Why don't you lose weight with yoga or Pilates?
- Yoga and Pilates are often associated with the image of being done by "models and actresses," but are they really exercises for losing weight?
- I do yoga, but I'm not losing weight...
- I sweat a lot in hot yoga, but I'm not losing weight...
- I do Pilates, but I can't lose weight...
- I feel like I've gained weight since I started doing yoga...
- It seems surprisingly many yoga instructors have high body fat...
We receive many desperate questions and comments like these.
To put it simply, this is a fact.
Let's briefly look at the reason.
The golden rule of losing weight is to prioritize increasing your basal metabolism, which accounts for 70% of your body's energy consumption. Please look at the chart below. You have a limited amount of time, so you can either focus on the 20% or the 70%. It's obvious you should focus on increasing your basal metabolism, which burns calories even while you're sleeping. Which is more efficient, 70% or 20%? The answer is inevitably the 70% of basal metabolism.
So, how do you increase that 70%—your basal metabolism? Can you do it by eating spicy food, taking a hot bath, or sweating? The answer to all is NO.
The only answer is muscle. The only way to increase basal metabolism is to increase muscle mass. When you increase your basal metabolism, your muscles will automatically burn fat even when you are at rest. That's why the golden rule of losing weight is to gain muscle.
That is why you need to increase your muscle mass to lose weight.
Now, let's look at yoga from the perspective of "increasing muscle mass."
From a muscle physiology standpoint, there are two processes required to increase muscle mass.
① Physical Process
Muscles have the property of adapting to a gravitational environment. For example, astronauts return to Earth Wiggle because their muscles atrophy in a zero-gravity environment. Conversely, muscles have the property of growing when subjected to a load that creates a gravitational environment greater than 1G.
② Chemical Process
This involves growth hormones. Growth hormones are secreted due to a low-oxygen state within the muscles caused by muscle contraction and extension.
These two conditions are essential for increasing muscle mass.
Now, do static yoga or Pilates poses meet these conditions?
Unfortunately, they don't meet either one.
The same is true for doing yoga in a sauna-like environment where you sweat just from sitting still.
In other words, you cannot increase muscle mass with yoga. This is because yoga poses have neither load nor muscle contraction and extension.
Naturally, if you don't increase muscle mass, you can't increase your basal metabolism.
Now, what about from the perspective of activity metabolism?
Think about the law of physics.
【Law of Physics】 Amount of work (calories) = object's weight × distance moved
As you know, you hold a pose and remain still in yoga.
In other words, there is no distance moved. Therefore, the calculated calorie consumption is zero.
In fact, no matter how difficult the pose, the actual calorie consumption is only about 1 to 2 calories.
Whether you sweat in hot yoga or not, the calorie consumption from the exercise itself is the same.
Although there are ideological differences, from an exercise physiology standpoint, Pilates is almost the same as yoga. And despite the ideological differences among various schools of yoga (○○ yoga, ●● yoga), from an exercise physiology standpoint, yoga is essentially the same.
This means that while yoga poses do use muscles, they don't significantly increase basal metabolism, and the calorie consumption is minimal.
The same goes for Pilates; even though it looks like strength training, it doesn't raise basal metabolism, and calorie consumption is negligible.
In short, neither yoga nor Pilates increases basal metabolism, and they provide almost no calorie consumption. The same is true for hot yoga. The feeling of sweating and losing weight is just a performance.
So why do so many women still go to yoga or Pilates classes? Is it due to the image portrayed by models and the media?
What is the actual relationship between acrobatic yoga poses and losing weight & body shaping?
What is the actual relationship between using your body in Pilates and losing weight & body shaping?
What is the scientific basis for the relationship between sweating and calorie consumption?
Even top models sometimes gain weight suddenly and need to lose it. Having seen many top models through body shaping, not a single one of them loses weight by only doing yoga or Pilates.
After working hard for an hour, the calories you've consumed are probably only about 20 kcal at most.
Isn't losing weight through that kind of repetition an incredibly slow and frustrating process?
Yoga and Pilates are wonderful for physical activity and mental well-being, but you should completely separate them from the idea of losing weight and body shaping.
What's more, for women who want to lose weight beautifully, you should carefully check if the following six essential elements of body shaping are being addressed. Without them, it is extremely difficult to lose weight and achieve a beautiful figure or a well-proportioned body. Any sensible woman would immediately understand that without these six essential body shaping elements, it is physically difficult to build beautiful muscle in invisible places.
1. Volume adjustment (volume increase/decrease)
2. Shape (joint angles)
3. Body function (torsional rebound, diagonal coordination, pelvic mobility)
4. Symmetry (visual psychology)
5. Texture
6. Sense of trend/fashion
If you've made up your mind to do body shaping, only to find you're using a roundabout way to lose weight or the wrong method for body shaping, won't all your hard work and time be wasted?
High-Quality Personal Training Cultivated Through Pro Model Body Creation
Professional models do not do exercise or training for the purpose of losing weight. Our high-quality body shaping personal training is cultivated through pro model body creation and is for the sake of fashion.
Personal Trainer
At Models, Toshiaki Ozeki, a personal trainer with 30 years of experience, provides personal training. "Body shaping = Fashion" — Models' personal training is a world apart from sports training and body shaping contest-style training.
Personal Training
for the General Public
- ✔︎ Women who want to achieve a sophisticated posture
- ✔︎ Women who want to move their bodies without strain
- ✔︎ Women who want to improve their physical stamina
- ✔︎ Women who want to build balanced muscle
- ✔︎ Women who want to change their body shape
Please click here for information on the process, fees, and rules for Models' personal training for the general public.
Personal Training
for Professionals
- ✔︎ Women who are often seen by others
- ✔︎ Women in professions that require them to be in the public eye
- ✔︎ Women who aspire to be a fashion model
Please click here for information on the process, fees, and rules for Models' personal training for professionals.
Body Shaping Methods
Many women think they should do more lower body exercises to slim their lower body! Are you also focusing blindly on lower body exercises because you want to slim your lower body? However, if the form doesn't match your skeletal structure, your hips and thighs might actually get bigger with muscle development. This is the dilemma of lower body exercises - even though you're doing body shaping...
From the extensive model guidance experience of personal trainer Toshiaki Ozeki, who has the #1 track record in model body shaping, it has been discovered that top models have developed what are called "model muscles" - muscle areas that ordinary people don't have. If you develop model muscles, you can achieve a model skeleton and automatically get a model body type. With model muscles, you can achieve the same straight, linear model body lines as top models.
Does doing lots of abdominal exercises remove fat from the waist? If you think so, that's a big problem! To conclude, body shaping is not that simple. Conversely, belly fat can be removed and the waist can be slimmed without doing abdominal exercises. To change a body that's hard to lose weight, you need authentic women's body shaping that produces results.
Slender, straight, thin stick legs - so-called model legs - have become essential not just for models but for all women in today's fashion-forward world where showing legs is mainstream. While model leg body shaping tends to focus only on making legs thinner, the key point of model leg body shaping is creating the straight, linear appearance of the legs.
In model body type body shaping, we reduce overall fat, change the shape of areas of concern, adjust posture and skeletal silhouette to straight joint angles, and organize body type lines. We polish the model body type by developing the same model muscles as top models. Finally, we add model body functions to achieve perfect finishing - this is true model body type body shaping.
To slim and beautifully shape your calves, you first need to objectively determine the cause of your thick calves. Causes of thick calves include: ① fat accumulation causing thickness, ② muscle causing thickness, ③ a combination of both. For cases ② and ③, body shaping that reduces calf muscle is essential.
While "pelvis" has become a standard term in women's body shaping and women's diet training, there are endless consultations about pelvis body shaping: "I didn't lose weight in a feminine way," "I didn't get a slender model-like body type," "I didn't lose weight at all"... Aren't you fed up with body shaping that uses the plausible-sounding word "pelvis" to obscure what's really happening?
Women with good posture are beautiful and cool. Good posture alone makes you look slimmer. Everyone surely thinks so. Even if you work hard to lose weight and diet, if you don't have beautiful posture, you won't look slender and your body shaping efforts will be wasted, won't they? In authentic body shaping, we don't leave posture to conscious effort - beautiful posture is achieved through body shaping training that changes the underlying skeletal joint angles.
Have you experienced doing upper arm exercises to slim your upper arms but finding that your upper arms don't get thinner? Or dieting but your upper arms don't look thinner? You might hear that you should do lots of upper arm exercises because your upper arms are a concern, but you've probably already realized that doing only upper arm exercises has almost no effect on reducing upper arm fat or slimming them.
Do you really understand the body mechanisms for weight loss and the systems that enable dieting? Is not eating the best way to lose weight? Is exercise unnecessary for weight loss? Can you lose weight by going to diet gyms or women's exclusive body shaping gyms? Does cardio burn fat? Foods introduced on TV one after another and exercise books lining bookstore shelves... The honest truth is you don't know which ones are really effective!!
"Body Shaping = Fashion" - We shape your body to a type that can wear any outfit like top models, allowing you to freely enjoy fashion as you shape your body. This can only be achieved through authentic body shaping. Instead of being chosen by clothes, you shape your body for the clothes. Why not freely shape your body type to enjoy fashion?