Yoga Diet and Fitness

Yoga Diet and fitness is what almost everybody is talking about nowadays; but natural, considering that folks are becoming more and more health conscious, these days. The kind of food you eat is proof of your mental and spiritual level of development. Your level of consciousness is revealed by the nature of your food. For this reason, Yoga and Ayurveda recommend more of a vegetarian diet. Such a diet, it is said, facilitates development of the higher qualities such as patience, tolerance and, above all enhanced mental awareness.

Since Yoga’s aim is to develop optimum health, the Yogic Diet is best suited not just for physical detoxification but even to widen the boundaries of the mind. Both Yoga and Ayurveda postulate that the mind is essentially composed of air elements. Hence Yoga emphasizes more air (vata) and breath control. For this reason, stick-in-the-mud Yogis still stick to raw foods together with recurrent fasts. They say that lowering body fats in due course brings about the mental growth and development. This is said to increase our sense of detachment from sense objects and decrease our body consciousness while increasing the spiritual counterpart.

So what does a Yoga  practitioner eat? Most certainly a predominantly vegetarian diet. It would essentially consist of the following :

• Fresh fruits and vegetables
• Beans and grains
• Nuts and seeds
• A moderate amount of dairy products.

A Yogic diet is particularly important if you wish to raise your consciousness to the level at which you feel love and compassion for all living beings. These definitely include birds, animals and plants. Killing them, rather than respecting and caring for them, just toughens your mind and heart. Subsequently it takes your goal further and further beyond your reach.

However, you don't have to be a vegetarian to practice Yoga. Then again the more you become aware of yourself – particularly your body – you will find that eating non-veg fare makes you heavier. On the other hand vegetarian foods help a person maintain that all-important light and energized feeling you derive from the practice of Yoga. Just take it easy with the fried foods and dairy products, particularly cheese – they only make you put on pounds.