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Question: Will yoga or Pilates help me lose weight? I have limited time to exercise and need to lose 15 pounds.

Answer: Given your time crunch, your first priority should be cardiovascular exercise, such as walking, cycling or using cardiovascular machines; typically, Pilates and yoga don't burn enough calories to lead to significant weight loss.

Still, both disciplines can make an important contribution to your well-being and appearance by developing muscle tone, flexibility and emotional balance. They strengthen your abdominal and back muscles, providing support for your spine and improving your posture. When you stand up straighter, you look slimmer without even losing a pound.

On the other hand, every calorie burned will help you inch toward your weight-loss goal, and a vigorous form of yoga such as ashtanga can significantly contribute to your calorie burn. (By the way, you won't burn extra calories in a yoga class where the thermostat is cranked up to 100 degrees; you'll just sweat more.) Pilates apparatus classes burn more calories than mat classes.

It's true you don't see many chubby yoga or Pilates instructors, but that's because these people also tend to meditate, walk everywhere and eat a high-fiber, vegetarian diet – not simply because they're doing "downward dog" poses each day.

More Q&A: Does eating after 7:00 p.m. really wreck your diet?

About Our Expert: Suzanne Schlosberg is the author of The Ultimate Workout Log and The Essential Fertility Log and coauthor of Fitness for Dummies and The Fat-Free Truth. She's a health and fitness writer living in Bend, Oregon.