Yoga and Diet: The Mindful Connection - Paperback

by Gunn Helene Arsky Msc (Author)

This book is what I was in desperate need of, but didn't have, when I started out as a yoga practicioner in 2005. And here it is - a guide through the mindful connection between your yoga practice on the mat, and your diet off the mat.

• What happens when we connect the ancient Yoga Sutras of Patanjali with modern nutritional science?
• Or when mindful eating meets Chakra foods?
• Or when we address the Ayurvedic dietary advice for each of our body and mind types, when we know what the Hatha Yoga Pradipika has to say about food and diet?

Answer: We get to understand why our bodies start craving other types of food when we engage deeply in our yoga practice.

This book is a gift to all of you devout yoga students and experienced yoga teachers out there.

When I first met yoga, I perceived it solely as a form of exercise. And I loved it! Feeling my body getting stronger and more supple from week to week, mastering progressively more challenging poses. I started noticing all parts of my body in a new way. Also I noticed my energy levels like never before. And as time passed and I got more and more attuned to the subtleties of yoga, energetic work, and bodily awareness, I could hear my body asking for a shift. A shift in the kind of energy I fed it, no less.

Holding a Master's degree in nutritional physiology, I thought I knew all about healthy eating. But now, listening closely, I could hear my body asking for less meat. Less fish. More vegetables. More legumes. More fruits.

And when I did what my body was asking me, I felt energized in a whole new way. I didn't need my evening nap, I didn't collapse on the couch after 9PM, I didn't feel dead tired when I woke up.

This major energy shift made me curious. And because my Yoga Teacher Training contained a lot about Patanjali's Yoga Sutras - including the Yamas and the concept of Ahimsa, I got intrigued.

• What about yoga had made me more attuned to my dietary needs?
• Was there a deliberate connection between my yoga practice on the mat, and my dietary choices off the mat? Meaning - was this dietary change embodied in the yoga practice, and if so, where did it come from?

And that is what this book is all about: The connection between the foods we eat and the yoga we practice has roots many thousand years old. And it is highly relevant even to this day.

I invite you to follow me on the path of understanding the connection between yoga and food, so that you can create your own path the mindful way.