What is a yoga diet?
Remember that food forms the foundation for the whole physical structure of our body, in yoga, it’s called annamay kosh that is the physical level of the body which is directly related to the food we eat. In order to get the best nutrients for your body, we avoid over refined or processed food completely, meaning nothing frozen from the supermarket, everything has to be of bio and organic quality and no flour or white rice sugar, limit eating meat, fish, and eggs altogether. Wake up in the morning and drink a nice warm or hot glass of lemon ginger green tea and drink the same at least another 2 times during the day. Make it a habit to drink plenty of water throughout the day
Preparing food as per yoga diet
- Rinse the surface of the food and make it free from any kind of dirt, don’t scrub it doo hard to avoid damaging the surface of the food or vegetable.
- Cook the vegetables in as less liquid as possible.
- Don’t throw this left water away and save it to make s oup later .
- No fried stuff should be consumed, best is steamed and second best is baked, avoid boiling food as the nutrient go away.
- Don’t overcook the food or vegetables.
- Use only ayurvedic rock salt or Himalayan salt in food.
Now I shall tell you about what to eat and what not to eat.
| Food to avoid | Food to use (only organic) |
| Denatured foods like, white flour, white bread, cakes and buns, polished white rice | Whole wheat, barley, rye or corn flour bread, whole rice |
| White sugar, sweets, jam, syrups, fruits in syrups, heavy sugar drinks, aerated drinks | Brown sugar, molasses, black treacle, fresh fruits |
| Fats and oils of animal origin, saturated acid fats | Vegetable oil, olive oil |
| Heat-treated products, canned food, processed food, artificial sweeteners, foods with chemical preservatives (read the back label of food before buying to check all that I mentioned) | Fresh vegetables, dry fruits, lentils, |
There is more to the story of the yoga diet. As per yoga, eating the food is as important as what you’re eating, the digestive system has a unique capability to produce the exact amount of digestive juices as the food which has entered your digestive system, there is one observance which is to be noted in this is that if you eat the food too quickly in big quantity then the juice produced isn’t sufficient to process the food fuly, therefore for every food eat it slowly and take time to consume it. Following are some of the suggestions I provide in relation to eating food.
- Take a small mouth that is don’t fill your whole mouth with food.
- Non fried solid food should be chewed about 30 times.
- Try not talking while eating and if you have to talk keep it as short as possible and focus on the food that you are eating, don’t make the mind distract as instead of focus on digestion it will do multi tasking which will prevent from proper absorption and digestion
- Also avoid thinking about difficulties or troubles during digestion, try to be in a calm and peaceful state of mind when you have your food, lets say this is your happy time which you owe to yourself for your life.
- Eat only 75% of your stomach capacity and never completely fill the stomach and never ever overeat of which 50% is to be filled by food and 25% is to be filled by liquid such as fresh juice (no canned or packed juice).
This can be used as a common basis for everything that you need to achieve with food, take breakfast 09:00, 2 small meals during the day (12:00 and 15:00) and only salad at night preferably before 20:00, if you want some food recipes and further instruction I can guide you towards that upon your request also and make a diet plan and chart for you based upon your exact needs, we will have to sit down for this and ill need some time to understand your full body and mental condition and requirements.
The yoga diet plan is complimentary with mental and physical health, it’s best we do that together otherwise you might not be able to do it and follow it properly. My recommendation is that we meet 3-4 times a week and 2 times you practice what I teach on your own to get the desired result, remember you want to have permanent results and not temporary results. You need to change the foundations of your health, if changes happen very quickly on the physical level due to exercise the body will be under a lot of stress and will go into a shock at the cellular level without you even noticing or realizing it.
