TURN YOUR FAT SWITCH OFF WITH PRANAYAMA

I have already written about the protein hormone, Leptin, being crucial for weight loss in some of my posts in Facebook’s Slimmer in 60 Days page and in the group of the same name.

Here, I would like to review these to emphasize the importance of losing fat around the belly.

Leptin is a very powerful and influential hormone produced by your fat cells. Your fat, by way of Leptin, tells your brain whether you should be hungry, eat and make additional fat, reproduce or engage in maintenance and repair. It also influences the production of insulin.

In short, Leptin is the way by which your fat stores speak to your brain, to let your brain know how much energy is available and, more importantly, what to do with it.

Hence, Leptin may be on top of the food chain in metabolic importance and in relevance to disease and illness.

Your 'Leptin-signaling’ is in ideal working condition when your Leptin levels surge because your fat stores are full, thus signaling your brain to stop feeling hungry, stop eating, stop storing fat and start burning the ‘extra fat’ instead. Controlling hunger is a major, though not the only way, that Leptin controls energy storage. Hunger is a very powerful and deep-seated drive that, if stimulated long enough, will make you eat and store more energy. The only way to eat less in the long term and not be hungry is to control the hormones that regulate hunger and the primary hormone is Leptin. An extremely effective way to do this is through Pranayama or breathing exercises and by regulating your diet using the right herbs.

You become Leptin-resistant by the same general mechanism through which you become insulin resistant, which is by continuous overexposure to high levels of the hormone. If you have a diet that is high in sugar (particularly fructose, grains, alcohol and processed foods), you will increase the inflammation in your body. This happens because sugar is metabolized in your fat cells and the fat releases Leptin in surges.

Over time, if your body is exposed to too much Leptin, it will become resistant, just as your body can become resistant to insulin.

So, what is the solution?

The only known way to regulate the production of Leptin and insulin is diet and Pranayama. These two go hand in hand. You simply cannot have one without the other. Drugs against obesity are not an answer at all. Even if the drugs are herbal, you need to supplement them with proper diet and Pranayama.

The diet should be a whole food diet, as detailed in Kitchen of Yoga, Yogapedia, on my website. Most notably, herbs are the actual keys to the proper metabolizing and absorption of nutrients into the system. The right herbs in your diet (largely fructose free) coupled withPranayama will re-establish signals to your brain and help you control Leptin and insulin levels.
Fructose is the greatest killer of the previous century and we should do everything to prevent it in becoming one in this century as well.

Fructose destroys the liver and kidneys. The liver becomes fatty and insulin resistance (which is what you get when insulin sensitivity plummets) drop severely. Weight gain is more an issue of calories, but fatty liver and insulin resistance are largely propelled by fructose.

How can you turn your fat switch off?

As mentioned earlier, a regulated diet (using selected herbs) and Pranayama are the keys to success. It is best to start with diet; food is medicine first. In some cases control over food and knowledge of the right foods is simply too low and insufficient to make a radical change in the eating habits. Therefore, one should not waste a single day to start the four great breathing exercises that are a part of the online Slimmer in 60 days course. They are simple, yet, they balance the five major Pranas in our body and, with it, the control of signals from the Leptin hormone to the brain.

In every course or workshop, I repeatedly mention that, in actuality, we are not doing yogicphysical exercises (Asanas) as it might appear, but we are doing breathing exercises only. We use the same breathing patterns while in the Asanas too. With Asanas, we simply fix the Pranas in certain parts of the body, prompting the refreshment of blood, tissue, muscles and inner organs. In addition, the right pattern of breathing while in Asanas cleanses the subtle channels, Nadis, which in turn accelerates the movements of the Pranas throughout the body. Eventually this will affect your body composition, state of mind and ultimately, your spiritual self. With this practice, one loses one’s appetite for over indulgence of food, being driven by a blissful nature of one’s own, rather than by habit. 

With this recipe, you are ready to combat not only obesity but, also, a host of other diseases and illnesses, cancer as well.

Practice the breathings every day, without fail.