Can You Lose Weight With Yoga?

Many people wonder if practicing yoga can help them lose weight. It’s true, there are many proven benefits of yoga such as endurance, toning, strength, better body awareness, improved balance, relaxation, and stress relief, as well as a boost in your self-esteem.

However, yoga won’t really help you lose weight. Not by itself, anyway.

You see, when practicing yoga, you simply don’t achieve the “aerobic” heart rate you need to burn fat and calories. To burn the significant calories needed to lose weight, you’ve got to get your heart pumping and keep it pumping for a certain amount of time. Any weight you lose during yoga is likely to be water weight lost through sweating.

If your goal is to lose weight through exercise, the best thing you can do is to take a 30 minute power walk and follow it up with some yoga. The walk will burn those calories off, and the yoga will take care of the rest.

What do I mean by that?

We all know how hard it can be to stick to a diet and exercise plan. It’s stressful. And stress can often lead to overeating. Then, after your binge, you feel guilty and ashamed for not sticking to your diet. It’s all intertwined.

The fact is, yoga gives you a sense well-being. It provides relief from stress. It offers enhanced body awareness and your self-confidence will grow as you  become aware of the amazing things your body is capable of doing.

Yoga also strengthens and tones. So, as you shed those pounds, you’re building muscle and more sculpted body. An awesome, toned body will keep you feeling good about yourself, and sticking to that weight loss plan will be a piece of cake. But, don’t eat the cake!

All of this really is the goal of yoga, allowing your body and your mind to live in harmony as one and heal itself.