The Yogic Diet: sattvic foods to helps balance your body and mind

According to ancient Yogis, A Yogic diet must comprise of a balanced diet that is essential for physical well-being and works towards the betterment of our emotional and psychological well-being. The diet contains foods made from non-animal products except for honey and dairy. Their tradition ensured that no harm was inflicted upon the animals. When you follow a path of spirituality, you nurture affection towards every living being and wouldn’t want to include foods that torture animals. This is the reason why a Yogic diet is primarily vegetarian.

According to Yogic literature, foods that are beneficial for us were termed as Sattvic, meaning pure. It is believed to be the creators of positive energy, clarity, and spirituality. A sattvic diet includes fruits, vegetables, honey, butter, rice, grains, and lentils. On the other hand, foods that caused a disbalance in our emotional or physical state were referred to as Tamasic and Rajasic, meaning stale and stimulating, respectively. Tamasic diet includes meat, alcohol, beverages, eggs, spicy foods, garlic, and onions. Here in this blog, you can read about the various ways in which a Yogic Diet enhances your lifestyle and impact your body, mind, and soul positively. Go through the blog to know more about it.

Fundamental Principles and Types of Yogic Diet

It is well known how huge a Yogic diet can have on your mental and physical well-being. However, due to busy work schedules and packed daily routine, it must be not easy o maintain a diet revolving around sattvic foods only. It is, however, crucial to still be able o follow a Yogic diet and pay heed to the requirements of your body and soul. Some fundamental principles and types of Yogic diet are mentioned below:

Consciousness: Following a sattvic diet requires consciousness and willpower. You need o to be conscious of the choices you make, taking into consideration your lifestyle and health. Your diet must be self-reflective and must work towards the betterment of your mind and soul. It might take a while for it to show its positive effects but do not lose hope and keep eating healthy.

Yogic Diet: The yoga diet follows the ethnicity of yoga principles; concerning purity and nonviolence. It includes food items that help create positive energy and balance in your mind and body. They reflect a vegan or a vegetarian diet as the staple diet of their culture that can help you reap maximum benefits if followed correctly.

Sattvic diet:Sattvic foods promote health and vitality. They enable you to achieve strength and relaxation. They include medicinal herbs, fruits, vegetables, honey, nuts, grains, seeds, or anything that is organically grown.

Rajasic diet: These diets are responsible for stimulating excess energy, which in turn causes lethargy, anger, and hyperactivity. It makes your mind restless and anxiety-prone. It includes meat, fish, coffee, sweets, chocolates, and eggs.

Tamasic diet: This refers to a diet that is unhealthy for both mind and soul. This food culture involves stale, over-processed, and over-cultivated, preserved, and packaged food items. They are complex o digest and make you feel bloated and tired. Overeating is considered as tamasic.

Tips to follow when you are on a Yogic Diet

A Yogic diet might seem strict for anyone who has imbalanced eating habits and is difficult to tame. However, you can follow the following tips to attain a Yogic diet.

Follow a Sattvic diet: Try including sattvic foods in your diet that are considered the purest form of diet and enable the body and health o function to the maximum potential. These include seeds, butter, nuts, honey, herbs, and whole meal bread.

Follow a purely vegetarian diet: people might dislike the idea of going all vegan due o the fear of having protein deficiency. However, vegan diets are enriched with proteins like cottage cheese, nuts, dairy, and legumes.

Follow a diet free from chemicals and saturation: Choose organic foods that are naturally grown and cultivated. Over processed and preserved foods can cause discomfort in your mind and health and cause long-term disease.

Follow a timetable for your meals: Try eating your meals at regular intervals with not much gap in between that will help absorb the nutrition of your food o its maximum potential. Try not to have late-night meals for proper digestion to take place.

A day of fast: According to Yogis, you must entitle one whole day of every week o fasting. It will ultimately cleanse and detox your body. You can opt for a fruit and water cleanse. This will ensure the release of harmful chemicals from your body.

Follow nonviolence: Yogis strictly follow the rule of ahimsa or nonviolence where they feel love must be distributed to every creature and human accordingly. We must be conscious when we make choices and avoid hurting the sentiments of other living beings and become more environmentally conscious.

Benefits of Yogic Diet in your life

Eating plan-based products and strictly following a vegetarian diet can have numerous health benefits and improvements in your body. According to research, these people have a higher resting metabolic rate which means they burn more calories than usual and are healthier.

Improved digestion: According to research, a vegetarian diet promotes healthier gut microbiomes as fruits and veggies give you more fiber, making regular bowel movements.

Boosted metabolism: Considering the fiber, you attain from eating healthy fruits and vegetables and plant-based products, your gut encourages a resting metabolic rate that boosts your metabolism.

Boosted energy: Vegetarian foods like nuts, grains, and legumes comprise the low glycemic index, making them digested slowly, thus providing your body with a greater flow of energy.

Reduced risk of chronic diseases: According to o Yoga and Ayurveda, people who follow a plant-based diet can cut short their risk of chronic diseases by 22 percent, as well as other diseases like diabetes and cancer.

Enhances mood: It is popularly believed that what you eat impacts your emotions. There is a gut-brain connection, and everything you eat reflects on your mod. Eating healthy can help encourage healthy emotions and moods.

How Yogic Diet affects your body, mind, and soul?

Undoubtedly, living in a world struggling to cope with the hustle-bustle of city life, the individual’s mental and physical health has been deteriorating tremendously. Busy and packed schedules with almost no time to spend with nature and enjoy its gifts have caused anxiety and restlessness. Cases of depression and anxiety have been increasing in a multifold and are wrapping more individuals into its storm. People are more restless now and devoid of faith and tranquility. They are likely to be drawn towards stress and pessimism and worry more than ever. Negativity, depression, and insomnia have crept their way towards modern individuals who are likely to be affected by these challenges. The life we lead is a challenge every day. We have become unfocused towards our health and wisdom, and our emphasis has shifted from mindfulness o material things and unhealthy habits. We have become a slave to our minds and worldly desires.

Food works as the epitome of energy for our bodies. No organism can survive without food, not longer than a few days or months; that is how important food is. Different body parts and organs require different nutrients from the food o survive and function normally. For example, teeth and bones require calcium, whereas eyesight and vision require Vitamin A. As mentioned earlier, what we eat is reflected upon our emotions. Gut and mind have an interlinked relationship and directly or indirectly depend on each other. In antiquity, the physical and mental concerns of Yogis were not restricted to the practice of Yoga diet and forms only; they were also conscious of the food they were consumed. They believed how huge of an impact food could have on our body and souls and how o needed to maintain a balanced diet. This was the reason why most of the Yogis were so physically fit and mentally so calm and tranquil. They nurtured the idea of self-reflection while Sattvic consumption food and believed that our emotions solely depended on food and Yoga merged. Our emotions are a reflection of the food we eat and the activities we perform. A happy and calm soul results from a healthy and nutritious diet devour of any chemicals or preservatives. An angry and anxiety-stricken soul must be going through discomfort in their gut or mind caused by food preservatives and chemicals. It is all science. Their logic was backed by science and research later on.

Price (Fire and water), one of the bio-energies present in our body, is responsible for governing all biochemical reactions and metabolism. Through this process, food granules get converted into food granules, and nutrient absorption gives us energy, heat, and vitality. Our body’s digestion depends upon a digestive fire called Agni, and its shoddy work can cause poor health. Poor Agni is caused by spicy foods, a hot climate, and feelings of repression.

Kapha (Water and earth) bio energy is responsible for cell repair and regeneration and is hindered by dairy and oily foods.

Vata (Air and space) bio energy is responsible for metabolism and is encouraged by foods like salads and over-excising.

This is how food, mind, and soul are interrelated and demand a balance between food and Yoga.

Food Items to consume and avoid when you are on Yoga Diet

The concept of the Yogic diet involves the consumption of healthy plant-based products and repels animal-based foods that include flesh and blood. Here’s a list of common food items you should consume yoga diet regime:

· Warm water with lemon.

· Green leafy vegetables and fruits.

· Legumes and sprouts.

· Honey and dairy

· Nuts and butter

· Ghee, coconut, and sunflower oil

· Healthy seeds like fennel and cumin

· Cinnamon, cardamom, basil, and ginger

· Whole grains like rice and oats

· Alkaline food

Go through the list of food items you should avoid yoga diet regime :

· Non-vegetarian food

· Junk and oily food

· Preservative and processed foods

· Caffeinated beverages and alcohol

· Tobacco and stale food

· Spicy foods, garlic, and onion

Everything related to Yoga’s Sattvic food has been discussed above elaborately. You will easily and instantly find answers to all your queries. A guidance flow has been maintained for you to begin from scratch. Check out all the details mentioned above to give a kick-start to your spiritual journey of Yogic diet.