Three Reasons Why Yoga Can Help You Lose Weight.
As a yoga teacher, I frequently get asked if yoga can help someone to lose weight.
What many of my yoga students don’t realize is that this is a topic that’s particularly close to my heart—especially as I used to be about 60 pounds overweight.
When I share this with them, they almost laugh with total surprise and disbelief! So, today in this article, I want to share with you three ways that yoga helps you to start losing weight easily…
1. Yoga relaxes your body and mind.
Being overweight is an indicator that something is out of balance in your life. Excess stress is a big factor that contributes to weight gain.
Last year, when I was teaching a yoga retreat in Italy, Deborah—a participant from California—told me she lost almost 10 pounds over the week. I asked her what made the difference. She responded, “Well it’s the first time that I have been able to switch off and relax in a long time.” Deborah had been going through a stressful time and the yoga retreat allowed her the space she needed to relax and reconnect back to herself.
Yoga is an easy way to help you relax. When you practice yoga, you bring a deep sense of relaxation to your body and your mind. As you relax, you begin to ease the stress in your life, weight loss will begin to happen naturally.
2. Yoga assists detoxification.
Being overweight is a sign that your body is high in toxicity. Detoxifying your body can help you to lose weight for good.
When your body is toxic, it means that your detoxification organs (such as your liver and kidneys) may not be working effectively. When these organs aren’t working optimally your body will tend to hold on to excess weight.
Doing yoga is an excellent place to start detoxifying your body. Yoga tones up the inner organs and helps them to work optimally again. In my yoga classes, there are several ways that I help students to detoxify their bodies.
One of the first things that I remind my yoga students to do is breathe deeply. Breathing deeply is an important part of detoxification. The second thing that I encourage my yoga students to practice specific yoga poses that assist detoxification, such as yoga twists. In my yoga classes, we also spend time doing self massage on our bodies. Self-massage is highly recognized in the East as a powerful tool for detoxifying the body.
3. Yoga helps release stuck emotions.
What most weight loss experts won’t tell you is that being overweight almost always has an emotional component. I have an intimate understanding of emotional eating because I personally suffered from it for many years.
Often in the busy-ness of everyday life, we squash down our negative feelings with food or other addictions. Used in this way, food is used to numb or suppress feelings. Left unaddressed, these ‘pent-up’ feelings can become stuck in the body.
Yoga is one tool that you can use to access and release these stuck emotions. I remember having an amazing emotional release in one of my yoga classes. I was just coming into camel pose and, as I gently dropped my head back, I spontaneously burst into tears. I felt like a huge weight had lifted off my shoulders. I walked out of the yoga class with an incredible feeling of lightness.
Being on the yoga mat gives you the opportunity to notice your feelings. As you become conscious of your feelings, then you’re in a position to be able to address them. Not only does yoga help you to notice how you’re really feeling about something, it also helps you connect with your personal power so that you have the courage and confidence to express how you feel.
Expressing how you feel is the key to feeling good about yourself and is an important aspect of losing weight.
Yoga can help you to lose weight easily (and keep it off for good).
Yoga is a powerful healing tool as it aids relaxation, promotes detoxification and helps release stuck emotions.
After losing over 60 pounds naturally, I can personally recommend yoga as a path to losing weight naturally and keeping it off for good!
Editor: Lynn Hasselberger
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Thanks for writing on this. This is a such a bone of contention among yoga women. In part, because weight and weight loss are such sensitive issues for women generally.
Jennilyn Carlson, the editor at Yoga Dork, constantly vilifies anyone – and I mean anyone – who suggests that yoga contributes to weight loss. She launched a crusade against yoga celebrity Sadie Nardini for suggesting as much – and Nardini decided to change her promotion, if only to ensure that she could market her services in peace.
Even William Broad, in his otherwise useful book on yoga's risks and benefits, goes after the weight loss claim – but he limits himself to a more traditional argument about yoga's modest impact on cardiovascular rate – not the contribution that greater mindfulness might make to a reduction in stress-eating, a well-documented source of weight gain.
I think the jury is still out on this. I have heard quite a few yoga students say that they gained weight after doing yoga, in part because they replaced their other fitness programs with yoga, and didn't change their eating habits.
Broad suggests that yoga is over-selling its goods in this area – and leading students astray.
The fact is, not everyone gains weight for the same reasons – or in the same way? You have to know your own body. The upshot for me? Probably should avoid sweeping statements one way or the other.
It just depends.
Hi YogaSumarai,
Thank you so much for your reply to my article. This is a great conversation and you bring up some really excellent points. I also totally agree that we are all unique and you have to get to know your own body. People looking to lose weight need to find the path and the journey that is right for them.
For anyone that is unsure if yoga can help to lose weight, I encourage you to please check out my ‘before’ & ‘after’ weight loss photo. I lost over 60 pounds and my love for yoga certainly played a major part in my transformation… (http://www.katrinalovesenn.com/index.php/about/katrinas-healing-story)
On reflection, I have come to understand that losing weight is a healing journey. As I began to learn how to listen to my body, I started to want to nourish myself – physically, mentally and emotionally.
Through my love for yoga and applying all the different aspects of yoga (such as conscious breathing, visualization, deep relaxation & gentle stretching) everything in my life began to shift, including my health and wellbeing. Much to my surprise and delight, I actually started to lose weight and heal myself naturally – no dieting, no drugs and no surgery! 13 years later and I have kept the weight off for good.
When we reconnect back to our bodies, we learn how to love, approve and accept ourselves from within. This has the power to change everything in our lives for the better.
If anyone is interested in learning how to shift the weight loss conversation from dieting to healing, please feel free to check out my book ‘Losing Weight is a Healing Journey.”
Thanks, Katrina. great article. Core self-esteem is everything, I agree. And it's good to hear of others' successes, too. The only small point I would add is that people can go to yoga as obsessively as they go to dieting for weight loss and toning. It can become pretty absurd. Also, comparing out here is dangerous. I think. If one person loses a lot of weight – and the other doesn't, it can create new shame. Do we really want to resurrect the beauty myth here? My absolutely best all-time yoga teacher was a decidedly roly-poly German woman of 62. Most flexible yoga teacher I have ever seen – and the wisest.
Cheers! YS
[...] the rest here: 3 Reasons Why Yoga Will Help You to Lose Weight | elephant journal 此条目发表在 Loss Weight 分类目录，贴了 emotional-eating, experts-won, [...]
@yogasamurai: Agreed! NO sweeping statements about guaranteed anything can apply unilaterally to any subject. It's all on the individual in my opinion. I've been doing yoga and a hybrid (DDPYoga) for just over a month and have seen inches disappear as well as 13 lbs.
I'm currently reading William Broad's book and I certainly agree with your assessment of that as well.
Hi William , Wow, go you! it sounds like you have found a path that works for you… Good on you & wishing you all the best on your journey. Love Katrina xo
I lost 35 lbs practicing yoga. I practiced a lot of vinyasas between standing postures which were held a long time to build strength and stability. I practiced 4-5 times per week, 90 minute classes. Yoga was my only form of physical activity. I didn’t diet–I had watched dieting ruin my mother’s health so I chose not to go that way. I did change my liquid calories–I stopped drinking soda, so that certainly reduced my daily intake of calories. It took 2 years to release the weight and return to a place of balance. That was 11 years ago, and I continue to experience balance in this area (the excess weight has not returned.) I’ve also had the privilege of working as a yoga teacher with others who’ve lost weight through yoga. One aspect not mentioned in the excellent article above is that if a person is seriously out of balance (I’ve had students over who were over 400 lbs) yoga may be one of the few things they’ll be able to do until they begin to lose weight. I also highly recommend abhyanga (ayurvedic self massage) for students who are releasing weight. Ayurveda and yoga are a powerful combination for those returning to balance in their lives.
Hi RaeAnn, Thank you so much for your reply & kind words. And, thank you for sharing your journey – I am sure that this will be an inspiration to many! Love Katrina xo
I do hot vinyasa and I've lost about 10 pounds and kept it off- plus the sweat does wonders for your skin.
Hi Cass, Thanks so much for sharing your inspirational experience. Yes, we are all different and when we take the time to listen to what our bodies are telling us we can create vibrant health and happiness, as well as our dreams! Yay, good on you! Love Katrina xox
Bravo! I really love it when men "weigh in" on how yoga does not work for weight loss. Because, both stereotypically and traditionally, yoga and many non-cardiovascular forms of movement can still cause men to shed weight, sometimes even rapidly, with minimal changes in diet. Just as low-carbing without consciously restricting food intake can really send weight packing. It's a metabolic thing.
With aging women it seems to be a trade off between being light-bodied and being strong.
If I had fewer cardio concerns medically (such as medically managing high blood cholesterol) I could devote my way to yoga, the way I'd devoted my way with circuit light weight training during lengthy periods when I had not been very involved with yoga. With circuit light weight training, I'd actually been more cardiovascularly fit by a hair, but again, I'd had this tradeoff: either be lighter or be stronger. I am a hard maintainer of muscle mass.
I think it's great that you feel better at a lower weight! However please be careful when discussing weight loss. The vast majority of people who lose significant amounts of weight regain it within 5 years. There are physiological reasons for this that even yoga practitioners are subject to. Your experience is unique and unusual and by far not a typical result. Also, a body that is technically overweight is not necessarily toxic or out of balance. It may have been the case your weight was not right for you and you did the work and now you feel great. However, individuals are different and weight loss is not always the right way to work with health issues, particularly as most people can't maintain it. If you are going to publicly promote weight loss, please consider doing some more reading about it. Hope this doesn't sound harsh and congrats on your success!
THANK YOU!
I forgot to touch on that. The physical benefits and lowered weight due to changing your exercise/mind-body/eating regimen(s) (not to mention any social benefits derived therefrom) are all Temporary. Or else made more "permanent" only by eternal, unstinting vigilance that grows more intense over time …
SOMEBODY HAD TO SAY IT. Apologize for forgetting that point.
My opinion people lose weight when practicing yoga because they start to eat more mindfully in addition of yoga being a major calorie shedder. I for one get so hungry after a backbend practice, and I kept my weight stable because of my yoga practice. What I am against are those extreme fasts undergone by many yoginis, and I found that many yoginis can be annorexic also.
[...] I thought I’d drop a link to this amazing piece of Elephant Journal literature, “Three Reasons Why Yoga Can Help You Lose Weight,” which features this all-to-common trope: When your body is toxic, it means that your [...]
i must have been doing the wrong yoga all these years. I'm still fat.
Join the club–I regained more than 15 pounds of the 80 I'd lost when I'd started taking VINYASA yoga seriously–WITH changing my eating. My original yoga master (from whom a good plurality of my practice style derives) gained his 15–without becoming a freshman in college (though he's still quite young). Probably would have gained even more with Ashtanga … many people can't use yoga postures to lose weight with.
It's a good thing I have orthopedic problems, and can't get to a swimming pool; or I may not have either returned to nor stayed with yoga. The spiritual self-righteousness I was subjected to a few short years ago went a long way towards ruining the experience for me. Though maybe I'd picked the wrong style to begin with.
Thank God for pilates.
[...] Yoga was my only form of physical activity. I didn't … … See the rest here: 3 Reasons Why Yoga Will Help You to Lose Weight | elephant journal ← Got Lower Back Pain? Try Yoga | Internet Millionaire [...]
Beautiful! Thank you so much for sharing your story and your thoughts. Very powerful.
Hi Katrina. Camel Pose has gotten me a few times too. It's good to know that others have also experienced the overwhelming release of a properly executed backbend/heart opener… especially that particular asana. Namaste. (:
[...] Three Reasons Why Yoga Can Help You Lose Weight. [...]
Hi,
Very encouraging article, but I'd be interested to see if there is any actual proof that 'yoga tones the organs'.
I think any exercise can shed pounds even if it is like a simple personal training in Fremantle. I do attend yoga sessions every Sunday and on Saturday, I do it at home. I can say that yoga is really effective.
Don
Don
[...] the challenge, adding three days a week of 30-minute circuit training to my personal yoga practice. I lost 10 pounds, while strengthening my [...]
If you become doing your own first trust using yoga exercise, you ought to
much better undertake easy postures to begin with.
Once you receive the actual comfort and ease, you can choose rigorous yoga exercises workouts.
It is usually coupled with yoga exercises eating plan turning into
even more effective.
Hey i am a 19 year old boy
.i have some potbelly tummy and not much fat but still i want to loose some weight around 8kgs and want flat tummy…i know around 20 asans and some pranyamas…please sugeest me some asans that i can do to loose weight quickly and how much time it would take to reduce weight?? Do i require any special diet…i dont have yoga classes in my locality…so please do reply what should i do?
Thanx in advance
Love your post.I found it very interesting.
As a newly-diagnosed type 2 diabetic, I very nearly agree with your first few sentences.
Absolutely my glucose numbers go nearly nowhere, and sometimes up, when practicing yoga. Up in this case, is a bad thing.
Your last two sentences. Agree, but I think by "White" you meant to say upscale or wealthy. At least I hope so. Not accusing anyone of racism, but any race could live beyond their means, or actually afford much of commercialized yoga today.
Hey, there is a backlash against commercialized yoga in full swing now. You are probably going to see a lot of detractors to the "lose weight with yoga" claims. Not all of it coming from the healthy young, Cross-Fit, Zumba-ing set, either …
I am extremely fat and have just started to practise yoga. It is helping me to take the focus off my 75 inch waist.
As a newly-diagnosed type 2 diabetic, I very nearly agree with your first few sentences.
Absolutely my glucose numbers go nearly nowhere, and sometimes up, when practicing yoga. Up in this case, is a bad thing.
Your last two sentences. Agree, but I think by "White" you meant to say upscale or wealthy. At least I hope so. Not accusing anyone of racism, but any race could live beyond their means, or actually afford much of commercialized yoga today.