Posts Tagged ‘Weight Loss Efforts’

Yoga for Weight Loss?

Yoga is renowned for its capacity to reduce stress, enhance flexibility and improve muscle tone and strength. However, it’s not so well known for its contributions to weight loss. Yoga isn’t typically your first thought when it comes to burning off calories. So it can be surprising to discover that it can actually be an effective way to boost your weight loss efforts.

Conventional yoga isn’t a vigorous type of exercise. While it conditions and tones your muscles, you’re not likely to work up a sweat during a yoga session. The fact is, though, that you’re working your muscles, which means your body is burning calories. So, cardiovascular exercise will yield better results if you also practice yoga regularly.

At the core of yoga is the discipline of both your body and mind. This should lead to stronger motivation to stick with your fitness routine and to eat healthfully. A core tenet of yoga is to develop the relationship between your mind and body. Therefore you feel more motivated to care for your body. This is great if you want to lose some weight but have difficulty motivating yourself.

If you plan on using yoga by itself to help you drop some pounds, there are some new variations on the traditional practice of yoga. You get the benefits of cardio and yoga all in the same workout. It’s worth your while to investigate the wide assortment of yoga DVDs that are available for this purpose.

Here’s a look at some of the more common kinds of yoga.

Vinyasa Yoga: This particular form of yoga involves moving from one pose to another, all the while paying attention to your breathing. There are lots of different poses that you might recognize the name of, including the Sun Salutation. This style of yoga is typically performed in an overheated room so that you sweat profusely.

Ashtanga Yoga: This is an intricate approach to yoga, integrating six series of individual poses, or asanas. They increase in complexity as you progress, so you must perform them in order, improving your skill as you go.

Power Yoga: This modern adaptation of yoga mixes active, high-speed actions with yogic breathing.

These yoga techniques offer more of the heart-healthy benefits of aerobic exercise than the usual kinds of yoga. They won’t quite give you the workout of a cardio class. But you will still experience the benefits of cardiovascular health and muscle toning, along with improved flexibility. This will no doubt help your weight loss efforts. And these kinds of yoga are great for people who are too busy for more than one workout routine.

On the surface, aerobics and yoga have few similarities. Nevertheless, yoga training can boost the benefits of cardiovascular exercise. And the newer styles of this ancient practice can be a great replacement for your usual aerobics. If you’re dissatisfied with the results you’re seeing from your normal exercise program, why not give yoga a try.