The short answer is energy.

From the traditional western philosophy, weight loss and weight management is a story about calories, deficits, fat-burning heart rates, and nutrition. And while those techniques are often an important part of a healthy weight and lifestyle, I have found more often than not, there is a deeper and more subtle component to weight loss.

I have a friend, she is a beauty in all the ways a person can be beautiful. She is kind, intelligent, fair, and grounded. She is wise beyond her years and physically very attractive. She also happens to be quite thin. She studied long and hard to be able to become a specialist in nutrition and natural wellness, and so people often ask her what the best way to attain and maintain a svelte figure is.

She gingerly replies “just think thin!”. At first glance, this response may elicit an eye roll. “That’s it?” you might gasp. “If all I had to do was think thin, I wouldn’t be so frustrated! I’d sit on my butt all day eating bon-bons!” But if you look a little deeper, the wisdom in her advice is pure, and deeply rooted in yogic and Ayurvedic technology.

From the Ayurvedic perspective, the weight on our bodies is defined by a delicate balance of the 5 gross elements. Our bodily tissues are made up of earth, air, fire, water, and ether. Each person has a unique combination of these 5 elements. An imbalance in one or more of these elements can have a wide variety of symptoms, weight gain being only one possibility. The elements responsible for making up the majority of our fat and muscle tissue are primarily made up of earth and water. What we ingest and digest not only physically, but mentally and emotionally is responsible for contributing to the quantity and quality of these tissue layers.

In other words, what we digest energetically is just as important to our overall health as what we eat. For instance, our ability to give and accept love is partially responsible for the quality of the fat tissues of our body. If someone lacked self-confidence and self-love, it would be more likely for that individual to have an imbalance in their fat tissues.

My friend’s advice to “think thin” hones in on this idea that what you are feeling and thinking might be just as important to your weight-loss journey as what you are eating and doing. When we can cultivate the energy of self-love, it has a tangible impact on the tissues of our body, energetically making a healthy weight more favorable.

The short answer is yes

Kundalini yoga is the yoga of awareness. Using the access points of the body like breath, mental focus, body posture (asana), eye-focus, and mantra, Kundalini yoga allows you to become more aware of subtle energy. I liken this to being a radio. Imagine you are a radio with a small antenna. You will pick up a limited number of channels. Then imagine you install a much bigger antenna, suddenly you will be able to pick up a larger number of channels. When you had the smaller antenna, you couldn’t tune in to those new channels, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t broadcasting. They were very real and always there, you just didn’t have the right equipment to hear them.

Kundalini yoga uses the energy of the body to be able to turn on our ability to perceive subtle energy more clearly. Lots of different modalities of meditation and breathwork can do this, but Kundalini yoga is the fastest and most efficient method I have discovered to date.

Now let me be clear, Kundalini yoga is totally weird. I mean that in the most respectful and endearing sense of the word. I love weird things. If you ask me, ordinary is boring. So, if you’re stuck in a rut and you’re looking for a change, then the most logical thing to do is something out of the ordinary. Waving your arms around and chanting and breathing heavily can be very strange to the first-timer who knows nothing about Kundalini yoga, but the very fact that it is weird and different means it is going to change you.

Let me explain. We are all running mental and emotional patterns that manifest as a result of our subconscious thought-forms. These patterns may or may not be beneficial in helping us accomplish the things we want to accomplish. The minute you do something out of the ordinary, like chant for 31 minutes while holding your hands in a specific position, or mudra, you start to carve out new neural pathways. With consistent practice, you can override those subconscious habits and patterns with new ones that are more favorable to your mission.

To change your life, you have to change the way you think, the way you problem-solve, the way you approach adversity, pain, and difficulty. This is what Kundalini yoga has done for me. It gave me opportunity after opportunity to witness myself, to become aware of myself so that I might make choices other than the ones my habits would have me repeat. But as with most things, you need to have an experience of this for yourself in order for this question to be fully understood and answered.

If you’re interested in trying a free Kundalini yoga class click here