Ann Pizer about.com
Question: Will doing yoga help me lose weight?
Doing yoga regularly offers many benefits, including making you feel better about your body as you become stronger and more flexible, toning your muscles, reducing stress, and improving your mental and physical well-being. But will it help you lose weight?
Answer: Practicing any type of yoga will build strength, but some types may not raise your heart rate enough to make them the only form of exercise you need to include in your weight loss regime. It depends on the type of yoga you select and how frequently you practice it.
In order to lose weight, you must eat healthily and burn calories by doing exercise that raises your heart rate on a regular basis. Some types of yoga, such as Iyengar, in which yoga poses are held for several minutes with a resting period between each pose, will build muscles and improve your posture, but will not give you the cardiovascular workout you need to lose weight.
If you plan to make yoga your primary form of exercise, you must do a vigorous 90-minute yoga class at least three times a week. Many people also choose to combine yoga with running, walking or other aerobic exercise in order to reach their weight loss goals.
What Kind of Yoga Will Help Me Lose Weight?
The type of yoga you need to do is called vinyasa or flow yoga. This style of yoga is based on the performance of a series of poses called sun salutations. Vinyasa includes many popular, athletic and sweat-drenched yoga styles. For weight loss purposes, try:
Ashtanga:
Ashtanga Yoga is a very vigorous style of practice with a few distinct advantages for those who want to lose weight. Ashtanga practitioners are among the most dedicated of yogis, and beginners are often encouraged to sign up for a series of classes, which will help with motivation. Another advantage is that once you learn the poses, Ashtanga Yoga is ideal for home practitioners.
Power Yoga:
Power Yoga is extremely popular, because it provides a very vigorous cardiovascular workout.
Hot Yoga:
Vinyasa yoga done in a hot room ups the ante by guaranteeing you’ll sweat buckets.
Keep in mind that if you are just starting to do yoga, are very overweight, or are quite out of shape, always choose a beginner-level class.
Yoga Workouts at Home
Keep yourself exercising by doing yoga at home on the days you can’t make a class. Follow along with a video or audio recording if you are new to yoga. When you are ready to plan your own workouts, use these yoga sequencing ideas to help you come up with yoga sessions of varying lengths that will fit your schedule.
Yoga Howto
Will doing yoga help me lose weight?
Benefits of Yoga
Scientists today ascertain that the intrinsic organic health of a human being is of prime importance along with the outer development of the body. This was realized thousands of years ago by the ancient Indian yogis. The practice of yoga has a substantial foundation in science. Yogic asanas accelerate blood circulation in the body and Pranayama abates carbon dioxide content ensuring sound health. Yoga provides all-round benefits to a human being:
To maintain the purity of blood and elimination of toxins, both outer and inner cleanliness is indispensable. Scientists prescribe sun-bath, steam-bath, shower-bath, air-bath and to this the yogis include the nasal cleansing (neti), stomach wash (dhouti), the depuration of the alimentary canal (basti), the purgation of the intestines, the bladder, and the sexual organs (vajroli).
Yoga exercises have a strengthening effect on the nervous system through its non-tiring physiological activities that bring about poise of body and mind. Unlike the normal workouts that concentrate more on the inflation of the muscles, Yoga takes care of every little part of the anatomy.
Yoga is much more than “a new-found ability to touch your toes.” Asanas have an all-pervading effect on the physical and mental functioning of the body:
Physical – Through healing, strengthening, stretching and relaxing the skeletal, muscular, digestive, cardio-vascular, glandular and nervous systems.
Mental – Through the cultivation of a quite and a peaceful mind, alertness and concentration.
Spritual – By preparing for meditation.
Yoga in the Scriptures
There are lots of references to Yoga in Hindu scriptures, especially in the Gita, the Upanishads and other Puranas. Here’s a selection of quotations from Sanskrit literature, which try to define or qualify Yoga:
The Bhagavad Gita
“Yoga is skill in actions.”
“Yoga is balance (samatva).”
“Yoga is known as the disconnection (viyoga) of the connection (samyoga) with suffering.”
Yoga-Sûtra
“Yoga is the control of the whirls of the mind.”
Yoga-Bhâshya
“Yoga is ecstasy (samâdhi).”
Maitrî-Upanishad
“Yoga is said to be the oneness of breath, mind, and senses, and the abandonment of all states of existence.”
Yoga-Yâjnavalkya
“Yoga is the union of the individual psyche (jîva-âtman) with the transcendental Self (parama-âtman).”
Yoga-Bîja
“Yoga is the unification of the web of dualities (dvandva-jâla).”
Brahmânda-Purâna
“Yoga is said to be control.”
Râja-Mârtanda
“Yoga is the separation (viyoga) of the Self from the earthly (prakriti).”
Yoga-Shikhâ-Upanishad
“Yoga is said to be the unity of exhalation and inhalation and of blood and semen, as well as the union of sun and moon and of the individual psyche with the transcendental Self.”
Katha-Upanishad
“This they consider Yoga: the steady holding of the senses.”