Learning Yoga for Weight Loss

There has been such a growth in yoga over the last few years and it's really not surprising when you consider the benefits - but it's driven a lot of people to ask if they can use yoga for weight loss. When I first heard this in my local yoga class I laughed - but I had to admit I was interested so I started to do some reading. It turns out it's huge and made me wish I'd known about it sooner.

Warning: Using weight loss requires a lot of work and healthy eating! It IS an amazing way to lose weight but this is NOT a rubbish 'lose weight quick' junk idea trying to rip people off. There really is no magic button which does everything you want over night. If you want to lose weight you'll want to work for it and this is by far the best way to do that. Using yoga for weight loss allows you to learn while gaining all of the additional benefits of yoga plus it's a fun and enjoyable method of weight loss.

Now, if you've practiced yoga before you'll know this, yoga can be a workout. It can be a terrific workout. Especially if you practice something something like Bikram or Ashtanga yoga - you really leave exhasusted. I think the media has given a very poor view of how hard yoga can actually be but you learn soon enough.

Yoga has a lot of great benefits. It's a great way to improve overall health and can be practiced at home or in groups (or both of course). Practicing yoga at a normal rate can indeed lose you weight, an average bikram session will burn around 500 calories, but it's when you start stepping it up and properly using yoga for weight loss that you'll see results. Yoga can be combined with something else like a regular cardio working out cycling (just for example) or you can do it on it's own, it's more than enough.

The basic procedure for most yoga class members is to go once or twice a month, perhaps once a week if they're trying. In order to use yoga for weight loss you need to increase this number to several times a week. If you can't always make it to the class this often then, not to worry, just make yourself enough space at home and maybe pick up a yoga mat for a few bucks.

Now that you're practicing yoga more often there's only one step left, hold those poses longer! Easy you might think if you've never been to a yoga class before - oh crap you're thinking if you have. Poses can be easy to learn and get into but holding it is where the workout 'burn' comes in. However long your trainer wants you to hold that pose, double it. When everyone else is slacking off and having that long rest you keep going and switch right into the next one. As with any weight loss, to use yoga for weight loss you need to get that heart rate up!