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From the Desk of: Diana SabrainCo - Founder, Physique Makeover (Pte. Ltd.)
Yoga For Weight Loss? You Must Be Kidding Me!
Yoga seems to be all the rage in women's fitness circles. Yoga centers have sprouted all aroundus and women are flocking to them in droves, believing it to be the best way for them to 'tone' upand lose weight. Marketed as a female-oriented exercise, yoga has become the alternative towomen who are averse to weight training.Fallacies surrounding weight training and the misconception that it is ‘male domain', combinedwith socio-cultural conditioning of women taught to fear bulky-looking muscles, have boostedthe prestige of yoga as the exercise of choice for women.Well ladies, you have been conned! Yoga can't even begin to compare to physiological benefitsthat weight-training and cardiovascular exercises have to offer, neither in terms of calorieexpenditure, metabolic expenditure nor in terms of body composition goals.Majority of the women I have trained over the years have expressed similar goals when askedwhat they want out of a training programme. Fat loss is by far the number one priority, followed by a desire for a lean and hard physique. Apart form an improvement in appearance, manywomen also want increased strength as well as better posture and increased bone density.The campaign geared towards preventing osteoporosis has fostered greater awareness amongstwomen of the importance of maintaining strong and healthy bones in their youth. However,many women are not informed enough to choose exercises that are oriented towards helpingthem achieve their lofty fitness goals.Yoga, unfortunately, falls short in its actual ability to achieve the aforementioned fitness goals.In order to lose weight, one has to increase calorie expenditure as much as possible and as such,exercises that expend the most amounts of calories are often sought out. Yoga cannot possiblycompare with the benefits of aerobic training when one considers the factor of calorieexpenditure.Moreover, fat loss requires more than the expenditure of calories within a certain time frame. Italso requires you to burn more calories throughout the day and weight-training helps you achievethis. An increase in lean muscle mass from weight training enables you to burn more calories ona daily basis as muscle is metabolically active and hence, consumes more calories to maintainitself.Yoga offers minimal resistance training and is not intense enough to effect substantial changes inyour body's metabolic systems in order to turn you into a fat-incinerating machine. It does notoffer the progressive increase in resistance that is needed in order to build and maintain strong bones.
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Lavender21

Lady, You have a serious lack in either research or learning ability. Please go back to the scriptures or preferably, to the experiences of millions of people before you put forth this kind of studies. You are taking on a proved, centuries old practise. I request do not even attempt.

reply03 / 24 / 2010
kwanyinspin8433

What thoughtful comments by some true yogis on a poorly executed and short sighted document. While I did not agree with this woman's viewpoint, I am grateful for the opportunity to discover some like minds in the comment section.

reply02 / 01 / 2009
mdivyas

I disagree too ! Iam just not the only one who has benifitted from yoga but thousands and millions all over the world. Yoga is proven to work. Kapalbhatti burns lot of calories. I belive in yoga because ive seen it has worked for me and others too. Aneways i mean no offense just wanted to share that it worked great for me. Cheers!

reply01 / 24 / 2009
PhysiqueMakeover

Hi Rangbarse, Thank you for your comments. In fact I'm happy you've expressed your thoughts to my article. :) First of all, I am not against yoga as I do believe in meditation and it helps to relax our mind and soul. However on a weight loss program, Nutrition is the number one factor that affects results followed by exercise. And when I meant exercise, it is in any manner from cardio, yoga, pilates, resistance/strength training and et cetera. Thus I believe that your good progress stems from good nutrition or either that low calorie diet. The article above is to give the best possible FAST way to lose fat and to retain muscle mass so that the maintenace period is more manageable. I'm talking based on experience my team of trainers been training clients for the past 3 years. However I can see where the calorie burning factor comes from in your yoga program, It's the 3 sets of 108 strokes I suppose. Anyway, I value your information and I would definitely keep an open mind and read more about what you practice. Cheers!

reply01 / 15 / 2008
rangbarse

I dis-agree. I have been doing Yoga for last three months and practising it alternate days for 30 minutes plus 2 hours on weekends and have lost 7 kgs. My recommendation is to perform following as per below sequence 1. 8 Sets of Sun Salute (Surya Namaskar) 2. Brisk Breathing (Kapal Bhati) - 3 sets of 108 strokes 3. Agnisar - 3 sets 4. Uddiyan Bandh - 3 sets These foru exercises will not take more than 35 minutes.

reply01 / 15 / 2008
Rovart123

Thank u so much dear i am eagerly looking for weight loose routine.. i will apply your regime then update u all with results :)

04 / 10 / 2010
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