Tai Chi is a Safe and Time-Tested Method for Losing Weight

Losing weight and getting a leaner, trimmer physique is an excellent idea for anyone who is overweight – with benefits including a more attractive appearance, easier, lighter movements, and improved health in many ways (including greatly reduced risk of heart disease, strokes, and heart attacks) – and Tai Chi can be a fine way to achieve these desirable goals. Tai Chi is a combination of martial art and exercise program that emphasizes mental and physical harmony and slow movements.

Because Tai Chi is a very low impact form of exercise, it is suitable for practically everyone capable of moving. Severely overweight people will not be overstrained by Tai Chi, nor will seniors, those recovering from serious illnesses, or other individuals who are not in top physical condition. It is also versatile enough to offer a full workout to the trim and the vigorous, however.

Physical weight loss effects of Tai Chi

Tai Chi’s slow, thoughtful motions might appear to be too gentle to burn off excess fat, yet if combined with a reasonable diet (not a starvation diet), this exercise form can have a steady, positive effect on the practitioner’s weight. Any physical activity burns calories, and the thorough though mild effect of Tai Chi, which involves the whole body, boosts the metabolism and thus prompts the body to use its fat reserves as fuel.
Tai Chi exists at many levels, allowing you to start with a beginner’s program and work up to more advanced techniques as you gain strength, knowledge, and flexibility. An ordinary Tai Chi regimen is enough to help with losing weight; there may be special “losing weight” movements developed by individual experts, but there is no need for anything beyond the usual methods to help lose weight.

Since Tai Chi is pleasant to carry out, an extra advantage that it offers is that you are more likely to stick with the exercise plan, rather than quitting as uncomfortable, difficult workouts might prompt you to do. Tai Chi is enjoyable and there is therefore an incentive to “stick with it” over the long term, achieving your weight loss goals and moving on to building greater fitness.

Free Tai Chi Video: Sam Tam Form – 1st Section

Tai Chi’s mental boosts to losing weight

It is also believed that Tai Chi has positive mental benefits that help with weight loss. Giving a sense of well-being, relaxation, and confidence will certainly cut down on “stress eating”, thus lowering caloric intake for as long as the exercises continue. In a more mystical sense, it is said that Tai Chi reawakens your sense of vitality and removes emotional blocks that might be preventing you from shedding your excess pounds.

The sense of satisfaction and peace that Tai Chi imparts gives a good foundation on which to build other lifestyle changes that will aid weight loss. It can be a bridge to more intensive types of exercise, encourage a more active approach to each day, and banish the boredom that might send you to the refrigerator for a quick snack that ends up adding five hundred calories to your intake.