The secret advantage of yoga calories burned belongs to its contributions to the human body, not just its capacity to manufacture union between your soul, the atman, with the expansive super-spirit, Brahman. Some forms of yoga, such as Bikram yoga, have the power to shed 200 calories every half hour. The establishment of fitness routines from India, known as Hatha Yoga movements, into modern American fitness has recently fascinated people from many walks of life, including athletes, dancers, and fighters, many of whom use yoga daily. But using yoga as part of a regular routine does more than burn many calories. Besides helping you relax, yoga may speed up your metabolic rate, increase muscle hypertrophy, trigger core muscles like abs, prevent injury, and elevate your mind and spirit through a runners’ high.

Yoga also provides the benefits of traditional cardio exercise. Those who want to annihilate their love-handles often turn to low-intensity cardio, but the same effect is easily achieved by doing yoga. Throughout a standard session of low intensity walking for an hour at 3 mph, an average person may burn up roughly 300 calories. During a regular yoga class running between 45 to 60 minutes, a person’s heart rate may stay at essentially the same rate as it would walking on a treadmill for a similar amount of time. One key difference, and a core effect from yoga, is that the whole body is used in the movements. Almost all your muscles are stimulated. You may want to ask yourself then, if you would rather spend an hour walking only targeting your quads, or if you’d rather devote the same time and work your whole body. The best part about a simple yoga session like this is that you are not obliged to master any postures, but simply try to put your frame into a situation that will help your body improve.

A second type of physical activity people use to burn a lot of fat is sprinting or hill climbing, which can be characterized as high intensity cardio. On a treadmill, you can expend enough energy to burn up to 600 calories for just 20 minutes of work. While this sounds ideal, the disadvantage is that it is difficult work for the body and not appropriate for people of all fitness levels and ages. Usually a high intensity session contains interval training, where you run for a set amount of time and then walk for another set of time, back and forth intermittently. For yogis, a high intensity session is easy to create. You simply use a harder series of postures in your routine at a faster pace. The result is nearly the same as a high intensity running only the entire body is worked. Consequently, if you have the option to practice yoga with an awesome teacher, yoga calories burned may be more precious to you than calories shed on a simple, boring treadmill.