People throughout the world practice yoga to improve their overall health and well-being, as well as to help in treating depression, anxiety, high blood pressure, stress, asthma and other medical conditions. Yoga can help you to lose weight, if you include it as one element in your diet and exercise plan. Daily yoga is generally safe for most healthy people, but you should still talk with your doctor before beginning the practice of yoga for weight loss.
Benefits
Because regular physical activity should be part of your weight-loss plan, practicing yoga each day can help you to lose weight, according to the Mayo Clinic. Yoga helps to burn calories, get you moving and physically active, boost your mood and improve your cholesterol and triglyceride profiles. All these things can help support healthy weight loss. Yoga supports fitness and appears to enhance your mind-body awareness, which can help support overall health and your ability to cope with stress, says the NIH National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, or NCCAM. Like tai chi and other similar stretching exercises, yoga can help you keep your muscles flexible as well, according to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
Types
There are many types of yoga, based on different traditions and teachings. Although all types of yoga can help support healthy weight loss in one way or another, certain more strenuous types may help you to burn more calories. For example, hatha and tantra yoga types are more physically oriented and involve more rigorous and challenging poses, while raja, karma, bhakti and jnana yoga focus on meditation and deep contemplation, says the University of Maryland Medical Center.
Considerations
Although yoga has many potential health benefits and can help you lose weight, it's not the ideal exercise for weight loss, the Mayo Clinic states. In fact, one hour of yoga will likely burn only 2/3 as many calories as one hour of aerobics. Reducing your caloric intake and consuming a healthy diet are just as essential to weight loss and physical activity. Yoga is considered more of a stretching type of exercise, instead of an aerobic or strength-training exercise that's more strongly associated with burning calories and weight loss, says the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Your best bet is to incorporate daily or weekly yoga into an exercise plan that also includes more strenuous aerobic activities like jogging, swimming or biking. This will help you to burn more calories and lose more weight.
Warning
Although yoga is widely considered safe for health individuals, you should consult your doctor before beginning any new diet or exercise plan for weight loss. Practice yoga only under a trained professional, and don't begin practicing yoga without first talking with your doctor if you're pregnant or if you have hypertension, a back injury, arthritis or heart disease, says the University of Maryland Medical Center. You'll likely experience some stiffness when you first begin practicing yoga, but see your physician if you begin to experience muscle cramps or pain in your joints, back or legs, and headaches or dizziness. Some yoga poses -- particularly inverted poses -- are unsafe for people who have severe osteoporosis, retinal detachment, glaucoma, low or high blood pressure, blood clot risks, ear disorders, spinal disc disease or cervical spondylitis, according to the NCCAM.
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