Yoga postures to lose weight
Patthabhi Jois, a famous Indian yoga teacher, has been repeating this mantra all his life!
If everything comes from practicing yoga, would it be good for weight loss?
If you have already tried all the tips to lose weight, if you are unable to diet for more than a few weeks or if you want to exercise for fat loss, chances are that you will find your happiness in practicing yoga to lose weight permanently.
Some figures on overweight
Many people are considered obese. Excess weight continues to increase regardless of age. Fast food, saturated fats, ready meals, people are eating more and more poorly and cooking less and less healthy. They are becoming more and more sedentary: one adult in two does not practice physical activity.
World Health Organization recommends physical activity equivalent to 10,000 steps a day, yet 75% of people do not take them. What is even more worrying is that it is the youngest who are the first victims of this inactivity.
Thus, 18-24 year olds practice less physical activity than 55-64 year olds. More office work, more screen-based leisure activities, more motorized travel... The evolution is not always good.
However, excess fat mass can have significant consequences and cause many pathologies: cardiovascular disease, diabetes, joint problems, respiratory problems, depression or cancers of several types, particularly liver, uterus or breast cancer. Obesity remains a major health problem.
How can you lose weight when you don't like sports? The practice of yoga can be a good alternative to lose thighs, lose hips and reach your ideal weight.
Do you need to lose weight?
This is THE question to ask yourself before starting a diet!
Do you want to lose weight or do you need to lose fat? It's not the same thing!
Indeed, the first proposition is probably influenced by the dictates of society. We find ourselves too fat compared to the image that the mirror reflects back to us and compared to the models in magazines.
The second proposal is more dependent on a major health problem. It is necessary to lose weight because our health is in danger. To get an idea, the important thing is to calculate your BMI for Body Mass Index.
Sites allow you to quickly calculate it by entering its size and weight. Here is the official classification of the WHO (World Health Organization):
• Less than 16: anorexia or undernutrition
• Between 16.5 and 18.5: thinness
• Between 18.5 and 25: normal corpulence
• Between 25 and 30: overweight
• Between 30 and 35: moderate obesity
• Between 35 and 40: high obesity
• Above 40: morbid or massive obesity
If a BMI is between 18.5 and 25, the corpulence is normal. There is no need to go on a drastic diet if you want to lose three or four "extra" kilos. Practicing physical activity keeps you in good shape!
If the BMI is greater than 25, it is more or less overweight. Consulting a doctor and/or a nutritionist is the best thing to do to find out where this overweight comes from and how to correct it.
Overweight can have several causes:
• A diet that is too rich: a nutrition advisor will be able to give advice on how to reduce your fat intake and improve the quality of your diet,
• Stress: Yoga can particularly help you relax so that you no longer store bad fats and eliminate calories,
• Lack of physical exercise and a too sedentary life: walking, running, yoga... There are many solutions to reduce your body fat!
Does yoga make you lose weight?
We're getting there! So does yoga make you lose weight and can it help you lose unnecessary kilos? YES! In general!
Indeed, yoga consists of a sequence of physical postures (asana) more or less tonic and at a more or less fast pace. So of course, we will move, tone ourselves, strengthen our muscles and de-stress!
Yoga can help you get back in shape or keep it!
When you're looking to lose weight, one aspect is very important: pleasure! If we don't enjoy yoga, we won't be motivated, we'll go backwards and we risk not reaching our weight loss goals.
Yoga helps to firm up and sculpt your body. It can be very useful if you want to have a flat stomach! But yoga is much more than just physical exercise!
If a person has serious overweight problems, practicing yoga alone will of course not be enough. More cardio activity will be needed to burn the fat that has accumulated. But it can help to de-stress and accept oneself by working on the mental aspect of yoga instead.
To lose more than 10 kg, it is important to be followed by a professional. The practice of yoga can however help a lot in addition to a more intense physical activity.
Yoga won't make you lose weight quickly, but its benefits are proven to help you lose weight, work on your abs, reduce the orange peel appearance or build muscle evenly.
Yoga's gentle muscle-building exercises combined with a balanced diet can give significant results for effective weight loss.
Which style of yoga should I prefer?
There are several styles of yoga. All forms of yoga are based on breathing and harmony between body and mind.
But if one is put off by the slow aspect that yoga often inspires, there are more dynamic styles such as Ashtanga or Vinyasa which are particularly effective in helping to burn calories and to refine oneself.
These forms of yoga also help to eliminate accumulated toxins and to better listen to your body and its signals of hunger and satiety.
In addition, many yoga postures help to regulate the activity of the adrenal glands and thyroid gland, which help to regulate our metabolism.
We can also try Bikram Yoga if there are no contraindications that prevent us from doing so. It is a question of practicing hatha yoga (the most common form) in a room heated to 40° and having a humidity level of 40% in order to facilitate the elimination of toxins.
Bikram classes generally last 1h30 and are made up of a series of 26 poses and two breathing exercises. It is mandatory to consult a doctor before starting to practice this form of yoga.
If the practice of Bikram yoga should be limited to one or two sessions per week, to lose weight quickly, daily practice of yoga at home can be a good point.
Finally, daily yoga practice can be complemented by yoga classes in the gym or with a teacher at home:
• vinyasa yoga,
• ashtanga yoga,
• prenatal yoga,
• of sophrology,
• positive thinking exercises,
• mindfulness meditation.
Yoga for weight loss: which postures should be favored?
Combined with a healthy diet, consisting mainly of fruits and vegetables, fiber and few carbohydrates, yoga can help you lose weight and especially lose your stomach.
Pay attention to your general health before starting the exercises that follow.
If in doubt, call a yoga professional who will be able to advise you and help you do the exercises without risk of injury.
Here are a few postures to practice that specifically target the belly!
Bhujang Asana
Contraindications: back problems, cervical problems, hernia.
This posture strengthens the abs and reduces abdominal fat. It also strengthens the spine and the back.
• Lie on your stomach, legs stretched out,
• Place the palms of your hands on the floor below your shoulders,
• Inhale and lift the chest slowly,
• Hold the position two full breaths,
• Rest the whole body on the floor on the exhalation,
• Repeat 5 times with a rest period of 15 seconds between each repetition.
Dhanurasana
Contraindications: back problems, cervical problems, hernia.
This posture reinforces the abdominal strap. It activates the digestive system and is a good stretching of the back.
• Lie on your stomach, legs stretched out,
• Bend your knees and grab your ankles with your hands,
• Raise your head on inspiration while looking ahead so as not to hurt your neck and lift your legs as high as possible,
• Maintain this position two full breaths while breathing normally,
• Bring the body back to its initial position on an exhalation,
• Repeat 5 times with a rest period of 15 seconds between each repetition.
Naukasana
One of the best postures for a flat stomach. It also has benefits for the stomach and strengthens the back and legs.
• Lie on your back,
• On one breath, raise your legs straight,
• Catch his legs with his hands at the calves (knees if it's too difficult),
• Make sure to keep your back straight and abdominal muscles tight so as not to hurt yourself,
• Breathe normally and keep the pose on two full breaths,
• On an expiration, return to the initial position,
• Repeat 5 times with a 15-second pause between each repetition.
Kumbhakasana
Contraindication: shoulder injury.
The best posture to keep a flat belly and to tone up the whole body! It invigorates the arms, the shoulders, the back, the buttocks and the thighs!
• Lie on your stomach,
• Place your hands on each side of your shoulders and push yourself off the floor,
• The hands must be in line with the shoulders, the body must form a straight line from the top of the skull to the tips of the toes,
• Be careful not to dig in the back,
• Maintain the position as long as possible while breathing normally,
• Release on exhalation.
Pavanamuktasana
This posture relieves lower back pain while regulating the stomach's acidity level. It tones the abdomen and hips.
• Lie on your back,
• Bend his knees and bring them back to the chest on the exhalation,
• Exercise pressure on the abdomen with your thighs,
• On an exhalation, raise your head to try to touch your knees with your chin, without forcing on the cervical vertebrae, it is the upper back that works,
• Breathe deeply and hold for two full breaths,
• Resume the initial position on an expiration,
• Repeat 5 times with a 15-second pause between each repetition.
With regular practice of these five postures, results should not be long in coming!
A Healthy Mind in a Healthy Body: Yoga for weight loss
The benefits of yoga are numerous (and not only to keep your figure):
• Gain flexibility
• Managing stress
• Learning meditation
• Enjoying an activity at home
• Improve concentration
Losing weight with anti-stress yoga
Yoga helps to manage stress. Many stressed people gain weight. If stress spoils the appetite of some, it sharpens the appetite of others.
We are stressed, so we eat and put on weight. Regular practice of any form of yoga will reduce stress levels.
We are more relaxed and we no longer need to snack between meals to evacuate this excess stress.
Yoga can also improve the quality of your sleep. This is intimately linked to stress. A stressed person will sleep less well.
A few meditation and/or yoga exercises before going to sleep can reduce stress levels and thus improve the quality of sleep.
It is no longer difficult to fall asleep, you no longer wake up at night and when the alarm clock rings, you are no longer tired.
Harmony as a goal
Well beyond a sport, yoga is above all a philosophy of life and introducing it into your daily life can change a lot of things. You feel better in your head and therefore in your skin. To try yoga is to adopt it in your lifestyle.
You'll see, no matter how much you say to yourself "meditation is not for me", "yoga is too slow, I need to let off steam" or "I don't like this link with the spiritual", you generally adopt little by little all the facets of yoga provided you are initiated correctly.
The goal is harmony between body and mind. Even if you have more than 10 kilos to lose, you will see that after a few sessions of yoga, those kilos that used to ruin your life will seem more superfluous.
The practice of yoga is not a competition, all the teachers will tell you: neither with others nor with yourself. The ultimate goal is not to succeed in doing all the postures, to lose X kilos or to reach your limits, the goal is to make peace with yourself in order to live better with yourself.
Using a specialized sports coach to lose weight
Of course, yoga can be practiced at home, without the help of anyone, but when you start, you sometimes need a push to get motivated.
Why a sports coach specializing in yoga? Hiring a yoga sports coach can be a very good solution whether you need :
• Lose weight from the belly,
• Lose weight from the thighs,
• Lose weight in the arms,
• Losing hips,
• Lose weight from the buttocks,
• Refine your riding breeches,
• Lose weight on the face,
• Lose cellulite.
The advantage of a sports coach is above all that he also has another training other than that of yoga.
If he considers that you need more physical exercises to lose weight quickly, he will be able to give you some advice in this sense and make you do skipping rope, cardio exercises, sheathing, pilates or muscle strengthening as a complement to yoga.
A sports coach specialized in yoga will have more knowledge of the body and more openness to other practices than a regular sports coach. It is for this reason that we advise to seek the two competences at only one person.
Adopting a healthy diet
We also advise you to choose a sports coach with knowledge in nutrition. He will be able to give you advice on how to lose weight through dieting on :
• Calories per day that you need to ingest,
• Rich foods that you must banish,
• An effective appetite suppressant for afternoon cravings,
In addition to concocting a customized sports program, he will be able to make you an adapted slimming program so that you have a dream body (according to your own criteria).
The coach as a source of motivation
A coach is also a good way to motivate yourself.
Alone at home, you often tend to give up your good resolutions quite quickly, whereas a teacher who gives you lessons once or twice a week, you can't cut it!
There is no way to get out of it, you will have to do the exercises he gives you.
Some additional tips
Green tea is an excellent anti-oxidant,
Green vegetables have a low glycemic index,
Meal substitutes should be banned: they are generally rich in sugar or salt,
White meat is less caloric than red meat,
Drinking a lot of water cuts off small hungers,
Avoid fast sugars in the morning and prefer salty and fatty foods such as eggs and wholemeal bread,
Ban diets! High-protein diet, Dukan, cabbage soup... None of them have been proven and hello the yo-yo effect. The key is a balanced diet, neither too rich nor too poor, and regular physical activity to be in shape.
Ask our sports coaches, they'll tell you all about it!
Yoga to motivate yourself to exercise
The practice of yoga is one of the least restrictive sports practices. All you need is a yoga mat, a little space and a little time. That's why yoga is the ideal practice for those who don't want to engage in a too complicated and time-consuming sport.
Yoga is therefore a good compromise for people who want to lose weight through exercise but don't want to join a club. Motivation may be easier to achieve and the results more visible.
Starting yoga can also be the start of a new passion for sport. Perhaps you will continue by joining a sports club!
Fasting and Yoga for Weight Loss
In many workshops and classes, yoga is associated with fasting, a form of diet whose concept is to deprive oneself of food for a given period of time, more or less long.
Fasting is seen by yogis as a way to purify not only one's body but also one's mind. Fasting then makes it possible to pause the digestive system in order to give it some respite.
Fasting is therefore a rather common practice among yoga practitioners, and can be very effective for weight loss.
However, fasting must be done with the supervision of a health professional in order to avoid putting oneself in danger. Moreover, we will only talk here about intermittent fasting. What is this fasting?
This dietary process requires not eating high calorie foods for several hours during the day or several hours during the week. Unlike conventional fasting, which can last a week or more, intermittent fasting only lasts for short periods of time.
Is fasting really effective for weight loss? How does it work?
In order to do this, it is necessary to understand how the body works. When a person eats more calories than they expend, their body must store this energy for later use. This is particularly the case with sugar, which is stored in this way thanks to insulin.
The body makes its reserves and these reserves are then transformed into fat which is then distributed throughout the body. Your body can use this energy when it needs it.
However, if you always provide your body with a stock of energy, your body cannot draw from its resources, and therefore from its stock of fat. The fat then remains where it is.
The purpose of fasting is therefore to make your body go and get these sources of stored energy in order to eliminate them.
By alternating periods of fasting and periods of nutrition, the body can actually use all the stored fat without building up too many reserves.
Intermittent fasting can be done in different ways. Here are a few examples:
• Fasting 12-12 consists of missing lunch and eating only breakfast and dinner. The body does not absorb any food (other than water) for 12 hours.
• Fasting 16-8 consists of fasting for 16 hours and then eating for the next 8 hours. Thus, it is possible to stop eating in the evening at 8:00 pm and then resume the eating process at 12:00 pm the next day for lunch.
• Fasting 20-4 is a little more complicated. It consists of not eating for a period of 20 hours and then using the last 4 hours to eat. It is necessary to be accompanied because not eating for 20 hours can have consequences on your concentration for example.
• The fast of the day. This fast consists of not eating all day long. It can be done every other day, or one day per week. It allows you to purify your body before returning to a normal eating rhythm.
Regardless of the fast chosen, it is essential to be followed by a nutritionist to avoid risks. Don't go on your own, especially if you have some health problems.
To channel your hunger during periods of fasting, yoga will help you focus on other parts of your body. It is truly a winning combo.
To start you can sign up for a yoga and fasting course. You will be followed throughout the week, without risk
In summary
You don't have to go on any trendy diet to lose weight! Eating a healthy and varied diet and exercising are often enough to keep your weight in shape.
Yoga is not a magical practice for losing weight, but it is useful for toning the body and building muscles harmoniously.
In addition to helping you lose weight, yoga is a natural anti-depressant. It will help you evacuate your stress and negative thoughts. The vicious circle stress-nibble-kilos is broken, hello virtuous circle yoga-balanced diet-healthy body!
A sports coach specialized in yoga will also be able to provide you with nutritional advice and a complement of more intense physical activities.
Be careful not to hurt yourself while practicing the proposed postures. Do not hesitate to call on our Superprofs to take a yoga class. They are available everywhere in France and are available at home or at your workplace!