I got several feedbacks from the community on personal importance of healthy eating. We discussed Overeating as one of obstacles on the way to Yoga and Health. “We are what we eat” and we realize this truth very soon if start following basic rules. I will split 12 basic rules of healthy nutrition to several posts and I hope to cover each fully, bring you essential value of each.

As a result of a habit, advertising, stress and rush in our lives, current society has altered those eating concepts our forefathers followed. In order to revive our natural feeling of food that is required by our body, we can use several simple rules. Following these rules will save and strengthen your health. I have accumulated these advises from several Yoga teachers and use them in my everyday life for more then a year, advising them to students and friends. You will notice first results in a week if your nutrition is not very healthy and in a month if it is more or less healthy (this estimation is very rough, as it generally depends on your sensitivity).

I’m not giving “how to lose weight diet”, but instead I’m talking about healthy nutrition Yoga may advise.

1. Eat to live; don’t live to eat

Food is not a goal itself; it is a tool to reach your goal, whatever it is: healthy body, spirituality or self-discipline. Anything. We should remember that food is a tool, not our Life.

Being aware of own life motives and aspirations, you should chose healthy foodstuffs that will help you gain needed physical and mental qualities for effective actions on your Path.

Keep this thought in mind and dedicate some time to try it on. In Buddhism they say that analytical thinking lets us get deeper into topic.

2. Hunger is true, appetite is a lie

Appetite is a wish to eat something “tasty” and hunger is, from one side, readiness to eat anything (try to remember how it feels to be hungry? you may feel it after a long walk or a hard body work), and from the other side – precise knowledge of food your body needs at the moment (high-calorie or vitamin, sweet or salty, liquid or solid).

Appetite is a result of undisciplined feelings and our lack of willpower. Food concern or appetite can also be caused by unconscious urge to cut off stress by switching our focus to food (in the same way we may get other desires not grounded by natural needs of body, like smoking or sex). This is often caused by mental overwork of today’s lifestyle.

Animals eat when they feel hunger; they can’t feel an “appetite”. Human got corrupted by abundance and became an exception in this rule of Nature.

Self-control and self-possession in every moment of your life give freedom from obsessions and let you live following natural motivation of your body.

When you are hungry, you gain intuitive knowledge of the food quality your body needs. Building your nutrition on hunger promptly removes overweight, favors inner cleaning process and revives natural health. You start eating with real necessity.

During your meal, try to stop eating before you feel satiety or stomach fullness. After filling the stomach for ½, you should leave ¼ for water and ¼ for free movement of food and gases. Don’t be scared of getting hungry fast: in 20 minutes after meal you will feel satiety.

I mentioned in a previous post that in cases of overeating or hardly digestible meals the energy spent for digestion is equal to the energy received from food. Overeating makes an intensified load to digestion organs what leads to different sicknesses.

Hunger nutrition concept reduces the quantity of food people consume and partially solves the question of saving nature recourses.

Summing the above, you can start changing your health with these rules:

1. Analyze your motivation and make a decision that food is only a tool. You don’t want it to be your obsession or influence your health.
2. Try to reach the state of hunger and compare it with appetite. What is the difference? How do you feel the process of eating, do you get more aware of it?
3. Try to stop eating before saturation. Fill the ½ of stomach with food and ¼ with water. See that in 20-30 minutes satiety comes.
4. Notice how food influences the state of your mind. Does it get lazy or cloudy after heavy meal? How does it feel after light and natural meal?
5. Try to make 1 meal a day basing on hunger feeling.

Please think these ideas over, let them go through your mind and heart. There will be no impact if you simply read this article and forget about it. To reach something, we need to get practical experience, try it on and feel it.

Other parts of 12 rules are coming in my next posts.

May all beings be happy, may all beings be free

Picture in this post was taken from KrisLitman Flickr gallery.

I bring my gratitude to Universal Yoga Teacher Andrey Lappa for his work and ideas.