Calories for Yoga vs other stuff.

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The amount of sweat you are experiencing could be down to the intensity of holding a strenuous position for an extended time - for example holding Chaturanga Dandasana - but not demanding in a cardio sense and so therefore not burning so many calories; hence the low calorie burn.

Alternatively you may be doing a session of Yoga where you are doing a lot of flowing from one position to another - for example flowing through a session of Sun Salutations, which is more aerobically demanding; hence a much higher calorie burn.

Typically the first example will burn 100-200 calories whereas the second example will burn around 400-500. Both will soak your mat with sweat!

Might be a stupid question, but I don't understand why yoga burns so few calories. If you haven't done it, then you don't understand the question and I'd appreciate no comments. But, if you have, or do, what gives? An hour of yoga and I'm sweating like I ran 5 miles. But, it only burns like 150 calories or whatever. The calorie burn is not accurate just going off websites.

Is sweat not an indicator of calorie burn? Again, might be a stupid question, but I don't understand the relationship, I guess between sweat and calories burned.

I'm a power lifter, and I also run for cardio. I do yoga ocassionally for flexibility, but this low cal burn for yoga is a bit perplexing based on the amount of sweat I'm dripping in.

Thanks.

Sweat is for one main reason.......to cool the body down. Genetics will dictate how the body temperature reacts to any environment. Some people sweat eating hot peppers or before a test. That's not an indication of higher calorie burn. On average an hour of yoga for someone around 150lbs is about 300-350 calories burned. It's mostly isometric exercise so it's anaerobic in nature.
So sweating for someone who works out is an indication for THEM that their intensity is higher than non exercise activity, but not always an indication that lots of calories are being burned.

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Also, I'm unfortunately one of these ladies who sweats if I'm just standing in 80 degrees, so it never even occurred to me that the amount of sweat would be related to calorie burn. That would be different for everyone.

I too was surprised to see how little calories are burned doing yoga. I thought mfp data bank underestimated this, because I too would be sweating and feeling like I just worked out. Then I got my hrm, did the same yoga dvds and found out I actually burned LESS then MFP estimated!!!! I do yoga flow so it's not a full on "relaxing" yoga dvd, it's hard work! Despite the lack of calorie burn I still feel yoga has been very beneficial in my life. It de-stresses me, teaches me breathing control when I'm working out hard core, and keeps me flexible. I just make sure I keep my diet more in check for the days I do yoga. Hot yoga on the other hand will kill some calories, but I hate it. I feel like I'm just trying to survive, and basically your body is too by killing all those calories to try and cool and and do the poses you're demanding from your body. I have done bikram yoga 10 times to give it my fair assessment and definitely not for me.

it depends entirely on the type, too. there are many different varieties of yoga. Jerry, the kind that you were doing - power vinyasa - is a much more aerobic-centered style, and i personally think burns more than the 150 cals/hour some of the websites claim.

http://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc <-- that's an alright calculator, though i'm leery to trust it as it doesn't have you select your sex. i think it over-estimates a bit too, so i definitely tend to knock of a hundred or two cals when i've used it. BUT, it does have options of a few different types of yoga: bikram, power, and vinyasa are the three i've used most on the website.