Stubborn Belly Fat? Have you tried Meditation?

A 2011 study in the Journal of Obesity found that attending 9 meditation classes and practicing meditation at home resulted in beneficial changes leading to weight loss. Compared to a control group, the group that utilized mindfulness training experienced improved subjective emotional health, but also had lower levels of inflammatory markers and cortisol. Excitingly, this translated to lower abdominal obesity for these participants. 

Cortisol

Cortisol is a stress hormone made in the adrenal glands that circulates through the body during periods of emotional stress. When cortisol is higher blood sugar goes up. When that sugar isn't used by the muscles the sugar is converted into triglycerides and in turn into free fatty acids. The adipose cells (the cells that store fat) have receptors for cortisol. When these receptors are stimulated by cortisol they take up these fatty acids to store them for next time. The cells around the abdominal region contain more receptors for cortisol than those on the rest of the body, so stress results in a disproportionate weight gain around the mid section. Stress gives your a spare tire.

This reasons this study is exciting is that it proved that the opposite is also true. Reducing your stress level will let that spare tire fade away. This study looked at 47 overweight and obese women, and found a significant improvement in abdominal obesity in the group of women using mindfulness based meditation techniques.

Emotional Eating

The authors of this study were also keen to point out the other benefit to mindfulness training, the reduction in emotional eating. Many people eat to ease stress and soothe emotional upset, but when other tools are available to manage stress emotional eating decreases. Additionally, because of poor self-awareness some feel discomfort and turn to food without really clearly perceiving that they aren't hungry. They know something isn't right, but they aren't clear enough with their emotions to know exactly what's wrong. Any mindfulness based approach is great for developing this self-awareness. 

Some Local Meditation Resources:

Meditation techniques within the buddhist tradition:
http://meditateinpetaluma.org

Linda Miki Dohenumm offers workshops that help people to reduce stress in their lives by clarifying their purpose and making it fun: 
http://www.transformationsynergy.com/playshops.html

The Stanford Center for Compassion and Altruism Research is a great place to learn about mindfulness techniques regardless of religious affiliation
http://ccare.stanford.edu

And here's a link to the study:
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jobe/2011/651936/

New Service at The Parani Clinic: Advanced Allergy Testing

The Parani Clinic offers advanced allergy testing from Cyrex labs. This is the most accurate allergy testing available. Cyrex labs takes pride in testing all samples in triplicate, utilizing purified test substrates, and emphasizing the appropriate state of the medium for each test. (for instance did you know that most allergy testing companies test for an allergy to raw pork, but not to cooked pork even though they contain different allergenic material?) Here's a video on this test:

All the best,
​Kieran Jones