Why does Bikram Yoga need to be hot and Snow on the Mountains

Snow over Lake Cachuma, acrylic on cavas.  My very first painting from years ago.

Brrrr...that is how I felt in my Bikram Yoga class yesterday.  Not quite as cold as this painting of snow on the mountains overlooking Lake Cachuma but pretty darn cold, at least by Bikram Yoga standards.  As soon as I walked into the studio yesterday it hit me...or rather that hot wall of air DIDN'T hit me.  Turns out the main heater was broken.  The only source of heat in the room were two wall heaters, a humidifier and our bodies.  I was surprised by how many people left when they heard the room wasn't 105 degrees.  As some ladies were leaving I heard an instructor who was taking the class say "but what if you get stronger today?"  Well said.  I stayed.

Here is Bikram's official stance on the heat in the room:

Why 105 degrees? Yoga changes the construction of the body from the inside out, from bones to skin and from fingertips to toes. So before you change it, you have to heat it up to soften it, because a warm body is a flexible body. Then you can reshape the body any way you want. Hatha Yoga flushes away the waste products, the toxins of all the glands and organs of your body. It provides a natural irrigation of the body through the circulatory system, with the help of the respiratory system. It brings nourishments to every cell of your body so that each one can perform its function and keep your body healthy. Bikram Yoga also employs heat to further that cleaning process: When you sweat, impurities are flushed out of the body through the skin

Here's what I learned:

You burn WAY less calories in a not-hot hot room!  As you know I've been counting calories lately and wearing my hear rate monitor in class I have learned I can burn up to 500 calories in 90 minutes.  (You can read more about it here.)  Today I only burned 209.  Everything the same but the heat.  So the heat not only flushes away impurities, I say it flushes away fat!  Bring on the heat!

Bikram Yoga Calorie Count

Whenever I want to lose a few lbs or just get my eating habits on track I count calores.  I use the iPhone app called Lose It!  I credit this app for helping me lose about 15 lbs a couple of years ago and helping me keep it off (even though it keeps wanting to creep back up!)

I track all my calories in and any I burn with exercise, so I wear a heart rate monitor while exercising.  For a long time after I started doing Bikram I just estimated my calorie burn because I didn't want to wear the monitor in class.  It seemed too sweaty and just wrong.  Yoga shouldn't be about burning calories.  It should be about meditation and balance, right?

So I googled and I found estimations that you can burn up to 1000 calories!  I knew this was unlikely since I have a pretty good feel for what I burn during any given workout but I also knew that Bikram was HARD, so I estimated 600 calories.  I let myself have those 600 calories for months before I hit the dreaded weight loss plateau.  Since I was religiously counting calories and weight loss is simply less calories in than calories out, I knew there was a snafu in my counting.  I wondered if the 600 I was giving myself at Bikram was too much.

When I finally wore a heart rate monitor to Bikram I was dismayed to learn I only burned 350 calories!  But so be it, I readjusted my Bikram entry on Lose It! and reminded myself that I was not at Bikram to only burn calories.  I was there to stretch and strengthen, to meditate and find balance.

I have now worn my heart rate monitor a handful of times and I have found that the average burn is between 350-400 but yesterday I burned 500!  I have no idea why, I didn't feel like I was working any harder than normal but it was darn hot in there.

So long story short.  I burn a decent amount of calories in 90 minutes while meditating and finding balance, stretching and strengthening.  I love Bikram Yoga.

Do you track calories burned in your Bikram Yoga class?  I'd love to hear what your experience is.