Benefits Of Yoga For Weight Loss: Is It Really Effective?

In the entirety of health and fitness, many approaches to weight loss exist, each of them providing different ways to a healthier and fitter lifestyle. Among these, yoga has gained popularity as a way for weight loss. It is not only popular for its mental and spiritual benefits, but also as an exercise to shed kgs. But as with any popular health claim, skepticism comes.

While a personal trainer might recommend high-intensity workouts for faster results, yoga offers a sustainable alternative that nurtures both the body and mind. Is yoga truly effective for weight loss, or is it just another trend? This blog will help you answer that question and go deep into the science behind the benefits of yoga for weight loss.

Plank pose

Stress Reduction & Cortisol Control

Yoga’s ability to reduce stress is commonly known. In our everyday life, stress buildup is one of the major factors that leads to high levels of the hormone cortisol. On the other side, high cortisol levels have been linked to stress eating, cravings for unhealthy comfort foods, and much more.

By performing meditation, deep breathing, and mindful movements, we become more in tune with our nervous system, which counteracts the fight-or-flight response triggered by stress. Lowering of cortisol leads to the following outcomes:

• Reduced Emotional Eating: With your stress managed, the need to eat food as a coping mechanism is reduced.
• Prevent Fat Storage: Lower cortisol levels can reduce the body’s habit of storing belly fat.
• Better Sleep: Stress disrupts sleep, which can lead to weight gain. Reducing stress improves sleep quality, which in turn helps reduce weight gain.

Improved Body Connection & Eating Habits

Yoga helps get you more in touch with your body, which gives you more control over your eating habits. The improved awareness helps you identify when your body is full and it’s time to stop eating.

Instead of eating for fun, boredom, or stress, you learn to know when to eat and when not to. This shift from mindless eating to calculated eating is a big help towards weight loss. Mindful eating refers to the following:

• More Attention To Your Food: Savoring flavours, texture, and aroma.
• Eating Slowly: Taking the time to eat allows your body to recognize when you are full.
• Recognition: Recognizing when you are full to stop overeating.

Calorie Burn

While a spiritual yoga class might not burn as many calories as a full-fledged exercise and training in the gym. However, using different yoga styles and poses can increase your heart rate and utilize different muscles in your body.

Some yoga styles are as follows:

• Power Yoga: This style mostly includes strength-building poses with intense and fast-paced poses to burn more calories.
• Ashtanga Yoga: A demanding, set sequence of poses that builds heat and strength, which can significantly contribute to calorie expenditure.
• Vinyasa Flow: To transition fluidly from one pose to another while being in sync with your breathing, making it excellent for burning calories.

Building Lean Muscle

Yoga can be essentially classified as bodyweight strength training. Muscle tissues are more metabolically active than fat tissues, and building lean muscle mass helps in weight loss.

This refers to the fact that the more muscles you have, the more your body burns fat even when you are not working out. A habit of yoga can lead to improved metabolism and muscle tone. Some yoga poses that help with muscle building are:

• Plank: Go into the position of doing a push-up, but rather than your palms holding your body, use your full arm from the elbow.
• Chaturanga: Get into the position of a push-up and hold that position.
• Warrior 2: Step your feet wide, turn one foot out, bend the front knee over the ankle, and stretch your arms parallel to the floor.

Yoga Pose

Improved Digestion

Many yoga poses make your body go through twists and turns, which can help stimulate the digestive organs and promote better, healthier digestion. An improved digestion system is essential for nutrient absorption and efficient metabolism. Some poses that are known to help your digestive system are as follows:

• Supine Twist: Helps stretch your body from the core and improve movement in your body parts.
• Child’s pose: Soothes the nervous system and compresses the belly.
• Cobro pose: Will stretch your belly and get your digestive fluids flowing.

Why Yoga Is Unique & Effective?

Yoga has been proven by scientific research to have the ability of weight loss. A study done in 2018 in the journal indicated that those who followed yoga regularly showed a fall in their body mass index (BMI) and were able to manage their body composition better.

At the same time, a 2019 article in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine pointed out that the waist circumference and the fat rate in the body were lowered significantly after the period of yoga practice among the participants.

Why is yoga unique for weight loss? In contrast to fad diets or extreme exercise routines, yoga provides a sustainable road to losing weight. Here is what makes it different:

• Holistic Benefits: Yoga reconnects the body, mind, and emotions, thus curing the major problems of being overweight, such as stress, poor sleep, and emotional eating.
• Low Impact Nature: Because of its soft nature, it is very gentle to joints, which makes it accessible to any fitness level, even to those who have injuries or need help with mobility.
• Sustainability: The soothing and non-competitive atmosphere of yoga makes it very convenient to be consistent with it for a longer period when compared with high-intensity exercises that may become too much.

Yoga is a very effective weight loss method, but the main catch is that it works best when it is integrated into a wider health and wellness plan. It is not a quick and dirty kind of solution; rather, it is about establishing a long period of good habits that energize the body and mind.