How many people here have known someone personally who has lost weight and kept it up with Yoga and heathly eating in place of traditional exercise like aerobics, ect.?

I am seriously thinking about getting into Yoga. I have a friend who is into it and she loves it. She isn't very active usually and she hates exercise, but she LOVES Yoga. She hasn't been doing it long so I don't know if this is a good thing for losing weight.

I like to sit back and watch others try things out before I do and now that I have heard her go on about how much Yoga has changed her life so far I am anxious to try it.

bump!

I don't think yoga is about weight loss. It's just not that kind of thing. You will get other benefits that make it well worth the effort, but you probably WON'T lose weight directly from yoga. However, I find that when I'm doing yoga regularly I'm much more concious of my body and more careful about how I treat it, so indirectly you might find this translates to some weight loss.

The best thing you can do is try it for yourself.

I think it might vary according to how advanced you are in yoga. You are definately burning calories doing it cause even playing cards burn calories. You are also building or firming up muscle. It takes me about 2 weeks to get back used to doing yoga when I get off track from it. I agree with the last poster though, it benefits you in other ways as well. It can help you deal with stress. They talk you in to a calm state of mind that you're suppose to focus only on what is going on with your body right then and there and not the world around you. I enjoy it mostly for that reason alone.

I have the AM and PM yoga and Rodney Yee does the AM. It isn't nearly as strenuous as the PM and you don't hold the poses quite as long but when you do, you can really feel the burn in the muscle. Oprah has also done a show where celebraties like Madonna claim that's all they do now for "workouts" and many models are into it as well. It will vary for each person as well as anything else will.

NicoleNYC and lakelog:

Thanks for your replies!

Even if it doesn't help me lose lots of weight, I love the other benefits you have listed. I know I can use muscle strenghtening and relaxation and yoga seems to be a very popular thing these days, so I will give it a try and let everyone know how it is working for me.

FYI - I go to the YMCA and they have a computer program that you log all your workouts etc. On this machine it tells me that for a 1 hour yoga class, with me weighing 200#, working @ a level 5 (between 1 to 10) I burn 543 calories.

I do have a girl in my class that told me she weighed 250# when she started (about a year ago) and that she felt like a hippo in class trying to do it, but that she stuck with it and has lost almost 100#.... she said that all she has changed is that she does yoga 2x a week and walks 2 miles 5x a week. She says that she still eats the same stuff, although as she has started weighing less she doesnt eat as much of it... but she never really pays attention to it.....

I started doing yoga about a month ago. I love the flexibility that i am getting... i can touch my toes!!!!.... I do kinda feel foolish doing it when I weigh so much, but I know that I would feel worse by not doing it....

I hope this helps...

Hey Angel. I feel the same way. I do like all the benefits and you have to be increasing flexibility and working some muscle. Not to mention that if you can burn calories by playing Scrabble on the floor, then yoga has to definately be some calorie burning. That's a good enough reason for me. I do it all in my home also so I don't have to worry about how unappealing my big rear end would look to the person behind me.