8 Proven Reasons Why Yoga Helps You Lose Weight

By Alex Assoune Mar 16, 2021

Yoga is an extremely effective way to shed excess body fat and offer long-lasting weight loss results. It's one of the healthiest and safest ways to lose weight.

Yoga definitely helps you get a toned and flexible body. It might not have the same reputation as other intense workouts, but it has numerous benefits for weight loss that are more than just physical.

Yoga improves your overall health and leads to lasting lifestyle changes. You will notice a positive change in yourself when practiced regularly. Yoga remains one of the most effective exercises to get rid of stubborn fat stores.

Moreover, it's a known way to relieve stress and anxiety, resulting in fewer stress hormones and better insulin sensitivity. It's a key factor to increase calorie burning and reduce fat stores.

Can you lose weight with yoga? Yes. Regular yoga practice helps you lose weight and tone your body at the same time. It also promotes mindfulness. Conscious eating and avoiding overeating is one major benefit of yoga.

Yoga offers the necessary awareness and mindset to make healthy dietary choices to ensures long-term lasting weight loss results. Here are the proven reasons why yoga helps you lose weight.

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1. Balance between body, mind, and spirit

Regular yoga practice coupled with a healthy yoga diet guarantees amazing weight loss results. Yoga requires no gym membership and almost no equipment. You can also practice yoga anywhere.

You only need a yoga mat, comfortable clothes, and your own body. Plus, yoga is much more than simple stretching exercises. It requires enormous amounts of concentration, strength, flexibility, and endurance when practiced at advanced levels.

By practicing yoga, you will understand that balance between body, mind, and spirit is necessary to achieve true health. Yoga is the best way to unite all three entities, create harmony, and succeed while on your weight loss journey.

2. Positive mental effects

Yoga changes your body, your mind, and your behavior. It combines physical postures (asanas), breathing exercises (pranayama), and meditation (dhyana).

Yoga positively alters your body shape and size. There are many different types of yoga. Some styles focus more on the physical aspects. They provide intense aerobic and cardiovascular workouts that will definitely make you sweat.

Other types of yoga teach a more mental and spiritual approach to yoga. The poses are less intense but provide many other benefits for health and weight loss. Feeling relaxed, calm, confident, and emotionally happy plays a big role in your well-being.

Making sure that your heart beats faster is a great way to lose weight but it is not the only one.

There are different levels of yoga suitable for everyone, beginners to advanced yogis. They demand various levels of strength, flexibility, endurance, and consciousness on your spiritual journey.

3. Various useful skills

Vigorous yoga classes such as Hot Yoga, Bikram Yoga, Power Yoga burn lots of calories. They offer an intense cardiovascular workout. They increase metabolism, blood flow, circulation, and heart health.

Gentle practices such as Hatha Yoga, Yin Yoga, Restorative Yoga propose a healthy way to calm down and relax, get rid of depression, stress, and anxiety. They improve your self-image, confidence, happiness.

Yoga also drives the desire to take care of yourself and others. You are more inclined to eat healthily and break unhealthy habits through regular practice. No more binge eating, emotional eating, or overeating.

Yoga teaches you the skills to reach your ideal weight and maintain it long term for the rest of your life.

4. Many physical benefits

Yoga offers many different postures that you can practice at your own pace. Each of them has its own benefits for health and weight loss. They transform you from the inside out.

Start with beginner poses and learn them one by one. After mastering the basics, you can progress to more intense asanas or vigorous yoga flows.

All postures have a variety of physical, mental, and psychological benefits. You improve detoxification and digestion through yoga. Plus, it strengthens and lengthens your muscles, nerves, joints, and connective tissues.

5. Amazing behavioral changes

Burning calories is not the ultimate goal of yoga but an added benefit along the journey. Regular practice allows you to discover yourself, raise awareness of your body and thoughts.

Positive changes always follow the feeling of inner peace and contentment. You will easily identify mindless destructive unhealthy habits and avoid them. Healthier food choices and lifestyle changes are the results.

Slowly, you will begin to understand that life has a deeper meaning. You will become awakened to the negative effects of destructive habits on your life goals. This promotes healthy changes in your life.

It induces positive behavioral changes that lead to weight loss and well-being. Overeating or drinking will no longer seem pleasing to you. Gravitating towards a healthy yoga diet will come to you naturally.

Practicing regularly and eliminating unhealthy foods brings the best results. Avoiding animal products, processed junk foods, and sugary drinks is essential to succeed.

6. Long term results

Regular yoga practice makes you more aware of your body. You will eat more mindfully and lower your calorie intake naturally.

New healthy habits and lifestyle changes are the keys to long term success. Avoid losing weight fast. Drastic weight loss methods are unhealthy and not sustainable long term.

Aim for long-term changes that you can keep for the rest of your life. It will definitely serve you best, in the long run, to feel your best and be happy in your own skin.

Having great energy, self-image and confidence are all achievable through yoga. Whatever your goal is, you will reach success if you commit to it. Be proud of yourself for being on the right path and stick to it.

7. Yoga postures advantages

Many yoga postures increase strength, flexibility, and endurance. Bigger, stronger, and longer muscles burn more calories, even when you are not exercising.

Moreover, some postures target internal organs. They improve the digestive system and purification through better liver, kidneys, and pancreas function.

Certain asanas also boost the endocrine system. The endocrine glands such as the thyroid gland are responsible for hormonal production and balance in your body. They ensure that the body functions properly, growing, and healing itself.

A metabolic and fat burning boost is a common result of regular yoga practice. Many poses promote blood circulation throughout the body. They also massage the abdomen, stimulate the spine and the nervous system.

Even basic postures accessible to everybody have tremendous benefits for health and weight loss. Beginners can practice them at home if they maintain good alignment to do them correctly and safely.

8. A slow but helpful start

When starting yoga, you don’t have to push yourself too hard. More intense and vigorous yoga styles require a lot of preparation to perform.

Even gentle and restorative types of yoga help you lose weight. They promote digestion, detoxification, respiration, and hormone production.

Yoga changes you from within and so begin your transformation gently. Advance slowly and give your body time to adapt to change. Resting days are crucial to let your body repair itself.

And make sure to get enough sleep. Yoga helps you get rid of racing thoughts and sleep better. Regular sleeping and waking up times allow your body to function properly.

Practicing yoga also helps you regulate your appetite. You will be more aware of the feeling of fullness. And cravings for unhealthy foods will happen less often.

Regular yoga practice leads to more mindfulness and less emotional impulses. You will learn to recognize what foods serve you best and what satisfies your hunger.

To wrap it up:

Can you lose weight with yoga? Yes. Regular practice has plenty of benefits for your health and weight loss. It's one of the most healthy and effective ways to reach your ideal weight and stay there.

Yoga isn't only about physical exercise and calorie burning. Through yoga, you will get more flexibility, strength, and endurance but yoga is much more than a physical exercise.

Yoga helps you eliminate stress, emotional eating, and unhealthy habits. It's a journey that transforms you from within. Practice yoga regularly to observe positive changes in yourself and your body will thank you.

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About the Author: Alex Assoune

Alex Assoune (MS) is a global health and environmental advocate. He founded Panaprium to inspire others with conscious living, ethical, and sustainable fashion. Alex has worked in many countries to address social and environmental issues. He speaks three languages and holds two Master of Science degrees in Engineering from SIGMA and IFPEN schools.

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