Hot yoga enthusiasts often tout that you can lose over 1,000 calories by performing a 90-minute session. In this specially designed workout, you perform 26 poses at a temperature of 105 degrees Fahrenheit. However, while you may lose a lot of water weight from sweating, you won't burn that many calories. Nevertheless, hot yoga can be a good form of aerobic exercise, which, when combined with a balanced diet, contributes to weight loss.
Weight Loss Basics
The only way to lose fat is to burn more calories than you consume. Of course, you can always trick the scale by sweating out water weight, but as soon as you consume liquids, you'll gain it all back. The real key to weight loss is to eat fewer calories and burn more through daily activity, especially aerobic exercise, which burns a high amount of calories in a short time. A pound of fat equals 3,500 calories, so you need to burn an extra 500 to 1,000 calories per day to lose 1 to 2 lbs. of fat per week, which is considered a healthy rate.
What is Hot Yoga?
Hot yoga is also known as Bikram yoga because it was developed by a yogi named Bikram Choudhury. He devised a series of 26 poses that he claimed were scientifically designed to stretch one's muscles in the most effective order. It is performed at high temperatures to loosen the muscles and encourage flexibility. Hot yoga is also supposed to flush toxins, promote circulation, improve your respiratory system, benefit arthritis and reduce the symptoms of diabetes or thyroid problems. However, no scientific evidence exists to support these claims, and in fact, exposing yourself to high heat for 90 minutes can lead to dehydration, heat stroke, seizures and hyponatremia, which is dangerously low sodium levels.
Calories Burned in Hot Yoga
Bikram yoga is a fast-moving aerobic exercise, so it does raise your heart rate to a fat-burning level. While you won't burn thousands of calories, you may burn up to 800 or 900, depending on your current weight. A 150-pound woman will burn about 700 calories performing hot yoga for 90 minutes, according to the calorie counter from Health Status, and a 130-pound woman will burn about 620 calories. You would need to weigh over 200 pounds to burn 1,000 calories in hot yoga. In addition, you would burn more than 100 additional calories jogging at only 5 miles per hour, contrary to claims that hot yoga burns just as many calories as running.
Hot Yoga vs. Other Types of Yoga
Because Bikram yoga is fast-paced, it is much more effective at burning calories than hatha yoga, which is relatively slow and easy. A 130-pound woman would only burn around 240 calories doing hatha yoga for 90 minutes. Doing ashtanga or power yoga for 90 minutes, she would burn about 450 calories, and doing vinyasa yoga, she would burn just over 770 calories. These numbers vary slightly depending on your actual weight; you can use a calorie calculator to determine exactly how much you would burn. Be careful when choosing your hot yoga class, as some hot yoga classes aren't actually Bikram classes. Depending on the type of class, you may burn fewer calories. Remember, burning calories is the key to losing weight -- not sweating.
References
- Health Status: Calories Burned Calculator
- Bikram Yoga: About Bikram Yoga
- "Yale Daily News"; Bikram Yoga: The Bad and the Ugly; Rebecca Stern; Feb. 2011
- "Women's Health"; Benefits of Yoga: Does Yoga Really Burn Fat?; Vicki Glembocki; June 2011
- ABC-of-Yoga.com: Bikram Yoga
- Fitsugar; You Asked: Does Sweating Mean You're Burning More Calories?; May 2008
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