Has anyone tried yoga to lose weight

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Replies

  • Rarity2013
    Rarity2013 Posts: 196 Member
    Yoga is pretty much my only formal exercise. I've used it before to lose weight and been very successful with it. I find it puts me in the correct mindset (ie. ooh, salad! Yum!), is a great toning exercise, and is just all-round less horrible than other exercise (yes, I am very lazy and I hate exercising).
    Its important to realise that you are unlikely to be burning tons of calories with most types of yoga.
  • nisijam5
    nisijam5 Posts: 9,964 Member
    I do barre yoga about 2 times a week and it's a great calories burn and lengthens all the muscles - think of the exercises that ballerinas. And, they have smoking bodies. I mix this with hot yoga, elliptical and pole dancing. My body is more toned now than ever.

    Good luck.

    I say try it. I didn't think I would like it and I turned out to love it.
  • jodie_t
    jodie_t Posts: 287 Member
    It's a help, like any other physical workout. For me one thing it has in its favour over other workouts is it makes you feel really really good for less physical hard work. A yoga teacher I once had said it exercises your inner organs as well as the rest of you, maybe that explains it. I have Linda Soloman's Yogalates For Weight Loss.. There are several sections to it, I find the first a bit slow but it gets more challenging as you go thru & there's a brilliant 15 minute abs workout, I bought it about a year ago & still havent got bored with it. One tip with yoga videos tho, I always used to get confused listening to instructions telling you to twist this left and put this over to the right, now I just follow the presenter as if they're a mirror image of myself, it's easier :smile:
  • annadavidson1984
    annadavidson1984 Posts: 22 Member
    I would agree that to really lose weight you need some type of cardio.
  • Huffdogg
    Huffdogg Posts: 1,934 Member
    Any exercise helps lose weight, but yoga doesn't burn a colossal amount of calories for the most part. The calorie deficit is what causes you to burn fat; the type of exercise you do is largely irrelevant aside from the fact that resistance exercises will be more effective for preserving muscle mass and helping you look leaner as your scale weight drops.
  • Bobbyjr72
    Bobbyjr72 Posts: 28 Member
    I've been doing Bikram / Hot yoga for a while. I wore a heart rate monitor to about 10 classes in order to get an average reading for calories burned in order to log in MFP. Now keep in mind that everyone is different, but for me I burn an average of 875 calories during the 90 minutes. Days that I simply go through the motions it's less and days where I really push myself to get the poses and hold them it's more. The real kicker is that you shouldn't eat for 2-3 hours prior to class and after class you basically want water and not food for hours. I lost most of my weight (30 pounds) when I was doing bikram yoga 2-4 time per week at night / weekends. It definitely helped along with my diet and other exercise.

    The real perks are better flexibility, core strength, no more back and hip issues for me, clearer skin and better lung capacity. Overall, I just feel better when I am doing yoga.

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