If you are new to yoga you might be skeptical about its weight loss benefits. Besides helping you lose weight, yoga also helps you be mindful of your food choices. It can improve your health in numerous ways.

People gain back weight when they follow fad diets as they lose motivation to continue. Another downside to these diets is that they are nutritionally deficient. Yoga, on the other hand, can help you manage your weight. Losing and maintaining weight is easy with the right combination of asanas, pranayamas, mudras, and meditation techniques.

Be in Tune With Your Body

The calories you burn during yoga vary from one session to another. It burns from 180 to 360 per hour, depending on the type of yoga you incorporate into your regime. Yoga practices such as Vinyasa, Power Yoga, Astanga can accelerate the fat-burning process.  This type of yoga can combine strength, flexibility, and cardio.

Deep breathing techniques can also flush out toxins, water weight and boost the mechanisms of the lymphatic system and organs. Also, you are more aware of the mechanisms of your body. The more focused you are, the more you will understand what your body is trying to tell you.

Less is More

It is not necessary to always include hardcore yoga to lose weight. Gentle and restorative yoga can also help you in losing weight. Yoga helps you move into a parasympathetic nervous system, which can regulate your breathing, digestion, and hormones. When you activate the parasympathetic nervous system, you balance your hormones, improve your digestion, and aid in weight loss. It is important to start slowly with gentle yoga to avoid injuries.

The Fat Burning Poses

Certain poses, or asanas, are particularly effective in calorie-burning and muscle-strengthening. It is because yoga speeds up the metabolism as it stimulates the endocrine glands that regulate the metabolic rate. A few of the poses that help in weight loss are the spinal twist, child’s poses, the cobra pose.

As it massages the abdomen, works on your internal organs, and helps indigestion. The downward dog poses are also greatly helpful in toning the hips and thighs. While you move ahead with fast-moving vinyasa or power yoga, you need to concentrate on your body, stretch your body, and move into the pose mindfully.

Your Weight Loss Goals

Yoga not just benefits your physical body, but also your overall well-being. Ask yourself, why do you want to lose weight. Is it to improve your self-image, boost your relationship goals or boost energy?

Whatever it is, fix a goal that can help reach your career goals, take the stairs or just finish your work without going out of breath. If you are improving your health, strengthening your lower back, even if you haven’t yet lost much weight you can applaud yourself for making progress.

Focus on Long-Term Results

Research shows that yoga can be particularly helpful in improving the health of the middle-aged. Overweight folks who have been practicing yoga for 10 years between ages 45 and 55 lost more than five pounds on average. And when you compare it to people who didn’t practice yoga gained about 14-pounds. It is mostly because yoga makes you more aware of whatever is happening in your body.  Yoga practitioners also promise a lower body mass index than the ones who did not practice. They also notice when they are full and will stop eating when stressed or bored.

Eat a Yoga Diet

A yoga diet, contains whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, beans and legumes, and a little dairy. It is a time-tested way to reach your ideal body weight and stay there. These foods can also nourish and balance the body, get rid of toxins, support the immune system, improve longevity, and improve the produce optimal health.

Stick to foods in their whole, natural form. This will balance nutrients that are best for you, regulate your appetite, improve satiety. Processed foods, on the other hand, can increase overeating.

Yoga is one of the best weight loss tools to incorporate. Besides helping you lose weight it also takes care of your body, mind, and soul. So, are you ready to explore the benefits of yoga to boost your overall well-being? Do let us know in the comments section!