Is Iyengar yoga good for weight loss?
Also, is pranayama good for weight loss?
Why Flametree delivers the best weight loss retreats Asia has.
Or, get the cost & details of the best weight loss retreat Bali has.
Are you asking why is Iyengar yoga good for weight loss? If so, see why Iyengar yoga poses for weight loss, or so-called Iyengar yoga asanas for weight loss, work. Plus, I explain other key principles behind Iyengar yoga for weight loss. In the post, I also explain why is pranayama good for weight loss. It’s also why Flametree offers you the best weight loss retreat Bali has, and the most all-inclusive weight loss retreats Asia packages. Below, you can also see the many inclusions in Flametree’s weight loss retreat cost.
The questions above, are some of the most common matters people continually ask me, Christine (a Senior Yoga Teacher).
Alternatively, people are just not sure about why and how yoga works so well for weight loss, and why immersion via a Bali retreat for weight loss, works so well.
My research also shows that many versions of these questions are widespread.
But, I’ve hesitated to answer the question as quickly, directly and openly as I will below.
I’ve held off because weight is a controversial issue, due to legitimate concerns about body image, anorexia, or more.
For example, one major digital platform essentially forbids using the unspeakable “weight” word in ads!
But another even bigger digital platform encourages it, and even provides handy categories of the people they can see who are interested in the plethora of products offering advice and solutions.
So, before I continue, if you have any of the weight related concerns I mention, please choose not to read further, or get advice from some other health professional.
But, for a start, immediately below, there are summary answers.
Details of best weight loss retreat Bali has | Or weight loss retreat cost? | HERE
How to do pranayama for weight loss, using a hand mudra to block the ears and eyes, and thereby intensify the power of so-called Bee Breathing meditation. It can also be done in a chair. Learn it from scratch as part of Flametree’s all inclusive weight loss retreats Asia packages.
Summary: “Is Iyengar yoga good for weight loss?”
Yes, because it cuts stress (especially via restorative yoga), leading to less stress related eating, & lowers appetite. Plus, it makes you mindful, leading to more mindful eating. As well, yoga is multi-purpose exercise, as vigorous as you choose.
Summary: “Is pranayama good for weight loss?”
Yes, because it also powerfully cuts stress, and increases mindfulness. It thereby facilitates mindful eating, and less stress driven eating. It’s more effective and synergistic if done with some yoga exercise, including restorative yoga.
Below, I give you more detail of these important issues and weight loss solutions.
Or, if you’re already convinced, then please consider Flametree’s all inclusive weight loss retreats Asia packages.
BKS Iyengar yoga for weight loss via a restorative pose
A forward bend demonstrated by Kim, a Flametree Yoga teacher. The most effective Iyengar yoga asanas for weight loss are done with the head rested, so as to help de-stressing, and therefore help to cut weight more. Restorative yoga was invented by Mr B.K.S. Iyengar, as was BKS Iyengar yoga for weight loss.
Straight answers from a Senior Teacher
Whatever the views of some, I think that people, especially those interested in Flametree yogic solutions, deserve some straight answers on the pranayama meditation and yoga for weight loss issue.
In particular, people deserve an answer from a Senior Yoga Teacher, and Yoga Therapist.
I don’t want to blow my own trumpet, but it’s important for you to know that there is clearly a lot of difference between the answers you get from someone with 200 hours of yoga teacher training, let alone a personal trainer, or someone in a gym with as little as a Cert 3 qualification.
In contrast, someone like me, with over 12,000 hours of yoga teacher training, yoga therapy training, overseas training, about 30 years of teaching and practice, and decades of researching such questions, can address these questions much more fully.
2 FREE Beginner Yoga Classes & 10 HALF Off | New & Lapsed | Online & Studio
NON-Beginner HALF Price 10 Packs | New & Lased | Online & Studio
A basic, but powerfully effective, restorative yoga for weight loss pose, demonstrated by me, Chris Lalor, a certified Senior Yoga Teacher, and Yoga Therapist.
Huge issues us taxpayers face
As a tax payer, and health professional, I’m also concerned by:
- creeping epidemics like diabetes
- many other weight related diseases and conditions (as basic as knee problems that I see plenty of)
- the vast consumption of too much sugar (driven by the amoral focus of some major firms)
- the over-burdened health system (especially in the Northern Territory where I live), and
- the complete failure of public authorities to offer sufficient public education on health and weight matters, or address issues like sugar taxes (at least in Australia, where I live).
My view is reinforced when I look at the huge amount of incorrect or incomplete information, or just misperceptions, there is on this question of does yoga or meditation via pranayama help lose weight.
I also see far too many yoga students, and even yoga teachers, who trust conventional health professionals more than they trust their own yoga training and practice, or yoga professionals.
As a result, they mostly don’t get solutions that work sufficiently for them.
Details of best weight loss retreat Bali has | Or weight loss retreat cost? | HERE
Studies show that mindful eating, which is one of the outcomes of yoga and pranayama meditation, gives you greater ability to choose what you eat, and how often.
Iyengar yoga poses for weight loss
In addition, the great majority of the existing answers to questions like Iyengar yoga poses for weight loss, simply advocate flow yoga, hot yoga, or poor versions of traditional yoga poses.
For instance, you can see it in the prolific, simplistic, infographics of non-Iyengar yoga asanas for weight loss that dominate social media. See the example below.
This highly incomplete information feeds the public misperception that weight loss solutions need to be hot, physical, sweaty, and hard.
BKS Iyengar yoga for weight loss does not have to be as difficult as these poses
When people consider is Iyengar yoga good for weight loss, what they find is incomplete information, and conventional asanas, rather than what’s outlined in this Post. Although poses like these are useful exercise, many will always find them too difficult. Instead, much easier restorative yoga poses, that can be done by all ages and sizes, are much more effective Iyengar yoga poses for weight loss.
Why Iyengar yoga poses for weight loss work
In short, Iyengar yoga is good for weight loss, and so is pranayama good for weight loss.
But, it’s not just for the exercise related reason that you may first think (at least with yoga).
Instead, yoga and pranayama help you lose weight in these ways.
- They’re very effective at cutting stress, including via restorative yoga. As a result, cutting stress, helps cut weight, due to less comfort eating, binge eating, and more. In addition, cutting stress cuts appetite, as Dr McCall explains below.
- Yoga and pranayama meditation also makes you more mindful. In turn, that also leads you towards more weight loss via mindful eating, with more focus on what you eat, and how often you eat. (In other words, mindful eating practices are only possible if you first get mindful!)
- All yoga is of course also exercise, so that also helps, in same ways that all exercise helps. Some yoga, especially sequences with more Iyengar flow yoga poses, help even more than average.
As a result, weight loss solutions with pranayama and / or yoga are unique, effective, and do-able.
In particular, Dr McCall, a medical doctor explains in more detail:
“… yoga … relieves STRESS…by lowering the levels of the stress hormone cortisol. In turn, this lowers your appetite.
Furthermore, when you eat extra calories in a state with a lot of cortisol [from stress] in your bloodstream, then your body is very efficiently going to turn those extra calories into fat.”
In the diagram below, see how stress releases cortisol.
Cortisol is sometimes useful, but it has downsides.
2 FREE Beginner Yoga Classes & 10 HALF Off | New & Lapsed | Online & Studio
NON-Beginner HALF Price 10 Packs | New & Lased | Online & Studio
Stress releases more cortisol, via the green arrow above, into your blood stream. Dr McCall, in our more detailed post on weight loss, has explained this stress cortisol connection, & its impact. The stress response is useful, for instance, if you have to quickly escape imminent danger, but it’s not a place to live your life most of the time. Instead, you need a time and place to rest and recover.
Powerfully impacts body, mind, mood, and emotions
Among other things, pranayama and yoga get these results because they more evenly work with your parasympathetic nervous system, including your vagus nerve.
As a result, yoga or pranayama, or ideally both, are a more complete system for body, mind, mood, and emotions.
So, yoga certainly makes you fit, strong, and flexible.
But, pranayama, and / or yoga, also have a much wider set of outcomes, around mindfulness, stress reduction, weight loss, and overall happiness.
BKS Iyengar yoga for weight loss works better, via your autonomic nervous system
Yoga works more evenly with both your sympathetic and parasympathic nervous system, thereby helping to also reduce stress, & weight management, or reduction.
Sustainable, long term, solutions
In particular, the mindfulness is likely, in a very natural way, to lead towards sustainable outcomes on what you eat, and how often you eat.
So these yogic solutions are good for you, and our planet.
In addition, the changes you can make via pranayama or yoga for weight loss, have been shown in studies to be more long term and sustainable. (Dr McCall, in his book Yoga As Medicine, discusses some of these studies).
In other words, the changes are not as short lived like crash diets or just exercise programs.
Is pranayama good for weight loss? Yes, meditation cuts stress too.
Is pranayama good for weight loss? Yes, because its a very effective type of meditation. As you can see in the orange and green rows, meditation causes deep relaxation, thereby cutting stress, appetite, & weight. So, pranayama is another important part of Flametree’s all inclusive weight loss retreats Asia packages.
Students verify what I say
Many students at Flametree have found exactly as I’ve outlined.
So have I (even though weight loss was not my first concern).
Many student testimonials and stories about the power of Iyengar yoga poses for weight loss, are on our site. (To see some, scroll down in this further weight reduction post).
If you want more about what I’ve discussed check out posts like this one on weight reduction, or scroll down this page about mindful eating.
Of course, in terms of “is pranayama good for weight loss?”, you don’t even have to get out of your chair to cut stress, or get more mindful, or both.
But, I certainly recommend that you do, even if with very gentle restorative yoga.
Details of best weight loss retreat Bali has | Or weight loss retreat cost? | HERE
Another example of a restorative yoga pose. It’s a wide legged forward bend that’s held for several minutes. In the process, you’ll get plenty of toning and stretching of your legs, but also calming and de-stressing of your mind.
Yoga is good for weight loss (especially via retreats)
In short, remember that ALL yoga, and pranayama, are good for weight loss because it will cut stress, make you more mindful, and / or deliver exercise.
As well, classes like Restorative Yoga ( Saturdays 4pm), Yoga For Immune System (Thursday 4.45pm), and Gentle Yoga (Fridays 10.15am), have more restorative yoga poses than average.
Pranayama for weight loss also works because it powerfully reduces stress, and increases mindfulness, with or without yoga.
Plus, if you do yoga and pranayama together, then you get the synergy of two plus two makes five.
So, if you want to know “Is Iyengar yoga good for weight loss?”, or “is pranayama good for weight loss?”, then the answer is YES.
But, of course, they only work if you keep at your yoga or pranayama, or both, or start practising them.
Of course, a retreat in Bali, Asia, is an excellent way to get started on your yoga and weight loss journey, or re-start, or take it even further.
The immersion you get via a retreat is the fast track to more outcomes, faster.
Plus, with a retreat, you get a wide range of rapid and effective information and advice, including the presentation you see in this Flametree Yoga retreat schedule.
As I’ve also said before, any amount of quality yoga and pranayama is good, but more again will get you proportionately greater outcomes.
Details of best weight loss retreat Bali has | Or weight loss retreat cost? | HERE
Iyengar yoga weight loss for weight loss poses also work due to the connection of brain and body via the extensive Vagus Nerve illustrated above. For example, restorative yoga slows heart rate and breathing, and relaxes you. The vagus nerve is a key part of the mind body outcomes of yoga.
Flametree Yoga Studio
Flametree beginner classes are LIVE online, at the local time of Darwin, Australia (+9.30GMT).
The classes are all standard, introductory hatha yoga poses in the Iyengar yoga style.
The online format also allows you to get a wide range of more specialised classes than are often available locally.
There’s also many options, including Gentle Yoga, Yoga for Back (& Neck & Shoulders), and Restorative Yoga.
At the non-beginner level, there’s extra options like Yoga For Immune System, Fifty Plus Yoga, and more advanced levels.
If you like, check out what other Flametree students have said about Flametree’s classes.
If you’re looking for a yoga school, then please consider yoga at Flametree Yoga Darwin NT, either online or in-studio.
Or, if you’re looking for a weight loss retreat, then please consider Flametree’s weight loss retreats Asia packages, via the orange links on this page, or here.
Another of the many Iyengar yoga asanas for weight loss
Easy restorative or conventional yoga pose to build hip flexibility, as well as get the weight reduction, calming and other benefits of yoga.
Try Iyengar yoga for weight loss, including our retreats
Flame Tree beginners yoga can be started at any time, online or in-studio.
So, try Flametree’s Iyengar yoga asanas for weight loss, and much more.
Plus, at beginner or non-beginner level, consider doing restorative yoga, or gentle yoga, or both.
Almost all classes are both online and in-the-studio. Plus, there is a wide selection of yoga or pranayama videos. (By the way, the retreat package includes up many hundreds of dollars of these classes and videos for FREE).
Flametree’s weight loss retreats are an excellent mix of active yoga, gentle yoga (if that’s best for you), restorative yoga, and mindful meditation via pranayama. (See details via the retreat schedule).
Follow the orange links below to learn more, and get one some of best deals you’ll find.
Details of best weight loss retreat Bali has | Or weight loss retreat cost? | HERE
2 FREE Beginner Yoga Classes & 10 HALF Off | New & Lapsed | Online & Studio
NON-Beginner HALF Price 10 Packs | New & Lased | Online & Studio
Facebook Page for Flametree
