Joanna Turner: I lost 25 kilos with deep breathing

We do it all day, every day. But simple tweaks to your breathing can boost your wellbeing. Joanna Turner, a health coach from Sydney, tell us how she lost weight through correct breathing.

"It took me a while to hear the message about breathing that everyone kept talking about. I was 'hearing' the message but not actually doing it. After a stressful day at work (I was formerly a corporate accountant), I would literally say, 'I haven't even breathed today!'

I am a firm believer that stress makes you fat. The right breathing – proper belly breaths – is a quick way to calm stress, and reduces all that cortisol that's pouring in to our body (when you're in the 'fight or flight' stress response mode).

I have a new career as a health and life coach, and now actually teach my clients how to breathe. Breathing the right way has calmed me down and helped me lose weight.

So far I've lost 25 kg and find myself spending less time doing excessive long-distance sports, like triathlons and half-marathons, and spend more time doing yoga, Pilates, weights and short HIIT-style (high intensity interval training) workouts for fast results. This change has given me better results, in much less time."

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