Yoga for Weight Loss

Yoga Principles for a Healthy Lifestyle

Yoga has many well-known benefits. Sure, it helps to increase flexibility, build muscle strength, and reduce stress. But can it help with weight loss?

The short answer is maybe. To lose weight, you need to burn calories and increase your heart rate to lose weight. To do this, you need aerobic exercise. The word “aerobic” means “in the presence of oxygen.” Thus, any activity that increases your body’s oxygen capacity will enhance its ability to use food for fuel rather than store it as fat.

Many types of yoga provide a small amount of aerobic intensity but nothing near the level of cardio, such as running or swimming. However, some styles of yoga — such as Ashtanga, Vinyasa, and Power Yoga — combine yogic breath work (pranayama) with more active movement. These styles build heat in the body and can burn more calories than slower-paced Hatha Yoga or Restorative Yoga classes. Many people on weight-reducing diets add a yoga practice to other calorie-burning activities like running, biking, and swimming.

Make sure you start with a beginner’s class if this is your first time doing yoga or trying out different forms of yoga. Jumping right into a fast-paced Vinyasa or Power Yoga class without the experience, strength, or knowledge of the postures can cause more harm than good.

The benefits of yoga extend way beyond merely torching calories. Below are some health benefits of yoga, plus how it can support your weight loss goals.

Reduced Stress

When stressed out, your body produces responses by producing certain hormones that shift your nervous system’s equilibrium which may cause weight gain. Studies have shown that regular yoga practice can lower the levels of stress hormones present in your body, restoring balance. Part of this benefit comes from stretching and loosening muscles that may be tight due to tension and stress. Bringing awareness to your breath and doing simple meditations can help calm your mind, support your mental health, and release tension.

As your body relaxes, your insulin sensitivity also increases, which helps to let your body understands that it needs to burn food as fuel, leading to fat loss rather than fat storage. As you nourish your body with healthy foods, you’ll be able to use those foods as energy, making you feel less fatigued. The result? Less stress, more fat-burning energy.

A Body in Balance

Yoga can help strengthen tight or weak muscles due to a lack of regular activity. Yoga is a full-body workout that helps to increase the range of motion in your joints and ligaments. Traditional yoga improves digestion and elimination, reducing water retention and bloating. It also improves muscle tone and circulation, which helps regulate the endocrine glands’ activity. These include the thyroid and the adrenals, which govern your appetite, moods, and sleep.

Yoga asanas (poses) increase the flow of prana, or vital life energy, throughout the body. When prana gets blocked or doesn’t flow freely, you can feel sluggish, tired, and emotionally off-kilter. As you practice yoga and get the prana flowing again, you can more easily release old emotions and thought patterns that keep you stuck. Your self-image will improve when you let go of these old and worn-out thought patterns, and it is an excellent driving force to lead you to continue taking good care of yourself. Finding balance in your body through a yoga workout will thus help you to find balance in other areas of your life.

Enhanced Mind-Body Awareness

Yoga seeks to unify the mind, body, and spirit. As you become more aware of your internal self, you may start to be smart about catering to your body’s needs. For example, on your yoga mat, this might be taking breaks or kicking it up a notch during your yoga practice. You might choose the grilled salmon over the fish and chips off your mat.

Yoga enhances body awareness and encourages focus, commitment, and discipline to help you tune into your body and teach you to be aware of your lifestyle choices. You may become more conscious of your food choices and how much food intake is appropriate rather than being stuffed with each meal. Many yogis become drawn to whole foods, such as fruits, vegetables, and grains, instead of processed and fast food.

Integrating mind, body, and spirit can result in a greater understanding of food as nourishment instead of punishment. Under-eating can be as harmful as overeating. Yoga can help instill a desire to treat your body with what’s essential, healthy, and vital.

Mental Edge

Focus on the process, not the goal! Yoga is an integrated system of movement, breath, and behavior that can profoundly transform your life. Try to avoid approaching yoga simply as a means to decrease your body weight. Yoga poses are a physical aspect of the practice, and while the physical benefits feel wonderful, yoga can offer so much more to your experience and life. Keep an open mind; you might see the pounds melt away without realizing it!

Yoga Principles for Healthy Body Image

Ancient yoga texts like the sage Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras offer guidance through specific ways of living. The restraints (yamas) and observances (niyamas) discussed in the Sutras are yogic principles that guide our choices throughout everyday life.

The principle of satya is often translated as “truth.” However, it also refers to living with integrity and refraining from dishonesty in thought, word, and deed. Being honest with yourself might mean facing the emotions behind overeating. It can mean confronting your fears about losing weight and what it might mean for you. Satya can also mean seeing yourself as you are and accepting reality, not an image or fantasy you’ve made up.

The principle of santosha, meaning “contentment,” teaches you to find joy in your life, not coveting what you don’t have. The more time you spend thinking about what you don’t have, the less time you’ll have to appreciate what you do have. Trying to make peace with your extra weight might be frustrating, but striving to attain unrealistic standards can be even more disheartening. It’s not worth it to beat yourself up because you don’t look like your idealized self. Focus on what is good in your own life right now.

Body Beautiful

Yoga can help bring awareness to your body the way nothing else can. Becoming attentive to your actual needs and desires can unify the connection between your mind, body, and spirit. Yoga helps you regain control over your thoughts and actions and can ultimately bring meaning to the previously unenlightened areas of your life.