Yoga for weight loss: does yoga make you lose weight?

Have you ever thought about how much yoga can make you lose weight in the long run? Why does yoga make you lose weight? And, above all, how does it affect our body? Yoga for weight loss and its benefits.

In reality, if 100 people were asked if they are happy with the body they have, unfortunately, the percentage of Yes would be very low. We cannot say that we do not love ourselves as we are, but if we could, we would change a few small details – we would all do it. Bigger or smaller, longer, or shorter, there is always something we would like different.

While we often have to adjust to what mother nature gives us when it comes to weight, we have many ways to change it, such as a healthy diet, exercise, regular living, a schedule, a restoring sleep, and little stress. And Yoga can help with each of these steps as you will see below.

The practice of asanas can be very intense or very relaxing, but any type of practice promotes the stretching and toning of the muscle making the body leaner.

Depending on the strength of an asana, the asana itself, and the proposed sequence, custom weight loss practices can be created very easily. The asanas provide the abdominals with constant activation by working on the center of the body, those muscles that are often forgotten and left aside for everyone.

Yoga doesn’t make you lose weight in a conventional way, but it does make you have a healthy and flexible body and if that means your body has to lose a few pounds then Yoga will surely help. There are people who have gained pounds of muscle with Yoga without losing weight just because they had nothing to lose, but they are fit and have a healthy body.

Does yoga make you lose weight? How and why…

1. While practicing asanas you burn fat and calories.
2. Yoga reduces stress. With an integrated program of asana, pranayama, and meditation, the level of stress is reduced – often guilty of overeating. Cortisol naturally produced by the body in response to stress not only stimulates appetite but tends to deposit fats in the waist and belly area.
3. You become more aware of what you eat and the effect of the food itself inside the body. Often with yoga, you gradually and naturally change your diet, not to lose weight, but to feel good. Greater body awareness helps to understand when the stomach is full and it is not hungry – you feel when appetite is based on stress or when hunger is real.
4. With the practice of Yoga the body and mind are tuned into looking for what feeds the mind and body in a healthy way and therefore many temptations often decrease, habits change and you notice the difference.
5. Yoga is a long term love that helps in a slow but continuous way, helping to get the healthiest body that everyone’s different structure allows. As we age, we often tend to put on weight, with Yoga over time we tend to lose and maintain weight.
6. Yoga improves your sleep pattern. People with short sleep span tend to gain weigh significantly more than those who get sufficient sleep.
7. By learning to use the body and put it into operation, anxiety and all the emotions that we often confuse with hunger are recognized and separated, helping to understand when it is not the body that asks for food but our emotions. In this case, a glass of water has the same effect yet many more benefits.

How does yoga make you lose weight? Yoga is probably the best way to lose fat

In general, the reason why yoga makes you lose weight can be explained as follows: Yoga does not aim at a classic physical activity but is based on slow activity that allows fat to burn more effectively.

Therefore, weight loss is a side effect of yoga that leads to losing weight consistently and correctly, i.e. strengthening muscle mass at the same time.

It is for this reason that often those who practice yoga are not excessively thin but in shape, with well-defined muscles, and without excess fat: yoga dries, tones, and burns fat.

The power of yoga for weight loss

The practice of asanas and some pranayama techniques above all help the expulsion of toxins from the body. Twists, abdomen massages, and good nutrition help cleanse and detoxify the body, making it healthier and with an active bowel.

• Physical practice has distinct benefits and effects on the body
• Pranayama warms the abdomen helping its necessary functions
• The twists detoxify by massaging the colon, promoting the elimination of toxins
• Prone positions activate all the main organs of vital functions
• The ‘Sun salutation’ (Surya Namaskar) makes the heart work well to improve blood circulation
• The shoulder stand pose in combination with the fish pose (Sarvangasana + Matsyasana) is a powerful sequence for a healthy thyroid
• Meditation and relaxation positions such as Balasana, Savasana, Viparita, and Karani, relax the body and mind by decreasing stress and calming the mind
• Strength positions such as Navasana or Bakasana activate the abs by reducing the fat around the waist

The practice does not have to be intense for healthy weight loss, the important thing is that it integrates each group of asanas. So, if you want to lose weight with yoga, it doesn’t have to be Vinyasa or hot yoga. Simply follow your instinct and start practicing regularly.

In light of the above, one should never practice yoga with the sole aim of losing weight. Yoga acts on the body by also working on the mind, and it is for this reason that it is a discipline to be considered in its entirety. For this reason, once you start practicing yoga in most cases the focus shifts from the goal for which you started, which can be in this specific case weight loss, to achieving complete well-being of the body. And mind.

Complete well-being which, consequently, is also good for our relationship with food, helping us to love ourselves and feel good.

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