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Yoga is revered for its power to relieve stress, increase flexibility, and build muscle tone. It is not, however, well known for promoting weight loss. So you might be surprised to learn that it can actually help you burn calories.

Traditional yoga is not an extremely active pursuit. It works your muscles, but you rarely break a sweat just by holding a pose (unless it’s really hot in the room). But the muscle-building effects of yoga do allow you to burn calories more efficiently. So if you participate in a good aerobic workout, you will see greater results than you would if you weren’t doing yoga.

Yoga also teaches discipline, which will assist you greatly in sticking with your exercise program or new diet. Yoga strengthens the connection between mind and body, which makes you more motivated to take care of your body. Those who want to lose weight often suffer from the difficulty of getting motivated in the first place, so yoga can be very beneficial here.

Different Schools of Yoga

If you plan on using yoga by itself to help you drop some pounds, there are some new variations on the traditional practice of yoga, which provide the advantages of both yoga and aerobic exercise in one package. These types of yoga include:

Vinyasa yoga - Vinyasa yoga is focused on changing from one asana to another while simultaneously doing yogic breathing. Sun Salutations are a common pose in Vinyasa yoga, but there are many other poses used. This style is sometimes practiced in a heated room to promote sweating.

Ashtanga yoga - Ashtanga is a complex style of yoga that includes six different series of poses. Each series is more complex than the previous one, so it’s important to start at the beginning and work your way up.

Power yoga - This “westernized” type of yoga features more activity and fast movements alongside of yoga breathing.

These yoga techniques offer more of the heart-healthy benefits of aerobic exercise than the usual kinds of yoga. While they won’t quite give you the workout of a cardio class, you still get the dual advantages of aerobic fitness and the muscle toning and flexibility of yoga, which will no doubt help your weight loss efforts. And they’re great for people who are too busy for more than one workout routine.

It may seem at first glance that aerobics and yoga share little common ground. However, yoga can enhance the benefits seen from aerobics and other cardio workouts and these alternate styles of yoga can combine the benefits of the two. If you are less than enthralled with the results you’ve gotten from other workouts, adding yoga to your regimen or switching from your current fitness routine to yoga may work well for you.

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