I get asked often by my friends can you really lose weight doing hot yoga? my answer is always yes and no! After that response I usually get a bewilder look, but I then explain that hot yoga is a great instrument into helping someone lose weight. But you really have to be conscience of the food you are putting into your body. For me to lose as of today around 34lbs I had to eliminate all red meat and most of the process foods I was taken in. I then switch over to raw foods or what you sometimes hear plant based foods. I tell you from the bottom of my heart that this switch triggered my body to shed the weight off. I am by no means a health expert, and please take my advice with a grain of salt. But I have done the South Beach Diet, Atkins, and taken just about every diet pill out on the market. The result of the Atkins diet actually created a gallstone from all the meat I was eating, it was so painful that I was rush to the ER and had surgery immediately.
I won’t paint this rose pretty but switching to raw foods is a challenge, because we have so much food temptation around, and for me being Puerto Rican, Italian, and African American as you know my cultures love to eat. So be prepared for cultural pressure, family pressure, and your friends will think you’re an elitist for wanting to eat fruits and veggies right after a night of bar hopping.
Some of the immediate benefits from the switch is I don’t need as much sleep, my endurance is through the roof, and being a muscular dude I usually had to fight with my mind and body to get through a Bikram class. Today, my body is fueled with good food and it allows me to focus on fine tuning the postures. This is a big plus because and I know some of you can relate in that we have a tendency to do our posture's half @ss so that we have enough energy to get through the entire 90 minutes.
Well , I will continue this conversation in future blogs, and I promise to share what I eat, and I also what I do when I have to head out to a restaurant with friends and family! My only suggestion is if you consider raw foods is to start slow and enjoy the journey. Even if you can go 50% raw foods and build up you will start to notice the change.
Final note I like to say that the combination of Hot Yoga and raw foods are a marriage to your body, mind, and spirit. Try it you won’t regret it.
Cheers
Dion
NovaYogaDude