The waist and the belly are fat storehouses in the human body and the first place where you tend to put on weight. Any workout has distinct exercises targeting these areas. Just like that, even through yoga, you can create the ideal workout. Yoga can be used to reduce waist size and waist fat. Yoga can also target belly fat, hips and thighs.
Yoga aims at uniting the body, mind, soul and is considered the perfect workout. You can do it in your home; the asanas or exercises are simple and with consistency, you can achieve the body you want. Yoga helps you become aware of your body's posture, alignment and balance. Yoga is believed to very effective in removing most extraneous fat from the body. Most yoga styles work on using the body as resistance while developing strength. Yoga is intrinsically linked with righting all the body chakras or energy cycles that have gone out of sync. Yoga, as a philosophy believes the belly to be the central to all ills and cures. You should ideally start with a yoga class that has an experienced instructor and then slowly start doing the asanas/poses unassisted at home, once you have developed some confidence. Some of these poses are complicated and need supervision and should not be attempted while you are alone. Like most exercises, the more the number of repetitions, the better the effect.
You definitely need exercise to reduce belly fat. The use of yoga to reduce belly fat as also the use of yoga to reduce waist size are known to be very effective and is used by many throughout the world. Typical asanas or poses that help are the Sun salute, which exercises the entire body including burning abdominal fat and making the spine elastic. The child pose the cobra pose and the wind releasing pose, all help strengthen the abdomen; the tree pose, the two hero poses, the swinging lotus pose, the squats and the celibacy pose all help strengthen the legs, which in turn strengthen thighs. Angle pose and the butterfly pose are also good for the legs and thighs.
Yoga also teaches you deep breathing and meditation. These breathing techniques, called Pranayams, work wonders on the belly fat as it is deep breathing and affects your stomach. Yoga works on all-round development, including reducing your stress and changing your outlook towards the food you eat. There is even a version of stomach crunches in yoga where you lie flat on the ground. You raise your legs to the ceiling, put your hands behind your head and use your abdominal muscles to push your legs further towards the ceiling.
There is another fabulous workout method called Pilates. Pilates emphasizes lateral breathing. Both these forms of exercise are rigorous cardio-vascular workouts. Yoga has the benefits of a great exercise when it does with Pilates. You should do a combination of both to get the best and the fastest result. Yoga and Pilates together can be a comprehensive set of exercises that can be a rigorous workout.
The combination of yoga and Pilates can be very effective if you are trying for weight loss, especially weight loss around the belly and legs. Pilates is known to really help the lower part of the abdomen, often a problem area in weight loss regimens. Pick a combination of asanas and mat stretches and breathing exercises based on your comfort level and what your goals are.
While using either of these exercise routines, it is also important to keep the diet a healthy one to achieve long-lasting and complete benefit from yoga and Pilates. Your diet should include lesser fats and sugars along with lesser processed foods. You should hydrate more. There is no quick fix to losing any fat, including belly fat. It requires dedication and perseverance along with a commitment to following a regimen.
answered by A S