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Can Yoga Help You Lose Belly Fat?

The purpose of yoga is to encourage a healthy lifestyle, and it can also help you lose belly fat. A peer-reviewed study on multiple databases since 2012 suggests yoga can aid weight loss. Several yoga postures can also help you lose belly fat.

Yoga helps you lose weight and belly fat by increasing your calorie burn, improving digestion, and reducing stress levels. Yoga improves your overall health, making it easier for you to achieve daily goals, like reducing belly fat, eating a healthy diet, and exercising regularly.

It has also been known to help people with a high BMI lose weight and improve their health in many ways. It’s great for stress relief and helps people feel better about themselves. A 48-week study found that restorative yoga poses can help people lose fat 2.5 times compared to stretching exercises.

The study involved yoga practitioners performing restorative yoga poses and measured breathing techniques. That said, yoga also helps people feel energized and focused, which is something that we all need when trying to trim some pounds from the waist.

How Does Yoga Help You To Lose Fat?

Yoga is a great way to shed fat and trim inches off your waistline because you’re doing things like moving in multiple planes of motion and getting all your major muscle groups involved. It can also be a good core workout if you are doing more advanced poses, especially in combination with other forms of exercise.

As long as you’re a relatively fit beginner, yoga can help improve your posture and tone the muscles in your abdomen to create that lean and lifted look you want.

Yoga to Lose Belly Fat for Beginners

Yoga to Lose Belly Fat for Beginners

If you want to lose weight, there’s no better way than yoga. It’s a gentle, low-impact workout that helps you get the most from your time in the studio. And it can help you lose weight fast!

As a yoga instructor, I’ve had the pleasure of guiding many people through their first time on the mat. And although I love every minute of it, one of my favorite parts of teaching is helping everyone get into the right pose-and then watching them lose weight in the process.

So if you’re hoping to lose weight and tone up your body, here are some yoga poses that will really help you get there:

  1. Fish pose: This pose will help you tighten your inner thighs and hips, which will tone up your butt and thighs. You can also use this pose to help with back pain.
  2. Inner thigh stretch: This pose is one of our favorites because it targets all three main areas we want to tone up: inner thighs, butt, and hips. You can do this as part of a complete sequence or on its own if you want something more intense!
  3. Seated forward bend, chair pose, or Utkatasana: This pose will help lengthen your spine and open up any tight spaces that might be causing lower back pain or discomfort. It’s also great for doing after a long day at work when you need some extra calories burned off before hitting the sack!
  4. Cobra pose or Bhujangasana: Cobra pose is one of the best yoga poses to burn fat and boost your metabolism. This pose involves back-stretching postures. You lie on a yoga mat by pressing both your hands on the floor. Keep your belly facing forward, and try bending your back.
  5. Bridge pose or Setu Bandha Sarvangasana: This pose is the easiest of the yoga asanas for weight loss. It is easy to perform and also very fun. Bridge pose is also a type of pelvic floor exercise.
  6. Bow pose or Dhanurasana: Bow pose or Dhanurasana is considered one of the best poses for weight loss as it helps you reduce belly fat from your body. This yoga posture can be practiced by everybody, irrespective of their age, gender, height, and weight.

This pose stretches your spine, which can help you lose weight if you feel like it’s too tight or uncomfortable. If you’re in good shape and feel like your back is too tight, do this pose for a few minutes before stretching. Then, do another few minutes after stretching.

This yoga pose helps burn calories quickly because it boosts metabolism, which helps you lose weight faster than normal exercises like running or jogging. It also increases flexibility & balance, which helps reduce injuries caused by bad posture or injuries sustained during sports activity etc.

  1. Plank pose or Phalakasana: Plank pose or Phalakasana is one of the most challenging yoga poses. But it’s also one of the most rewarding poses.

In this pose, you lie on the floor with your elbows resting on the floor and your forearms perpendicular to them. You can use a towel for comfort or just leave your hands flat on the floor. The key is having a straight spine from head to tailbone; don’t let your hips sag or let your upper body rise.

  1. Sun pose or Suryanamaskar: The Sun pose is a very powerful pose and can help you to bring both mental and physical energy into balance. It is also known as Suryanamaskar and is one of the classical yoga poses. Suryanamaskar helps in weight loss and reduces your fat level. It also boosts your metabolism, making you feel lighter and more energetic.

Here’s how it works:

  • Stand in one place with your feet about shoulder-width apart.
  • Stretch your arms out in front of you so that they are parallel to the ground.
  • Make a deep lunging step forward with your left foot, and then a deep lunging step backward with your right foot.
  1. Warrior pose or Virabhadrasana: Warrior pose or Virabhadrasana is a powerful pose that uses the entire body to strengthen and stretch muscles.

Stand in mountain pose (tadasana). Press your feet to the ground. Straighten your legs, creating a long line from your heels to your shoulders. Pressing into the core of your back, lift your chest and look up toward your hands.

Inhale deeply. Now lengthen your spine as you lift up onto the balls of your feet, drawing those heels toward each other and lifting them up between your thighs. Keep looking up at the ceiling. On an exhalation, lower down onto the balls of both feet, placing them flat on the floor with a strong pivot point in the ball of each foot so that they do not come apart.

Keep lifting through this movement, drawing more breath into the core of your back and letting it out through your eyes as you stretch upwards toward the ceiling.

The Bottom Line

So does yoga help to lose belly fat? It’s clear that regular yoga practice will not necessarily help you lose belly fat. And yet, it can absolutely help you to become more mindful of your eating habits and lead a healthier lifestyle overall. It is also a great way to reduce stress, which can contribute to excessive eating. Be sure to check with a doctor before starting yoga and any other exercise routine.

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Marzia Khan
Marzia Khan

Marzia Khan, editor-in-chief and research manager of the HealthyRex platform, is a board-certified Physician Assistant whose practice locations include West U.S. She brings her years of experience in healthcare technology and clinical expertise, helping the team create high-quality, top-notch, and engaging contents that uphold the highest medical integrity. She began her journey with HealthyRex as the Senior Medical Writer since its launch in 2019. Before joining HealthyRex, she was a Medical Transcriptionist specializing in orthopedics, cardiology, IMEs, and record reviews. After years of practice, Marzia Khan transitioned from healthcare technology via her work at Augmedix, where she helped EHR system, secure messaging products, and clinical decision support tools for the healthcare system, to The U.S. Oncology Network overseeing areas of contents based on her medical expertise. She is now expanding her editorial oversight to the entire website and responsible for ensuring the accuracy of health information on HealthyRex. She also writes new articles, reviews and oversees the national network of doctors complying with the materials. Of note, she loves to travel and takes photos of the most colorful pockets.

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