The benefits of yoga for physical and mental health are as well-known as the benefits of exercise for weight loss. However, it’s also a fact that cardio workouts are the best fat burners. Yoga, with its slow and peaceful flows doesn’t look like it would be very effective in this capacity. And yet, numerous studies indicate that the efficiency of yoga for weight loss is indisputable, so states Daily Mail. In order to achieve maximum benefits from this practice, you need to understand how exactly yoga helps you lose weight and what you can do to enhance the results.

Yoga for Weight Loss: How Does It Work?

One important thing you need to understand is that any type of exercise (a walk from your couch to the fridge included) burns off calories. Intense cardio workouts simply burn more than moderately paced physical exercises, like yoga. However, being a type of physical activity, yoga boosts your weight loss efforts by default.

It’s quite surprising, but researchers aren’t sure how exactly yoga works for weight loss. The fact that this isn’t an active fat burning practice is the reason for this mystery. It’s currently believed that mindfulness and awareness of one’s body that one develops when doing yoga regularly, are the driving force of physical change.

Though, when speaking of how ‘mild’ yoga is exercise-wise, one mustn’t forget that there are many different types of this practice. Some of them, like Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga, that can burn off more calories than tennis in a 30-minute session. These practices will definitely make you sweat and with a great stretching offered by any type of yoga, the weight loss effect is guaranteed.

Another important benefit of yoga for weight loss comes from yogic breathing. This part of the practice is often underestimated or outright overlooked by non-professionals. However, the right type of breathing amounts to a half of all positive health effects of yoga (if not more).

Deep breaths exercised in yoga practices as an aid for integrating a meditative element into them help relieve stress. They affect your body on a deep biochemical level making it literally reduce the production of cortisol. This ‘stress hormone’ is one of the most common causes of weight gain today.

Therefore, the main power of yoga for weight loss comes not from its ability to burn off fat fast, but from the fact that it makes you more resistant to weight gain. Add the calories spent during practice and a deep sense of awareness of your own body. This combination is what’s responsible for such a positive response to a seemingly ‘mild’ practice.

How Much Weight Can You Lose Through Yoga?

It’s impossible to determine how many pounds you’ll be able to shed no matter how often you practice yoga. The result will depend on a multitude of factors, with your diet being the most important of them.

To achieve the highest level of weight loss, you should follow a comprehensive and well-balanced program that includes:

  • A low-calorie diet.
    Vegan and vegetarian options are best. At the least, exclude all full-fat dairy, red meat, junk food, and ‘empty’ calories.
  • Weight loss supplements.
    It’s best to choose natural weight loss pills that contain caffeine and other organic metabolism boosters. They enhance the effects of your program instead of endangering your body, like synthetic drugs that affect hormone levels.
  • High-intensity workouts.
    Practicing yoga for weight loss is fantastic, but to get slim fast you’ll need to practice cardio exercises as well. In case you abide by the ‘only yoga’ policy, choose it’s more active and strength training oriented variations. Incorporating these asanas into your flows will boost them up.

Yoga is an incredible practice that can make you so much healthier and happier, that things like weight loss are just a pleasant bonus. Never hesitate to try it and you’re sure to fall in love.