WLS and Yoga as Partners for Your Well-Being
February 25, 2016Yoga has been in its evolution for thousands of years. In my lifetime of 68 years, yoga has been seen as everything from a hippie cult to the next health fad. I’m sure you’ve seen articles about yoga and all its benefits. As you incorporate yoga into your life, just a few of the benefits you’ll see are:
- Increased mobility and flexibility
- Decreased stress and lower blood pressure
- Muscle tone and joint lubrication
The list of benefits goes on and on. As science improves, it’s validated what people for thousands of years have known instinctively: Doing yoga makes you feel better physically, emotionally and mentally.
If you think these benefits can never be yours until you are at your goal weight, think again! The truth is you can do yoga regardless of your size or situation. Clearing breaths, meditation, and adapted poses can all guide you on your path to health. Yoga supports the WLS process in four distinctive ways: (1) Making the decision; (2) On surgery day; (3) During recovery; and, maintenance for the rest of your life.
WLS, Yoga and You
For many, the decision to have WLS is already made. But often that’s only the beginning. What surgeon? What type of procedure? When to schedule? All are questions that immediately pop up, including how your lifestyle will change along with the lives of the people around you. Incorporating yoga into your daily life will improve it in countless ways from the time you have surgery all the way to maintaining your weight and living a post-op healthy lifestyle.
Any decision is easier to make if you’re not in fear mode. Calming an overactive mind to bring you to a place of peace can be done with yoga’s Deep Belly Breathing (DBB). Watch the video that I created for this article (below) so you can easily perform each of the yoga exercises.
| DEEP BELLY BREATHING (DBB) |
|---|
| Breathing in and out through your nose, soften your diaphragm — below your belly button. |
| Fill your lungs low, expanding out to the rib cage, then fill up to the collarbone. |
| On your exhale, release from top, middle, then bottom. Squeeze that last bit of stale air out. |
| Repeat (if you experience dizziness, stop). |
Use Yoga on Your WLS Surgery Day
If you find all that’s swirling around you is super stressful, try taking a Mini-Vacation. Close your eyes and do the DBB but add an image that makes you happy and smile. It can be a place, face, pet, an object or old photograph. Let the joy of your image infuse every cell.
Waiting for surgery, your legs may start to twitch and cramp. Even with all the tubes and monitors attached, you can stretch your legs easily with the Point, Demi-Point and Flex foot stretches.
Think of your feet in ballet slippers (Point), high-high heels (Demi-Point), and earth shoes (Flex). Point your toes to stretch across the top of the foot. To Demi-Point, from the Point position pull just the toes back, pressing across the ball of the foot separating your toes. For the Flex, push your heel away to stretch your Achilles and calf.
Use Yoga for Your WLS Recovery
When waking up, take whatever movement you have, even wiping your brow, and move with intention. Extend your range of motion — add a brief hold with each stretch.
If you’re feeling cloudy in your thinking, get more oxygen and blood to the brain. A simple yawn does this too.
When you get to sit up, add a gentle Side Neck Stretch to help clear your thinking. Sweep one hand behind your back, then drop your chin towards your collarbone in the opposite direction. Hold for several breaths. Do both sides.
Once you’re standing, try Mountain pose. Stand hip width apart with the outsides of your feet parallel, so your big toes are closer than the center of your heels. Let your thighs squeeze — now is the time to recognize your body’s frame, not your flesh that will be changing after surgery. On an inhale, lift both arms up overhead and hold for several breaths. On an exhale, release the arms down bringing your palms together at the heart center.
Use Yoga for Your Weight Maintenance and the Rest of Your Life
You can use any of the above techniques anytime. But as your body heals and changes, many other yoga poses can help you discover your new edges.
To help set a new attitude for the new you, add Warrior II. As you look out over your right arm, release and let go of anything that no longer serves the new you that you are today. As you look out over your left arm, visualize what you want to attract and bring it down your arm straight into your heart.
To add flexibility, do gentle hamstring stretches, These are found in any movement that includes a non-weight bearing leg, flexed foot and a flat-back hinge — bending over from the hips not rolling over at the waist.
To tame your judgmental mind, use any balance posture. This can include coming onto the balls of both feet, lifting both heels up try to hold for 60 seconds. When finished, take a moment to talk to yourself as if you are your best friend — kindly with no judgment — practice rewriting your self-talk script.
Rather than giving into emotional eating because you're stressed (or another emotion), do the DBB to take the edge off your stress instead of eating a trigger food.
Along with your new clothes, find new thoughts about who you are. For me, I had to rewrite my script from “fat and ugly” to “ I am beautiful and worthy of love.” Yoga helped give me that empowering script. As you embark on this journey, it’s good to remember that lasting change can only come through self-love.
 | ABOUT THE AUTHOR Abby Lentz, founder of HeavyWeight Yoga, is a pioneer in the development of yoga for people who are overweight and obese. She has created and re-created yoga and life disciplines that are safe and effective for larger bodies — built on her over 42 years of yoga experience. From personal practice, to teaching, then training others to teach HeavyWeight Yoga, at 66 Abby brings the benefits of yoga to everyone regardless of their size or situation.Read more articles by Abby Lentz! |
