Practicing Yoga will definitely move you towards practicing a healthier lifestyle. Your diet may change to one based on Ayurveda principles or maybe you’ll adapt a vegetarian, vegan or even raw food diet. Whatever the case, through adding more natural and organic foods, healing greens, herbs and super foods to your diet, you will find the natural health and beauty that lies within you.
Health Books To Check Out
Learning from the wisdom of others is invaluable. One of my favorite ways is to study the books they have written related to the subject I am interested in. These are some interesting and insightful books I have read.
Conscious Eating by Gabriel Cousens, MD is one of the better health/diet books I have read lately. The foundation of the book is that there is no one-diet-fits-all, but rather a consciousness or instinctive feeling on the part of the individual of what works for him or her. We all know that the food choices we make will affect our bodies, minds, emotions and spiritual life and as individuals we need to find the healthiest and best balanced diet for ourselves. In the first section of the book, Cousens gives guidelines for helping you find your true “constitution” and individualizing your diet. He follows with general guidelines for healthy eating by recommending that people consume natural, whole, and organic foods. He advocates a high-complex-carbohydrate, low-protein, and low-fat regimen mostly in the form of living raw foods. He also give attention to receiving adequate sunlight, deep breathing, bathing, and contact with nature in the form of gardening or hikes and their therapeutic effects. I also found the information on the oxidative, autonomic, ayurvedic, anabolic-catabolic, endocrine, blood-type, and acid base diet systems very interesting and helpful for understanding my particular body type. There is a section on transitioning to a vegetarian and eventually to a raw food diet followed by some great recipes. I found the book very informative, useful and one I would recommend anyone on a serious quest to finding their best health.
12 Steps to Raw Foods: How to End Your Dependency on Cooked Food is one of the first books I read on a Raw Food Diet and I would recommend it especially if you are new to the lifestyle. The author Boutenko’s delivery is of a sharing nature rather than preachy and she covered most of the questions a newbie would have in relation to the first steps one should take to get started on this diet. She cover such topics as the benefits of the raw food diet, lots of personal experience which I found interesting and helpful, how to avoid pitfalls and some easy great beginner recipes. Easy to read and informative, I recommend this book.
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Magazines To Check Out
I just discovered a great magazine called Body & Soul. I was at our local library browsing the shelves when the title of this magazine caught my eye. I picked it up and didn’t put it down until I had skimmed most of the issue and had read at least half the articles – I loved it. The magazine, which is geared towards a natural healthy lifestyle with a bit of spirituality thrown in, was well written with interesting, relevant information and the lay-out, photos and organization was really, really nice. It wasn’t until later when I skimmed the cover again that I noticed it was a “Martha Stewart Publication”. I have actually never read her other magazine and even watched her TV show but I do know she has a reputation for quality and I think, at least for my tastes, she hit the mark with this magazine. I have gone back and read three different issues and enjoyed all of them – interestingly each issue had an article about yoga (I read in one issue that M. Stewart practices yoga daily). I think this reviewer described the magazine best “This is not a magazine for the fashion-conscious, nor does it tout much other pop-culture, rather it encourages readers to value themselves, and treasure their bodies, and think about what they eat/practice/do.” Check it out at your local library if they have a copy and if you like it as much as I did give a subscription a try.
Subscription through Magazineline.com $14.95 Body & Soul
Subscription through Amazon $14.95 Body & Soul
