So I've mastered Sitonmyassana

April 7, 2009 10:57 AM

I'm losing the stress with yoga, but how to lose the pounds, too?

Similar to this thread, I’m wondering if my Ashtanga yoga practice is enough to get healthy and lose weight (I’m 5’4’’, around 160ish – I’ve lost almost 15 pounds since the beginning of the year with Weight Watchers and moderate exercise, but have hit a solid plateau for the last few weeks. I need the scale to MOVE. Yes I know that weight isn’t everything, I feel better, look better too, but 160ish is still too heavy and I would like to get healthy.)

Reasons I’m not a fan of “traditional” forms of cardio: gym membership + yoga membership is COSTLY, especially to someone unemployed and fresh out of grad school. I tried to do C25K and start a running program, but I have bad knees and am in pain for a good 2 days afterwards, at least (yes, I have special running shoes purchased from a specialty store, and I stretch a lot). Kind of a Catch-22 as I get the feeling that once I lose more weight I can run again with less pain (less stress on the joints?). Plus running seems to counteract the effects of my yoga practice and I’m pretty devoted to my yoga as it feels like I’m actually learning something, and its keeping me sane while I search for a job.

I’m going to yoga 3-5x times a week and although my heart is racing for a good part of class, I don’t know if its enough cardio. Will hot yoga (Baptiste or Bikram) be useful cardio alternatives? I’m never sure that the kind of elevated heart rate you get from being active in a hot environment is the same kind of elevated heart rate you get when you’re engaged in something like jogging or interval training. Basically, are all forms of cardio equal?

And if any of you have managed to lose weight with yoga, how did you do it? If you think I should just suck it up and try out running again, what is an appropriate way to incorporate both yoga and running without overdoing it or hurting myself?

posted by Eudaimonia to health & fitness (27 comments total)

Why don't you just talk a good brisk walk every day? It doesn't have to be running or nothing. I know plenty of people that are regular walkers and they are fit and trim.
posted by sickinthehead at 11:05 AM on April 7

Ashtanga 3-5x a week isn't brutal enough for you? Can you give it your all, if you aren't already, or try taking a class with a different teacher to see if you can be pushed harder?

I'm having fun supplementing my yoga with hooping, and my knees are crap, too. Hooping doesn't seem to bother them like high-impact exercise does, and it gets my heart going while I'm having fun.
posted by fiercecupcake at 11:17 AM on April 7 [1 favorite has favorites]

You haven't said anything about your diet. That's going to have a very large impact on whether or not you're losing fat. Are you tracking your nutrition?
posted by ludwig_van at 11:18 AM on April 7 [1 favorite has favorites]

Oh believe me, the Ashtanga is definitely brutal, its just not enough, apparently (haven't really lost anything for a few weeks now, its kind of getting to me...)

As for diet, I'm with WW and tracking my points but with the new Momentum plan, which encourages healthy eating - whole grains, lots of veggies and fruits, enough protein, all that good stuff. I'll drink maybe twice a week - so a total of 2-3 drinks per week isn't killing my diet, I'm pretty sure

Medically I'm ok too...I think it comes down to not enough cardio? Maybe? Thanks for the comments and suggestions so far!
posted by Eudaimonia at 11:26 AM on April 7

I have bad knees as well, if running makes them sore for 2 days you've done too much "work" (mileage/speed) in your last workout. Try cutting the "work" in half and see if that reduces the soreness in your knees, if not, cut by half etc, no need to injure yourself and set back your goals.

All forms are cardio are hardly equal, if anyone disagrees with this point simply ask them to run ten 150 meter sprints with 10 seconds rest between each (the tabata protocol I've mentioned in many of my past posts).

The "harder" an interval or cardio is, the metabolic waste products you produce as a result of glycolysis, and hence release more growth hormone and other factors that influence weight loss.

Varying your exercise routine will generally result in more results (physiological adaptation as a response to the stress of exercise) than doing the same workout time and time again, so trying Baptiste or Bikram may be a positive influence on your weight loss.
posted by zentrification at 11:31 AM on April 7

According to he BMI chart, you are not that far out of the healthy range, so it might just be that losing weight will be really slow for you at this point. How about supplementing your yoga practice with some low-impact, non-painful cardio like walking? I know, walking is really not sexy, but an hour-long walk will burn quite a few calories.

The other thing to remember (and I'm sure your group leader has pointed this out, if not, get a new one) is that yoga builds muscle, especially a yoga style like Ashtanga. Muscle weighs more than fat, so even if the scale isn't moving, I bet your shape is changing. Personally, I'd rather weigh 160 and be toned than 140 and be flabby. Have you tried measuring yourself (waist hip, bust, arms) on a regular basis? That might be a more reliable measure of progress.
posted by lunasol at 11:35 AM on April 7

Do you have hardwood floors, or a yard? If so -- buy a jumprope. Then jumprope in intervals. 2 minutes on, 1 minute off. Just three or four rounds of this is intense, cheap, easy cardio. It's not nearly so hard on your knees as running is, as long as you do it on a surface that has some give to it (hardwood floors or grass are great).
posted by pazazygeek at 12:06 PM on April 7

What's your diet like?

Weight loss is 80% diet. Relative to the amount one eats every day, exercise burns very little. Fix your diet, and you will see results. Try cutting out sugars and focusing your carbohydrate intake on low-glycemic foods like non-starchy vegetables and fruits. Get plenty of protein and good fat.
posted by schroedinger at 12:09 PM on April 7

From what I hear, a few weeks isn't much of a plateau; plenty of people see nothing move on the scale for a couple months at a time, and then drop a bit of weight all of a sudden. You're doing very well. I know you feel frustrated, but you may want to consider trying to measure your progress in other ways for the next few weeks before returning to the scale. You're right that 160 lb is too heavy for many people at 5'4", but all you care about is the average downward trend, and it isn't uncommon at all to hover at one weight for several weeks or fluctuate up a little now and then. Don't stress it too much.

You can try a few things apart from riding it out, although they may not make a difference.

Zeroth, start taking your measurements. Get a tape measure and measure your waist, hips, and if you like, chest, neck, and leg every week or two. If you are losing body fat and replacing it with water or muscle, you are likely to notice a difference here even if the scale number does not change.

First, as far as exercise, your emphasis doesn't have to be all cardio. Are you doing any strength training? If you're not, you should seriously consider it. Concentrated lifting and other forms of resistance/endurance strength training can have a noticeable impact on your metabolism for many hours afterwards, well after the "burn" from cardio has stopped. In the long term, muscle work can have a continuous effect on metabolism. Even forgetting about the calorie burn, strength training is a critical part of fitness that a lot of weight-concerned people neglect, particularly women. It is not easy and should not be easy, especially in the beginning; your heart will pound and you may be exhausted afterwards, but eventually it is rewarding. Stumptuous is a favorite around here with novices. So is One Hundred Pushups. Keep it up and you will feel like a bad-ass.

Second, if you do want more cardio, yes, you can do a brisk walk instead of a run. You can also intermix stretches of walking with brief spurts of running. Look up "interval training;" you can do this even if you can't run even half a mile, and a lot of people find that intervals bump their weight loss. Intervals can be done with biking and swimming too, of course.

Third, ludwig_van and schroedinger are right that "abs are made in the kitchen." If you really don't want to ride out the plateau and see what happens, you can consider carefully tracking your calorie, protein, fat, alcohol, and carbohydrate intake for three days to make sure you're within reasonable bounds. Even point-restricted 'healthy eating' can sometimes surprise you. Exercise dampens appetite in the short term but in the long term a lot of people end up eating more without realizing it. Healthy calories are still calories. And it's possible that your 3 drinks may be having an effect. A beer can be like eating half to two-thirds of a candy bar.

Fourth, as a corollary to that, it ain't fair, but the more weight you lose, the more likely you are to need to continue to drop your calorie intake in order to keep losing if you don't ramp up some part of your calorie burn. Conversely and perversely, if you drop your calorie intake too low, you may find that your weight loss stalls because your body adapts to hang on to every spare calorie to protect you from starvation.

Fifth, as another corollary, a fair number of people find that the amount of weight they personally lose and the distribution of fat on their bodies depend more on their ratios of protein to fat to carbs than on their calorie intake (within a certain range of reasonable). If you have any reason to think you might be insulin resistant or prediabetic, or if you or your family members tend to put on weight around the torso instead of in the thighs, or easily develop "beer guts" or "bread guts," you may want to look into this further.

The wisest thing you could do right now would be to make a few tweaks where you see you could benefit but be willing to wait out the plateau a little longer if need be. Consider it practice for learning to maintain your weight loss, which is actually harder than losing it in the first place. Congratulations on what you have done so far, it's substantial.
posted by jeeves at 12:23 PM on April 7

Wait, you have lost 15 pounds since the beginning of the year, working out 3-5x a week, watching your diet, and you aren't satisfied?

First, you are doing awesome. Diet and exercise is the only way to lose weight and keep it off. Making them a life long habit is a sure way to life long health. Congrats for making a positive change in your life.

The body becomes conditioned to doing similar activities and similar intensities. As someone who lifts weight 3-5x a week, I know that i need to change my routine every 3 weeks or I will hit a plateau. I also know that I need to incorporate a strategic deconditioning period.

Take a week long break every once in a while. Skip yoga one night and go for a long walk. If your knees are bad, take a jog on the grass in a park. The grass is easier on your joints than roads, and much easier than sidewalk.

Keep up the good work.
posted by munchingzombie at 12:34 PM on April 7

gym membership + yoga membership is COSTLY

Many gyms have yoga classes, maybe not 3-5 times a week, but something you might want to look into.

Will hot yoga (Baptiste or Bikram) be useful cardio alternatives?

I've dropped a lot of sweat in Bikram and a lot on the elliptical/bike, and personally don't feel like the workouts are at all similar. I get a huge endorphin rush from cardio, while Bikram just leaves me feeling completely drained. I'm never sore after Bikram. You'll lose a lot of water weight during hot yoga, but won't really burn that many calories. There's just not that much movement involved.
posted by and hosted from Uranus at 12:44 PM on April 7

First 15 lbs in five months is great. I would not worry about that rate at all. But if you want to loose more weight: cardio cardio cardio. Just breaking out in a sweat is not going to help loose fat (as much), you have to get that heart rate up and keep it up. Swimming is great if you can find a pool. You could bike or get some inline skates. One trick is to keep your bike in first gear. You look like an idiot, but a thin idiot.
posted by d4nj450n at 12:55 PM on April 7 [1 favorite has favorites]

Diet is going to do it. I used to do ashtanga 5x a week and was gaining weight because I was downing a burrito after every class. You probably are burning less than 350 calories in a 1 hour class.

Google Hacker's Diet if weight loss is important to you. I'm exercising less and burning weight off faster.
posted by sully75 at 1:42 PM on April 7

Momentum plan, which encourages healthy eating - whole grains, lots of veggies and fruits

This may not be enough - you need to take into account the GI of each food you are eating. My wife's endocrinologist suggested she avoid bread (carbs), certain fruits (grapes), and certain vegetables (carrots are high GI). My wife did lose the weight.

My parents, both of whom have struggled with weight for their entire lives, also follow a low-GI diet, and they have lost weight and have kept it off.
posted by KokuRyu at 1:58 PM on April 7

The yoga is not going to be your primary weight loss driver. DIET DIET DIET DIET is.

Stop following the diets with the silly names. Focus on calories in <>
The reason Weight Watchers and the Momentum diet are successful is that they encourage healthy eating in the form of dense, space-taking foods that aren't a lot of calories. You can do this yourself without following a particular pattern. It's not only about what you eat- it's about the volume of what you eat as well.

If you want to be successful long-term, you have to count calories, and you have to create a caloric deficit. You're looking at this from the exercise end, when the diet end is the one that's going to make a long-term, healthy difference in your life.
posted by unexpected at 1:59 PM on April 7

Well, losing 15 pounds since the beginning of the year is awesome, so give yourself credit for that!

I'm a Weight Watcher and our leader said last week that you need to change your exercise routine up every few months for continued weight loss. It looks like you're about at that point now. Don't quit the yoga, it's great for your strength, flexibility, etc. But you do need to add something else. Exercise videos? Walking? Wii Fit? Jump rope?
posted by radioamy at 1:59 PM on April 7

15 lbs is not only great, it's pretty much the most you can hope to achieve consistently and healthily.

Most guidelines suggest a target of at most 1-lb per week average weight loss, and usually less. 2-lbs per week is considered very aggressive and not a realistic in the long-term.
posted by randomstriker at 2:04 PM on April 7

I’ve lost almost 15 pounds since the beginning of the year with Weight Watchers and moderate exercise, but have hit a solid plateau for the last few weeks.

I think you're doing great. Plateaus are totally normal. This is probably the most useful thing about the oft-mentioned Hacker's Diet: increasing the amount of data so that you can see the trends. When I lost weight (55-60 lbs in under a year) I would have stretches at the same weight, but the trend line was continuing downward, so it was all good. :)

May I suggest bicycling? I have one arthritic knee and a trick ankle, so the only reason I run is if I'm late for the bus. On the other hand, in the last year I did nearly 2000 miles on my bike, and I think that contributed significantly to my weight loss experience. Plus when I was doing Bikram yoga (class got too expensive!), the biking and yoga interacted nicely in terms of both stretching and balance.

Biking is also just a great way to get around: most of those 2000 miles were logged commuting to & from work. You may find that you save on gas, which means you can upgrade to a nicer bike, or afford more yoga classes!
posted by epersonae at 4:16 PM on April 7

Congrats!
I, too, find that yoga isn't enough - pick something else up - if you have a dog, you can walk it; jumping rope and hula hooping like others have suggested; join an intramural team/pool
posted by Acer_saccharum at 5:59 PM on April 7

Are you doing any strength training? If you're not, you should seriously consider it ... Stumptuous is a favorite around here with novices. So is One Hundred Pushups.

I just want to interject here -- I agree completely about strength training being a good idea. However, 100 pushups (or 100 of anything) is not strength training. Doing a movement with low reps and progressively increasing weight is strength training.

If you need endurance and want to be able to say you can do 100 pushups, go for it. But if you want to get strong, that's not the way.
posted by ludwig_van at 7:35 PM on April 7

Thanks, everyone, for your responses (and support!) so far! It seems the general consensus is that hot yoga is not a good cardio alternative and that I should be looking more closely at my diet.

So I'm trying not to make too many appearances in my own question, but I had a quick follow up question.

I did a quick review today and realized that I may, at times, not be getting enough calories. I've been on WW points so I haven't tracked calories, just points. Fit Day seems to think that at my activity level I'll need around 1500 calories a day to reach my weight goal in the time I want. Great to have a number to aim for. But, erm, forgive my stupidity and I'm embarrassed I don't know this, but how does activity factor in to the net calorie goal? I don't want to eat too little, but say I eat my 1500 for the day and then I burn 300 calories at the gym, will I have to make up those 300 calories, food wise? Does my daily net intake have to be 1500 for my body to function properly or can I safely create an exercise induced deficit and still be ok (and hopefully 300 calories closer to my goal)? Sorry for the silly question, but I don't want to abuse my poor body or put it into starvation mode (I just want to get to a healthy weight as fast and intelligently as I safely can!) Thanks again!
posted by Eudaimonia at 10:10 PM on April 7

However, 100 pushups (or 100 of anything) is not strength training. Doing a movement with low reps and progressively increasing weight is strength training. ... But if you want to get strong, that's not the way.

Eudaimonia's goal is to lose mass, not gain it. Low weights, high reps will indeed help build the lean, calorie-burning muscle relevant to jeeves' point.
posted by and hosted from Uranus at 8:21 AM on April 8

Uranus, this is edging into derail territory, but: high reps don't burn more fat, doing extremely high-rep sets does not build muscle as effectively as progressive loading with lower reps, and my main objection was to jeeves' implication was that 100 pushups was a form of strength training, which it is not.
posted by ludwig_van at 8:54 AM on April 8

Well, are you really really hungry all the time? Then, you might not be eating enough. Add a small snack (couple of nuts/fruit/small piece of cheese/carrot sticks/etc).

Or, do you get steadily hungrier over the hour or two preceding your meals? That's perfectly normal, and you should stick to whatever number of points WW has you on. Your diet seems to be working for you, and you shouldn't worry too much about the occasional plateau.

Honestly, I know some people are obsessed with counting calories, and it can work very well, but listening to your body is just as important!
posted by snoogles at 9:29 AM on April 8

Eudaimonia, you said "Fit Day seems to think that at my activity level I'll need around 1500 calories a day to reach my weight goal in the time I want." That means that if you already told FitDay how much exercise you're doing, you can eat your 1500 a day, do your exercise, and continue to lose weight steadily. If you didn't include your exercise, then yes, you may need to increase that calorie number by 150-300.

Keep in mind that even with FitDay and its metabolic formulas, this is all approximate. Everyone's basal metabolic rate is different, and the body tends to try to adjust itself to a given calorie level. I checked, and the calorie count FitDay estimates for me is off by about 200. The only reason I know this is personal experience with what and how much I can eat these days.

This doesn't give you carte blanche to think "oh, I've plateaued for three weeks, I must need to drop my calories to 1000 or 1200 and that way I'll keep losing." Short plateaus happen; whatever calorie count (or point count) you choose has to be high enough that you're able to get adequate nutrition from the foods you eat, and it has to be high enough that you know you could comfortably continue to eat approximately this way indefinitely. Most people who lose weight are unable to keep it off longer than a few years because they don't realize that diets don't end. If you're not eating and drinking in a way that satisfies both your psychological appetite and your physical hunger (at least after that first three to six weeks where changes to your habits are painful), there is a very good chance that you will gain the weight back. To be unsatisfied is not sustainable for most people if they are surrounded by plenty. Our brains have just not evolved to function that way.
posted by jeeves at 1:18 AM on April 9

ludwig_van, I agree that building up to doing a hundred pushups is not meaningful strength training from many athletes' or builders' points of view. However, for the OP's purposes, it might well be a useful form of strength training for someone who is largely a novice. Quite a few people — perhaps the majority of women — who start from where the OP was are unable to do even one or two proper pushups. Many must begin with modified pushups, either from the knees or angled against a wall or bed. Just to reach the point where one can eke out eight to ten full pushups before failure does constitute both resistance and endurance training for this group of people (which has included me at various times of my pitiful, soggy-armed deskbound life).

OP, the main reasons I mention it are 1. the above; 2. it's something that can be done for free, without additional equipment; 3. the encouragement to progress to higher reps means that eventually doing that magical eight to ten, repeatedly, becomes comfortable, which I think is a pragmatic measure of how those strength gains translate to real life functionality; and 4. it's a great way to build the confidence to move to more intensive resistance and endurance training if one wishes.

As I said before, don't discount muscle work as a perk to your metabolism. I am no expert on this subject, but I have read a handful of exercise science journal papers. It made a big impression on me to see that in some studies with novices, people put on strength training regimens (usually with an emphasis on low reps, progressive loading, as ludwig_van mentions) lose as much weight or more than those put on cardio-heavy exercise programs. Additionally, more of that weight is lost as fat, and they even noticeably improve their blood glucose control. Muscles are important.
posted by jeeves at 1:19 AM on April 9

Well I certainly agree that if the OP can't do a pushup, building the strength to be able to do 10 or 20 is worthwhile. I just wouldn't advise spending the time and effort to build up to 100, just as I don't think it'd be worthwhile to try and bench press 100 reps with an empty bar. If you want to build muscle, which you should, read Starting Strength and do the program. My girlfriend can't do a single proper pushup yet, but she just started SS and will probably be doing bodyweight squats in a few weeks.
posted by ludwig_van at 8:10 AM on April 9