I have been asked by students, does Qigong help you to lose weight?
The answer is a large and emphatic YES!
Qigong can on many levels be a fantastic tool for weight loss.
Traditionally when we think of exercising to lose weight we visualise high intensity gym workouts, or pounding the pavement for hours on end to burn off those unwanted kilos.
How does Qigong help you to lose weight?
The movements in Qigong are designed to stimulate the meridian energy lines in the body, which in turn activate and stimulate the organs involved in weight loss. The stomach, the liver, the gall bladder the kidneys, the spleen, the large and small intestines, the heart and the lungs - in fact all the organs are activated through Qigong exercises.
So in a more gentle and thorough way than common weight loss exercises, you are firing up your body to become more efficient at burning calories when you practise Qigong!
Many forms of high intensity exercise can be hard on the joints, ligaments and tendons and often resulting in injuries or aggravating existing ones. Students are often limited by how much high intensity linear movement they can do without affecting old injuries. Qigong tends to move the body more gently through multiple planes of movement.
There are literally thousands of Qigong exercises, and multiple strain injuries are virtually unheard of in Qigong.
Qigong can be very gentle and slow or it can be more expansive and fast, so don’t think that Qigong is a sedentary form of exercise. It can be very aerobically demanding and in our Grace Qigong Classes we can offer higher intensity programs ideal for weight loss, or for more advanced students.
Another less recognised risk factor for weightless, is stress which can be a major cause of weight gain. By burning out the adrenals we slow down the metabolism which means our system becomes less efficient at processing food.
The slower more mindful movements of Qigong calm the parasympathetic nervous system, which reduces our stress levels while we are further stimulating all the organs in the body to speed up our digestive system and the speed of transit of food through our bodies.
Weight loss is about the volume and frequency of exercise.
By being more gentle on the body, we can often do a larger volume of exercise each day without tiring or wearing out the body and without getting bored with the same old exercises each day.
So long as the body is in the cardiovascular zone, you are burning calories and getting all of the other benefits that exercise gives the body and mind. You can push yourself to the upper limits of your aerobic capacity and you will burn more calories – but not a significant amount more.
So for many of us, working just inside the cardio zone is the most productive and enjoyable way to go and we can maintain it for a much longer period of time. With Grace Qigong classes it is easy to get into the cardio zone and stay there throughout a whole one hour class.
Calories and Exercise
Finally, an important factor to be aware of with weight loss is that it is always a lot easier to reduce weight by consuming less food than it is to be working off the extra calories by exercising. We need to create an overall calorie deficit and ideally that will come from firstly refining our diet and pruning back on the amount we are eating. More importantly, we need to be aware of WHAT we are eating by cutting back on some of the high calorie foods that we all love to eat, but which stack on the kilos. (You really wanted to hear that, right?)
So does Qigong help you to lose weight? – it absolutely does! Qigong complements more traditional forms of exercise and adds variety to your normal exercise routine.
Ready to practise Qigong For Weight Loss? Follow along with Bill as he teaches you balance your breath, movement and mental focus with qigong.
Have you tried Qigong lessons online? Learn from the comfort of your own home with GraceQigong Online Classes.
Looking for Qigong Classes Near You? Bill offers Qigong Classes in Perth!