Boost Your Weight Loss Efforts with Yoga

Well known for its ability to bring down your stress level, promote flexibility and build and tone lean muscle, yoga is less known for its equally powerful effects for weight loss. You may not have heard yoga mentioned in this context, but it can be a great way to burn off calories.

Traditional yoga is not an extremely active pursuit. It works your muscles, but you rarely break a sweat just by holding a pose (unless it’s really hot in the room). But the muscle-building effects of yoga do allow you to burn calories more efficiently. So if you participate in a good aerobic workout, you will see greater results than you would if you weren’t doing yoga.

An important component of yoga is discipline of mind and body, which will help you stay committed to your exercise program and healthy eating habits. Yoga reinforces the link between your body and your mind, increasing your desire to look after your body. This is very helpful for people who want to lose weight but have trouble getting motivated.

New Yoga Varieties

If you are looking to lose weight through yoga alone, you may want to seek out some of these different yoga classes. Some of these are non-traditional, but will give you the benefits of yoga and cardio exercise at the same time. These styles of yoga include:

Vinyasa yoga – Vinyasa yoga is focused on changing from one asana to another while simultaneously doing yogic breathing. Sun Salutations are a common pose in Vinyasa yoga, but there are many other poses used. This style is sometimes practiced in a heated room to promote sweating.

Ashtanga yoga – Ashtanga is a complex style of yoga that includes six different series of poses. Each series is more complex than the previous one, so it’s important to start at the beginning and work your way up.

Power yoga – This is an Americanized version of yoga. It combines faster, more active movements with traditional yoga breathing techniques.

These yoga styles will give you many of the benefits of a cardiovascular workout such as increasing heart rate and working up a sweat, much more so than traditional styles of yoga. There is less of a conventional workout than say, an aerobics class, but they give you the best of both worlds. These are great styles for those who are a little too short on time to take two different exercise classes.

Other than being forms of exercise, yoga and aerobics seem to have little in common. But traditional yoga can enhance the effects of more intense workouts, and these newly popular styles of yoga can give you the best of both worlds. If other workout routines have left you disappointed, adding or switching to yoga might be the answer you’re looking for.

Tags: Yoga