start to eat less and change to healthier foods. It is difficult to believe, but yoga actually does change your taste buds. Pupils frequently tell me that junk food that they thought they couldn’t live without now has lost its appeal. As you become healthier, calmer and more relaxed, you will find that you stop ‘tension-eating’ i.e. grabbing high-calorie snacks at all hours of the day and night.
Yoga’s slow stretches give the muscles a beautiful long, lean toned shape, these weigh less than muscles toned by muscle building exercise systems. All this will result in a gradual, natural and healthy return to the best shape possible for your body type for life.
Most people find that gradually over the years their weight normalizes with continued yoga practice, and it does lead people to start considering their diet. They start feeling better and focusing on health, and this leads them into a brand new way of eating. Some pupils, however, have been steeped in bad eating habits for so long that they need a lot of guidance before change can be effected. Because of this I offer the following advice.
1. DON’T EAT STANDING UP
Obey this rule for one week and see the difference! So many people constantly nibble, eating on the go, eating between meals, eating the kids’ leftovers, ‘tasting’ as they cook the dinner, etc. This means that they are never really hungry and are always amazed when their skinny friends say, ‘I’m starving’ and sit and eat a good meal. When you stop picking and nibbling, your appetite will become fìne-tuned and you will enjoy your food so much more. Everything tastes great when you are really hungry. You will also know exactly what you eat and stop kidding yourself that you eat like a bird.
2. NEVER EAT BETWEEN MEALS
Again, a continuation of the rule above, this stops the constant nibbling and snacking. When you sit down and eat three meals a day calmly and slowly with nothing in between you will find it makes a huge difference to your weight and the way you feel. You will feel so much more in control!
3. NEVER MORE THAN HALF-FILL YOUR STOMACH WITH FOOD; LEAVE A QUARTER FOR FLUID AND A QUARTER FOR DIGESTION
This is brilliant advice from yoga’s ancient texts (Hatha Yoga Pradipika 4.58). Now let’s recap – if you don’t eat standing up and don’t eat between meals, you eat slowly and calmly, and never more than half-fill your stomach with food, you will normally find any excess weight slipping away naturally.
What to Eat
In yoga we eat for total positive health and for stimulating the prana or life-force within us. This is pure, natural food. Prepare your meals from the following selections: Feast on beautiful fresh fruit and natural healthy juices, fresh vegetables and salads, enjoy natural whole grains, nuts and seeds, a little milk, butter, cheese, natural organic live yoghurt, eggs, moderate amounts of fish and chicken and a small amount of red meat. Olive oil and walnut oil are excellent for inclusion in salad dressings with either lemon juice or vinegar, and be sure to add fresh herbs and spices to flavour your food. Try to drink at least 2 litres of water per day, and enjoy herbal tea and natural fruit juices. Try to restrict coffee and tea to a maximum of five cups per day, and have decaffeinated if possible. Restrict alcohol to just 1 glass of wine a day if desired.
Avoid all diet products (they may contain additives; it is best to just eat fresh natural healthy food), biscuits, cakes, sweets, chocolates, bagels, buns, pasta (apart from wholegrain), pizza, jelly, blancmange and ice cream. Puddings, packaged cereals (apart from organic wholegrain ones), jams, sandwich spreads and fillers, fizzy drinks and heat-and-serve meals won’t do you any favours. Keep the accent on fresh, fresh, fresh foods – nothing tinned, frozen or preserved. (I have never seen a slim person asking for a diet drink or using sweeteners, but I find my larger friends use diet products constantly.)
Think back to our Stone Age ancestors. They could only eat food that they could grow, catch or trap – no preservatives or additives were around, just a pure, natural, healthy diet. This is obviously the diet nature intended for us.
Finally, my advice to you is make your own menu plans from the foods advised – and enjoy your food. If you find your weight not slipping away as you wish, simply cut down on your portions. I know it may seem hard, but once you realize that if you are heavier than your ideal weight for your height and build, quite simply eating less will do the trick.
Man lives on one-quarter of what he eats. On the other three quarters his doctor lives.
CHISELLED 5,000 YEARS AGO ON A PYRAMID IN EGYPT
You don’t have to gain weight as you get older. Please don’t believe the excuses. Eating less is healthier; you feel better and have more energy. I could write an entire book on excuses people have given me as to why they are fat. Here are just a few examples:
It’s a choice between face or figure after 40.
It’s hereditary.
It’s my bone structure.
It’s my hormones.
If I lose weight I’ll look too thin in the face.
It’s my glands.
My friends tell me I look great at a size 18 (at 5’4”?).
It’s my HRT.
It’s because I’m on the pill.
I retain water, it’s not really fat.
I hardly eat anything – I get fat if I just look at a piece of cake.
It’s because I had that operation.
Ever since I had my baby, my body shape has changed (no but your eating habits did!).
Fools need to know that half exceeds the whole, how blest the sparing meal and temperate bowl.
HESIOD, 700BC
While there may be a small amount of truth in some of the above claims, I do find that for the majority of people, sticking to the above rules will do the trick. It is possible to keep your body in perfect shape regardless of age, and the food guide above will add to your health and vitality, and make you look and feel much younger. Doctors now tell us that the overload of toxins, chemicals, E numbers and preservatives in our food can contribute to wrinkled skin, grey hair and stiff joints. In his wonderful book Perfect Health, Deepak Chopra says, ‘Your adipose tissue (fat cells) fill up with fat and empty out constantly so all of it is exchanged every three weeks. You acquire a new stomach lining every five days (the innermost layer of stomach cells also is exchanged in a matter of minutes as you digest your food). Your skin is new every five weeks. Your skeleton, seemingly so solid and rigid, is entirely new every 3 months.’
So, as your body is being renewed all the time, why not change from being overweight and accepting illness, degeneration and decay, and help your body to vital positive health, youth, great hair, beautiful skin, good strong bones and a fabulous body?
Change to the above plan and sit back and wait for the compliments to roll in.
A final tip: Search through the magazines and find a body you really would love to have. Cut it out and paste it in your notebook or diary or on a piece of thin white cardboard – the card they put inside packets of tights is just perfect. Find a photo of you smiling, and replace the model’s head with your own. Don’t you look fantastic?! Keep this picture with you and look at it at least three times a day, before breakfast, lunch and dinner. This will imprint your new image deep into your subconscious mind, making it your real new image of you (more about this in the Meditation chapter); it will also stop you overeating. Good luck and good health!
Menu Plan