Pilates for weight loss?

[KirstyHas9]

I have tried every exercise known to womankind and I am either very bad at it, uncoordinated, too unfit to do it for long or it just makes me miserable and unhappy and stressed. I’m overweight and need to lose at least 1st 7lbs. I’ve been eating well and losing weight but have hit a weight loss wall so I think I need to move more. I have a flabby ring around my middle and zero core strength.

I have an office job so I don’t get steps in so need to do exercise early morning or late evening.

I do swim but I am not a good, strong, confident swimmer. I like walking but I have not been able to make a success of running or jogging. I can’t dance and I am uncoordinated at aerobics. I do cardio and strength things in the gym on equipment but they never really make me feel like I have worked out, I don’t feel the impact in my muscles and I have no idea where to begin with weights and just end up wanting to go home.

I have discovered Pilates on YouTube (Isa Welly) and although I am not yet that good at it, it’s by far the least stressful of all the activities I have tried. It’s relaxing but still hard, I feel very achy (in a good way) afterwards. I don’t spend the whole video wishing it would be over.

Can anyone tell me their personal experience of Pilates is this a good option for what I am trying to achieve? Weight loss, strength and toning up? Does it burn many calories? Google says it does but not a high amount. Does this matter?

Sorry OP. Weight loss happens in the kitchen.

I am eating in a deficit, I have had a slow down of weight loss, although diet has been hugely successful. I think I need to move around more at this point and tone up. I’ve already lost 3stone this year.

Pilates is great for toning up and improving your core strength, but it isn't going to burn many calories I'm afraid.

Thanks. So if I do this for toning and strength do you think I need to still do something like cardio or just walk more?

I should be clear in my OP I know diet is 80% of weight loss and exercise is 20% but I need to find something to do that I like in the 20%.

If you do regular Pilates and walk briskly that would probably work, yes.

Pilates is great for flexibility and core, but I would not expect any weight loss. If you have hit a plateau and are eating in a deficit, you need to at more protein. If you go to the gym and not feel like you’ve worked out enough, then you’re not lifting enough weight. You need protein, strength training, and probably more muscle to really change your body composition.

You won’t lose weight through Pilates. Especially if you’ve tried other physical activities and not enjoyed them.

Doing Pilates via YouTube won’t help frankly. A good Pilates class with an excellent teacher who can see what you’re doing and give hands on specific corrections could help you to learn how to use your body and develop good alignment but you won’t lose weight!

Why can’t you add steps to your day? Stop driving or get off your bus/train a mile from your office and walk the rest of the way.

Try the Couch to 5k app to start running, slowly. Build up. Or join a gym. There’s nothing wrong with Pilates but you won’t lose weight by it and doing it without a qualified practitioner is probably worse than useless because you won’t know what you’re doing.

Thank you. I have a PT session this week, I have got to the point where I need help. I just do not enjoy the gym. I wish that I did. I find it very boring and frustrating.

The body comp machine at the gym tells me I have gained 2kg of muscle in the last few months but I am not sure how accurate it is. I have toned up my arms and calves very quickly but my bum tummy and thighs now doesn’t match at all! I eat lots of protein and not many carbs.

I do pilates and my body has changed Shape with it, more toned, defined waist, stomach mucmscles that actually work for example.

I'd definitely recommend it x

@FarEast

I can’t stop driving I have a long drive to work. I am upping my steps, I don’t mind walking I like it. Running is too high impact for me, it hurts, I hate it. My gym has 1 body balance class a week which I have been to but they don’t put their hands on you to correct you or look at individuals, you just copy them. It’s the same as a YouTube video from my experience?

Pilates will tone but not much more. Try to find a rebounder class. It doesn't matter if you are uncoordinated as everyone stays in the same place! How hard you work depends on how much you use your arms and how high you lift your legs. You can buy one for home from Argos for £50 and find you tubers.

I have a more science type question I suppose. If Pilates is based on resistance and building muscle strength will that not lead to raising your BMR if you have more muscle? I’ve read that Pilates is a type of body recomp exercise. I could only find this study on Google so far which isn’t from a direct fitness provider trying to promote it

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7992419/

Pilates is a fantastic way of keeping you body toned, flexible and less prone to injury if done correctly. I’ve been doing Pilates for 10+ years and you absolutely can completely change your body shape through it. Consistency is key though and a good instructor. I’ve been doing reformer for the last 6 years and I’ve burned over 600-700 calories in some sessions. There’s no way I would be able to stay motivated through you tube videos and your much more likely to injure yourself that way. You need to learn how to breath, hold in your core to the correct amount whilst doing the exercises. If you find you’re really liking it, I would advise find a good instructor and go to a class x 2 times a week, you’ll find you’ll start to use Pilates in all your movements eventually. Almost like a way of life! The key to exercise is finding something you love and be consistent. I had tried many things over the years and Pilates had been the only one that’s stuck! Best of luck with it x

I’d also add that if quick weight loss is your only goal Pilates may not be for you, you will absolutely lose weight with consistency and increased resistance but it takes time. But I would say the other outcomes are far more beneficial in the long run, flexibility, strength, core strength, less prone to injury, stronger bones, increased mobility, better digestion, deeper breathing, stress relieving. You get here I’m coming from 😂😂 x go for it x

@Tawlk
Thank you. Time and money are a factor. I can afford the gym or I can afford a more specialist class, I can’t afford them both and from the sounds of things it’s more confusing I need to learn to run, lift weights and buy something called a rebounder... There seems to be some special classes near me but I wouldn’t be able to make the times of the classes what with work which is full time. I have already been to a few classes at my gym and I did 6 weeks of a group class at an NHS physio clinic too (on a referral) so I understand the basics and was only doing the more basic beginner things on YouTube.

The NHS have strength exercises on their website which I also tried and they were far harder! I don’t want to hurt myself but I hurt myself trying to do couch to 5k last year so all of these things can surely result in an injury?

This is what makes me give up exercise I think. When I think I find something good it turns out so more complex, expensive and technical it’s no longer viable from the sounds of things.

I will try to find something else, I have the gym PT session at least.

Oh god I’m sorry I’m not trying to talk you out of it I’m trying to talk you into it!!
It’s great you already done 6 sessions with the physio that’s a great way to learn the basics! If they run a Pilates class at your gym maybe try get a few of those in, lots of PT will be Pilates instructors too, 3 of the instructors at my gym are also Pilates instructors! Keep doing your YouTube videos as long as you’ve got the basics and your keeping safety in mind. Mind your lower back, keep you pelvis tucked and your core engaged. Pilates is a learning curve and you can spend years learning it. X

I've lost weight veerrrrryyyy slowly with pilates, but I love it! Seeing my body get stronger has been amazing. I've added in weights and resistance bands by doing chloe ting too and some blogilates at each time I've found my weight plateau and it's really helped no end.
I've lost 1/2-1lb a week consistently the last 2 months but I'm not eating at a loss at the moment (as I'm focusing on eating healthily and building good food habits before I start cutting calories again), just dead on 1800 calories and average 4000-6000 steps a day.
Definitely worth it as I look forward to my workouts now.

If you like the Pilates then stick with it but the consensus is it's not going to shift weight though you will tone up in due course.

Rebounder or bouncing classes are used in the NHS for patients post heart attack. Easier on the knees than running which you found painful. Also good for lymphatic drainage. But you can find them at local gyms too.

It won't burn many calories but it does help weight loss as you will be building muscle. And muscle raises your BMR. It will also make you look slimmer and you'll be more toned.

It'll be really difficult to build a significant amount of muscle doing Pilates.
In fact depending on age and genetics it's really hard to build significant muscle as a woman without serious weight training and a good intake of protein.
Pilates really isn't going to help lose weight, only a serious calorie deficit will, though Pilates does have benefits and will help with core strength.

Do I need to wear a tena lady on the bounce trampolines? Is this pretty essential doing the rebounder so many people have mentioned it but I don’t want to be pissing myself in a class

@Daisy03 I’m not building any muscle at all doing no other exercise though.

Although helpful in some ways, thank you for contributing this has all been thoroughly confusing and I feel out of my depth with not enough money or time to invest in all the ideas and level of skills needed. I do find it relaxing and I can feel how much my muscles are working far harder than anything else I have tried so far but in a slow, measured way instead of me frantically trying to keep up with an instructor and feeling like a twat.

I will go back to my drawing board with the weight loss situation or try find some professional help

I've just strarted to do Pilates classes with a 'proper' Pilates teacher (who is also a physiotherapist), instead of the so-called Pilates classes at the gym that i had tried before, and its been a bit of a revelation.
The proper pilates classes are teaching me to massively scale down the misplaced power that I had been chucking in to all my workouts. I'm learning to downsize to absolutely tiny movements that are necessary to begin to isolate the core muscles that I have been under-using.
So I would say: No, Pilates is absolutly not useful for weight loss. It is a different beast altogether.
It is laughable that, at my gym, the classes called 'Pilates' all focus on the highest-level, most 'demanding' variations of the standard Pilates moves, even with a bunch of very inexperienced people in the class. They do that because everyone wants to feel at the end like they have 'worked hard', and because the teachers don't seem interested in really explaining what the movements are meant to achieve.
For me (and I guess for lots of others too), that has just meant that the gym classes caused me to make all the mistakes that Pilates is meant to rectify. And I have the neck ache to prove it.
Real Pilates feels almost more akin to mindfulness than to a weight-loss workout.

Same here - not sure I have lost weight though