Breathing Exercises for Weight Loss

The Breathing Exercises that burn 140% more fat than jogging and keep metabolism elevated 24/7

Oxygen-boosting techniques: If you maximize the oxygen reaching your gut, you'll double your absorption of fat-burning nutrients. And if you rebalance your pH, you'll burn more stored fat for fuel.

Discover why enhanced oxygen intake is so slimming and how you can do this to lose weight in record time.

Oxygen Deprivation Alert!
More and more women are increasingly getting shortchanged when it comes to oxygen circulation. The result: weight gain, fatigue and mental fogginess.

When the first study revealed that women could get slim with focused breathing, the medical community scoffed. Although it was well recognized that breathing produces physiological changes conducive to weight loss, the lab results seemed too amazing. And when research at Los Angeles's University of Southern California found that deep breathing helped subjects burn 140 percent more calories than riding a bike, some wrote it off as unbelievable. After all, we breathe 24/7, yet we keep gaining.

Now three findings promise to forever silence the snickers, and help millions of women lose weight in record time.

1. The levels of atmospheric oxygen have steadily declined, thanks to pollution and climate shifts. And while a drop of .002 percent per year may not sound major, the impact is dramatic.

2. The chronic stress of modern life alters breathing patterns, causing 90 percent of us to take short, shallow breaths. These truncated breaths don't flood the body with oxygen- a requirement for weight loss.

3. Our habit of sucking in our tummies sabotages slimming. The reason: Rounded belly breather are needed to oxygenate the body.

The good news: Now that weight-loss experts are aware of the various components that are preventing oxygen-induced weight loss, they've been able to pinpoint the oxygenating strategies or breathing exercises that will:
• Turbo Charge metabolism
• Flush fat-trapping toxins
• End weight-sabotaging fatigue.

Why enhanced breathing exercises are so slimming!

1. Oxygen optimizes slimming nutrients. The digestive tract is lined with tiny fingerlike projections called intestinal villi. Their task: to absorb calcium, iodine, essential fats, amino acids and dozens of other metabolism-boosting nutrients. But to do this effectively, intestinal villi require a great deal of oxygen- more than most tissue in the body.

And when oxygen is in short supply (as it is for almost 90 percent of women, thanks to shallow breathing), the ability of villi to absorb nutrients plunges by as much as 72 percent, according to research at the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom. But when oxygen intake improves, nutrient absorption is enhanced within minutes, boosting metabolic rate by as much as 30 percent, says nutritionist Marc David, author of The Slow Down Diet.

2. Oxygen ups levels of fat-burning energy. Steady weight loss and high energy are dependent on the quick conversion of food and fat into tiny packets of usable energy called adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, explains clinical nutritionist Susan M. Lark, M.D., coauthor of The Chemistry of Success.

But in order for this to happen, cells need to be bathed in fluid that's slightly alkaline (a pH above 7). Oxygen is alkaline, notes Dr. Lark. So deep breathing keeps cells oxygenated, helping the body to easily maintain an ideal pH. And that's the key to optimal ATP production, she adds.

3. Oxygen ushers out fat-packing toxins. Rapid removal of pesticides, preservatives and other toxins is essential for fast, easy weight loss, suggests research at the University of Stirling in Scotland. Scientists there discovered that as cellular toxin levels rise, the thyroid, adrenals and other weight-regulating glands become sluggish. Plus, in an attempt to protect these vital organs, the body forms additional fat as storage for toxins.

The good news: Up to 70 percent of toxins are easily converted into gases that are expelled through deep breaths, so proper breathing can dramatically lessen one's toxin load. In fact, according to studies at California's Sansum-Santa Barbara Medical Foundation Clinic, simply breathing slowly and deeply, to maximize the oxygen inhaled and the carbon dioxide and wastes exhaled, increases the release of fat-packing toxins by as much as fifteen fold.

4. Oxygen oxidizes existing body fat. The first step in breaking down stored fat is to combine it with oxygen molecules, or to oxidize it. Incredibly, research at the International Breath Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and elsewhere reveals that most people use less than 25 percent of their lungs' two-gallon capacity, which greatly short-changes weight-loss potential. But when people improve their breathing and maximize their oxygen intake, they more than double the amount of body fat they oxidize and burn each week.

5. Oxygen short-circuits stress hormones. Keeping the bloodstream oxygenated calms the entire central nervous system, lowering production of the stress hormone cortisol by as much as 50 percent in 10 minutes.

In fact, studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill suggest that women simply need proper oxygenation to avoid the leading cause of diet-sabotaging binges: cortisol over-production due to nonstop stress. When oxygen levels are high and the nervous system is calm, the pancreas responds by reducing its production of fat-storing insulin, explains David. The result: You are less likely to convert the food you eat into body fat!

Are you oxygen-deprived? Take this one-minute quiz to find out.
Place one hand on your belly and the other on your chest. Slowly inhale and exhale through your nose four times. Which hand moved? Ideally, the one on your chest stayed fairly still, while the one on your stomach moved in and out. That's a sign of deep belly breathing, the type that maximizes oxygen intake. If only the hand on your chest moved significantly, that means you're breathing shallowly- a sign of oxygen deprivation.

The oxygenating techniques or breathing exercises that lead to weight loss.

Simply by increasing the amount of oxygen flowing through your lungs, you'll expel up to 70 percent of the fat-trapping toxins in your body. If you maximize the oxygen reaching your gut, you'll double your absorption of fat-burning nutrients. And if you rebalance your pH, you'll burn more stored fat for fuel.

While the biochemical chain reaction above is complex, getting the slimming benefits isn't. The techniques will bathe every cell in your body in oxygen. And unlike diets of old, the results kick in immediately!

Shift your body into metabolic overdrive with this simple breathing exercise.
It might seem silly to relearn how to breathe, but the following breathing pattern helped study subjects burn 140 percent more calories than riding a stationary bike! We now know that breathing, like aerobics, is a true fat-burning exercise, says nutritionist Marc David. If you want to lose more weight, you have to take in more oxygen, he says.

The proven strategy: 15 minutes of breathing exercises daily. These can be done in 5-minute sessions. 

This technique, called Oxycise, can be performed in any position, as long as you focus on your breathing the entire time.

Step 1. Inhale
Breath in fully and quickly through your nose, relaxing your stomach and face so you can take in as much air as possible.

Step 2. Lift
While holding your breath, tighten your abdominal muscles to pull in and lift your belly. Placing your hands on your tummy can help guide you.

Step 3. Tilt and squeeze
Tilt your pelvic area in and up. (Your shoulders should be slightly rounded.) Squeeze and lift up your buttocks ever so slightly.

Step 4. Exhale
Breathe out with resistance (as if blowing through a straw). Keep your head up and your shoulders relaxed, but do not relax your butt and belly until you've finished exhaling.

Speed your slim down with these oxygen-rich foods.

Source: First