The Role of Yoga in Healthy and Sustainable Weight Loss
While yoga remains a spiritual practice for many people worldwide, it has also evolved into an exercise that enhances health and well-being. In fact, a 2022 study in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology cites several cardiovascular benefits to doing yoga. Compared with stretching exercises alone, incorporating yoga into an exercise training regimen reduces systolic blood pressure, resting heart rate, and the risk for cardiovascular disease.
But another benefit to yoga is its significant role in weight loss. Beyond simply burning calories through various poses and movements, yoga helps achieve and maintain a healthy weight through the following ways.
Yoga encourages mindful eating
A successful weight loss diet is more than just what you eat and how you eat. This is why on top of following Canada’s food guide for a varied diet, it’s also advisable to develop mindful eating habits, such as noticing your body’s natural cues for hunger and fullness. Yoga helps by making you pay attention to what your body and mind tell you as you hold poses for extended periods, ultimately cultivating mindfulness. By being more attuned to your mind-body connection, you can better adhere to a healthy diet and prevent common causes of weight gain like overindulgence and emotional eating.
Yoga builds and strengthens muscle
As previously mentioned, the physical benefits of yoga go beyond increasing your energy expenditure. A crucial aspect of healthy weight loss is shedding excess fat but gaining or maintaining lean muscle, which yoga offers by engaging your muscles in a full-body workout. For example, an upward plank is a well-rounded pose that uses the shoulders, core, hips, and legs muscles to keep your body balanced. Meanwhile, the boat pose helps you tone and build muscles in the pelvis, lower back, and abdomen. The longer you hold these poses, the greater the muscle strength and endurance you gain from practicing yoga.
Yoga can be paired with lifestyle modifications
An important thing to remember about doing yoga for weight loss is that it must work with other lifestyle modifications like a reduced-calorie diet and strength training. This is supported by research published in Obesity, stating that yoga participation five times a week while following a six-month behavioural intervention can promote significant weight loss. Thus, whether the type of yoga is restorative hatha or vinyasa yoga, pairing it with a weight loss program can lead to long-term results. WeightWatchers makes this possible by tailoring a food plan for each user and allowing them to plan meals, track food intake, and seek 24/7 support and coaching through an app.
Yoga relieves stress
Beyond diet and exercise, stress can also impact your ability to lose weight—whether it’s by raising your cortisol levels and thus slowing down metabolism or inducing stress-related behaviours like unhealthy eating. Yoga can be a powerful stress relief and management tool by incorporating deep breathing and meditation into each session. Moreover, a previous post citing the benefits of sound healing for mind and body relaxation shows how it can complement yoga for greater stress reduction and transformative effects. Yoga can help you manage stress levels to better adopt healthy eating, exercise, and sleeping habits throughout your weight loss journey.
YOGA CAN HELP WITH FERTILITY
Are you on a journey to conceive and seeking natural methods to boost your fertility? Look no further than the transformative power of yoga and Acupuncture. These two modalities are not only about physical strength and flexibility but also about harnessing the profound connection between mind, body, and spirit. Having a deeper connection within can help your body prepare mentally and physically for pregnancy. Learn more about Acupuncture for Fertility here.
Now that you know how multi-faceted yoga can be, you can get started integrating it into your weight loss plan with the help of Exhale Yoga Retreats. More than just practicing yoga on a mat and in a studio, we design yoga destination retreats in islands like Bali, Indonesia and Siargao, Philippines to help you explore deeper connections within a community.