Projo Fitness Blog

Regular yoga practice may help stave off that dreaded middle-age spread, U.S. researchers report in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.

They found that normal weight people who did yoga regularly gained less weight over 10 years, regardless of their diet and other physical activity. And overweight yoginis (and yogis) even dropped a few pounds.

Although some gentle forms of yoga, such as Hatha, don't always give you enough of an aerobic workout to burn significant calories to lose weight, in this study, it all came down to mindful eating.

Researchers found that people who do yoga were more aware of what they ate and stopped eating when they were full. The same didn't hold true for walkers and runners.

One form of yoga practice that's really top-notch for weight loss is power yoga. I took a weekly, 90-minute class at the Raffa Yoga studio a few years ago: The room was heated to at least 90 degrees, and with a combination of the heat, the length of the class and the repetitive Sun Salutations and other poses, I kept my weight down like never before.

 Tags  middle-age spread weight gain yoga

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