Most weight loss yoga articles are superficial. They contain several exercises that were spied on somewhere and general formulations that have no value. As a result, no matter how much you study in these lessons, your stomach and sides remain with you. In fact, you can lose weight very quickly with yoga if you know how. Therefore, I want to tell you about a really quick way that I accidentally discovered during my yoga classes.
To be honest, I never had any doubts about yoga helping to lose belly fat. It has always been obvious to me that a flat stomach is an added benefit of regular yoga practice. I have seen how people who constantly go to yoga classes transform and become slim and fit. But all this is happening gradually. If you want to get the result as quickly as possible, read the article at the end. Once you know the simplest yoga exercises for weight loss at home, I will tell you about three secret yoga exercises that allow you to remove belly fat literally an inch a day.
Yoga for Weight Loss for Beginners at Home
At home, it is very easy to do asanas - static yoga poses. To do this, it is enough to spread the blanket in the morning and do a few simple exercises. Do this yoga complex for weight loss at home every morning. It only takes 15 minutes. The complex includes all types of asanas: standing positions, bends, twists. Each asana affects certain areas of the body, improves blood circulation and metabolism, normalizes hormone levels and gently massages the internal organs. Through these influences, this yoga complex triggers the weight loss process. Static asanas are more related to the direction of hatha yoga; kundalini yoga has also proven good for weight loss.
Why is it recommended to practice in the morning? Because usually at this point our stomach is empty and approx. 8 hours since last meal. This is an important nuance. One of the yoga masters I studied with said: the effectiveness of an asana depends on emptiness in the stomach. And of course, before embarking on this simple yoga for weight loss, drink a glass of water and empty your bowels.
- Stand with your feet about foot width apart, inhale and lift your arms over your head with your palms facing inwards.
- Exhale and bend your knees, fall to the floor as if sitting on a chair.
- Your torso will naturally tilt slightly forward. Try to straighten your shoulders, pull the shoulder blades back and lower your shoulders away from your ears. Take a deep breath, take 5 deep breaths and exhale.
- Stand in the same chair position, but instead of stretching your arms out over your head, lower them to chest level as you bend your legs.
- Then bring your palms together as in prayer, and turn your upper body to the right so that your left elbow rests gently on your right thigh.
- Keep your abdominal muscles strong and get deep breathing and exhalation. Hold the position for five breaths in and out. As you inhale, straighten your knees to return to the starting position, then repeat the exercise on the other side.
- Get on all fours with your knees shoulder-width apart, palms just below your shoulders.
- Spread your fingers wide and place your weight on your hands.
- When breathing out, lift your knees off the floor and straighten your legs and lift your pelvis.
- Push off the floor with your arms and legs, push your pelvis up and stretch your back as if you were pulling the mat in different directions with your palms and feet. Relax your neck and hang your head loose.
- Stay in this position, take 5 deep breaths and exhale.
- Starting position - dog face down. When inhaling, straighten your left leg and lift it as high as possible.
- As you exhale, slowly bending your leg, bring your left knee to your chin. When doing this, try sucking your stomach in and pulling your navel toward your spine.
- At the next breath, straighten and lift your leg again. Repeat 5 times for one leg and 5 times for the other.
- Starting position - dog with face down. Bring your right leg forward between your arms so that you are in a low jump, like a runner, before you start.
- Turn the left heel slightly outwards so that the toes on the left foot face the right heel.
- Lift your torso while stretching your arms up. Straighten your shoulders and arch your back slightly, pushing your chest out.
- Take a deep breath, take 5 deep breaths in this position. Then repeat the exercise on the other side.
- Starting position - warrior position 1. Straighten your right leg and transfer your entire body weight to it.
- Lift your left leg off the floor and stretch it backwards, leaning forward so that your body looks like a T. Your whole body is parallel to the ground. The crown and arms are pulled forward and the toes of the left foot are pulled back. If you are having difficulty maintaining balance, you can first help yourself by leaning on a chair.
- Stay in this position for five breaths, then repeat on the other side.
- Lie on your stomach with your feet together, your forehead resting on the mat, arms outstretched, palms down.
- Squeeze your stomach and buttocks, lift your straight legs and arms up. Keep your legs, arms and upper body from the navel above the ground and rest only on your hips and abdomen.
- Take a deep breath, take five deep in and out.
- Lie on your stomach with your forehead on the mat, stretching your arms at your sides, palms facing up. When you exhale, bend your knees and pull your heels as close to your buttocks as possible. Grasp your ankles with your hands and place your hips shoulder-width apart.
- When inhaling, lift your upper body and thighs off the floor and reach out with your heels back from your buttocks. Be sure to relax your lower back by spreading your shoulder blades down and back. Only the abdomen and hip joint are in contact with the floor.
- Pull 5 deep breaths into this position, then return to the starting position.
- Get on all fours with your legs slightly apart, arms just below your shoulders.
- Tighten your abdominal muscles and keep your back straight, lift your right leg and your left arm at the same time, and straighten them as much as possible. Maintain this body position for 5 deep breaths and exhalations.
- Then repeat the same with left leg and right arm.
- This is the same exercise as the previous one, with the difference that here we are on a plank, not on all fours.
- Start by standing on a plank with straight arms.
- Then keep your back straight, lift your left leg and right arm and stretch them as far out as possible. Hold this asana for 5 deep breaths.
- Then repeat in the opposite direction.
Yoga for weight loss
Do you want your weight loss yoga classes to work really well? So that you literally every morning feel like you're getting lighter? Do not be lazy after completing a complex of asanas to practice breathing exercises (pranayamas) and meditation. Meditation + pranayama + asanas - this is the magic recipe for yoga for weight loss. Start each morning with yoga, including all three components of your lesson, and the result will not be long in coming.
Fat Burning Meditation
Yoga restores the hormone balance in the body by calming the mind and achieving inner harmony. But this is not the only reason why yoga contributes to weight loss. Let’s look at the exercises that make up a typical yoga class in a gym or fitness club.
Usually a yoga lesson starts with meditation. In almost any class, you are first asked to sit still for 10 minutes and be aware of what is happening inside and out.
By the way, a lot of studies confirm that only a regular practice of meditation already has a positive effect on health, hormones and leads to the normalization of weight. In addition, meditation develops attention, leading to better eating behaviors and a more attentive approach to eating. This is also important.
Pranayama
The other thing you want to do in yoga is pranayama, that is, breathing exercises.
Some pranayamas are designed to train a very important muscle in our body - the diaphragm.
A sustained sedentary lifestyle causes the diaphragm to simply stop working at full strength and become weak and dense. And most Western training systems put a little emphasis on this muscle. But not yoga.
In yoga, great emphasis is placed on proper breathing and the development of diaphragmatic breathing. Therefore, you will make a lot of pranayamas and let your membrane work hard and expand at full strength.
The movement of the membrane during breathing is of great benefit to the whole body.
- First, each expansion and contraction of the membrane performs a gentle massage of internal organs - heart, liver, pancreas, gallbladder. This leads to their purification and stimulates their work.
- Second, the membrane directly affects the digestive process and affects the stomach, if of course we do not forget to actively move it.
- And third, the membrane that rises high upwards, with a full deep exhalation, affects the sunspot area, where tens of thousands of nerve endings are intertwined, this leads to stimulation of the parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for rest and recovery of the body.
The parasympathetic nervous system is often suppressed as a result of the modern man's constant pursuit of goals. Constant tension, stress, nervous activity block the body's healing processes and recovery. And the masters of yoga, who are fully aware of this, have developed breathing exercises that bring two opposite nervous systems - the parasympathetic and the sympathetic - into balance. It contributes to weight loss much more than constantly exhausting diets and exercise.
The most famous pranayama for weight loss is called uddiyana bandha. Many people today know this exercise as a "vacuum". So this "modern" vacuum is an integral part of the yoga system, which has existed for many thousands of years.
3 easy steps for quick results
For those who have read the article to the end, have conscientiously performed all asanas, breathing exercises and meditation, I will tell you about an interesting case from my yoga practice. I want to share my personal experience.
First Secret
Exercising asanas in yoga is only considered as a preparatory stage for pranayama - breathing exercises. And pranayama, in turn, serves to prepare for meditation - to purify the mind and focus. Therefore, at a certain point in my practice, I began to practice holding my breath. My goal was to learn to hold my breath as long as possible. Literally immediately after starting such a workout, I suddenly noticed that every morning I feel light in my body and stomach. And the fat on the stomach and sides has noticeably dropped. This unusual effect piqued my interest. I started looking for information on the Internet and realized that I was not the only one facing a similar experience. In addition, there are whole effective weight loss systems that are based on holding your breath. So you can take this method into circulation.
I've been dealing with delays on the freedivers' training table, these are people diving into the ocean without scuba gear.
Here's my training table:
- 1 Minute Delay - Rest 1: 30
- Delay 1: 30 - Rest 1: 30
- Delay 1: 30 - Rest 1: 30
- Delay 1: 35 - Rest 1: 30
- 1: 40 delay
This table is for shortness of breath during inhalation.
While resting between sets, I also took short breaks of 20-30 seconds on a full exhalation.
Second Secret
This secret also has a lot to do with breathing. I'm not a doctor and have no idea how this effect is explained from a medical point of view, it's just my personal observation. So I noticed that belly fat does not accumulate if you try to get full exhalation during breathing during the day. It sounds easy, but if you observe yourself, you may find that at the end of each exhalation there is still air in the lungs that you can breathe out. This is especially true when sitting. It will be difficult for you to breathe completely if your back and lower back are rounded. Most likely, the effect of this method of breathing is due to the fact that the muscles of the press, lumbar and diaphragm are used for full exhalation. Thus, they are kept in good shape.
In short, the second secret of yoga for weight loss is this: during the day, try to exhale 2 times longer than inhaling, then you will be happy.
Third Secret
The third secret also flows smoothly from the second. And perhaps this is the most important rule for losing weight with the help of yoga - clean up the lumbar muscles. Working with the muscles of the lower back, their stretching and strengthening - this is what is absolutely very effective in removing fat from the abdomen and sides. A sedentary lifestyle literally kills the lower back, which must constantly be in a stretched position. Relaxed muscles that have lost their elasticity are unable to support body weight, an imbalance occurs that leads to the accumulation of fat. There is a yoga exercise that can help you lose weight fast and effectively. Do it only 5 minutes a day and the result will be.
- Roll a blanket or towel.
- Lie on the floor and place a rolled-up blanket under your lower back.
- Extend your arms behind your head and gather your little fingers.
- Extend your legs and gather your thumbs.
- Lie in this position for 5 minutes.
This exercise brings the pelvis, lower back and abdomen back to their natural state. As a result, belly fat becomes unnecessary and disappears quickly.
Losing weight with yoga - basic principles
The most important principle in yoga for weight loss is consistent practice. I recommend exercising 6 times a week, at least an hour every day.
If this seems like a difficult schedule, start with short training programs, but every day this approach will help you build a habit. And when yoga becomes familiar, you naturally start to extend the duration of the session to stay on the mat a little longer.
The second principle is to do what you really enjoy. Try to find joy, pleasant sensations in yoga. The main task is to connect yoga classes with feelings of joy.
The third principle - do not just think about losing weight. Remember that yoga is very beneficial for the body as well as the mind, psyche and state of mind. Losing weight is only a good bonus and you will understand it very soon if you practice yoga regularly for at least 2-3 months.