How Yoga Can Help You Reach Your Weight Loss Goal
Do the numbers on your scale refuse to budge despite your new diet and exercise plan? If you're struggling to lose weight, incorporating yoga into your weight loss routine could help you shed those extra pounds.
Ways Yoga Can Help You Lose Weight
Yoga is about much more than increasing flexibility and stamina, although you'll certainly enjoy those benefits. Adding yoga offers a multi-pronged approach to weight loss and can help you:
Boost Your Willpower
It's hard to ignore that little voice in your head telling you that just one potato chip or piece of candy won't hurt. Unfortunately, one piece can soon become five pieces if you struggle with cravings. Learning and eventually perfecting yoga poses offers a sense of accomplishment and confidence that could help you ignore those cravings.
You'll also improve your confidence and willpower with meditation, an essential part of your yoga practice. Meditation frees your mind of negative thoughts that may affect your ability to lose weight and induces a sense of calm determination that empowers you to stick to your diet and exercise plan.
Burn Calories
Yoga, no matter what type you practice, could help you reach your weight loss goals. Although it might seem that only the more strenuous forms of yoga, like power yoga and vinyasa, would be effective for weight loss, that's not true, according to one yoga study.
Fifty adults practiced either hatha yoga or vinyasa yoga during a six-month study partially funded by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. Vinyasa yoga involves constant movement, while hatha yoga involves holding poses for longer periods and slowly transitioning between poses. Researchers discovered that people in both groups lost significant weight while improving heart and lung health. In addition to yoga, the study's weight loss program also included dietary changes and behavioral strategies.
Make Healthy Choices
Yoga improves body awareness, which helps you become more in tune with your body's movements and sensations. When you're more aware of your body and the ways your actions affect your health and appearance, prioritizing exercise and healthy snacks and meals becomes easier.
Lower Your Stress Level
Americans are feeling more stressed than ever. The American Psychological Association reports that the number of people 18 - 34 reporting a high level of stress increased from 26% in 2019 to 34% in 2023. Other age groups had similar increases.
Is eating your way of coping with stress? You may struggle to reach your weight loss goal if you don't reduce your stress level. Yoga poses ease the physical effects of stress, such as tight muscles and headaches, while meditation and yogic breathing calm your mind. Yoga prompts your body to release endorphins, hormones that ease stress naturally, relieve pain, and improve your mood. Serotonin, another hormone released during yoga sessions, induces a natural calming effect.
You don't have to spend weeks or months practicing yoga to notice these stress-busting effects. According to a systematic review published in Stress & Health in 2023, a single yoga session can reduce acute stress sensitivity in adults.
Sleep Better
Feeling tired during the day isn't the only downside of poor sleep. The less you sleep, the more likely you'll overeat and reach for high-calorie foods. Yoga not only helps you control cravings but also helps you get the sleep you need. Endorphins and serotonin released during yoga sessions help you feel calm, relaxed and ready for sleep. If you struggle with insomnia or poor sleep quality, a yoga session before bed may offer the perfect way to wind down naturally.
Feel Supported
It's easier to succeed in your weight loss goals if you know others are rooting for you. Yoga classes offer a supportive and encouraging environment that will empower you to reach your goals. A qualitative study published in Evidence-Based and Complementary Medicine in 2016 revealed that the impact of the yoga community and yoga culture, in addition to healthy eating and exercise, may play a role in weight loss.
Let yoga help you reach your weight loss goals. Contact our studio to learn more about our classes.
Sources:
American Psychological Association: Stress in America 2023, 11/2023
https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2023/collective-trauma-recovery
Stress & Health: Effect of a Single Session of Yoga and Meditation on Stress Reactivity: A Systematic Review, 10/11/2023
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/smi.3324
NCCIH: Study Sees Beneficial Role of Yoga in Weight-Loss Program for Adults With Obesity or Overweight, 2/2/2021
NCBI: Evidence-Based and Complementary Medicine: A Different Weight Loss Experience: A Qualitative Study Exploring the Behavioral, Physical, and Psychosocial Changes Associated with Yoga That Promote Weight Loss, 8/10/2016