Although yoga is associated with stretching and giving you great flexibility, it can also help you lose weight. It might not involve cardio exercises or heavy training, but it could also be very helpful in your weight loss journey.
It helps in curbing emotional eating
Most people look for something sweet when they are feeling down because the sugar in it gives them some much-needed energy. This is known as emotional eating which is the biggest culprit in weight gain. When people feel stressed, they tend to turn to foods high in sugar, snacks and junk food. By relaxing through yoga, your emotions will get balanced as you relax and the urge to reach for these foods will go away, this will cut your calorie intake leading to weight loss.
You are likely to change your diet
Yoga helps you nurture your body while honoring it and this means you start watching what you eat. It also helps you stop blaming yourself for all the things going wrong in your life which could lead to bad eating habits. When you learn to treat your body well, you start being conscious of what you put into it. This means you turn to a healthier diet which in turn helps you lose weight. Yoga will help you control your food cravings leading to better eating habits.
You become more relaxed; it helps keep weight off
When you are stressed, your body releases cortisol a stress hormone which disrupts your sleeping pattern, distorts your concentration, messes with your digestive system leading to weight gain. Yoga helps to calm your mind and body thus relaxing physically and mentally. When your stress levels decrease, your body processes become efficient leading to weight loss.
It stretches and tones muscles
Yoga helps you tone your thighs, core, and glutes. It helps increase your flexibility thus giving you a longer and leaner look
Self-compassion helps stay on track with dieting
When you learn to love yourself, you will stop beating yourself up for trivial things like making a dieting mistake. When you stop beating yourself up, you will start making better diet decisions. If you practice yoga, you will learn all the benefits of self-compassion, and it will be easier for you to choose better and healthier diets. This will help you some pounds even without noticing.
It can curb overeating
Yoga helps you to cultivate calmness even when undergoing through a physical discomfort or any other challenges. These day to day challenges can lead to you overeating even when you feel full just because the food is seemingly delicious. Stress is usually one of the causes of eating even when you don’t feel hungry. If you practice yoga, you will be able to curb this unorthodox behavior meaning you will be able to control your portions and ultimately lose weight.
It helps build strength
Since muscle tissues burn more calories than the fat tissues, muscles play a big role in weight loss. When you practice yoga, you get to balance your whole body weight through various muscles that help you support the different poses. Most yoga poses include you balancing your body which requires burning a lot of calories. These exercises will help you get lean muscles and in turn reach your target weight.
Yoga complements other workouts
Some high-impact workouts place a lot of stress on your joints leading to delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). This condition can last up to three days. Yoga minimizes the severity of muscle soreness, so if you incorporate yoga into your exercise regimen, you will experience less pain. If you recover from injuries faster, it means that you can resume your workouts. These workouts might be targeting your weight, and therefore yoga will help you reach your goal faster.
Helps curb sleep-eating
Although some don’t know it, most people actually do sleep-eat. This leads to weight problems in their lives. When you practice yoga, you will always have a better night sleep throughout the entire night meaning that you don’t sleep-eat.
While you might be struggling with weight problems, incorporating yoga into your day to day life will come with a lot of benefits. Many people think that this practice is only meant to make you more flexible, but as you have seen, it also helps you cut some pounds. Sometimes it all starts with the mind, and if you can keep your body and mind in sync, then you can achieve absolutely anything you desire including losing weight.
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I love your tips for how yoga can help with weight loss. Like you say, more so than lifting weights or cardio, yoga is an hour or two completely to yourself to relax, release emotions, and increase your physical health all at once. So many benefits even after you step off your mat.
Ah emotional eating…I’m definitely a victim of that! But I sure didn’t know that yoga could help with this; I just never made the connection. Great things to think about, I think I will enroll in a yoga class this week!
Even though, I don´t have too many weight problems, I´m always looking for ways to maintain my present body weight. There are some parts of my body that need alesticity and yoga can provide that. I will think on incorporating yoga to my daily set of activities. Thanks for the tips
Considering that i have yoga for my next term coming up, this could definitely help me when it comes to flexibility. Thank you very much for the article friend!
I use yoga in between my strength lifting days. It really helps stretch my muscles. I am an avid follower of Antigravity yoga. I find that it works best for me.
All of your tips here are very helpful and informative. But what i like the most is how Yoga can make you relaxed and how it helps weight off. It’s like hitting 2 birds in one stone. After all, we all want relaxation after a tiring or stressful day at work. Yoga is definitely one of the activity in order to achieve it.
I have never understood YOGA or even know what it is but If it can help a person out then it is cool I guess.
I always wanted to try yoga. This article convinced me to give it a try. I know that it has lots of benefits but I just don’t have the time to do it. I will give it a go this time. Thanks for this post!
Any exercise sounds good to me. 🙂 I practice yoga from time to time and it calms my mind more so than any other exercise.
What you have said is absolutely true. Yoga is not just stretching and toning muscles rather it helps in correcting our emotional balance which will keep us away from getting stressed. I have been doing yoga for many years now and stopped going gym because it really does help in losing those extra pounds without the heavy cardio. Great article stressing the importance of Yoga. Thanks for sharing.
Well yoga is a form of exercise, so I’m pretty sure any form of exercise will make us lose weight. But pretty interesting points was raised in this article, so this was quite informative, thank you!
‘Yoga’, is not a matter to give a ‘Try’. It is a perfect way of life and it needs to be practiced to experience the power of it. It is absolutely true that ‘Yoga’ complements other workouts. It helps your body to keep align with your mind.
This article is very on point. Yoga benefits the human body both spiritually and physically. It can also be useful to wake you up in the morning or to cleanse yourself during sickness by clearing your airways. All in all, yoga is a definite plus!
Most people out there see power workouts as a way to loose weight fast. Yoga is a better alternative as it leaves a person more energized and it also has a positive impact on the well being of your mind which is very important.
I have heard a lot of good things about the positive effects of yoga. It improves your quality of life through healthy eating and discipline.
I really love these tips! I didn’t know that yoga helps not only by building strength but also complimenting other workouts as well. Looks like I gotta try yoga now!
I didn’t realize yoga could actually help curb emotional eating until I read this article. That’s my biggest problem and the culprit of my weight gain all the time. I’m seriously thinking about trying yoga one of these days.
Your post just made me see yoga in a different light! Wow, never knew it’d have these effects
This is the first time I am learning that yoga has weight-losing benefits. It will make more people interested in yoga. I like the fact that it helps one to be more relaxed while seeking to lose weight.
I wasn’t aware of emotional eating until I read this blog. This is very helpful especially to a working woman who occasionally experience stressful moments. I think it is the right time that I also take into consideration taking Yoga lesson.
I am an emotional eater and it is my biggest problem. I am also not very athletic, this is the reason why I tried yoga. I see changes in my body and I like it.