How Many Calories Does Yoga Burn and Can It Help You Lose Weight?

A yoga practice can torch anywhere from about 180 to 460 calories, depending on several variables, including:

• the specific style of yoga you practice
• the duration and vigor of the session
• whether you’re male or female

For instance, a 160-pound individual will expend roughly 183 calories during a 60-minute Hatha (gentle) yoga session, according to the Mayo Clinic.

By comparison, here are approximate calories burned for other activities, per the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA):

While calorie burning isn’t yoga’s chief health benefit, you will nevertheless expend energy during class. The amount burned depends on several factors, such as:

• the yoga style
• the class level
• the session length
• the class speed and intensity

As an example, calories burned in Hatha yoga — a foundational form usually taught at a gentler pace — differ from those in Bikram yoga, also called hot yoga.

Continue reading to discover more about yoga and its potential role in weight loss.

Bikram yoga

Bikram yoga is practiced in a room warmed to about 105°F with roughly 40 percent humidity. Sessions are usually 90 minutes long and include 26 poses plus two breathing practices.

Many of the poses demand strength, flexibility, and balance. A 2014 study from Colorado State University reported that, on average, men burned 460 calories and women burned 330 calories per Bikram session.

Can yoga help you lose weight?

Weight reduction occurs by either burning more energy through activity or ingesting fewer calories. Most people who lose weight and maintain it use both approaches.

Although many exercises burn more calories than yoga, a 2016 study indicated yoga might provide multiple effects that make it a viable strategy for sustained, healthy weight loss.

For those aiming to slim down, the yoga community offers social encouragement and examples to follow. The researchers also proposed that cultivating mindfulness through yoga may help people:

• avoid unhealthy foods
• curb comfort eating
• reduce stress-related eating
• become more attuned to bodily cues so they notice fullness
• experience fewer cravings
• have diminished appetite
• gain better self-esteem and mood
• alleviate back or joint pain that had limited additional exercise

Yoga, sleep, and fat loss

The National Sleep Foundation reports that yoga can improve sleep quality. For people with insomnia, daily yoga practice helps them:

• fall asleep more quickly
• sleep for longer periods
• return to sleep more swiftly if awakened during the night

A 2018 study compared a group with regular sleep to a group with restricted sleep five nights per week. When both groups reduced calorie intake, the sleep-restricted group lost less fat. This implies that sleep deprivation negatively affects body composition, including fat loss.

If quality sleep supports fat loss and yoga aids sleep, it’s reasonable to infer yoga can assist people in losing fat.

Yoga and long-term weight management

A 2005 study involving 15,500 middle-aged men and women, funded by the National Cancer Institute, found that individuals who were normal weight at 45 and practiced yoga regularly gained about 3 pounds less than average by age 55.

The study also showed that overweight participants who practiced yoga lost roughly 5 pounds over the 10-year span from 45 to 55, compared with the 14 pounds gained by those who didn’t practice yoga over the same period.

The investigators suggested these findings likely stem from a more mindful approach to eating among people who practiced yoga.

The takeaway

To lose weight, you need to expend more calories than you consume. You will burn calories during yoga, but other forms of physical activity may burn more calories in the same timeframe.

Nevertheless, yoga might help you lose weight and maintain it through increased mindfulness and improved sleep.