Is yoga only for toning, or can you really lose weight with it?

Yes , that is true but it takes a long while, thats for sure!

You aren’t going to burn a ton of calories doing yoga, but in my opinion all exercise counts. Toning muscles burnes calories, moving your body burns calories. However, if you want to really lose weght what you out in your mouth counts the most. Even if you were running 5 miles three times a week I would tell you the same thing, but the running would burn more calories than the yoga.

First of all, there’s no such thing as “toning.” Muscles do two things – they get bigger and they get smaller, but they do not “tone.” It’s a meaningless buzzword I really wish women would stop using. The “toned” look usually just means reduced body fat – that’s it.

With that said, weight loss happens in the kitchen. Eating at a caloric deficit results in weight loss, period. Exercise is for your health and, if you do strength training, to avoid the dreaded “skinny fat” that comes after the weight is off and you still don’t look good naked because all you did was cardio and lost a bunch of lean muscle mass. I’m clearly a huge supporter of strength training.

As @JLeslie said, yoga doesn’t burn a lot of calories. Exercise allows you to eat more while still maintaining your deficit. Runners that burn a crap ton of calories can (and should) eat a lot more than someone that does not exercise or does things like yoga or walking.

So, will yoga help you lose weight? Not really, but it won’t hurt. The point of yoga isn’t weight loss, nor is it “toning.” It’s nearly impossible to out-exercise a bad diet, so your calorie intake is the most important factor. If you enjoy yoga, do it. If you don’t, find something that you do enjoy.

Western Yoga has been completely bastardized from it’s original purpose which was deep spiritual practice and meditative “exercise.”
The Western version of Yoga is nothing more than a series or stretching and limbering exercises and stretching will not lead to weight loss.

Eastern Yoga! You can go try that!
:)

It can remove stress. Mental stress can produce cortisol. It also rips the muscle and I believe the lactic acid produced is said to have metabolic boosting properties. Yoga and a diet rich in vegetables and fruits and no red meats/pork will take you a long ways in life!

Yoga is for the mind. What we in the West commonly think of as Yoga, the physical aspect or Asanas, are only one of the eight “limbs” of the practice of Yoga. The goal of the physical poses is to aid meditation. It just so happens that some of these poses are really quite difficult, and are great for developing strength, flexibility, and athleticism.

I would encourage you to practice Yoga, but don’t go into it with the goal of losing weight. Enter your practice with the goal of developing mindfulness, and you’ll go a long way.

If you’re only interested in weight loss though, my advice (for men and women alike) is to find a great coach, and start strength training, built around a core of power lifting and Olympic lifting. This will burn fat faster than any other approach, and the degree of bulk you build from it is dependent on diet – if you want to be muscular and strong, eat a lot of protein and carbs. If you want to be lean and athletic, do the same exercises to 10 reps instead of 3–4, and cut back on the carbs a little (NOT completely). Good luck!

@FireMadeFlesh “the degree of bulk you build from it is dependent on diet – if you want to be muscular and strong, eat a lot of protein and carbs. If you want to be lean and athletic, do the same exercises to 10 reps instead of 3–4, and cut back on the carbs a little (NOT completely).”

It’s correct that bulk depends on diet, but it’s about calories, not protein/carb intake. If you eat at a caloric surplus, you’ll gain weight – if you’re lifting heavy, some of that weight will be muscle mass (“bulk”). If you eat at a caloric deficit, you’ll lose weight – if you’re lifting heavy, you’ll maintain your current muscle mass while maximizing your fat loss (“cut”). If you eat at maintenance, you’ll maintain your weight – if you’re lifting heavy, you’ll very slowly continue to burn fat while gaining a bit of muscle mass (“recomp”).

As for the reps, what you said is incorrect. Heavy weight, low reps is ideal for gaining strength (the point of strength training), no matter what your goals are. Women simply do not bulk up like men do, and they certainly don’t do it accidentally. It takes an insane amount of training and supplements for women to get muscular. Light weights, high reps is essentially cardio. It’s better than nothing, but it really isn’t doing much for you. As for protein and carbs, both are important regardless of your goals. Neither will make you gain or lose weight on their own – it’s calorie content.

I lift heavy (5 or fewer reps per set for my main lifts), eat 200 g of carbs and at least 125 g of protein (1 g per lb of body weight), and I’m nowhere near muscular. I’m currently eating at a deficit, so I’m not gaining muscle; I’m avoiding losing the muscle I have while I drop weight. Once I’m happy with that weight and eat at maintenance while lifting, the muscle I gain will not be like the muscle my husband is gaining during his bulk. My body, as a female, is simply not built for it. Sure, this is arbitrary evidence, but it’s just an example. Men and women should train the same, but the results will be quite different.

Yoga will strengthen muscles over time. My friends who do yoga regular are “tone” just like my friends who are dancers. They can do more sit-ups I’m sure than someone who doesn’t do any exercise. Hold a position that requires strength longer than a novice coming to a class for the first time.

However, @livelovelaugh21 is right that if you want to see the shape of your muscles or look “tone” you need to not have fat over the muscles. Being lean makes you look tone. I could do no additional exercise to what I do now and if I just ate better and lost 15 pounds I would look tone. No amount of exercise is going to make me look tone if I don’t get rid of my fat layer or lower my fat percent.

@livelaughlove21 I did simplify things for the sake of brevity. The basic idea of caloric surplus/deficit doesn’t work if those calories are coming from Maccas all the time. If the diet is focussed on calories rather than nutrition, the results won’t be anywhere near what a balanced diet would yield.

I don’t know the OP’s gender either, hence the reps comment. If a guy wants to build lean muscle rather than bulk, a higher rep/lower weight program will get that for him. He won’t build as much strength, but more muscular endurance. The principle is the same for women, but of course they won’t build the same level of bulk due to their hormonal environment. Very few women get the Serena Williams look, no matter how hard they train. But my recommendation would still be an 8–10 rep goal for weight loss, because that will build muscular endurance. I did a low rep power lifting type program for a few months, and found I was far more easily gassed when I went to my martial arts training than when I had been on a higher rep program with more dynamic movements mixed in.

@JLeslie Yoga involves muscle contractions. Muscles that repetitively contract get stronger over time. That means people doing yoga should gradually be able to hold poses for longer and do more difficult poses that they were once unable to do. There’s also a good bit of core work involved in yoga, so sure, they probably can do more sit-ups than the average person. However, the thing about body weight exercises is that it only allows you to do more reps of the same body weight exercise. Doing the 30-day squat challenge where you eventually get up to 1000 squats in a day or something stupid like that – all it’s going to do is make you better at body weight squats. No amount of body weight squats is going to allow you to build the strength necessary to squat a barbell as heavy as you are. So, saying that yoga builds strength over time is true, but it’s important to realize that the amount of strength you build isn’t really all that much in the grand scheme of things. And that’s fine, if you don’t care about being strong enough to lift a lot of weight.

Doing yoga while losing weight also will not prevent muscle loss in the way lifting heavy will. As long as you’re eating at a deficit and losing weight, you’re losing both fat and muscle. In order to prevent that loss, you need to do strength training with weights that are heavy (to you), which yoga does not allow you to do.

@FireMadeFlesh Muscular endurance is a whole other thing. The OP didn’t say (s)he is looking to build muscular endurance, and not everyone is. I couldn’t care less about muscular endurance, personally. It would depend on the goals of the individual, but if we’re talking losing fat, gaining strength, and looking good, high weight/low reps will get the job done faster than low weight/high reps. Newbie gains when lifting heavy are way better than newbie gains with low weight/high reps. If the person is looking to run a marathon, they’re probably not going to do much power lifting. If the person just wants to be healthy, strong, and hot, then the heavier that barbell the better.

I’m a member of a huge fitness site, and I constantly talk to women that have been lifting those little 10 lb dumbbells at high reps and calling it weight lifting for months or years and are really unhappy with the results. They don’t feel stronger and they can’t see much of a difference in their bodies. Once they put those baby weights down and start using heavy weights, they’re amazed by the changes in their bodies. I haven’t seen one women try lifting heavy and then go back to light weights.

I agree that results are better when you focus on good nutrition (aka a healthy balance of carbs, protein, and fats), but the fact remains that muscles need calories to grow – if a dude lifts heavy but eats at maintenance, he’s never going to get big and muscular. He’ll build strength, lose a bit of fat, gain a bit of muscle, and get that lean/athletic appearance, but he’d need to eat at a caloric surplus in order to bulk. The same applies to women, only the bulking is WAY harder to accomplish.

If we’re talking weight loss, though, it’s calories in vs. calories out. If I eat 2000 calories of super “healthy” foods, I’ll maintain my weight. If I eat 2000 calories of chocolate, I’ll still maintain my weight. With lifting, yes, it’s definitely a good idea to have a healthy balance of carbs, protein, and fat, but that’s not because it helps with weight loss; it’s because it helps with your results at the gym (energy and strength gains, for instance). And, contrary to what you said in your first response, eating less carbs and protein while lifting light weights when you’re looking for a lean/athletic build isn’t going to do you any favors.

Fair points regarding diet. I personally determine the volumes of what I eat by listening to my body rather than counting calories, so I don’t tend to recommend that approach despite its proven success.

I also didn’t recommend high reps, in the way the women you communicate with do. I recommended the 8–10 rep range because it gives the best balance between building strength and mitigating the risk of injury. I injured myself some time back by going too heavy too soon, without addressing imbalances in my body. That was the worst thing I ever did training-wise, since it put me out of full intensity training for the best part of a year. An 8–10 rep range will help a newbie tune into their body without the risk of serious injury. Weight should still be around 80% of maximum though, so I’m certainly not recommending light weights.

Of course if the OP can afford to have a coach present regularly while they’re starting out, they can guide them on balance and form so they can go heavy from the start.

@livelaughlove21 I agree with everything you said that you directed at me. The only thing I’ll add is doing ballet, which has similarities to yoga, when I was young, I was always one of the top people in my jr. high and high school classes when we were evaluated for pull-ups, sit-ups, push-ups, climbing ropes, and that was against boys and girls.

Normally practising Yoga helps to release stress. If we practise yoga regularly, we tend to become more sensitive to the kind of food our body asks, this might help to keep a check on weight. You can lose weight by following a planned balanced diet and a good yoga routine,but it must be under the supervision of a yoga expert and over a period of time. Weight loss depends 80% on eating habits and 20% on working out.Through proper discipline, determination and dedication you can achieve your goal.