Neither yoga nor Pilates is a powerhouse calorie burner, and the difference between them is smaller than most people expect. For a 160-pound person, a 60-minute Pilates session burns roughly 230 to 267 calories, while a standard yoga class burns about 200. Power yoga narrows the gap considerably, hitting around 305 calories per hour. The real story isn’t which one burns more during class; it’s how each one changes your body and your habits over time.
Calories Burned Per Session
The calorie gap between yoga and Pilates depends entirely on the style you choose. A gentle Hatha yoga class burns about 200 calories in an hour for someone weighing 160 pounds. Mat Pilates edges ahead at roughly 267 calories, while reformer Pilates lands around 248. But if you step into a power or Vinyasa yoga class, you can expect closer to 305 calories, making it the highest-burning option of the bunch.
In other words, a basic Pilates class outburns a basic yoga class, but an intense yoga class outburns both. Your body weight matters too: heavier individuals burn proportionally more in every style. If calorie burn during class is your main priority, the style and intensity you pick within each discipline matters more than the discipline itself.
How Pilates Changes Your Body Composition
Pilates has one distinct advantage that doesn’t show up on a calorie counter: it builds lean muscle. A systematic review of body composition studies found that Pilates practitioners gained measurable muscle mass in the trunk, abdomen, and arms while reducing body fat percentage and waist-to-hip ratio. Mat Pilates was particularly effective at increasing muscle mass compared to other variations.
That muscle gain has a cascading effect. More lean tissue raises your basal metabolic rate, the number of calories your body burns at rest just to keep itself running. The same review found significant increases in metabolic rate among Pilates practitioners, with effect sizes rated as “high” for changes in weight, body fat, lean mass, and resting metabolism. In practical terms, Pilates helps you burn slightly more calories around the clock, not just during your workout. Over months, that adds up in ways a single-session calorie comparison misses entirely.
How Yoga Targets Stress-Related Weight Gain
Yoga’s weight loss benefits are less about the workout itself and more about what happens to your hormones and eating patterns. Chronic stress raises cortisol, a hormone that increases abdominal fat storage, breaks down muscle, and triggers cravings for sugar and fat-heavy foods. Yoga directly lowers cortisol levels, which can interrupt that cycle.
Beyond hormones, yoga improves what researchers call mindfulness around food. People who practice yoga regularly show measurable reductions in emotional eating, stress eating, and binge eating. They tend to make different food choices and notice hunger and fullness signals more accurately. Harvard Health Publishing notes that yoga also improves sleep, reduces anxiety and depression, and can lessen the need for certain medications that cause weight gain. These indirect effects can outweigh the calorie difference between any two exercise classes, because the largest driver of weight change is what and how much you eat, not which workout you did.
The Calorie Deficit Still Matters Most
Weight loss ultimately requires a calorie deficit: burning more energy than you consume. Both yoga and Pilates are moderate-intensity activities that support a deficit, but neither one alone creates a dramatic calorie gap. A 267-calorie Pilates session, for example, is roughly equivalent to a large banana and a tablespoon of peanut butter.
Where both disciplines genuinely help is by promoting the behaviors that make a calorie deficit sustainable. Lower stress means fewer cravings. Better body awareness means more intentional eating. Improved mood and sleep make it easier to stay active throughout the day rather than collapsing on the couch. Both yoga and Pilates also tend to attract people into broader lifestyle shifts, encouraging more movement outside of class and healthier food choices overall. The exercise itself is one small piece; the behavioral ripple effects are the bigger mechanism.
How Often You Need to Practice
If weight loss is your primary goal with Pilates, aim for four to five sessions per week. Significant body transformation typically takes three to six months of consistent training at that frequency. Sessions don’t need to be long. Forty-five to 60 minutes is a common range for effective classes.
Yoga follows a similar pattern. Three to five sessions per week is a realistic target for weight-related results, though the stress-reduction and mindfulness benefits can kick in with as few as two or three weekly practices. Consistency over months matters far more than intensity in any single week. If you can only manage two sessions, you’ll still see benefits, just on a longer timeline.
Which One to Choose
Pick Pilates if you want to build visible muscle tone and raise your resting metabolism. It’s the better option for reshaping your body composition, especially around the core, arms, and waist. The structured resistance work, whether on a mat or a reformer, creates the kind of progressive challenge that builds lean tissue over time.
Pick yoga if stress, emotional eating, or poor sleep are the biggest obstacles between you and a healthier weight. The cortisol-lowering and mindfulness benefits are well documented and directly target the behavioral side of weight management. A power or Vinyasa style will also give you a calorie burn that matches or exceeds Pilates.
The best choice is whichever one you’ll actually do four times a week for the next six months. Both create similar calorie deficits, both reduce stress, and both shift your relationship with food and your body. If you enjoy one and dread the other, that preference is the strongest predictor of long-term results. Combining both, alternating Pilates and yoga across your week, gives you the muscle-building benefits of one and the stress-management benefits of the other without forcing a choice at all.