No weight loss and even more sore and less motivated after 60 day Bikram challenge ~ The Yoga Blog is a place to share your knowledge of Yoga with others

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

No weight loss and even more sore and less motivated after 60 day Bikram challenge

4:59 PM after, bikram, challenge, motivated, weight No comments

Hi Becky

You are such a good friend! Let me see if we can get the ball rolling.

You have given me some clues straight away in your post.

>> 1. Your friend is doing Bikram yoga every day and has done so for the past 2 months. He hasn’t had a break.
>> 2. Without a break your friend’s body is tired and lacking ANY chance of recovery. He really needs to take a few days off and do no yoga.
>> 3. You mention he has pain, is sore, achy has stiff joints. This is OH SO TYPICAL for 2 reasons.

a) the first reason for the pain? He needs to LISTEN to his body and rest. Yoga is really about being present with what’s going on. Pushing past whatever barrier he’s up against is really counter-productive. Every BODY needs time to regenerate tissues and take time to rest. Yes, some people do practise for days and months at a time. But the forced schedule does not allow for your friend’s very common scenario.

b) the second reason? It is highly likely, given what you describe that (despite how wonderful an environment it is to practise) your friend may not be using the best yoga techniques to support the opening up, the pain-free, wonderfully challenging yoga poses he is doing. To work hard and to be challenged is the goal. The goal is NEVER, ever to struggle. Your friend is struggling.

So Becky, the scenario is very typical - unfortunately. There are actually a lot of threads on the forum that talk about people unable to lose weight. It could be a nutritional change. It could be salt intake (sea salt of course) and it could be water habits.

But it also has something to do with the way he’s doing his poses. I can guarantee that.

Would you be willing to ask your friend to come to the forum? I have too many questions that would make this process unwieldy! You being the 3rd wheel and all.

In the meantime, if your friend is continuing to go to yoga, he really MUST start ONLY going as far into any pose as he can with EXCELLENT alignment.

There are resources I can point him to to make his practice satisfying and fun and pain-free again. But I really think I need to talk with him (write ) directly.