Yoga for Weight Loss

Weight gain often becomes a problem as we age. Our busy lifestyles lead to eating fast food or convenience foods more often, increased stress of work and family, and fewer trips to the gym. Yoga is a gentle way to get back into a healthy exercise program. With a variety of yoga styles to choose from, each with different levels of intensity, yoga can be done by anyone of any age. Yoga is an excellent activity for weight loss, as it tones the body, increases strength, reduces stress, improves posture, and burns calories.

How Can Yoga Help You Lose Weight?

The key to any exercise program for the purpose of losing weight is to bring the heart rate up to a consistently high level to induce the metabolism to start burning fat. Some yoga techniques, such as Iyengar, are designed to be relaxing, stress-reducing positions that build strength but will not necessarily move the heart rate up to desired levels for weight loss. Vinyasa yoga and power yoga, with their fast movements and sweat-producing styles, are excellent choices for losing weight.

Vinyasa yoga, which synchronizes breathing and moving, is a versatile form that involves smooth, precise movement from specific poses on an inhaled breath or an exhaled breath. Vinyasa yoga for weight loss is done in rapid succession at a quicker pace. The “hot yoga” method of vinyasa yoga is performed in a very hot room that promotes sweating.

Power yoga is a Western variation of traditional Kundalini yoga that resembles a basic aerobic workout. Eschewing chants and meditation, power yoga concentrates on athletic movements, strength building, cardiovascular workout, and flexibility. This method makes people breathe faster, burn calories, and speed up the heart rate. Power yoga is popular with Westerners as an exercise alternative and is offered frequently in gyms.

Ashtanga yoga, which uses the flowing vinyasa method, is a vigorous, athletic form that improves circulation, makes the heart beat fast, improves flexibility, encourages sweat that detoxifies organs, and builds stamina. While Ashtanga is not for beginners, once a person learns the poses he or she can easily practice this form of yoga at home.

Why Use Yoga for Weight Loss?

Yoga can be an intense workout that tones all portions of the body, builds stamina, and burns calories, making it ideal for weight loss. Practice yoga for an hour, three times a week for maximum weight loss benefit. An hour of yoga can burn as much as 150 calories. The weight bearing nature of many yoga postures will also tone the muscles, increasing your metabolism even when resting.

Yoga also relieves stress. It’s well known that stress hinders weight loss efforts. So not only will power yoga and sweat-producing yoga poses help the metabolism burn fat, but gentle yoga will help people relax. When people reduce stress and worry less, the body balances its functioning and is in a better state to shed that excess weight.

In addition to sweating off the pounds, yoga puts the mind, body, and spirit in harmony. A peaceful frame of mind and healthy mind/body relationship offers other benefits: people stick to diets more easily, eat foods that are better for them, have a more positive body image, and maintain rigorous exercise programs. All these contribute to a successful weight loss regimen.

What is Yoga?

Yoga is a system of body poses and positions that stretch the body, synchronize breathing, and put the body in communion with the mind and spirit. Yoga concentrates on flexibility, strength, balance, and breathing. It helps focus the mind, reduce stress, connect a person to the world around him, purify the body and spirit, and create balance. Yoga is part of traditional Hindu culture, including Ayurvedic medicine. The physical postures of yoga are actually only one of the eight limbs of yoga; this physical aspect is more accurately referred to as hatha yoga.

What Causes Weight Gain?

The body gains weight by taking in more calories than it expends. If a person eats too many calories and doesn’t expend them in exercise or daily activity, the body will store the leftover calories as fat. Unfortunately, that fat is typically deposited in the belly for men, in the hips and thighs for women, and in the arms and face for both men and women. Eating the wrong kinds of foods, such as fatty or deep fried food, sugary food, excessive carbohydrates, and too much caffeine, will also cause the development of fat.

Losing weight requires determination and commitment. A well-rounded weight loss plan requires a diet filled with fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and protein; a consistent exercise program; and reduction in caffeine. An exercise regime should consist of activities that a person enjoys and can perform on a regular basis. Yoga, running or walking, playing sports, aerobics, and weight lifting are all good choices for regular exercise.

Finding a Yoga Practitioner

Select a certified yoga instructor and practitioner who has years of experience and can decide the best yoga method for a person’s weight loss needs. For people who are new to yoga, an introductory class is the way to begin to learn basic stretching and breathing and gain strength. When people are more comfortable with the positions and techniques of yoga, they can advance to more intense and complicated postures.