Pilates
 

Has anyone had significant weight loss with pilates? I started about six months ago but I have only being doing the work out about twice a week. I do notice more strength but not significant weight loss.

I don't do pilates but have been thinking about it to tone my stomach. Have you seen any stomach toning with it? Have you been building muscle?

Hi there, I've been doing pilates reformer classes since March 2010, and I have actually gained weight since then. (My stomach is not smaller, mainly because I think my main problem is the fat inside on my intestines, not necessarily right under my skin). I think that pilates is extremely important for protecting the alignment of your body and preventing injury; however, rather than causing weight loss, it serves the purpose of making you more able to do the OTHER exercises that WOULD help you lose weight, like cardio.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I do the pilates twice a week, and I do cardio on the weekends. Maybe if you did pilates every single day, like Madonna reportedly does, it might cause weight loss. :)

I always felt that pilates was a nice add-on to your routine but not necessarily the main component of staying fit. Losing weight is paying attention to your diet combined with cardio. Pilates alone won't do it IMO.

Pilates is considered strength training, not cardio, which means that you won't burn a lot of calories doing Pilates.

However, as you get stronger and you build muscle because of Pilates, you will burn additional calories in a resting state. Muscles burn more calories just laying around there.

Also, if you're doing Pilates well and you are building muscle and retraining your body, you will find that even if you don't lose weight, you may find your clothes fitting better. And even if that doesn't happen immediately, if you're building your core muscles, you'll be fixing your posture (most of us have crappy posture) and you'll stand taller and look thinner (even if the scale or the muscles don't change).

Also note that there are different types of pilates -- mat classes are different than the reformer or cadillac classes. If you find the mat classes to be too easy, you need to increase the level or find a new teacher or move to the reformer/cadillac classes.

And combine it with other cardio! Pilates is about muscle training, it's not about burning calories.