Tai Chi

[antoniojones1968]

Will Tai Chi help with weight loss?

[Ron]

Sure it can. I mean it's not going to have the same effect as running a marathon, simply because you're not going to burn a huge amount of calories, but it can help you with weight loss in the same way that Yoga and other mindful, strength, flexibility and balance exercises can. Tai Chi is good for your mental health as much as your physical health, which means less stress and it also improves your felxibility and range of motion, which can make it easier for you to move and can help to increase your endurance, which may be ideal for performing other exercises :)

[Gina]

Tai Chi can result in weight loss but you need to do it more than once a week to get this type of a benefit from it. The reason is that for the most part Tai chi does not produce an aerobic effect. This is not its purpose, it's about increasing muscular strength, enhancing muscular tone and increasing balance and cordination while calming the mind. It does offer several physical and mental benefits and can definitely complement aerobic fitness, but it's not big on the calorie burn. So I would recommend doing it cause it's awesome for you not because you're hoping it will cause weight loss.

[brightstar]

Tai Chi is good for building strength in your body, muscle, flexibility, etc. It's not a fat burning exercise. So, it helps with your overall health and weight loss maintenance, but it's not going to melt the fat off your body, no matter how often you do it.

[1000kw]

Tai Chi is good, but yeah, you're not going to burn fat doing it. But it's an awesome compliment to cardio!

[antoniojones1968]

Cool! Thanks for explaining that guys. I'm excited to try something new and I know it has health benefits but I was kinda fuzzy about whether or not it would be idea for weight loss since, yeah, it's not really cardio. Glad it helps with maintenance and toning though :)

[Mike]

Isn't Tai Chi an exercise for old people with arthritis? I can see how it could be good for joints and stuff, but I really don't see it making a bit of a difference to weight loss in any real way. I mean...can you even call it strength training? At least with pilates and yoga and stuff you're using your body as your resistance weight...