Effective Yoga for Weight Loss: Melt Away the Pounds
Are you motivated to lose weight and become fitter, but find yourself craving junk food and sweets all the time? And do you find these indulgences working in the opposite direction of your weight loss journey? Do you find yourself constantly stress-eating and unable to stop? Do you feel motivated to exercise but can’t find poses that stick? If your answer to all these questions is yes, you’ve found the right article! Welcome to Day 1 of your weight loss journey.
Weight Loss → Fat Loss
Your first learning in your weight-loss journey should be that it’s not a weight-loss journey. It’s a journey of holistic development, on which you’ll learn about developing a healthier lifestyle. A bonus of this journey happens to be losing unwanted weight. The second thing you must remember is that you’re not trying to lose weight, you’re trying to lose the excess fat accumulated to develop your desired body image. Most weight loss methods that act quickly end up causing a reduction in muscle mass, which proves to be extremely harmful in the long run. This is why you must pick a sustainable exercise routine to lose fat; one that you can continue to use for a long time.
Dieting - Is It Really Necessary?
The two most significant factors you should consider while losing weight are dieting and exercise. While weight loss - or rather, fat loss - techniques can help you understand how to achieve your desired weight, they cannot determine exactly how much focus you should give to these factors to reach your destination. Each individual has different dietary needs and must follow a lifestyle tailored to them. Despite this need for personalization, a common practice that everyone can utilize to become “fitter,” is the active execution of Portion Control.
Studies have shown that a person eating larger portions consumes 295 more calories daily than someone following Portion Control; these extra calories significantly contribute to long-term weight gain. The essence of Portion Control lies in mindful and nutritious eating. With this mindful approach, you’re constantly aware of your eating needs and only eat when you feel hungry, instead of overeating or binge-eating while watching TV or scrolling through your phone. By including more nutrition in your meals, you ensure that just one plate contains all your nutritional requirements.
Exercising Daily - What Does It Do?
You might have wanted to completely skip the paragraph about food and jump straight to something that doesn’t depend on your mood cravings. Admittedly, the importance of regularly exercising during a fat-loss journey is quite significant. When you exercise daily, you’re not directly working on the fat, but healthily reforming your muscles. In this process of muscle toning, you burn the calories you eat in a very controlled and stable manner, which helps to reduce the level of fat in your body and exponentially enhances your standard of living. However, you should consider that this journey to become healthier is not just about melting away your extra pounds; it is the road to developing a holistic lifestyle you follow every day, which has benefits beyond losing weight.
Yoga can bring about huge positive changes in your life, even when you're losing weight. The divine conversion of your lifestyle through yoga helps you achieve harmony between your mind, body, and soul, enabling you to maximize your day and feel fulfilled throughout. With Yoga, you work on fixing your metabolism, reducing your stress, and developing the habit of being mindful, even while eating. Practicing yoga for weight loss with Habuild’s free 14-day yoga challenge eases you into a lifestyle filled with healthy practices.
The journey to weight loss requires patience, and you must remember that every small step counts. Celebrate each small victory and acknowledge how far you’ve come. You will get to where you want with patience and self-compassion which you’ll develop with regular yoga practice. Although general exercises for weight loss achieve the goal quickly, they drastically reduce your metabolism which can cause other health issues and adversely affect your overall health. This is why yoga asanas for weight loss take the crown; yoga poses follow the principle of slow and steady wins the race and, by performing even a few yoga exercises daily, you find yourself slowly but surely achieving your desired weight and the ideal lifestyle.
Beat Stress-Eating With the Power of Mind
As in all facets of human life, stress proves destructive when you try to keep your eating habits in check too. Being under constant stress can make your body activate an altered fight-or-flight mode which can lead you to consume more in the present moment under the possibility that you might not get food in the future. Your body stores the fats you consume for future use which can show up in your weight measurement.
Practicing meditation regularly can significantly lower your stress levels and play a crucial role in your quest to lose weight. Additionally, combining meditation with asanas can help you release cumulated stress with ease and bring about mental clarity while increasing your flexibility by consistently practicing mindfulness.
Yoga Asanas for Weight Loss
Apart from following these practices, it is important to exercise daily. Here are some yoga poses for weight loss:
Surya Namaskar (Sun Salutation) - This integrated exercise is the dynamic combination of 12 asanas that train multiple muscle groups into shape simultaneously, the regular practice of which will emphasize your holistic approach.
Naukasana (Boat Pose) -: An effective abdominal strengthener that targets the core muscles, helping to tone the belly and improve digestion. You can practice this by lying on your back, keeping your arms beside your body and legs together. Then you raise your chest and feet off the ground, arms stretching towards your legs.
Setu Bandhasana (Bridge Pose) - Lie down for this asana with your palms touching the ground, and keep your knees raised while slowly lifting your lower, middle, and upper back. This asana provides stress relief, improves flexibility, and works out your torso region which significantly helps to reduce belly fat.
Paschimottanasana (Seated Forward Bend) -: This asana promotes flexibility in its practitioner by activating all muscles, improving blood circulation, and enhancing mental focus by calming the mind.
Uttanpadasana (Raised Leg Pose) -: You can practice this pose while lying down and raising both your legs to strengthen the muscles of your lower body and increase its stability, enhance upper body strength by stretching arms and shoulders and toning your abs by stretching the abdominal muscles.
If you wish to branch out of singular exercises, you can try one of these yoga forms which are more high-intensity and demanding in nature:
Ashtanga Yoga - is known for being fast-paced and challenging, following a set sequence of poses. It also emphasizes proper alignment of the body and breath control while doing Yoga asanas. Benefits include increased stamina, improved flexibility, a rise in concentration levels, and a reduction in stress levels.
Bikram Yoga -: The key feature of this style of yoga is practicing 26 fixed postures in a heated room, to gain maximum benefit. This style focuses on enhancing flexibility, detoxifying the body, reducing stress, and improving circulation, while also helping you achieve your weight loss goal.
These yoga styles require more effort and thus burn more calories than the exercises, proving the yoga forms to be a more effective option for weight loss. However, these forms are more demanding than the exercises, so a beginner would find the exercises easier to follow. The styles are more advanced and require a certain level of flexibility and fitness to be present in their practitioner beforehand. If you find your lifestyle unsuitable to follow an intense, laborious routine, you can always practice individual exercises, whenever you can fit them into your daily schedule.
Yoga for Weight Loss - the Holistic Approach
When you incorporate the given approach to weight loss into your lifestyle, you’ll see the benefits of yoga extend beyond weight loss. You’ll gain strength, flexibility, mental clarity, and a deep state of well-being. Yoga exercises also train your mind so you gain better control of what you do and how you eat, which reduces stress-eating tendencies and cravings.
So roll out your mat, take a deep breath, and embark on this transformative journey with Habuild’s free 14-day yoga challenge. Lose weight naturally and get more tips on becoming healthy in Habuild’s online yoga classes led by a government-certified instructor. Fix your eating habits, practice yoga asanas for weight loss daily, and adopt a healthier lifestyle, all from the comforts of your home. Join now and begin your journey to a healthier body with Habuild today! Your body, mind, and spirit will thank you for shaping yourself into a better and healthier future.
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