has anyone switched to yoga only and been happy with their results?

[daisyduke]

I really want to switch to yoga only but I feel like I will lose cardio and strength ability, and I also don't want to gain weight. Has anyone switched and maintained or even made gains in their fitness and weight loss?

[Tracyso2]

Hi Daisy--
I don't think I count as a switcher, because yoga is the only thing I've been consistently able to commit to for the past 15 years or so. But what I will tell you is that I lost about 15 lbs doing THE ULTIMATE YOGI religiously last year (I think we bumped into each other on various UY threads last year; hi!), and that not much was budging anymore until I started adding in about 30-45 daily morning minutes of kundalini yoga on top of my vinyasa practice. I'm mostly doing Gloria Latham (shes on myyogaonline), and she seems to be doing quite a bit for my cardio capacity & metabolism. Suffice it to say, I'm a fan.

[daisyduke]

Hey tracy... so you are doing vinyasa and another half hour as well?

[Tracyso2]

Yep...an hour to an hour and a half of vinyasa midday (usually a Travis or a Rudy, either from Udaya or UY or poweryoga.com) and a 35-minute-ish Gloria at the buttcrack of dawn. It's working pretty well overall.

[FirmDancer]

I haven't switched completely to yoga, but recently did the summer sadhana challenge of 40 consecutive days of yoga. I primarily did 20-30 min classes (online) with a few 1:15 live classes. All classes were beginner level. To find time to do that, I had to give up some cardio and strength workouts. So I think each week I did 1 or 2 circuit workouts (15-20 min each), 2 45 min walks, and the rest yoga.

• I did not gain any weight
• I feet fitter - my respiratory capacity increased from the focus on breathing
• My posture is improved - because of all the work on flexibility, my muscles and joints are more aligned
• I feel functionally stronger - both from doing the yoga poses, but also I move better because I'm more flexible.

I'm really pleased with the results from placing more emphasis on daily yoga. HTH!
-Anita

[Demeris]

My sister used to do a number of things, including Joyce Vedral.

Now she does power yoga twice a week. She hikes with her family regularly and has no trouble hiking two miles up hill any time she wants.

I'll add that she turned 60 this spring and looks fabulous.

[mommyofjoeyp]

I did the full 108 days of Ultimate Yogi last year and loved it. I actually lost a few pounds (wasn't trying to) and when I look back at photos my arms never looked better.

[Vee]

The best results I have ever seen was doing heavyish, classic intense weight training three times per week and not-so-intense yoga three times per week.

I liked my results with UY. It is a great upper body and core workout routine and my cardio capacity did not reduce. I missed weights for lower body. My legs really need heavy work. My whole body is in better shape when I work my legs hard, for some reason..

If I were to repeat UY I'd strength train legs with weights on the meditation/mountain day.

[Lori_Michigan]

I haven't switched entirely to yoga, but I have switched entirely to all low impact, fusionish, flowy workouts (with yoga every other day) from all high impact cardio and heavy weights. I hit 40 this year, and my body just gave out after 20 years of high impact stuff with little stretching or breaks. I had gained 10 pounds in the past year and just felt burned out.

Thanks to everyone's suggestions here, I gave up the fear of switching and just started listening to my body instead of my heart rate monitor. It's been 4 months now -- I've lost those 10 pounds, my flexibility has never been better, my knees don't hurt, my body feels good, I look forward to my workouts, I sleep better, and I just don't feel like I need to eat as much anymore. I don't I'll ever return to high impact stuff or even much cardio at all anymore.

I don't think I've lost much cardio capacity at all actually -- I had signed up for a 10k run earlier in the year, but since I've switched to all low impact, I figured I'd just walk it. Well, I felt great that day, so I started jogging it and figured I'd walk when I got tired. But I ended up jogging the whole thing! And my time was only 4 minutes slower than a few years ago when I was training pretty heavily and killing myself!

[daisyduke]

I love hearing these stories. Thanks for sharing.