Many people try to push yoga as being some sort of miracle cure. It will magically make you lose weight fast and cure everything wrong with you.
While yoga is beneficial, and everyone should try it a couple of times to see if it works for them, it isn’t perfect. Yoga can do a lot, from helping your mental state to improving circulation and strengthening muscles.
One thing it isn’t, though, is a miracle fat burner. To burn fat, you have to eat in a calorie deficit and keep your heart rate up. For the most part, yoga doesn’t do that.
However, if you add it into an intensive exercise or make it into a HIIT workout, you can lose quite a bit of weight and burn fat over time.
Does Yoga Burn Fat?
For the most part, yoga is meant to help you to increase your endurance, strengthen your muscles, and improve your flexibility. Just doing yoga poses alone will not help you burn fat or improve your cardiovascular health.
However, it can help to provide you with a warm-up before other exercises to help you stretch. It can also strengthen your muscles so you can do other exercises more easily.
We aren’t saying it doesn’t burn any calories, but by itself, it won’t do much more for you than just walking around your house.
Instead, you have to be a bit more proactive with your yoga. Instead of doing slow, leisurely changes from one pose to the next, you have to look at adding in a cardiovascular element, namely switching from pose to pose quickly to get your heart pounding.
How Fast Can You Lose Weight with Yoga?
Yoga isn’t some miracle cure. It won’t let you lose body fat in just a few days, especially if you practice meditative yoga, where the movements are slow and controlled.
Things like Power Yoga or intensive yoga can help you to burn fat faster. However, you still shouldn’t expect a miracle cure. While it is a great exercise, it isn’t magically a better fat burner than any other exercise.
Instead, you should look at it as just another exercise. It may work better for you than others, but that doesn’t inherently make it better than any other fat-burning, cardiovascular exercise.
Can Yoga Change Your Body Shape?
Yoga can change your body shape over time. It allows you to work out muscles, increase flexibility, and provide additional core stability. This changes the way you stand and allows your muscles to work to the best of their ability.
Over time, as it slows down your body, it will also change shape that way. You will become leaner and more toned.
Again, it won’t happen instantly, but it will happen over time. Not only will you feel better, but standing, walking, and keeping your spine straight should all be a little easier.
How Often Should You Do Yoga to Lose Weight?
Like with any exercise, you should aim to do yoga about three to five times a week. If you do a variety of poses, you will work on all of your muscles and your heart, so it can be your sole form of exercise.
If you are doing yoga for meditation purposes as well, you can do it daily, but make sure two to four days are more calm exercises and slow stretches than intensive yoga so that your body has time to rest and recover.
Without recovery, your body will take longer to show the benefits of yoga, and you will often feel more sore and tired, and your muscles will be unable to take time to heal themselves.
Should You Just Do Yoga or Some Exercise as Well?
While you certainly can do just yoga, adding to it can help you as well. For example, if you are just doing calm yoga stretches that are more meditative, then doing other exercises to increase your heart rate are important, like running, HIIT, and biking.
However, if you are essentially using yoga as HIIT training, you can start with just that and increase intensity as you get better. Additionally, we would suggest just starting small. Don’t immediately do Power Yoga, bike, and weight training.
This is especially true if you are trying to get into exercise and haven’t done many structured workouts in the past. Throwing in too much at once will cause you to get overworked, tired more often, and sore.
Most people who throw on too much at once quit rather quickly. So if you are nervous or unsure, start with yoga. Do it slowly, to begin with, then increase the intensity. After that, if you feel like it, you can also add other exercises.
Final Thoughts on How Much Weight Can You Lose From Yoga
Yoga isn’t some miracle cure that will make everything better, but it has many benefits. Since it can increase flexibility and circulation and strengthen muscles, many people find that it helps them to feel better and may even reduce some chronic pain.
It also has benefits to the mood and mind, making your brain clearer and helping to eliminate some depressive symptoms. It can also help you lose weight, but only if you increase your intensity to keep your heart rate up.
You can certainly lose weight while doing yoga, but don’t expect to lose it faster than any other exercise. You also won’t burn much fat unless you increase your heart rate by doing the exercises correctly but quickly.