logical to think that if you eat fewer calories, you should lose weight . Unfor t unately, it doesnt always work like that. Your body works with what you give it, and it will function at the level of survival with the famine youve imposed. Our bodies have functioned this way for eons to ensure the survival of the species , and youre not going to change it in a few weeks or months.

You have to achieve a balance of taking in enough calories plus putting out enough energy expenditure to gently coax your body into using its stored fat to fuel your daily energy needs.