Slim Calm Sexy Yoga Review Part 1

 

 

When I was asked to review Tara Stiles’ new book Slim Calm Sexy Yoga, I happily obliged.  In fact, here I am with my initial review just days after receiving it!

Book structure:

Chapter 1:  This part explains the general philosophy of the author, Tara Stiles, and purpose of the book.  In a nutshell: to help you become calmer, slimmer, and sexier with through 15 minutes of yoga.

Let’s break this down.  Below is my interpretation of the book, not necessarily my thoughts on the topic.

Yoga makes you slimmer, according to Stiles:

First off, Stiles suggests that “yoga has a way of waking up your intuition about your own health and well-being.” fair enough.

Expanding on this idea, the practice of yoga teaches you to cultivate your attention and awareness.  That can transcend to your behaviors off the mat.  So you may be more aware of what your body needs or whether it is really hungry than if you hadn’t learned to harness this awareness and mindfulness.

From a more tangible standpoint, Stiles says that 90 minutes of Bikram can blast 400 calories.

Yoga makes you calmer—and thus, slimmer. Yoga can help you deal with stress.  High stress seems to be connected to poorer health, poorer sleep and weight gain, so letting yoga lower your stress levels may help you manage your weight and health.

Yoga make you sexier:  Stiles suggests that yoga will improve your confidence, flexibility, and physically, your skin and body.  This will help you feel more confidence and adventurous on the mat and in the bed.

The next chapter discusses breathing and meditation, building blocks of yoga.

Chapter 3: Essential poses.

The book lays out a gauntlet of yoga poses, starting with the essentials, and building through standing poses, seated poses, balances, inversions, lying down and back bends.  Pretty much every pose you need to know whether you are a beginner or an expert.  Each pose has a photo and explanation.

THE WORKOUT!

This is obviously my favorite section of the book.

There are six chapters, each with multiple workouts, targeting yoga for a specific goal.

These include: Slim Yoga, Calm Yoga, Sexy Yoga, Fit Yoga, Gorgeous Yoga, and Healthy Yoga.

So whether you are trying to slim down, get glowing skin, improve your sex life, or tackle a medical issue, such as vertigo or depression, Stiles has put together a variety of 15 minute workouts for you!

There are also personal stories of people who have used yoga to achieve these goals.

I dove into the first section, slim yoga.

Again, this section has several 15 minute workouts dedicated to getting leaner.

Each workout has 6-10 poses, most are held for 5 breaths each.

I loved how quickly they flew by.  I went through several of the workouts in lieu of the gym yesterday morning.

Slim Workout #1 A.M. Metabolism Kickoff.

It was a nice gentle first workout with all seated poses.  I definitely felt stiff during this one.

Slim Workout #2  Fat Burning:

This was an energetic sun salutation.  I love sun salutations, and think this was my favorite workout overall.

Slim Workout #3  Metabolism Revving:

This was a great flow of standing and seated poses.   Starting with Chair and moving through shoulder stand. I felt more flexible by this point and really enjoyed moving through the poses.  A few times I didn’t feel like one flowed into the next, but I really felt good and warm by this one.  This was definitely moving beyond beginner poses.

Slim Workout #4  Full Body Toning: 

This one was pretty challenging, again sometimes flow was lacking, but I think I will be able to build up to this workout in time.  Lots of Standing splits and toe holds.

Slim Workout #5 Abs. 

 

This was a great quick ab workout with lots of classic, pilates/yoga moves.

I ended my workout there, but the rest of the slim yoga workouts include:

Toning-lower body and Toning—upper body

I must say it was an energizing way to start my day.  

The whole thing took me a little over an hour, but I stopped here and there to adjust my music and check my email

My initial thoughts:  It was great to get a good workout in without even leaving my living room.  While I have never ever been on an established yoga schedule, I can totally see myself pulling this book out on a regular basis and bringing it with me when I travel.

It is much easier to wrap my head around 15 or 30 minutes of yoga snuck in when I have spare time than trying to fit in an hour class at the studio in addition to my normal workout routine.  Generally the gym destresses me enough that I don’t necessarily need yoga, but it doesn’t give me the flexibility and posture that I feel I am lacking. 

So, yes, I am currently pretty excited to work my way through this book.  I think it is pretty comprehensive and easy to follow.  I also see enough variety that old hat yogis wouldn’t get bored.

I also like that you  can string a bunch of smaller workouts together to create as a long a workout as you like, and target it to your goals.  That’s definitely an advantage over taking group classes.

I’ll check in again in a month to follow up on my usage and any results I have noticed.  But as a non-yogi, this is a pretty enthusiastic review.  I am not sure if 15 minutes of yoga will be enough because it takes me 15 minutes to start feeling flexible, but fitting in 30 isn’t too hard.

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