Do you think hot yoga really burns 300 calories in an hour?

[Anonymous]

That's what MyFitnessPal tells me. But it doesn't seem that challenging, just hot. Or does it depend on what type of hot yoga? I can imagine the yoga with weights class at CorePower is more intense that just its regular class.

[Anonymous]

PS I didn't mean that hot yoga isn't challenging, I'm just surprised that it burns as many calories in an hour as a 3 mile run for me.

[Anonymous]

Well, part of the reason hot yoga burns a lot of calories is that it's happening in a room that's 105 degrees and 40% humidity (if you do official bikram yoga). So you're sweating a ton.

I don't think yoga typically burns a lot of calories purely on the basis of the poses you do (that isn't the point of it). I think it's more the result of the heat/humidity.

[Anonymous]

No

[Anonymous]

Definitely not

[Anonymous]

I definitely lost weight when I was doing Bikram yoga. And I didn’t change anything else about my diet, so I believe it. I did drink tons of water and sweat a ton. My skin also looked beautiful.

[Anonymous]

I once had a coworker who believed hot yoga burned 1000 calories an hour, and planned her diet accordingly.

Spoiler alert: it does not burn 1000 calories.

300 sounds high, but not completely out of the realm of possibility.

[Anonymous]

The number of calories you burn doing anything is also a function of your weight/gender/etc. so you can't really generalize about it for the population at large.

[Anonymous]

lol no way, unless you're 450lbs

also, when you look at the "calories burned" numbers on activity trackers, make sure you remember that it usually includes your resting calories. Ie, 200 calories burned during yoga would be more like 140 for me, since my resting calories are about 60/hour.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, part of the reason hot yoga burns a lot of calories is that it's happening in a room that's 105 degrees and 40% humidity (if you do official bikram yoga). So you're sweating a ton.

I don't think yoga typically burns a lot of calories purely on the basis of the poses you do (that isn't the point of it). I think it's more the result of the heat/humidity.

Sweating by itself does not indicate calories burned. Think about it- you can be sitting completely still in a hot apartment with no AC, sweating like Nixon, and you’re not burning a whole lotta calories over your TDEE.

I believe the benefit of hot yoga is shedding some water weight, a slight calorie bump from room-temperature yoga (since your body has to work harder to cool itself down) and the heat forces your body to work a bit harder than regular yoga, possibly getting better results.

300 calories sounds a little excessive. If possible, try pairing my fitness pal with a fitness tracker and then enable negative calorie adjustments. It’s been a game changer for me.

[Anonymous]

Probably not, unless it’s a really vigorous vinyasa flow, i.e., it’s getting your heart rate up.

I also don’t think 300 calories in an hour is very much.

[Anonymous]

Lol no.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, part of the reason hot yoga burns a lot of calories is that it's happening in a room that's 105 degrees and 40% humidity (if you do official bikram yoga). So you're sweating a ton.

I don't think yoga typically burns a lot of calories purely on the basis of the poses you do (that isn't the point of it). I think it's more the result of the heat/humidity.

?
Sweating does not burn calories. The more gimmicky exercise places do crank up the heat to feed that perception but no

[Anonymous]

Ever since I listened to the 30 for 30 podcast on the Bikram scandal, I can’t take it seriously as a form of exercise.

[Anonymous]

I have no idea, but being around a whole bunch of other people sweating bullets in a small, hot room is my idea of hell, so I won't find out.