Does Pilates Help You Lose Weight? Here's What You Need to Know, According to an Expert

Developed more than 100 years ago for dancers, Pilates has continued to grow in popularity. You can do it on a mat or on a machine called a reformer, which has straps, a sliding carriage with springs and a pulley system. Pilates is low-impact and consists of flowing movements, similar to yoga, that focuses on total-body strengthening with an emphasis on core or abdominal strength.

Pilates has many benefits, including improving strength, flexibility, muscle tone (the tension in a muscle at rest) — and yes, it can even help you lose weight. How quickly you drop pounds, however, can depend on several factors. Find out how to maximize weight loss with Pilates (if that's your goal) along with these top five fat-burning moves.

To lose weight, you need to burn more calories than you take in by doing exercises, cutting calories — or ideally doing both (safely!). Pilates does burn calories, but not quite as many as higher-intensity exercises like running. It does have plenty of other benefits, however, that can equate to weight loss, especially when you stay consistent with it.

"Pilates is a full-body movement exercise that strengthens the muscles throughout the body," says certified Pilates instructor Amy Ulmer of INLINE Pilates + Fitness. "Building lean muscles will burn fat, which promotes weight loss."

Pilates uses body weight or, when using the reformer machine, lower weight with high repetitions which improves strength, endurance and muscle tone.

A small June 2016 study in the ‌Journal of Physical Therapy Science‌ looked at 36 middle-aged women and found that after 12 weeks of Pilates three times per week, they had improved body composition and had less fat in their midsection.

The benefits of Pilates apply to an older population as well. A January 2014 study in ‌Clinical Interventions in Aging‌ looked at 303 women over the age of 60 and found that Pilates did help them lose weight and increase lean muscle mass. However, for best results, it needed to be done along with cardiovascular activity (such as brisk walking, running, or cycling) four to five times a week.

Even though more studies on Pilates need to be done on a larger population, the science appears promising. The key to weight loss is burning calories. If you enjoy Pilates and do it on a regular basis, it will help you lose weight.

There are several factors to consider when determining how many calories Pilates burns. It depends on the intensity of the class (beginner versus advanced, for instance), your current weight and if you're doing mat Pilates or reformer Pilates.

According to the American Council on Exercise (ACE), if you are a 150-pound person, you will burn around 175 calories during a beginner-level mat Pilates class for 50 minutes. If you do an advanced-level class, you will burn around 254 calories.

Pilates on the reformer machine can burn more calories than mat Pilates as it uses more resistance.

"Mat Pilates relies solely on your body weight to create the resistance," Ulmer says. "Reformer offers a spring system as the resistance. You can utilize the springs to make certain moves more challenging."

To compare calories burned with Pilates to other forms of exercise, a person of similar size after 30 minutes would burn 175 calories walking, 252 calories cycling, 360 calories running a 10-minute mile and 421 calories jumping rope, according to Harvard Health Publishing.

You may be wondering, ‌is 20 minutes of Pilates a day enough to lose weight?‌ According to Ulmer, your Pilates sessions should actually last a bit longer to see results.

"Pilates is the perfect addition to your workout routine," Ulmer says. "I would suggest two to three times a week for at least 45 minutes."

Is Pilates alone enough exercise? As recommended in the ‌Clinical Interventions in Aging‌ study above, you should also do higher-intensity cardio, such as cycling, running or HIIT four to five times a week for at least 30 minutes for an added cardiovascular boost.

Whichever type of exercise you do, aim for 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity per week, which breaks down to 30 minutes per day over five days, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Ulmer says the following five mat Pilates moves she demonstrates below will work all your major muscle groups and burn calories.

"The Hundred sounds intimidating, but is a great total-body move," Ulmer says. It not only strengthens your core muscles but also your upper body (deltoids) and lower body (quadriceps and gluteal muscles).

With this exercise, you inhale for 5 seconds and exhale for 5 seconds while performing the move. That is one set. You do that 10 times and that equals 100, hence the name. It's often done at the beginning of a Pilates class because it's a great warmup move.

This Pilates move does it all: It strengthens your abs, shoulders, calves, glutes, hamstrings, quads and arms.

This is an excellent move for strengthening your entire core, especially the oblique muscles along the sides of your torso.

This move works your torso, arms and hip muscles.

The Boomerang is an advanced, high-energy Pilates move that not only strengthens your core, back extensors and hips, but also improves overall flexibility.

So, does Pilates help you lose weight? Pilates is a low-impact workout that strengthens your entire body, improves flexibility and even helps reduce stress. Although it doesn't burn as many calories as higher-intensity exercises like running, studies have found that when done consistently it will help you lose weight and increase lean muscle mass. For best results when trying to lose weight, do Pilates two to three times a week, along with higher-intensity cardio, while also maintaining a healthy diet.