Weight Loss in Birmingham, Alabama & Homewood with Pilates Classes

Genevieve | Founder of StudioGPilates

“Will Pilates help me lose weight?” Well, it depends. What is most important to you? To lose weight or to lose inches? Read on to learn more.

The truth is that Pilates works the deep core muscles. These muscles include the transversus abdominus, the pelvic floor, the multifidi, and the diaphragm.

• These muscles are trained through Pilates classes to co-contract and work together as the primary engine of the body.
• Their purpose is to restore healthy function of the organs, joints, and bones.
• When they achieve balance, alignment is produced, and  posture is restored. 

It turns out how you hold yourself in space has a lot to do with how your clothes fit and how your body feels. So, again I ask what is most important to you? To lose pounds or to feel (and look) balanced, in proper proportion, and poised?

One of the main ways Pilates helps with weight loss is how the transversus abdominus muscle works. It acts much like a corset to your spine wrapping all the way around your trunk.

• When it is strong, it supports your spine and feels tight.
• When it is weak, the internal structures don’t have as much support or “cinching” to hold them in and up, protected, and secure. This leads to poor posture which, left unchecked, leads to weakness. Under the forces of gravity and stress, these weaknesses often turn into pathology and produce pain, dysfunction, and illness.

Will Pilates help you lose weight? Yes!

• ​Mentally it will relieve the stress that comes from confusion, anxiety, and fear and replace it with clarity and equanimity.
• Physically it will restore alignment and perfect health to the body.
• Emotionally it will unburden your heart and create more space for joy.

The weight loss is mental, physical, and emotional with Pilates! You will not only see the changes in your posture and in your clothes but you will feel the feeling in your body as “zipped up, pulled in, connected” joy.

7 Ways to Lose Weight with Pilates Classes Near Birmingham, Alabama

1. Value what you measure. Are you measuring weight in pounds or inches or smiles? It’s all relative, really! What’s most important to you? Pilates starts with how you feel.
2. Don’t get on the scale for a while. Ignore that measuring platform right now. Go inward and focus your attention on how you’re feeling in the first few weeks of starting Pilates. Record the new body sensations you are having in a journal and how it feels to work deep core muscles, perhaps muscles you never thought you had.
3. Change your mindset. Work on feeling good now. Don’t wait until you look the part or weigh the part. Feel good now. Start with accepting where you are right now. Let the past go and be here now. Take a deep breath and start appreciating all the wonderful things your body does for you like regulate your digestion, your breathing, your blood. I bet you can find at least three things you love and appreciate about your body right now. So do it. Feel good now.
4. The mind controls the body. That’s what Joseph Pilates said when he taught mind control over muscle. He said the most important muscle we work in Pilates is the mind. So if you don’t believe you can lose weight or you don’t feel worthy to lose weight, work on your belief first. Nothing will hold in the body unless your mind is in sync.
5. Learn how to breathe. If you want to cinch your waist and feel leaner, you are going to have to learn how to breathe like a champion. Most of us were never taught how to breathe and most of us take shallow breaths and hold onto stress. Learning to inhale and exhale fully and properly is the force behind strengthening the deep core.
6. Try on your favorite pair of jeans after two weeks of Pilates. What do you notice in your legs, arms, abs, and chest? Do you look tighter? Leaner? More in proportion with your natural bone structure? Yes! What’s the ideal weight anyway? Isn’t it different per person? Let’s be the ideal you!
7. Enjoy the compliments coming your way! Be prepared to hear things like, “Gosh you look amazing! What have you been doing?”, “You look so slender!”, “Your arms look amazing!”, “Have you gotten taller?”, “Where can I sign up for whatever it is you are taking?” etc. It’s up to you whether you want to share your new obsession but at this weight, life is grand.

Is Pilates good for Weight Loss? Pilates is great for weight loss!

• Not only will you lose inches and feel leaner, but you will see the results in the mirror and in your clothes!
• By tapping into the power of the deep core muscles, Pilates pulls from the outside in.
• This produces a “cinching” action that brings the body into balance.
• Muscles and bones and joints can move freely again because they are not under undue stress or pull in the musculoskeletal system.
• Posture is greatly affected by how weak or strong one’s deep core muscles are.
• When you work from the deep core in Pilates, you learn to activate this force from the inside. Like a vacuum, it pulls in the excess and redefines your waistline.

Workout at home with Pilates classes for weight loss!

​Begin with this one simple exercise that will make you sweat and feel leaner now!

1. Lie supine on a mat with your legs bent, knees over hips at a 90 degree angle.
2. Place your hands at the top of your thighs.
3. Take a deep inhale through your nose.
4. On the exhale, push with your hands as hard as you can into your thigh bones while resisting at the same time.
5. Make sure you breathe a full exhalation as if you are blowing all of your birthday candles out with only one breath.
6. As you resist the pushing of your hands into your thighs, your thigh bones will ground deeply into the hip sockets. This activates the deep core muscles of pelvic floor, diaphragm, multifidi, and the transversus abdominus. You will feel a burn in your core that will surprise you. The more force you apply to the legs, the more you have to resist so pick an intensity that will really challenge you.
7.  It may be helpful to look sideways in the mirror to insure that the legs stay bent  at a 90 degree angle with your hips throughout the exercise. This will insure you are maintaining a neutral pelvis without any deviations in the spinal curvature.

Practice this exercise ten times and you will be zipped up and ready to go!

Can Pilates Truly Help You Lose Weight?

Many people start Pilates hoping that if they strengthen their core, they will lose weight. The truth is that some people lose pounds but not everybody does. Rather than pounds, most people report losing inches and feeling better in their clothes, looking better in a swimsuit, and having overall higher body confidence.

There is a saying that abs are made in the kitchen so keeping a healthy diet is always going to be important in terms of seeing results, whether on the scale or in your clothes. However, the key to beginning and maintaining any true weight loss is to feel good now exactly as you are. Yes, you heard me. Even if you feel larger than life or too far gone to ever get found. I encourage you to begin your journey with Pilates by having acceptance for where you are today.

It all begins in your mind.

• Know that you can achieve whatever you believe.​
• The key to weight loss is believing you can do it and developing a renewed, healthy relationship with your body.
• Rather than shaming it or demanding it to weigh a certain amount, you begin by loving and embracing what is, developing gratitude for the vehicle called your body.
• True confidence radiates from the inside out.
• What you believe about yourself is what your body will hold and reflect for you in life.
• Your belief controls your body’s ability to lose weight.
• This simple truth is the catalyst to any true and lasting weight loss.

It begins in your mind. Read some Pilates testimonials.

A Great Way to Use Pilates for Weight Loss at (or Near) Home

Local classes at a nearby Pilates boutique studio are your best bet at nailing the true Pilates technique and losing weight!

• Certified instructors are trained with x-ray vision to watch your movement like a hawk and encourage you to work the Pilates principles with every exercise.
• In group classes it’s much too easy to go along with the group and miss the individual modifications that you need for your own unique body.
• At a boutique Pilates studio, classes are smaller and more personalized attention is provided. Students often remark how just the slightest tweaks to their individual routine make major differences in their bodies.
• Learning to move away from unconscious compensations into conscious change is the main advantage of local Pilates instruction.
• You can use what you learn from your instructor at home or on the road.
• You can practice the Pilates principles sitting, walking, driving, breathing, running, working out, cycling, skiing, playing tennis and golf, etc.

It’s all about how you practice.

Practice makes perfect so learning to take Pilates with you wherever you go creates lasting change in the musculoskeletal system. You need a Pilates instructor to help you stay alert to when your body wants to compensate or “cheat” so you can free up the restrictions that have developed over time from uneven muscle development and poor proprioception.

Once the student learns about his center of gravity, defined in Pilates as the “powerhouse” made up of the shoulders and hips and all of the muscles in between, the student can begin to recruit even muscle development across all joints and strengthen the alignment of the spine. These actions reflect in better posture which induces confidence, boosts energy, and aids in natural weight loss.

Want to learn more?
​Explore our 7 Pilates studio classes in Birmingham, AL.