Hot Yoga and Calories Burned

On my Christmas List!

How many calories are burned during a hot yoga work out? From my research, it looks like you burn more calories during a Bikram yoga session than with many other forms of exercise.I didn't start doing hot yoga specifically to lose weight but I have lost some pounds and some inches since I started 6 weeks ago. I decided to do some research into how many calories I was actually burning per 90 minutes.

At the website Diet and Fitness Today, you can put in your weight and the minutes you practice and get the calories burned during Bikram yoga practice. Another website I looked at, however, says that when figuring the calories burned, this isn't taking rest periods into consideration.

According to this website, I am burning 892 calories during each hot yoga session. Even if I deduct rest periods and I'm only burning about 600, that is more than most forms of aerobic exercise. I think water aerobics burns about 300 per hour.

Rocky the Rescue Kitty enjoying life!

In 6 weeks I've only lost 3 pounds doing Bikram. However, I had already lost about 10 pounds this past year, mainly from giving up eating a lot of meat and eating more raw foods, so I knew I would lose more slowly at this point. The thing that amazes me, though, is the inches I've lost.

I started out on November 11 with these measurements:

Weight 140
Waist    31 and a half inches
Hips 37 and a half inches

Now on December 6, my measurements are

Weight 137
Waist 30 inches
Hips 36 and a half inches

Not only these measurements are less but overall, my clothes are looser so I've lost inches pretty much everywhere in my body doing Bikram 4-5 times a week. I've been exercising pretty much all of my life and have never seen anything make such a difference in my measurements as these hot yoga workouts. I've noticed too that the older I get, the harder it is to lose any weight at all, let alone try and work on the muffin top that formed around my waist.

I guess that's how Bikram gets to be addicting. You notice all the great benefits like losing weight and inches, clearer, softer skin, less body aches and pains, and you can't stop going!