Yoga Diet- Eat Properly Following The Diet
"Let the Yogi eat moderately and abstemiously; otherwise, however clever, he cannot gain success." Siva Samhita
Your mind and body is greatly affected by the food that you eat. Improper diet results to mental insufficiency, weak body and blocks spiritual awareness. One of the Five Principles of Yoga is Proper Diet. According to this principle, your diet should nourish both mind and body, and should be well balanced and based on natural foods. It also means eating in moderation and eating only when you are hungry.
Yoga Diet is a perfect complement to Yoga Exercise. Eating properly will not only help you become healthy but also help you feel fitter and cleaner. Yoga Diet also help you control your weight, that is loose excess weight and maintain a fitter body since it eliminates junk foods from your food list and include only the healthy ones.
Yoga Diet is a pure or "sattvic" diet. It is based on fresh, light and natural food such as fruits, grains and vegetables. It keeps the body lean and supple, and the mind clear and sharp which is suitable for the practice of Yoga and necessary in everyday life. It also helps prevent Health issues like Diabetes and Obesity. Even if you do not intend to become vegetarian, we fully recommend everyone to follow these Basic Diet rules as it will make you feel better and be healthier.
The Yoga Diet
The Three gunas
Yoga Diet - In the unmanifested universe, energy has three qualities, known as gunas, that exist together in equilibrium.
A Proper Diet
Yoga Diet - A proper yoga diet consist of natural foods such as fruits, vegetables and nuts and is vegetarian based.
Changing your Diet
Yoga Diet - Changing your diet is a difficult thing. Here we present a view pointers to make the transition easier.
Fasting Yoga Diet
As a means of self-purification and self-discipline, fasting stretches was back in time.
The Yoga Diet is not rocketscience. It is just about including healthier food options into your diet. However if you feel unsure on how to proceed or you have a medical condition which prevents your from radically changing your diet, please consult a physician first before changing any of your food patterns.
For more information, you can go to nutritiongeeks.com
Yoga Diet - The Three gunas
The Yoga Diet is one the Five Principles of Yoga. You will soon notice that eating properly will aid your health and make you feel fitter and cleaner. The Yoga Diet is a perfect complement to Yoga Exercise. Despite the fact that the Yoga Diet is not a Diet in the common sense of the word, you will probably loose considerable weight by just eating only healthy foods. Even if you do not want to become a vegetarian, we fully recommend anyone to follow these basic Yoga Diet rules as it will make you feel so much better.
In the unmanifested universe, energy has three qualities, known as gunas, that exist together in equilibrium: Sattva (purity); Rajas (activity, passion, the process of change); and Tamas (darkness, inertia). Once energy takes form, one quality of the three predominates. Thus on an apple tree, some fruit is ripe (sattvic), some ripening (rajastic) and some overripe (tamastic). But no matter what quality prevails, an element of each of the other two will always be present as well - parts of the apple will be in all the different stages. The Three gunas encompass all existence, all actions.
Sattvic Food
Sattvic Diet is the purest Diet, the most suitable one for any serious student of Yoga . It nourishes the body and maintains it in a peaceful state. And it calms and purifies the mind, enabling it to function at its maximum potential. A Sattvic Diet thus leads to true health; a peaceful mind in control of a fit body, with a balanced flow of energy between them.
Sattvic foods include:
- cereals
- wholemeal bread
- fresh fruit and vegetables
- pure fruit juices
- milk
- butter and cheese
- legumes
- nuts
- seeds
- sprouted seeds
- honey and herb teas
Rajastic Food
Foods that are very hot, bitter, sour, dry or salty are Rajastic. They destroy the mind-body equilibrium, feeding the body at the expense of the mind. Too much Rajastic food will over-stimulate the body and excite the passions, making the mind restless and uncontrollable.
Rajastic foods include:
- hot substances, such as sharp spices or strong herbs
- stimulants such as coffee and teas
- fish
- eggs
- salt and chocolate
Eating in a hurry is also considered rajastic.
Tamastic Food
A Tamastic Diet benefits neither the mind nor the body. Prana, or energy is withdrawn, powers of reasoning become clouded and a sense of inertia sets in. The body's resistance to disease is destroyed and the mind filled with dark emotions, such as anger and greed.
Tamastic food includes:
- meat
- alchohol
- tobacco
- onions
- garlic
- fermented foods such as vinegar
- stale overripe substances
Overeating is also considered tamastic.
Warning: The Yoga Diet is not rocketscience. It is just about including more healthier food options in your Diet. However if you feel unsure on how to proceed or you have a medical condition which prevents your from radically changing your Diet, please consult a physician first before changing any of your food patterns.
Yoga Diet- The Proper Diet
Until quite recently most meat-eaters viewed vegetarians with a certain suspicion, dismissing them as cranks or food faddist who lived on a unappetizing diet of brown rice and nut cutlets. Nowadays, people are better informed, but the vegetarian diet is still sometimes dismissed as dull and uninteresting, and lacking in vital ingredients. The facts show quite the reverse - indeed if anyone needs to defend that accusation it is meat eaters. There is ample medical evidence that a balanced vegetarian diet is extremely healthy, and provides all protein, minerals and so on that the body requires. Statistically vegetarian have a lower incidence of heart attacks, strokes, kidney disease, and cancer; their resistance to disease is higher; and they are less likely to suffer from obesity than meat-eaters.
The Protein Question
Fear of protein deficiency is the meat-eater's main objection to a vegetarian diet. Yet, ironically, meat eaters themselves obtain the worst quality protein from their food - protein that is dead or dying. We ourselves are animals, and can take our protein from the plant world, just as well as other herbivorous animals. Animal protein contains too much uric acid to be broken down by the liver; some is eliminated, but the rest is deposited in the joints, causing stiffness and eventually leading to problems such as arthritis. Nuts, dairy products, spirulina, and legumes all supply high-class protein. Westerners are obsessed with protein believing that they need far more than they actually do. The World Health Organization presently recommends a daily intake of 25 to 50 grams as sufficient to maintain and replace body tissue.
The Proper Diet
The proper diet contains the following elements:
- cereals
- wholemeal bread
- pasta, rice or potatoes
- fresh fruit
- fresh vegetables
- pure fruit juices
- milk
- yogurt
- butter
- cheese
- legumes
- nuts
- seeds
- sprouted seeds
- honey
- herb teas
All other types of food are NOT necessary to lead a healthy and happy life. Moreover, consuming other types of food will damage your physical and mental health.
For more information, go to nutritiongeeks.com.
Yoga Diet - The Yogic Way of Changing Your Diet
Becoming a vegetarian is a good step in Changing your Diet. You are not just deciding to stop eating meat, you are opening the door to a new way of life. For some, the change is easy, for others it may take a little longer. It is best to change your diet gradually rather than drastically, slowly phasing out meat and fish and substituting them with well-balanced vegetarian foods.
Yoga Tips for Changing your Diet
To ease your transtition, we here are some pointers:
- Ensure that you have a regular intake of good protein food, such as nuts, pulses, whole grains and cheese.
- Eat a salad or raw vegetables every day.
- Include plenty of green, leafy vegetables in your diet
- If you're cooking vegetables, do it as quickly as possible in order to preserve their goodness.
- Eat some fresh fruit every day.
- Make sure that the food that you eat is fresh and wholesome.
- Avoid "denatured" food such as white flour, white bread, cakes or refined cereals.
- Cook only as much as you need and no more.
- Be inventive and adventurous.
- Learn to substitute more sattvic food for rajastic or tamastic one - use tofu instead of eggs, honey for sugar.
We truly hope that you will manage to follow these guidelines and achieve to live a healthy and happy live enjoying the best and tastiest food possible.
To know more about your Diet options, you can visit Nutrition Tips: Proper Fitness Diets at ABC-of-Fitness.com
Warning: The Yoga Diet is not rocketscience. It is just about including more healthier food options in your diet. However, if you feel unsure on how to proceed or you have a medical condition which prevents your from radically Changing your Diet, please consult a physician first before changing any of your food patterns.
Yoga Diet - Fasting the Yoga Way
The Yoga Diet is one the Five Principles of Yoga. You will soon notice that eating properly will aid your health and make you feel fitter and cleaner. The Diet is a perfect complement to Yoga Exercise. Despite the fact that the Yoga Diet is not a Diet in the common sense of the word, you will probably loose considerable weight by just eating only healthy foods. Even if you do not want to become a vegetarian, we fully recommend anyone to follow these basic diet rules as it will make you feel so much better.
As a means of self-purification and self-discipline, Fasting stretches way back in time. The early American Indians fasted to see the great spirit. Christ spent forty days and forty nights in the Wilderness, and Moses fasted in Mount Sinai. Yogis fast mainly to bring the mind and senses under control, and also to cleanse and rejuvenate the body. In fact, Fasting is the body's natural way of dealing with illness or pain - animals in the wild stop eating when hurt or unwell, and we ourselves loose appetite if we are feverish. In normal life, much of our energy is devoted to the process of Digestion. Resting the Digestive System releases this energy for spiritual development and for self-healing, allowing the body to rid itself of toxins.
How to Fast
Fasting Buddha in MeditationFirst, you must resolve when and for how long you want to Fast. Choose a time when you are not too busy and are not taking any kind of medicine. Fasting one day a week is good discipline to strengthen your will power, but you will need more time if you want to detoxify the system. Fasting in four days can be safely undertaken without supervision, but not longer. Decide what kind of Fasting you are going to follow - water, fruit juice or vegetable juice - and stick to it exclusively. On a Water Fast, drink five to seven glasses of pure or bottled water a day - drink them slowly so as to absorb the Prana. On a juice fast, drink the same amount, but "chew" the juice rather than simply swallowing it.
The first three days of a fast are the hardest. As the body strives to rid itself of impurities, you may experience any of the following effects: headaches; a coated tongue; bad breath and vomiting.
If you have palpitations, take fruit juice if you are on a water fast or water if you are on a juice fast. Breathing difficulties also sometimes occur, but can usually be overcome by Pranayama. During Fasting, many impurities are dispersed through the skin, so don't use make-up or antiperspirants which block the pores. You should learn to conserve your energy while Fasting - go for a quiet walk every day but avoid strenuous activity such as jogging. Practice at least some Yoga Asanas and allow time for Meditation.
After a few days, your stomach will no longer crave food and you will notice some of the benefits - an enhanced sense of smell, for example, and increased mental energy and concentration. Abstaining from eating gives you a chance to devote more time to your spiritual development and to realize the extent to which you can control your own pattern of thinking, behaving, eating and so on.
Breaking the Fast
Perhaps the most difficult part of Fasting is breaking it sensibly, for as soon as you taste food in your mouth your mind will demand that you eat and eat. However, start eating very gradually. To make sure that you do not overindulge to begin with, break your fast in the evening and do not eat again until this food has past through your system. Vegetarians should take a pound of fresh fruit. Meat-eaters should have the same amount of steamed spinach or stewed tomatoes. For a two-day fast proceed as follows:
- Day 1
Fresh fruit only as above, plus a tea spoon of natural yoghurt to aid digestion. - Day 2
Eat only salads - Day 3
Steamed vegetables with light grains, such as buckwheat or miller - Day 4
Return gradually to your normal diet.
If you fasted for four days, simply double the above timetable allowing yourself two days on fresh fruit alone and so on. Tea, coffee, alcohol and seasoning should be avoided while breaking a fast and an enema taken on days 1 and 3.
Warning: The Yoga Diet is not rocket science. It is just about including more healthier food options in your diet. However, if you feel unsure on how to proceed or you have a medical condition which prevents you from radically changing your Diet, please consult a physician first before changing any of your food patterns.