Re: This Emperor Has No Clothes.

[Guest guest]

Larry,

Agreed. I Lost 25 pounds over the past 7 months doing a modified Hatha

yoga in which my yoga trainer, a well-known national and international

yoga instructor teacher, or teacher for yoga instructors, as well as

having a program called yoga for weight loss.

I have seen massive, and unimagined advances in strength, balance,

coordination, dexterity, and proprioceptive abilities. Yoga can be

modified to respect weak ankles and wrists.

Muscle increase can be seen in the farthest parts of the peripheral

system, such as around my feet and ankles, with a 15 year old

continuously problematic ankle injury now completely healed, such that

my ankle rolls from left to right, inward to outward through its full

range of motion, and can handle the load if weight or power is

directed there.

There is visible muscle growth in the lowest part of the calves,

despite having had the tendon transfer operations in my youth.

As my neck and head muscles are involved, I have kyphosis at the neck,

and my head often has been too heavy to keep straight up. I also had

to micromanage my walking by watching every footfall. This is no

longer necessary, owing to the increased flexibility and sheer range

of motion of my lower legs and feet. In addition, in order to keep

balance, I had to lean way forward.

Now, after yoga for 8 months, only once per week for 1 hour, and now

twice per week, I have a neck, which is a thing I was apparently

missing when I first started. I do not have to micromanage walking, my

head and neck are correctly placed, both forward-backward and left-

right, as I have had a proprioceptive problem with keeping my head

turned a few degrees to the left.

And, my hands, which have been affected since childhood, are showing

visible signs of new ability to move the fingers independently of each

other (adduction/abduction), something it was determined at the U.

Mass Amherst and the University of Amsterdam's teaching hospital, the

AMC, that I could really not do at all.

My hands can also be opened to a visibly, more correctly open

position, and I can feel the stretch in the muscles of the knuckles,

especially the one at the end of the finger(s). I have professional

medical photos of my hands taken at the AMC (thank you Dr. Videler)

that show how much more open my hand can be made to go now than in 2007.

There appears also to be muscle growth in the thumb opposition muscle,

severely affected in me, and motions/actions that I was able to do,

such as buttoning shirt buttons, which I had sworn off doing in any

form some years ago, re-appearing in a rudimentary form. I buttoned

every shirt in a load of laundry last week so it would hang correctly

on the hangers. I did this with relative ease instead of incredible

frustration.

It seems that I am either gaining first use of, or regaining use of,

large parts of my body thought to be affected by the disease to a

given degree. In improving the core muscle strength, we are apparently

making connections that should have or could have been made previously

as a result of normal human male developmental activities like work

related physical exertion, sports, etcetera. I stayed away from most

of these except bicycling, for there was no place for me in teams of

my age cohort nor challenge in exercising with me for fun, I simply

had nothing at which I could physically excel, until yoga.

My teacher says she has never had a student make so much progress.

The same thing happened in Maastricht, as happened to you in Rome,

during my time at graduate school. I lived 1 mile from the student

cafeteria. Although it took no effort to get there, except to go out

in the cold, as it was downhill, and going back was an uphill climb.

(Where, because of the generalized weakness of my lower legs, many

were the times when after dinner, I was beaten up the hill by 65 year

old women, when the wind was at our nose, riding heavy city bikes, in

a skirt and heavy woolen coat, with full grocery bags on both sides of

the rear wheel, carrying a purse, and an open umbrella to keep the

snow from her face. They were not wearing tennis shoes, either. was

27 :-) )

I lost 25 pounds in the first 4 months. The limited (relative to the

USA) amount of food offered in the Netherlands for a meal, and that I

had to work it off by using a bicycling as my primary transportation

were the keys to this.

My mother called it, " The Maastricht Diet. "

Greetings to all,