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Introduction

Yoga is something different to most people. It’s quite diverse, and practitioners have different expectations when they start. That’s perfectly okay. Whether your goal is greater enlightenment, a more toned and muscular body, or relief from disease, there’s a yoga for you. This b00k will serve as a guide.

The philosophy of yoga has been around for 5,000 years. That’s an undeniable staying power. Yoga is not just an ‘exercise’, it is a philosophy, a way of thinking rather than a religion. In ancient India, the word yoga meant union. It refers to a union of the entire self – mind, body, and spirit.

This union is achieved through physical poses, frequently called asanas, although asana is just one of the many types of yoga. These poses are meant to heighten awareness of mind and body, which makes yoga a natural corollary to meditation.

Today’s researchers are discovering the many benefits of yoga. While it can increase spirituality, it also has the ability to heal many ailments and diseases, especially stress, immune system disorders, and heart problems. It also provides increased flexibility, which can reverse the aging process.

The more vigorous yoga practices are considered cardiovascular exercises. Along with a proper diet, you will be able to lose weight. The gentler types of yoga do not have cardiovascular benefits, so remember to do additional exercises.

Why are people becoming interested in yoga? The most common reason is to improve flexibility and physical health. Besides the physical benefits, yoga also boosts the mental power and paves way to spiritual enlightenment. For most, it’s the spiritual awakening that turns yoga into an important part of their lives. This is a gradual but wonderful development and opportunity for personal growth. The essence of yoga is always to become a better version of oneself.

Chapter 1 – The Science of Yoga and its Health Benefits

People have been practicing yoga for thousands of years. While the original purpose was to elevate to a greater spiritual level, it became clear that yoga benefits the person as a whole. Modern scientific research has shown that the tremendous overall health benefits of a yoga lifestyle.

Yes, yoga does improve the body, but surprising scientific research has shown that it changes the brain, as well. It’s about becoming a better version of yourself and getting in touch with the real, authentic you as the brain becomes more uncluttered. It keeps us focused on the present. While yoga begins on the mat, it extends to our entire day as greater compassion and awareness becomes a part of our life.

Yoga won’t provide untold riches, although the physical benefits are remarkable. The world is already filled with abundance, much of which we ignore. The real beauty of yoga is that it grounds us to the present, connecting us to the abundance that is within our grasp. A better, more fulfilled life is within our reach when we let go and simply accept what is there.

Each yoga pose, which usually involves stretches, has its own purpose and benefit. The practitioner becomes aware of tension and learns to release it. Yoga poses are very specific, and perfection comes with practice, but it is not the ultimate goal. Yoga involves a lot of stretching, but, more importantly, it creates balance by increasing flexibility and strength. Whatever type of yoga you practice, your body and mind simply improve.

Yoga is extremely diverse and individual, which makes it important to work at your own level of comfort. Don’t use the person next to you in class as a guide, or even the teacher. Work the poses in the best way for you. This isn’t a speed contest, and you have nothing to prove. Yoga is a lifetime commitment, not a competition.

Even if you are not used to exercising, you can practice yoga. You may not be as flexible as the next person, but you will get there. Yoga is always a work in progress and never a competition. While it is a physical practice, yoga will inevitably touch on your spiritual side. It unifies mind and body to become one.

Research conducted throughout the 20th century has found a myriad of physical benefits to practicing yoga.

Our lives are filled with daily stressors, and we know that stress can cause tremendous damage to the body and mind. The boss wants to talk, your spouse is upset, the mortgage is overdue, and the kids want the keys to the car. Just another typical day.

Holding yoga poses, stretching muscles, being focused on the presents, and breathing deeply and slowly helps us achieve a state of greater relaxation and harmony. We are able to consciously choose our response to stress instead of being at its mercy. Remaining calm under difficult circumstances is a choice, and yoga can provide the tools.

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Introduction

As we march into this bright new millennium, we’re constantly reminded of the fusion of east and west. Whether it’s through satellite television programming that beams in productions from different cultures, enjoying books and music from distant lands that, only a generation or two ago, couldn’t be accessed, and – of course – communicating with people across time and space through the Internet and other telecommunications advancements, the world has become a much smaller place. Indeed, when Marshall McLuan coined the term Global Village, even he probably didn’t envision so much, so fast, so soon.

Riding the wave of information that now crisscrosses our tiny planet is something that has its roots in ancient history, yet is experiencing a blossoming in the west that continues to gain momentum with each passing year. Whether it’s at a local YMCA or a lush spiritual retreat in the Everglades, Yoga is establishing itself as a mainstay in western culture; indeed, in global culture.

However, many people are reluctant to experience the physical, emotional, and psychological health benefits of yoga; and there is really only one major reason for this: misinformation.

While many people might truly enjoy yoga and find it to be the side-effect free answer to a lot of their emotional and physical ailments, they just don’t know enough about the subject to take that first step.

Furthermore, a stereotype out there that seems to persist despite evidence to the contrary is that yoga is a religious following; and that to experience its many health benefits somehow obliges one to renounce their faith or, worse, run away to some commune and eat tofu in between chanting sessions.

While, yes, if you’d like to go to a retreat and enjoy tofu and chanting, that’s probably possible (almost anything is possible, as long as it’s legal and people want to do it, right?).

Yet that vision of yoga – people with shaved heads and handing flowers to strangers at the airport – is by no means the overall picture. Yoga is really a very simple, accessible, and in many countries around the world, ordinary thing to do.

In that light, this book is created with one goal in mind: to demystify yoga for you, and provide you with a clear, simple, and fun introduction to the topic.
If you’ve never been exposed to any kind of yoga (except for what you might have seen on television), then this book is for you!

In addition, even if you have experienced some kinds of yoga (perhaps a friend dragged you to a class at the local recreation center all those years ago), this book will reignite your interest in the topic and reattach you to a mode of body movement and mind focus that has lived in ancient lands for millennium.

This book is conveniently organized into four sections:

- What is Yoga?
- Why is Yoga Beneficial?
- Different Kinds of Yoga
- Yoga Equipment & Accessories

As you read through these sections, please bear in mind that there is absolutely no attempt here, directly or indirectly (or in any other way possible!) to endorse or promote any religious view. This is because the view of this book is same view that is held by the world’s foremost authorities on yoga: that it is not a religion. It does not have a dogma.

While there are indeed different schools and streams of yoga – there are actually thousands of them – they have all managed to coexist quite peacefully because, for the most part, yoga is not evangelical, which simply means that it does not seek to spread itself as part of its mission.

Please note that the statement above in no way criticizes or comments on evangelical orders, such as Evangelical Christianity; the point here is simply that the overwhelming majority of yoga movements does not consider spreading yoga to be a tenet of its identity.

Yet, while the yoga that is described in this book (and experienced in most of the world) is not a religion, it does very seamlessly fit into many people’s existing religious framework.

In other words, if you are a Catholic, a Protestant, a Muslim, a Jew, a Sikh, or anything else and identify yourself as being a part of any faith at all, yoga doesn’t ask you to replace that faith with someone else, or offer you a competing or contradictory view of what you already believe.

So please remember: yoga, as it is discussed and promoted in this book (and in virtually every book worth reading!) is not a religion.

As we’ll begin to understand in the next section of this book, yoga is really nothing more, and nothing less, than harassing the power of human attention, and using it to benefit the body and mind. It is an approach to life, here and now.

What is Yoga?

What was I looking for that night in Bombay? The same thing I had been looking for as long as I can remember. The same thing all of us seek in one way or another. The “answer” to life, whatever that might mean. The “truth.” The reason for living, dying, or being “here” at all.” - Beryl Bender Birch

Yoga can seem like a complicated concept; or, at the very least, a dizzying array of physical manipulations that turn seemingly happy-looking human beings into happy looking human pretzels.

Or even more disconcerting, as we have alluded to in the Introduction, a stereotype does exist in places where the term yoga is synonymous with cult, or some kind of archaic spiritual belief that compels one to quit their job, sell their house, and go live in the middle of nowhere.

In actual fact, Yoga is a very basic thing; and if you’ve had the opportunity to visit a country where it has been established for generations – India, Japan, China, and others – it’s really rather, well, ordinary.

The practice of yoga came to the west back in 1893 when one of India’s celebrated gurus, Swami Vivekananda, was welcomed at the World Fair in Chicago. He is now known for having sparked the West’s interest in yoga.

Literally, the word yoga comes from the Sanskrit term Yug, which means: “to yoke, bind, join, or direct one’s attention”. At the same time, yoga can also imply concepts such as fusion, union, and discipline.

The sacred scriptures of Hinduism (an ancient belief system from India that has a global presence) also defines yoga as “unitive discipline”; the kind of discipline that, according to experts Georg Feuerstein and Stephan Bodian in their book Living Yoga, leads to inner and outer union, harmony and joy.

In essence, yoga is most commonly understood as conscious living; of tapping into one’s inner potential for happiness (what Sankrit refers to as ananda).

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Foods That Burn Calories Fast

You may know how to eat healthy, but do you know which foods burn fat the best ? It helps to know if you want to trim down your waistline in the shortest amount of time. Even though you know there’s no magic pill that guarantees overnight success, sometimes it’s tempting to dole out the money. It’s enticing because losing weight is a struggle, and a vicious uphill battle that’s not always so easily fought.

The appeal to find a quick fix hits you every now and then – especially when you’ve worked hard to lose a little bit of weight and then you fall off the diet wagon and gain it all back (and then some). You may have lost count of the times you’ve thought, “There has to be an easier way to lose weight!”

Have you purchased every weight loss book ever published, forced down the diet bars, consumed the shakes, and attended the weight loss meetings so many times you could have paid for the entire building by the time you quit? Have you done all of this and yet you still haven’t seen the long-term results that you crave more than food itself? Are you sick and tired of trying, but you still know you need to lose weight so that you can have a healthier life? Or maybe you only need to lose a few pounds to fit into that new outfit or look good for an upcoming class reunion. You know you want to lose weight, but you don’t want a gimmick and you certainly don’t want to keep going down a road that leads nowhere.

You just want to find a plan that really works for you without all of the empty promises. There’s something you might not know about the battle of the bulge - something that can help you gain the victory once and for all without having to resort to any costly plans or fancy gimmicks.

Best of all, the way you can lose weight can be found in your own refrigerator, in your pantry or at your grocery store. By the way, this little known method of losing weight won’t break your wallet. I guarantee it.

Understanding the Basics of Weight Loss

To understand how weight loss works, you have to first understand how calories work. A calorie is energy given in the foods you eat. Your body uses this energy as fuel. Think of it as wood for a fireplace. If you put in too much wood, the fire gets too hot and there’s too much heat produced.

In the same manner, too much consumption of calories, especially those foods with empty calories, equals an overabundance of fuel. The same way you would store wood in stacked piles for your fireplace, the body stacks an overabundance of calories as fat. It then takes that fat and adds it to the places you don’t want it put. Then you see results like a tummy that laps over the top of your jeans - often called a muffin top - or you discover the results are flabby thighs or a double chin. To make the battle of weight loss even more discouraging, that fat, and its cellulite, can give you a lumpy, bumpy look. Cellulite are pockets of that stored fat beneath the surface of your skin. In other words, it’s the chocolate cake or donuts or the second helping of carbohydrates if those calories aren’t burned.

Now, all of that’s the bad news. But the good news is, you don’t have to accept being overweight as your fate (no matter how many times you’ve fallen off the diet wagon in the past).

Because this weight loss technique is easy and inexpensive, so you can stick with it forever. Not only can you stay on the plan, but you’ll find you actually enjoy it!

Your Body’s Silent Workout

When you watch a movie, what you see is the finished product. All of the actors and actresses stand where they’re supposed to. They say their lines like a pro and they look good doing it.

What you don’t see happening is the chapped hands and runny noses from filming outside in below zero weather or the nights filming lasted until two in the morning. You didn’t see what went on behind the show.

Many people sit down to eat a meal or a snack and never give a second’s thought to what goes on behind the scenes once the food is finished. Everyone knows how you gain weight and most of us are pros at the gaining. We gain by eating too much of the wrong kinds of food. But what if I told you something about your own body that could help you lose weight?

With every bite of food that you eat, your body must work to digest it. Because your body is expending energy to digest the food, it’s actually performing a silent workout. Sounds great, right? Your body is working out without you having to lift a finger.

Picture this: your body is burning energy to digest the food while you watch television, while you talk on the phone, drive to work and even while you sleep. It sounds like a fantastic win-win situation doesn’t it?

If it’s so fantastic, then why are some people still overweight? Because you’re not eating the right kinds of foods. You’re still stuck measuring portions and counting carbs and assigning foods as good or bad.

The truth is, there is no such thing. Food is simply fuel. All of it is. But how (and at what rate) the fuel is burned depends on the foods you eat because it correlates to how it makes your body work. Still follow me?

Negative Calorie Foods - Your Body’s Secret Weapon

What if you discovered you could lose weight simply with the foods you choose to eat? Foods that help you work off calories simply by eating them. It sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? But it’s not. There are foods that make your digestive system use more energy to consume them than the calories contained in the foods themselves.

When you use more energy to digest a food than the caloric value of a food, then those foods are called negative calorie foods. By eating these negative calorie foods, you will burn calories and you will lose weight effortlessly.

This is a rough example of how it work:

Let’s say you have a slice of chocolate cheesecake from the store bakery and you consume roughly 350 calories (or more depending on the type of ingredients used). Once you’ve eaten that slice of cheesecake, your body goes to work breaking it down and beginning the digestion process.

Let’s say your body burns 150 calories digesting that cake (and that’s probably figuring the amount burned on the high end). You’re still left with a gain of 200 calories. These calories will turn into unwanted fat and weight gain if not used as energy by the body. Now remember, the amount of calories you burn by eating negative calorie food will depend on the type of food it is.

Instead of the chocolate cheesecake, let’s say for example that you chose an apple instead. A medium sized apple has approximately 80 calories. You eat the apple and then the digestion process begins.

Because an apple is a negative calorie food, your body works harder to digest it than you gain in calories by eating it. The difference in negative calorie foods is comparable to the difference between walking and running. When you go for a low key walk, you don’t expend the same amount of energy you would if you were running.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Hello and welcome to our short, beginners guide on mastering the art of setting goals & establishing self-discipline

Discipline, I'm afraid to report, is crucial for any success in life. Success, in whatever field or area of life, requires five things. You need to wait for it, you have to persevere through the many different challenges and setbacks you are bound to encounter. You also have to put in constant effort. Success usually doesn't happen the first time you try. In fact, in many situations, it requires several tries. You have to constantly put in the effort.

Finally, success requires putting up with adverse conditions. You have to keep at it regardless of what you're feeling, regardless of how many people discourage you, and regardless of whether you feel that it's time or not. You have to do it.

Success requires all of these and these all involve discipline. So what's the problem? I'm sure it's quite obvious. Modern life and You Can Do It!

values aren't exactly very friendly towards discipline. In fact, our modern world and the principles behind it seem to actively work against self-discipline. First of all, we want everything to be quick and easy. I'm not just talking about products and services, I'm talking about relationships. I'm talking about education. It's as if we've developed a sense of entitlement that life has to be fair, quick and easy.

Given this reality and these principles, it is no surprise that our attention span collectively has shrunk dramatically. And it's continuing to shrink. You only need to ask the nearest Millenial to know what I'm talking about.

People's time horizon, as far as the "good things in life" are concerned, is very short. People don't have the time nor the patience. They definitely don't have the discipline to wait around, deal with all sorts of adverse conditions, and put in constant work. You Can Do It!

They definitely don't have the patience to stick with trying situations until the thing that they're working on pans out.

Unfortunately, if you want to achieve success, you need to set up goals properly and pursue those goals. You can hope and wish all you want, but big victories in your life are not going to materialize out of sheer luck. You have to plan them out and you have to work your plan. In other words, you have to set goals and implement them. Again, there goes that word: discipline is required.

Self-discipline is essential, but effective goal setting also requires clarity of purpose, proper structuring of your goals, and finally, proper measurement of your success. If you're able to do all of these and you have the proper level of self-discipline, success becomes a habit.

Have you ever hung out with people who make a tremendous amount of money seemingly effortlessly? Have you hung out with people who declare their big plans and the next time you check with them or check with people who know them, those plans panned out? You Can Do It!

Well, those people are not magical, I'm sorry to report. Those people are not some sort of mystical alien creature race. No. They simply picked up on the right habits. Simply put, people who succeed easily just make it look easy.

Believe it or not, it took a lot of falls, stumbles, overcoming doubts, challenges as well as potential humiliation to get to where they are now. The good news? Success is a habit that can be learned.

Now I know you might be thinking that successful people look, behave and sound so different from you. You might even be thinking that they are a completely different race of people. Well, don't let appearances fool you. On the surface, it may seem like they're completely different from you, but understand that they're just working out of certain habits. You don't have to be born with those habits. You don't have to be lucky. You just need to commit to learning it.

You Can Do It!

This Book Will Teach You The Following

To help you travel the road to success and greater self-discipline, this book will teach you the following. First, you will learn to figure out which goals to set. Believe it or not, the goals you select do have an impact on the success you achieve.

Many people fail to achieve the kind of results they're looking for, simply because they set their eyes and their minds on the wrong set of goals. Now, those goals may be perfect for other people, but it's not right for them. Try as hard as they might, nothing seems to work. And it can be traced to the fact that they picked the wrong goals to set.

Second, you're going to learn how to set more effective goals by incorporating discipline-building elements. A lot of people set up goals in such a way that these goals suck up all available willpower they may bring to the table. In other words, there's no built-in incentive or self-sustaining system in the goals. The goals just take, take and take.

You Can Do It!

Now, it doesn't take a scientist to figure out that with such goals, it's too easy to hit a wall. It's too easy to think that you're trying so hard and putting in so much time and effort and nothing seems to work. When you find yourself in that space, it's not that difficult to start believing that you're just not cut out for success. It's very easy to get discouraged, and eventually, you give up.

As you probably already know, the only way to fail at anything in life is to quit. And that's precisely what you're setting yourself up for if you don't know how to set up goals to be self-sustaining. At the very least, they have to be self-sustaining in terms of your discipline.

Third, I'm going to teach you how to use daily rituals to fine tune and achieve your goals. You have to understand that people are what they consistently do. People can talk a good game, other people might have all sorts of mistaken notions about them, however, their real character boils down to what they consistently do. In other words, it's all about their rituals.

Believe it or not, you already have a set of rituals. You may not be aware of them, but they exist. What if I told you that you You Can Do It!

could be achieving more with your life if you only chose to be a little bit more conscious of the rituals you engage in? These rituals have a direct and immediate impact on your performance on many different levels. At the very least, they can help or slow down the achievement of your goals.

Another thing that I will help you with involves measuring success. A lot of people sabotage themselves because they choose to measure their success in the wrong way. Now, it's okay to measure your success in terms of ultimate measurements. For example, if you're just starting a business, it's okay to think from time to time about the millions of dollars you could be making. However, if you choose to only use ultimate measurements of success, you are just setting yourself up to lose your drive, motivation and passion in the here and now. Don't be surprised if you get so discouraged and demotivated that you just give up. Sadly, people do this all the time.

Finally, I will teach you about the signals you need to pay attention to that will clear you to scale up. Please understand that if you want to achieve any kind of success, you cannot stay at the same level. You might be doing things really well at that level, people might talk highly of you, but if you stay at that level and You Can Do It!