Imagine that ideal workout that would help you lose weight, become more flexible and improve your balance. That is like killing a lot of birds with a single stone! All of that and more will you get from these yoga workout videos to lose weight.
Yoga helps you lose those extra pounds in several ways. First, you have the exercise itself which can offer some challenges for both with strength and agility.
Thereafter is the pace. While you may think of yoga as a slow practice, you can ramp up the speed to add a cardio element that will burn calories quicker as an aerobic activity.
The benefit of yoga for weight loss is that it helps strengthen your muscles, so they actively burn calories even when you’re at rest. Yoga workouts also emphasize the role of the breath in each move as well as the additional health benefits of controlled breathing.
These types of exercises help you do both aerobic and strengthening in one session for optimal training and conditioning. Current physical activity guidelines from the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion call for 150 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise and two sessions of strength training each week.
According to a recent study, more than 30% of the World’s population as at 2016 is either obese or overweight. This is the right time to start leading a healthy lifestyle by losing unnecessary fat.
Before going on to see the yoga workout videos to lose weight, let us see some of the causes of weight gain.
What Causes Weight Gain?
1. Digestive Disorders
Unhealthy Gut can cause incredibly rapid weight gain. Ordinarily, Acid Reflux Disease (Acidity), Constipation, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), intestinal bacterial overgrowth and stomach Ulcers are issues that are commonplace culprits.
Gastrointestinal and digestion related issues play an essential role in your dietary habits. They also affect how your body absorbs and digests food. If this process isn’t smooth or healthy, it causes an accelerated increase in your weight.
2. Bad Diet
Eating an unbalanced diet makes your body lack specific nutrients while having an excess of others. This natural need makes you hungry for more food which ultimately leads to you taking in more calories.
3. Excessive Eating
Weight Gain/Loss can be as simple as maintaining a favorable balance between the number of calories you take in, and the number of calories you burn doing a physical or mental activity. When you overeat and the balance is upset, more calories stay in the body leading to weight gain.
4. Lack of Sleep
Sleep deprivation leads to reduced levels of the hormone Leptin. Leptin is the chemical in your body that makes your stomach feel full. Therefore, it is also nicknamed as the “satiety hormone.”
A lower level of Leptin hikes the levels of another hormone, Ghrelin in the body. Ghrelin is the hunger-stimulating chemical. Inability to sleep or/Insufficient sleep, eventually makes you eat more!
5. Medication
Weight gain can be a part of the side-effect of a drug, especially with over-the-counter (OTC) medication. This is why doctors’ prescriptions remain the best.
Even medications that seem harmless such as antihistamines (e.g., Benadryl) taken for allergies, and medicine for Diabetes, High Blood Pressure, Depression, Asthma, Migraine also boost fat retention. Certain Birth Control pills might increase your weight too.
Related:
How Does Yoga Help Weight Loss?
Findings from research conducted by the National Institute of Health (NIH), USA, states that:
“Yoga appears to be an appropriate and potentially successful intervention for weight maintenance, prevention of obesity, and risk reduction for diseases in which obesity plays a significant causal role.”
1. Strong Self-Regulation
Self-Regulation is your ability to manage stress, regulate your emotions, and adapt your behavior to various situations. On numerous occasions, psychological and neuroscientific research shows that yoga and meditation help you manage your mood. It also generates strong willpower and self-control even in challenging situations.
2. Creates Mindfulness
The main reason why Yoga works is that it creates a sense of mindfulness in you. Improved Mind-Body Awareness leads to better control over your urges. You are less compelled to feel hungry, less motivated to indulge in binge eating and greatly inspired to engage in physically and mentally challenging activities.
You start to pay attention to your calorie balance, and this solves the biggest hurdle in your weight loss journey.
3. Cultivates Physical Fitness
Yoga exercises and techniques strengthen your body and banish most physical ailments. It promotes a robust body and cleanses and detoxifies the entire body system.
In the long run, it prevents disorders from getting triggered easily even in patients prone to genetically inherited diseases.
Yoga Workout Videos to Lose Weight
We’ve rounded up 10 yoga workout videos that can help you achieve your weight loss goals. Each one offers a different challenge, but all have a core element to them.
1. Downward Dog Pose
This pose has a lot of benefits. Downward Dog can work out any kink in the body and bring blood flow to the brain. It also strengthens, lengthens, and energizes every one of your muscles.
It’s important to learn how to do Down Dog correctly so you can truly reap all of the rewards of the pose. When the pose is done correctly, it can strengthen the waist and engage the core region.
Begin on all fours. Then, lift your knees off of your yoga mat as you bring your hip upward as you place your heels flat on the floor, holding for 30 seconds.
Downward Dog is a great way to strengthen and tone the abdominals. It is one of my best when it comes to yoga for weight loss.
2. Lord of the Dance Pose
According to a study by the University of Miami, different yoga postures target specific core muscles. The lord of the dance pose is one that will put your abs to the test for a pose that will challenge your balance. It also targets the legs, hip flexors, and shoulders.
It will no doubt tone your abs and help you lose weight.
3. Locust Pose
Along with your core and back muscles, Salabhasana (Locust Pose) is also a great way to tone your butt, inner thighs, and hamstrings. Lifting the legs and extending the hips in Locust Pose activates the glutes, adductors, hamstrings, and even your calves. It can also provide some welcome lower back pain relief.
4. Dolphin Plank Pose
The dolphin plank pose is a modification of the simple plank pose. These poses are fantastic ways to burn off unwanted calories easily. In addition to toning your arms and abs, you may find this pose very relaxing.
This pose efficiently relieves the body of a headache, fatigue, and back-ache. It also strengthens the arms and legs and tones the abdominal muscles. It can help with digestion problems and brings relief from menstrual discomfort. Always remember to breathe normally while performing the pose.
5. Boat Pose
The boat pose is one of those poses that will remind you of the muscles you didn’t realize you had until you feel the burn. It focuses on the core and hip flexor muscles. You can use a yoga strap around your feet if you have difficulty staying in the position.
6. Wide-Legged Forward Bend
One significant benefit of the wide-legged forward bend is that it supports the other yoga poses for weight loss. It increases your flexibility so that you can deepen the poses of the other asanas.
If you find this difficult, you can use a yoga block to rest your head instead. Hold the position for up to a minute, using your hands to help you get upright again.
7. Side Plank Pose
The side plank pose targets your oblique muscles. It will also strengthen your arms while engaging your core for balance. This pose works your core to a vast extent.
8. Chair Pose
The benefit of an asana like chair pose is that it engages the large muscles of your lower body. That will result in a higher calorie burn as your body strives to keep them full of energy.
The pose seems deceptively easy until you try it. This move will work your arm and leg muscles. It will also give your shoulders and chest a pleasant stretch.
9. Warrior II Pose
Warrior II pose is one of a group of asanas that differ in the position of your arms and balance. Adding variation to your workout is an efficient way to break out of an exercise rut and to stay on track with your weight loss goals, explains Mayo Clinic.
The move strengthens and stretches your legs, ankles, and feet. It also stretches your hips, groins, and shoulders. It also provides a lot of benefit to the body including helping with weight loss.
10. Eagle Pose
Eagle pose packs a lot of benefits into one move. It will test your balance and endurance while improving flexibility in your upper and lower body. Different yoga postures target specific core muscles, explains a study by the University of Miami. You need strength, flexibility, and endurance, and unwavering concentration for Eagle Pose.
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