What's the Skinny on Restorative Yoga?

What’s the Skinny on Restorative Yoga

Can yoga make you skinny? Even better – can restorative yoga make you skinny? Yoga Journal has a new restorative yoga book.  The very top line of the front cover touts, “includes restorative yoga poses for PAIN RELIEF, WEIGHT LOSS, and more!” WEIGHT LOSS.  All caps.  Really.

Clearly, you won’t lose weight with a restorative yoga practice via calorie burning.  So what’s up with this claim?  You may have read the same claim with other more active yoga practices.  And, yes, those classes burn more calories, although calorie for calorie, you’d be better off doing another form of exercise if that’s your game plan.

When I first started teaching yoga, people would ask me if yoga would help them lose weight.  My first thought was that skinny people do yoga more than yoga makes people skinny.  And I’m definitely not an expert in the weight-loss department.  I don’t seem like the right person to ask. Yet & still, since people were asking, it did make me wonder how yoga might help you lose weight.

Maybe you lose weight because you become more mindful of your food choices.  For example, I’d make pasta when I needed to sleep even though I know it mucks up my digestion. The carb coma does reduce the stress response.  But I decided the digestive interference isn’t worth it. That’s in my past now that I’ve discovered more mindful, gluten-free options for getting rest.

Maybe you become more aware of how and when you eat for comfort.  And who doesn’t at least sometimes eat for comfort? as a distraction from stress. My personal favorite is chocolate. It turns out that high-sugar content also reduces the stress response.  But again, not the ideal solution. A healthier choice would be to distract myself with a yoga class instead… after the chocolate.  Sugar free, of course.

Maybe the peer pressure that comes with joining the yoga community is a factor.  Yogis don’t frequent Fat Burger – and admit to it?! That will get you shunned.  And you are definitely gonna have to cut back on Cheetos, even if they’re gluten-free. Instead, you are probably drinking cold-pressed juices, even if you are questioning why.  (I’m guilty of both.) These kinds of changes are likely to tip the scales favorably in your yoga community and in your weight. A different kind of double double.

Maybe it’s a cumulative effect of all of these things.

Definitely – finally! – there IS a cortisol connection.  When you are stressed, your body produces more cortisol.  This creates a cascade of events, increasing glucose production, which increases fat storage in the body.  Decrease your stress level and you decrease your cortisol levels, glucose production and fat storage.  This is clearly explained in the Yoga Journal Restorative Yoga Book on page 20 under the heading “Helps reduce obesity.”  Restorative yoga has been proven to invoke the Relaxation Response and reduce stress levels even more than active asana classes.  It is unclear whether that means you will get skinnier with restorative versus with ashtanga yoga. 

And the Relaxation Response of the parasympathetic nervous system is also known as rest and digest.  Increasing digestion has obvious implications in weight reduction.

And then there’s insomnia – both a cause and result of stress.  Insomnia is another culprit in increased cortisol. Restorative yoga alleviates insomnia, which is another way of saying it can reduce cortisol levels, and thus weight levels.

On the other hand, some people get skinny with stress.  Can’t-eat, can’t-sleep, rail-thin skinny.  This is also part of the stress response.  CRH, a fast-acting neurotransmitter, is released to suppress appetite. It makes sense that when you are in danger and highly stressed, your appetite shuts down.  Hunger is an inconvenient distraction from danger.  And then another, slower-acting hormone, glucocorticoid, kicks in to make you hungry later.  Hungry for carbs, which are easily stored as energy (read: fat) to replenish your reserves after you have escaped the danger and presumably consumed a lot of energy.

Some people naturally produce more hunger-inducing glucocorticoids than others.  This falls under the blame-your-parents category. Some people are more easily stressed than others.  This falls under the stay-tuned-for-more-posts category.  All people everywhere can reduce stress levels by invoking the Relaxation Response in restorative yoga.  It may or may not make you skinny, but it will give you a greater sense of ease and acceptance, allowing you to embrace who you are now… anyway.

Namaste,

Leslie Kazadi, C-IAYT, E-RYT500
www.lesliekazad.com