Power Body by Yvettebam

Aloha friend! Welcome to my new series, “10 Easy Ways to Sky-Rocket Your Weight-Loss with Body Regulation”!Each week, I’ll be posting an in-depth article pertaining to how to regulate the body and achieve weight-loss and fitness as a byproduct. If you’d like these weekly posts to be automatically delivered to your inbox, subscribe to my substack at www.answerstolooseskin.com (and if you’re reading this, then you’re on my substack! Hi! I’m new here and would appreciate a follow!)

How did this series come about?

Well, it took me a while to understand the concept of “body regulation”.

For years, I was obsessed with the prevention of loose-skin. I inherently knew that the casual dismissals of “oh! It’s all genetic!” were baseless. Our body is wiser than that, and epigenetic research shows that our environment is vital.

I released a 6-month program called Secrets to Loose Skin following my weight-loss journey of 150 pounds. In this program, we go into the DEPTHS of fascia, lymph, musculature, abdominal pressure, and more. If you’re interested in check this program out, it is live on my website (www.yvettebam.com).

There was an undertone between everything I was doing, a foundation that I didn’t even know I was addressing… but what was the common connection between all of these modalities?!

A connecting force was present, yet I couldn’t put a finger on it.

I began to study people with different conditions. As a body worker, I became acquainted with tissue. Fascia began to speak to me underneath my fingertips, telling me the unconscious stories that individuals were holding…

There's something about the body that we, fundamentally as a society, have lost sight on.

But what is it?Everywhere I looked, I saw individual’s using heavy dieting measures and exercise routines to alter their shape.

But was this the only way?How was it possible that unless you were extreme in your approach 24/7, the body would turn fat? How was it possible that you could only have one cookie per month, or the body would revolt? How was it possible that a diet of green salads was the only way to go if we wanted to remain fit and trim? It didn’t make sense to me. Surely, we aren’t meant to be perpetually monitoring our body, day-in and day-out?

Yet everyone seemed to be convinced that the calories-in and calories-out mentality was the only way to find success, and 5am morning jogging routines were a necessity that screamed “Motivated Babe”.

After I lost 150 pounds, I noticed something weird: the amount of food and calories I ate did not change by much.

How was THAT possible?

Slowly, over 7+ years of learning everything I can about the body, I began to understand the underlying foundation that I had been touching on throughout my work (without consciously knowing what it was).

That foundation is regulation, which sounds simple but can actually be quite a complex process in the modern world. We have grown very detached from the regulatory force of the body. Regulation is working WITH the body and its processes instead of attempting to control the body, restrict it, or move from the classical space of “I am not enough.”.

Regulation is about re-forming a relationship to your body that is oriented in truth, and the truth is that your body is your deepest friend - not an enemy to force into a new shape. Regulation also requires understanding multiple body processes - especially if you’re coming from an obese sector, where your hormones need loving attention.

Regulation is a key underlying-yet-VITAL component to health, vibrancy, fitness, and shape. Hormones are the body’s chemical messengers, and until we REGULATE our vessel, and subsequently regulate the informational flow throughout our body, we will struggle with an up-hill battle with fitness.

Secrets of Loose-Skin is a 6 month REGULATORY program, in which we work with the body’s state (obesity) and re-wire it, slowly, with respect toward the body at the forefront. I take you through the program using my own body as an example. The ultimate theory behind loose skin is that it is a byproduct of DYSREGULATION. Many people approach the body in an incorrect way when it comes to weightless, believing in the top-down hierarchy of Calories Are King.

Now, you deserve to know that working WITH the body and its systems will always be your winning ticket, which is why I am making this FREE Series of “10 Easy Ways to Sky-Rocket Your Weight-Loss with Regulation That Has Nothing to Do With Food or The Amount of Calories You Eat.”

Subscribe to get future posts sent directly to your inbox. All future posts are FREE for two weeks only, and then moved to an archive for my paid subscribers..

Welcome to Part One, and remember…

Your body is NOT working against you. Your body is NOT something to control. Your body is your best friend, your loving vessel in this reality, and it is time for everyone to learn the interconnection of regulatory practices so that we may BEGIN TO ENJOY OUR BODY’S AGAIN (instead of being in perpetual cycles of “omgggggg I ate too much caaaaake”)..

Enjoy the next few weeks of REGULATION tips and tricks! Subscribe to this substack to get them emailed directly to you! Paid substack members get video bonuses every week.

Part 1: Reprogram Your Breath

Most people are terrible breathers. It sounds silly, I know. We’ve been breathing since the first second of our life! Common sense tells us that we’d at least be “good” at breathing. Turns out, we’re not. We live in a chronically dysregulated society, and this imprints itself into our breathing patterns.

My take on body regulation is a process of returning back to the original blueprint of our body, of functional patterns. But what does functional breathing look like? And what caused our breathing to go into a disarray in the first place?

The core of the breathing problem in society is stress.

Well… not exactly.

Stress itself isn’t a bad thing. Stress is a hormone, known as cortisol, and it’s necessary. The core of the breathing problem in society is ACTUALLY that we haven’t been taught to regulate stress effectively.

Everyone has stress, it’s a part of life. There is never going to be a moment in your life where everything is in balance, everything is perfect, and you can FINALLY begin the thing you’ve been wanting to do for the past few years! Move on from that daydream. Part of living functionally is being able to manage stress well, and a large part of that is a simple perspective shift.

The stress hormone, cortisol, can serve as a motivational hormone when it’s in balance. In fact, without cortisol we wouldn’t be able to wake up in the morning! if we all were tasked with living docilely as monks in the mountains then unregulated stress wouldn’t be as big of a deal… but how do we, as normal people in the day-to-day mayhem of present society, regulate stress?

Turns out, breathing is a large part of it. You have 100,000 miles of blood vessels in your body, and ensuring oxygen efficiency is where regulation starts. Efficiency being the key word, but more on that later, because… wink wink.. it’s not actually about breathing MORE.

There’s a lot of misinformation about breathing. A classical one is “Buddha Breathing,” with the abdominal walls flaring out. I cringe every time I see this, because clearly there is zero understanding of abdominal pressure and pelvic floor pressure with standard Buddha Breathing work.

So, how can we approach functional breathing?

Let’s begin with a mini-exercise.

What do you think of when you think of relaxed breathing?

Don’t scroll ahead!!!

Let’s do a correlation test for a moment. Think about three words for….

* relaxed breathing& 3 words for…

* stressed breathing

Got it?

Seriously, just take a moment. It will help begin the reprogramming aspect of your consciousness here.

La-la-la-la-laaaaa.

Got it, for real this time?

I trust you…. Okay. Here’s mine:

Relaxed breathing: slower, deeper, mouth is closed, quieter, air travels through the nose only, uses the diaphragm to descend down the abdominal cavity, shoulders are down, connection to our core

Stressed breathing: constricted, stays in the upper chest cavity, faster, noisier, quicker, air travels through the mouth, more agitated in upper body, shoulders might be moving, limited body connection

Now, with this in mind… I have some rapid fire questions!

Why are we telling people to breathe MORE, when “more” equates to “faster” and “faster” equates to stressed breathing?

How do you breathe MORE without breathing FASTER?

You can’t.

So, what are we saying when we tell people to breathe MORE?

What does it mean to be oxygen deficient, in a society where most people are actually breathing quite rapidly?

Furthermore, if we do the opposite and slow down, or breathe less, then how does this fit into the regulation equation? How does breathing LESS serve the body? Doesn’t the body need MORE oxygen, not less?

Even if the in-breaths are deeper, what does it matter if the perfect calming breath is thought to be one-minute in duration?

How can the body function optimally by breathing… less?

We’ll answer all of these questions, and more, in a way that makes SO MUCH SENSE!

Nose Goes…

Rapid, fast breathing is correlated to stress with good reason. Our body goes into a sympathetic nervous system state, which redirects blood flow from the internal organs and into the extremities. The body does this with purpose. A sympathetic nervous system activate is also known as “fight, or flight” and it prepares us to either run away from the threat, or fight the threat. Blood flows into our limbs, digestion is put on hold because it’s less important than staying alive, and adrenaline shoots into our system.

Stress breathing is also oriented in the chest cavity. The diaphragm, a muscle located under our rib cage, does not fully engage. We use rapid inhalation to draw in more oxygen in order to prepare the necessary muscles to fire up.

When we become “stuck” in this immobilized-diaphragm chest-breathing stress response, often due to the fact that modern-day stressors are in new formats that do not require a physical release, it causing a multitude of domino problems for the body, especially in consideration of loose-skin and weight-loss.

The body receives a lot of input FROM the way we breathe. When we are breathing in a stressful way, our body is encoded in a certain way by certain sets of hormones. Luckily, we can change the input our body receives by consciously changing our breathing. This will gradually alter our vagus nerve, and turn on the parasympathetic nervous system state.

Let’s start with the bare-bones of regulated breathing: breathe through your nose only.

Mouth breathing is terrible for you, there’s no doubt about it. Mouth breathing often starts in childhood and leads to deformities in face shape. For example, the tongue doesn’t exert necessary pressure on the hard palette of the mouth, which leads to deficient maxilla formation.

Nose breathing creates 50% more resistance to the airstream when compared to mouth breathing, which naturally results in up to 20% more oxygen. Mouth breathing leads to stress responses that inhibit physical performance, quality of life, and weight-loss. So, first things first, re-train yourself to breathe through your nose. I don’t care what you have to do, just do it. You must begin to breathe through your nose. This is a non-negotiable.

Set yourself conscious reminder timers every hour, if you have to, to check your breathing posture… and CLOSE THAT MOUTH! This is where proper breathing begins.

Once you are nose breathing in your daily conscious life, work on the nighttime. I have always been a nose breather… or so I thought. Then, I started to notice drool on my pillow, a dry throat in the morning, and also had one-too-many horrifying experiences on an airplane where I woke up from my own snoring with my mouth wide-open like a zombie.

Turns out, I had been a conscious nose breather. But turning the night-time? Not so much! How do I stop my jaw from opening when I’m unconscious?!

I began going to bed with a simple intention of keeping my mouth closed. I worked on inter-oral exercises to strength under-used muscles in my mouth and throat. It worked. Where there is a will, there is a way. Nowadays, there’s even mouth tape specific to making sure the mouth stays closed during sleeping! A whooping 1/3rd of your breathing time is at night, so it is vital to work on your night-time breathing too.

(My paid substack subscribers have a bonus section of videos in which I show you exercises to strengthen the underactive inter-oral muscles to help with nighttime breathing).

Once we have trained ourselves to breathe through our nose, we can work on the flow of the breath throughout the body. Imagine your breath as it descends down into your body. The breath does not go horizontally INTO the nose, but rather, immediately begins traveling DOWNWARD. Sometimes, just using the imaginary of the breath flowing downward instead of INTO OUR FACE is enough to yield a micro-adjustment.

Now, locate your diaphragm. The diaphragm is a muscle that is just underneath your rib cage. You can think of it as a pump. Use the imagery of an elevator… the lungs fill with air, slowly, while your diaphragm travels downward toward your pelvic cavity. The diaphragm is an essential muscle to begin fine-tuning and re-mobilization. Upon the exhale, the diaphragm returns back to its base position underneath the rib cage.

The abdominal and pelvic cavities are actually a mutual pressurized system, and this is a fact that many people do not understand, and also a leading reason why abdomens are so loose-looking after significant weight-loss. While it is beyond the scope of this article, beginning to attune yourself to these layers of the body is a key component to loose-skin prevention, and something I throughly explore in my six-month program: Secrets to Loose-Skin.

Proper diaphragmatic breathing is a game changer, and it is a far-cry from buddha belly breathing. The Buddha Breath encourages the splaying of the rectus abdominis, and that is NOT what you are doing with diaphragmatic breathing. Buddha belly breathing serves purposes, as most breath work modalities do, but long-term regulation is not one of them.

Naturally, when we begin to focus on breathing in this way, our breathing slows down. But that still begs the question: doesn't breathing SLOWER reduce oxygen intake? Shouldn’t we want MORE breaths, and hence MORE oxygen?

The Equation of Fat Loss…

Now, let’s get to the meaty parts. We learned that nose breathing is paramount. Once nose breathing is mastered, we can retrain ourselves to breathe diaphragmatically utilizing imagery of air going DOWN into our body, from the nose to the chest cavity to the abdomen.

Once we begin practicing diaphragmatic breathing, we may gradually begin to notice increased tissue mobility. For example, you may notice your back ribcage being able to expand, instead of remaining immobilized as chest-breathing inevitably causes. This will take time, but the point is: you will naturally begin to gain bodily awareness through a simple re-aquaintence with your diaphragm. In Secrets of Loose Skin, we get into myofascial techniques that can help RELEASE a lot of adhered tissues that can help expand breathing.

Every time you practice diaphragmatic breathing, also practice being WITH your body. Anything that brings you into CONSCIOUSNESS works wonders with hormonal regulation in the body, especially with cortisol. Breathing is extra special because the regulation of breath can switch you from a sympathetic nervous system state to a parasympathetic nervous system state. Your breath can be used as a remote control between nervous system states, from stressed to peaceful, because our brains receive input from the way we breathe and release hormone accordingly.

Now, let’s go a layer deeper…

Did you know that the majority of weight-loss actually occurs with breathing? The equation for weight-loss is…

C55H104O6 + 78 O2 à 55 CO2 + 52 H2O

In other words: fat molecules, with the input of oxygen, get turned into carbon dioxide and water.

The key components in breathing are oxygen and carbon dioxide.The key components in transforming body fat are oxygen and carbon dioxide.

With this knowledge, we can see that exercising off calories isn’t a major contestant in weight-loss. Exercise is effective because it mobilizes more of your tissue. And, with increased tissue mobilization comes increased carbon dioxide output.

It’s less about…

“OMG! I ate a brownie! Exercise! 2 hours at the gym, let’s go!”.

And more about…

“How can I properly address my breathing to make sure I am effectively releasing oxygen into my tissues and effectively increasing carbon dioxide loads?”

People are obsessed with exercises because we created a culture system of illusion called “calories” in order to effectively market products. I am working on an article about the Calorie Myth, so be sure to subscribe to my substack if you’d like that delivered to your inbox.

Weight-loss has far more to do with hormonal regulation than it ever had to do with calorie-obsessed exercise, but I digress. Exercise is certainly helpful due to the fact that the majority of weight-loss happens with respiration.

Yet, this doesn’t mean “breathe faster to lose weight!”

Please don’t do that! I don’t want you going into stressful breathe-faster patterns.

So, HOW DOES THIS ALL CONNECT? How do we get MORE oxygen, without breathing more?

To properly explain, I need to tell you another breathing secret.

Ready?The secret is this… carbon dioxide is not just a waste gas!

The Carbon Dioxide Falsehood

Since elementary school, we’ve been taught that carbon dioxide is a byproduct of respiration. Carbon dioxide is the natural product of our body breaking down fats and carbs. As we saw in our handy-dandy equation, most oxidized fat leaves the body as carbon dioxide and the minority of it turns into water. And as we learned in elementary school, carbon dioxide is a waste gas that we breathe out and give to the trees, right?

While this is partially true, it’s not fully true. Carbon dioxide serves a deep purpose in the body.

Logically, we know that a more oxygenated body is a healthier body. This makes sense! Greater oxygen availability boosts blood flow, increases energy levels, stabilizes hormones, boosts metabolism, and so much more. It causes a full-body “YES!” effect.

But remember our questions above?

* How does this work, when breathing in MORE air leads to FASTER breathes and a stress-response?

* How do you obtain more oxygen without breathing in MORE?

… And this is where it all ties together, folks.

The answer is in increasing oxygen availability, not in increasing oxygen flow.

How do we increase available oxygen in the body?

With carbon dioxide.

Carbon Dioxide is Not the Enemy

We’ve been taught that carbon dioxide is a waste product, because it is a byproduct of metabolism… but did you know that you actually need carbon dioxide in order for oxygen to be delivered to your cells?

This is how it works: When we breathe in air, we receive oxygen into our lungs. The oxygen molecules attach to hemoglobin, which is the most important component of red blood cells. Oxygen becomes distributed through the body via a blood transport train.

Carbon dioxide is needed in order to detach an oxygen molecule from the blood transport train. When we do not have sufficient carbon dioxide then oxygen cannot detach from the blood transport train, leaving the body unable to effectively deliver oxygen, despite the fact that it is trying to deliver it.

(A note for curious, studious readers: pssst… add facia contortions into the mix and oh-boy, do we have a problem!)

In fact, common symptoms of chronic fatigue may actually be linked more to faulty carbon dioxide amounts, then oxygen intake. There is a condition called hypnocapnia, or a state of low levels of carbon dioxide, that leads to a stressed out nervous system state, heightened anxiety and fearfulness, faster ventilation, a “stuck” fight-or-flight state, less oxygen utilization, and tense muscles.

The body counteracts a state of carbon dioxide deficiency through a “tightening” response. This is the body’s way of trying to help obtain more carbon dioxide. Through this tightening response, the body makes it more difficult to breathe out air. In an effort to get more carbon dioxide, this constriction response effects EVERYTHING.

Counteractive constriction effects not only our breathing, but our circulatory system, digestive system, endocrine system, urinary system… and onward. In short, it affects the entire body.

Imagine the 100,000 miles of blood vessels that are in your body. Imagine that entire network of vessels in a constricted state due to lack of carbon dioxide. Often times, cold hands and cold feet are a big sign of blood flow constriction… and changing your breathing pattern can produce immediate warming results.

When you move more, like while exercising, you create more carbon dioxide. Said differently: your tissues generate more byproduct, and it’s why your breathing usually changes during exercise.

Movement is ALWAYS efficient - and it doesn’t mean you have to get up and start running. Anything that increases byproduct is advantageous, from walking to body squats.

However, there’s a different type of training, that has nothing to do with movement, that we can do in order to break the feedback of a chronic stress response…

And I’ve termed it: Carbon Dioxide Maxxing

Carbon Dioxide Maxxing: The Big Man of Breathing Regulation

Forewarning: When we come from a background of…

* being a mouth breather,

* utilizing quick and short breaths,

* depending on chest elevation during breathing,

* forming diaphragm restrictions due to the aforementioned chronic chest breathing,

* chronic obesity,

* hormonal chaos,

* sympathetic nervous system freeze states,

… and onward then when we first begin to practice Carbon Dioxide Maxxing it can give rise to a uncomfortable feeling.

It’s important to start small. You will be surprised by just how “far” you can advance, even with small 10-second rounds of Maxxing. I advise anyone reading this to work WITH THEIR BODY, in the current state their body is in. Don’t overdo it, because if you generate feelings you don’t like too often then you’ll create more resistance towards actually doing it! Body regulation activités should always be enjoyable, peaceful, and nurturing (if not straight-out fun!).

One great thing about the body? It takes an inch of effort, and gives you a mile of returns. The body returns your love in flourishes!

Beyond working on nose breathing, and working on remobilizing the diaphragm, we have to also work up an ability to hold greater levels of carbon dioxide in the blood. That is what Carbon Dioxide Maxxing is all about: being able to retain greater amounts of CO2 without a stress response. In the beginning, you will have a small stress response as you work with a new modality. This is part of breathing pattern retraining.

The uncomfortable feeling this *might* elicit is called air hunger.

With higher carbon dioxide retention, the body is able to move a greater amount of oxygen into the blood. That is why breathing more SLOWLY leads to greater oxygenation. It has nothing to do with actually getting more oxygen INTO the system, it has everything to do with the utilization of carbon dioxide. The body has *plenty* of oxygen molecules to utilize from even one full, deep breath per minute! It’s a matter of actually being ABLE to utilize that oxygen with enough carbon dioxide. Breathing 4 times a minute is my personal goal with this practice. For me, this slows my body down into a content, peaceful state.

When we retrain our body’s breathing patterns, we will see a gradual progression from shallow rapid breathing, in which oxygen is being inhaled just as quickly as carbon dioxide is being exhaled, to slower, diagrammatically-activated breathing… in which 4 times per minute is fully feasible. By changing your breathing, you can change the state of your body.

So, how do we do it? We can start training our body to effectively utilize carbon dioxide by gradually extending the feeling of “air hunger”. Begin with a 5 minute exercise in which you gently, ever-so-gently, breathe in-and-out. It helps if you hold your finger in between your nostrils… the force of your breathing should be gentle enough so that you cannot feel the breath on your finger. In other words, the breath is imperceptible.

The gentleness of the breathing should extend the times of your breath-in and breath-out significantly. After a few repetitions of this gentle breathing, you may feel the beginnings of Air Hunger. This is the feeling that we want to work on extending. When I first began this exercise, my body quickly escalated into wanting MORE AND FASTER AIR. This desire is a byproduct of a stress-state. A lot of us may be walking around with mini-hyperventilation as our normal breathing, which the brain interprets as being under threat. In my case, it was caused by the uncomfortable feeling of Air Hunger.

By practicing Air Hunger, you break the cycle of Air Hunger. It’s a strange dichotomy! With more practice, comes more carbon dioxide retention… with more CO2 retention the body begins delivering more oxygen to cells… with more oxygen being delivered to cells the body creates less of an “air hunger” feeling because it begins to become comfortable with its cell oxygenation level. The Air Hunger comes from a chronic habit of quick breathing in order to perpetually deliver short oxygen bursts.

Another common aid in building Air Hunger, and my personal favorite, is Box Breathing. Box Breathing is a simple technique in which you breathe-in, HOLD, and then breathe-out. So, say you’re working on a 10-second hold… you breathe in for ten seconds, hold for ten seconds, then breathe out for ten seconds. There are a LOT of videos available online that will take you through box training modalities. Some people box train for several minute holds!

BUT WHAT DOES THIS LOOK LIKE IN THE DAY-TO-DAY?!

Does this mean you have to be “on” all the time, continuously monitoring your breathing? No. But, remember, whatever you do… start with limiting mouth breathing. Try mouth tape for nighttime monitoring. Doing a breathing exercise even once per day is exponentially better than simply ignoring the state of your breathing. Begin with something you can handle! Work it into your schedule, as a micro-habit, and gradually change will present itself. Box-breathe during traffic stops, or practice gentle non-perceptible breathing before bed… or practice diaphragmatic breathing to warm up the body and then through in some box breaths. The possibilities are in your hands.

Set a timer for 3 minutes in the beginning of your day and at the end of your day to practice slow diaphragmatic breathing. If you’re feeling above and beyond, do your 3 minute breathing exercises before every meal. Gradually, you’ll begin to draw your own attention to breathing more and more. You’ll find yourself walking down a sidewalk and randomly checking how you’re utilizing your diaphragm. Soon, you can work on the concept of air hunger and carbon dioxide utilization. If you find yourself having cold feet at nighttime, for example, slow and gentle air-hunger breaths may really help out. Carbon dioxide will increase, leading to oxygen utilization, leading to a full-body warming effect. It’ll become easier and easier, as you retrain your body into functional breathing patterns.

The goal of Air Hunger Techniques is to elevate the tolerance level of carbon dioxide in the blood WITHOUT added stress, and again, this will come as you practice and become more oxygenated. The threshold you may have for this tolerance can be low in the beginning of your practice. This is OKAY!

Now that we know why functional breathing is so important, not only for mobilizing the diaphragm but for increasing actual oxygen UTILIZATION (and not necessarily oxygen flow), take the next step by subscribing to this substack for future posts.

My approach with weight-loss and the body is a functional approach that is regulatory. It 3333is my goal to show people how to achieve a state in which fitness is a NATURAL BYPRODUCT of regulation. Nature did not intend for our body’s to be obese, or chronically overweight. When we view the body as a friend, and seek to understand what made it go off-balance, everything changes.

Thank you, my name is Yvette Bam, and I loved spending time with you today! I’ll see you on my website, yvettebam.com, bammingbody.com, or on substack.

Thank you for reading Answers to Loose Skin. I hope to see you next week!