Hello Ankur,
This link goes to the website of a colleague of mine, and fellow Structural Yoga Therapist, whose case study, and eventual book, is on the connection of yoga and peaceful weight loss. I hope this proves helpful in your search.
Peaceful Weight Loss Through Yoga
Om Shanthi,
Nichole
If you start to do any kind of serious exercise, on a daily basis, especially Yoga, then your body starts to tell you what to eat, you’ll no longer desire food that gives you no energy. Once you combine that with your daily exercise, weight loss will happen, you, won’t need to follow any specific diets that you see advertised every where.
Diet an exercise is the easiest way to lose it and keep it off. And meditate! The less stress the easier it is to lose, IMO! 
Good luck.
I have found weight loss is a by product of a yoga practice…especially if you try to follow the guidelines about not practicing with a full stomach (approximately 3 - 4 hours after a meal or 1 - 2 hours after a snack). It’s been suggested that the energy that would normally be used to disperse the benefits of your yoga practice will instead go to digesting your food. And it’s a bit uncomfortable to do an energetic practice with a full tummy anyway (although I suppose a restorative practice wouldn’t be too bad…)
Something to think about…
Leela
“I have found weight loss is a by product of a yoga practice”
Exactly!! I lost 20-25 lbs from doing Yoga and it wasn’t exactly fat. I had been an avid weight trainer before taking up Yoga. It wasn’t a goal to lose weight, but because I no longer lifted and ate so much food, the byproduct was that I lost weight. Instead of focussing on eating lots of food, I eventually ate less food, less frequently and lighter, more healthier food.
Based on my understanding of Mukunda’s teachings I would recommend a kapha practice that emphasizes feeling the strength of the pose. The approach or intention is more important then the poses you choose to work with. Kapalabhati Pranayama can also be helpful to activate agni and aid digestion, and tone the abdominal and diaphram muscles.
I’m one of those people who has been on every diet under the sun. Low carb? Check. Nutrisystem? Check. Weight Watchers? Check. I lose weight and before long, I gain it back.
Recently I began to get into yoga. The exercise is wonderful and I am feeling great. My question is, can yoga lead to weight loss? I don’t seem to get my heart rate up that high during class, so I’m guessing that I shouldn’t expect to lose much weight. But if anyone wants to shed any light on this issue, I would appreciate it.
Welcome dieting yogi
From a scientific viewpoint, it pretty much boils down to calories in vs calories out. Yes there is scope with how you make up those calories to change how those kilos/lbs are made up.
Apart from the physical, which I can go into in a subsequent post if you are interested, what yoga can do is open up your outlook on life which will help you with the issues that result in you putting on the weight. I’m sure the guys/gals that post here can provide a more detailed explanation of that.
Ill be direct (for a change).
Yoga can lead to weight loss. Yoga can also lead to weight gain. Yoga can lead to truly being more mindful. Yoga can also lead to being an arrogant pain in the ass. Yoga can lead to the deepest embodiment of non-violence. Yoga can also lead to militant internal violence in the name of non-violence.
Okay, so I will not be direct:-)
No external diet, none, will have a lasting effect unless it comes with a precursory internal shift. The change must first come from inside.
Then once that happens the student must understand that not everyone’s ideal body weight is the cover of Shape magazine. Bodies operate differently and while I’m not advocating obesity I am illustrating that expectations should be reasonable rather than societal.
After the internal shift, then an educational process of the two components of eating would be required: what not to eat and what to eat. That, in conjunction with the proper apportionment of fat, protein, and carbs AND an increase in activity levels will often manage weight.
However Yoga is not a weight loss system nor should it be. Just like Yoga is not a muscle fitness system, nor should it be. Just like yoga is not a flexibility system, nor should it be. Yoga does however contain some elements of each of these - in additional to about 10,000 other things.
Greetings Dieting Yogi,
You mentioned that you had tried numerous diets, lost weight, and then gained it back. That cycle is so common these days and somewhat disheartening for people. I think that one key to long-term weight loss is to not do diets, but to move into lifestyle change. To me, diets are restrictive and they focus too much attention on deprivation in one form or another. The easiest approach to long-term weight loss is really to consume healthy food (including lots of fruit, veggies, whole grains) and keep the unhealthy foods out of your life. Basically, if you don’t buy the junk and high-calorie foods, you won’t eat them. This does not mean that you can never have a slice of chocolate cake, or other treat, just make it occasional. You may even find that after some time, you won’t like those things as much any more.
Of course, I do not know what your eating habits are like, and you may already consume very healthy foods. In that case, you would need to either cut back on portions or increase your physical activity or both.
Good luck.
Hi There,
As someone who also struggled with my weight for a very long time I would like to offer you the following. Yoga alone, in other words the asanas, the physical part of it, won’t be enough to help you to loose weight. However, the one thing you need to understand about yoga is that it changes you over time. This change can be very fast and profound for some and for others it takes time, depending on where you are in the lesson you have to learn.
There are spiritual changes in you, mental changes, emotional and the biggest, physical changes. It was these physical changes through yoga which actually helped me to change my lifestyle in terms of what I put into my body and the quality of what i put into my body.
Combined this with regular asanas and additional exercises and you will loose weight. It took me a few years to determine exactly what my body want and need and how I can give it the necessary nutition and sustenance in a way that was acceptable and healthy. Take the time, the change will come. I always say don’t expect to loose the weight that you gained over the past 10 years in 10 days, it doesn’t work that way.
On the other hand I would also draw your attention to the fact that being overweight is also a karmic situation for some people and you need to investigate that aspect and work on it as well. This you can do through meditation and contemplation. For me it was a defnite karmic debt as well and once I released the emotion around it, asked forgiveness from the person I wronged and was forgiven, the changes were even faster.
Good luck with the changes that yoga will bring to you, if you are patient and persistent.
I got a library book called ‘yoga for weight loss’, though I’m naturally skinny, it had some good sequences to learn, ones that work your stomach or your legs or shoulders.
One thing about yoga I have found that it is giving a wonderful muscle definition to my skinny frame and that makes me feel better about myself.
you know I think it can work both ways if you are oversize it can tone you down and if you’re too slim it will tone you up.
Hi there,
There are so many Asanas of yogas available to loose weight such as,sun salutation(surya namaskar),Shoulder Stand (Sarvangasana),Triangle (Trikonasana) and Plank .This asanas of yoga will definitely heips you to reduce weight.
Yoga is one of the best natural way to cut down excess amount of stored fat. There are some of the best yoga poses for weight loss. I have found an article entitled “yogic yoga and weight loss” at zovon.
A diet of Miso soup with tofu, Salmon and eggs plus Yoga every morning. I lost 9 kilos in 4 weeks (i was hungry though)
Overweight or obesity is one of the major problems in today’s world. A lot of us are affected by it up to a certain limit. It may be because of various factors like unhealthy diet, lack of physical activity and sedentary lifestyle, and to be honest, it is much more dangerous that it appears! I came across an article 23 Yoga Poses to Lose Weight Faster at zovon. for last 5 months, I am doing yoga and lost a lot of weight.
Quickest way to lose weight is by removing bad fats from your diet. The weight just falls off. The difficullty is maintaining it and not giving into temptation. If you are practising Yamas and niyamas (and you should be as these come before Asana in the Patanjali system) this will not be a problem