There are various yoga styles and some of them require more physical strain then others, and there are yoga poses that barely involve any movement at all but they will burn lots of calories – such as mayurasana, or salabhasana – and they are pretty difficult to perform unless you have got some experience in yoga practice.
When it comes to a popular yoga style – Bikram yoga – there are reports that people burn 350-600 calories per session or approximately 233 to 400 calories per hour.
Then, ashtanga-vinyasa yoga is another powerful yoga style, and you can approximately burn 350-500 calories per hour. Hatha-yoga gives you around 190 calories per hour, and for other styles of yoga we can draw the estimation of 200 to 300 calories per hour.
You can also check this calorie calculator.
How Does Yoga Help You Lose Weight?
Intensive physical activity helps to lose weight by calorie burning, but it is not the only thing; yoga goes much deeper, it provides a positive influence over the whole body and its organs by bringing the system into a natural balance. Yoga is more about a lifestyle than a workout, and when it comes to weight loss, it is not only about how many calories burned. As I said before, there are asanas that do not require a lot of physical movement, but are very effective. So you don’t need to judge yoga on the basis of physical work but rather look at it as a complete system of health restoration and bringing peace to mind.