Did You Know That When You Do Yoga, You Burn Calories?

Practicing yoga can help you burn calories efficiently and without the risk of injury. Although you should always combine it with a healthy and balanced diet for best results.

Yoga is an increasingly popular discipline among men and women who seek to take care of themselves and find a balance between body and mind. However, many people wonder if doing  yoga also helps you lose weight.

Discover in this article the relationship between yoga and weight loss. We are going to give you the keys to find out if, through this exercise, you will be able to burn calories efficiently.

Why choose yoga as a sport?

Yoga can be ideal as a physical activity. This practice respects the limits of the body and does not overload muscles or joints.

For this reason, it is no coincidence that millions of people of all age groups choose yoga as a method of performing physical exercises. In addition to the emotional and mental balance that yoga provides, it also serves to tone muscles and strengthen joints.

Through this discipline, we achieve elasticity, physical strength, balance, focus, endurance, energy and relaxation. In addition, you will be able to avoid possible injuries, because it is a technique that is based on flexibility and does not involve any sudden movement.

Therefore, practicing yoga for burning calories is an effective and risk-free option. This sport will help you lose weight gradually, while strengthening your physical capacities and developing your inner strength.

Calories depend on the type of yoga

Yoga, like any physical activity, involves calorie expenditure. However, there are many types of yoga that are quite different from each other. Some focus more on relaxation, meditation, and breathing.

On the other hand, others are more dynamic, and put more flexibility and resistance to work through certain positions and movements.

If you are looking for a sport that involves greater energy expenditure, you can choose a more active yoga. If what you need is relaxation to combat anxiety or nervousness, you can adopt a more introspective type of yoga instead.

On the other hand, you will need to assess what is preventing you from losing weight to opt for one or the other type of yoga.

Yoga postures, also called asanas, are exercises that unite the body and the mind. There are many yoga positions out there and each one benefits specific parts of the body. While some of them may seem easy, each has its own level of difficulty. However, most of these poses are mastered with a lot of practice and patience.

As you progress in this practice, discover the best yoga exercises to lose weight the easy way. These exercises burn fat and build muscle at the same time. In addition, they improve emotional well-being and help control anxiety that leads to overeating.

Yoga exercises for weight loss have become one of the preferred alternatives for people who want to lose weight or fight against being overweight.

It is interesting to know a specific variety of yoga called Bikram Yoga. This type of yoga is practiced in a room that is maintained at a temperature of 42 ° C.

The goal is to increase sweating and speed up the heart rate to burn more calories. In addition, this temperature reduces the risk of possible injury.

Food is also fundamental

If you are looking to burn calories, in addition to playing sports several times a week, you should also pay attention to your diet.

Today, counting calories is a somewhat outdated method that is not always effective and also causes a lot of frustration and anxiety.

The way to burn more calories is precisely not to cut all calories. Low-calorie diets accustom the body to spending less energy. If you follow these diets, you will have a harder time losing weight and you will most likely suffer from the opposite effect when you quit.

Nutritionists are betting more and more on a healthy and natural diet to lose weight with common sense and without rebound effect. For this, instead of focusing on calories, you should instead follow the following tips:

• Increase the consumption of plant foods : salads, juices, smoothies, etc. Vegetables have the particularity of making our body burn more calories when it digests. We therefore recommend that you follow a diet rich in vegetables, both raw and cooked.
• Always choose whole foods high in fiber and avoid refined foods.
• Cut out the sugar and replace it with healthy, natural sweeteners like honey, stevia, or coconut sugar.
• Reduce the consumption of industrial products and, if possible, cook fresh and natural products yourself.
• Don’t eliminate all fat from your diet. Some fats activate the metabolism and perform functions in our body instead of accumulating in different parts of our body.
  You should choose the ones that are of good quality and beneficial, such as olive oil, coconut oil, nuts, ghee, blue fish, etc.

Tips for increasing calorie expenditure

Finally, we recommend some guidelines for activating your metabolism and, therefore, increasing calorie expenditure :

• Drink two liters of water a day, on an empty stomach and without food. Drinking water increases the metabolism, which is responsible for regulating energy expenditure. Plus, this good habit will also help you flush fluids and toxins from your body.
  So this is the first tip to burn more calories and lose weight more easily.
• Avoid sitting for too long and get up at least every hour.
• Incorporate spices in your diet, such as cayenne pepper and ginger. Ginger, like cayenne pepper, is a great metabolic enhancer that you can include in your diet.
  Add these spices to your diet gradually, otherwise you may suffer from stomach discomfort. In addition, these spices improve digestion and promote the elimination of liquids.
• Shower with cold or lukewarm water. However, if you do, you should still avoid the head area.
• Rest the hours you need and sufficient during the night. If you get little sleep, your nervous system will deteriorate and you will have more appetite due to the lack of energy.
  Conversely, if you sleep too much, you will lower your metabolism and burn fewer calories. Besides, you will also feel much more tired.
• Fight stress in different ways. The practice of yoga is very beneficial in relieving stress. It allows you to better manage all thoughts and allow yourself a moment for yourself.
  This will allow you to escape the daily stress and completely relax.
• You shouldn’t skip any meals during the day, especially breakfast. You should at least make the three main meals. Also, if you want, you can eat something mid-morning and mid-afternoon.
  Eating several meals a day is a good habit for people who want to increase their energy expenditure.
• Increase protein consumption, always respecting the balance between vegetable and animal proteins.
• Exercise regularly to tone your muscles.
• You can drink green tea and coffee, but in a moderate way.

People who are bent on weight loss diets tend to focus all of their attention on calories from foods as if this is the most reliable way to control their diet for weight loss.
However, more and more studies show that planning our diet is a wrong and harmful way of doing things. In this article, we’ll tell you why. Remember to include fiber in your diet to eliminate anything your body doesn’t need.
In addition, they give you a feeling of fullness that prevents you from overeating. Find out in this article why you should stop counting calories if you want to lose weight.