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Fitness – Our unkept Promises

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Every New year, thanks to our resolutions, the gym annual subscription numbers hit the peak!  No wonder we can’t find a parking space near a gym on the first 2 week of the year. Third week onward, we can park in a place of our choice 🙂

And we are back on our perennial guilt trip.

Or we think it is lack of equipment and we buy a treadmill. And we end up using it more for drying our towels and inners 😊 more than for work outs. One more grave reminder of a weak will power!

Our unpredictable work schedules and hugely demanding lifestyles contribute to this, more than our lack of will power. If we can learn some simple yogic practices or at-home work outs that can be flexibly accommodated in our packed calendars and even during vacations, all we need would be a 6 feet space to sustain it!

It’s very important to understand that “We gain or lose weight more because of what we eat than how much work out we do.” We hit the gym for 2 hours, exhaust our will power and then eat unmindfully. No wonder we end up not losing much weight despite massive efforts.

Willpower is always limited. When we pull the pendulum towards one side and leave, invariably it is going to swing to the other side by the same distance. There is a yin and a yang. When we use our will to follow a diet and exercise regime that we don’t enjoy following, we would be subconsciously counting the days left for the program to get over. Then definitely we are going to go back to our old ways of eating and gradually gain back in 6 months what we lost in 3 months. What’s the point of expending enormous will, time & money and getting back to where we were?!

Practicing kriya yoga does the exact opposite. It increases your awareness. With the heightened awareness, cravings for food comes down along with other compulsions of the mind, if done right. For every person we have worked with, food intake drops by 40-50% without any deliberate use of will power. As our mental focus and clarity improves with yoga, our commitment to stay steady with our yoga practice is enhanced. With sustained regular practice, food cravings don’t make a comeback. And, we start spiraling up! This leads to sustainable weight loss without expending much of will.

As mental health is becoming a growing concern, regular yoga practice and a yogic diet would also greatly enhance our equanimity and emotional balance.

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Inner Science vs modern Science

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In our ancient system, food was never looked at, as a commodity that provides proteins, vitamins, minerals and calories. They saw food as a life making material. They looked at food in terms of Prana. Prana means energy. Everything that we eat has an impact on our energy system.

Certain foods can make our body more vibrant and healthier. Certain other foods can suck our energies and pull our system down, reducing our productivity, clarity, perception, mental sharpness and overall health.

In this land, there were no rules or commandments when it comes to food. There is nothing like these are forbidden. We never made a religion out of food – vegetarian-ism, vegan-ism etc. People ate sensibly based on what kind of life they lived because what we eat has significant impact on our body and mind. People who chose their life’s work in the field of art, ate differently from those who chose to serve in the army or run businesses or pursue spirituality.

In the market place, non-stick pans, refined oil and microwave oven were considered to be very useful scientific inventions before their ill effects were researched. Scientific community keeps changing what they said last year, based on today’s research. When it comes to food, scientific research is still going on – fat or protein or carbohydrate – which one and in what proportion, would make a better fuel for our body. None of us would be surprised if they go back on what they said, every few years, with a newly published journal.

What kind of food is conducive for human system was established in India with absolute precision by yogis by observing their own system about 15000 years ago and they have, never once, gone back on it ever since.

 What Inner Science arrives at, based on awareness, might take ages and billions of dollars of research to get there! If at all…

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Our Philosophy

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Why should being healthy and vibrant even be a question?!  Especially when every cell in our body is working tirelessly towards our well-being…

Today, it is not uncommon to see someone pop pills everyday even in their mid 30’s. It is rare to see someone not do that in their 50’s and 60’s.

Simple things like having regular monthly cycles or conceiving a baby don’t seem to happen for many, without a pill. Basic metabolic activities need external interference without which a lot of us can’t survive. But for thousands of years, people lived well, even into their late 90s, without any support from outside.

 They surely didn’t eat “what” we eat, “how much” we eat, “when and how many times” we eat and didn’t sit how we sit in the rest room or dining room. They didn’t wear a band and strive hard to complete 10000 steps!

 In the last 50 years we have unconsciously made few changes in our food habits and lifestyle by looking up to the Western culture and looking down upon ourselves. Aren’t we losing out on the distilled essence of thousands of years of a rich culture and wisdom?!

 It is time to rediscover and unearth these practices, always known to people on this land!

Back to the roots……

If we walked into a shop, even 30 years ago, there would be so many kinds of lentils. Today, it is just a toor dal, urad dal or green gram dal. Even in Arab countries today where half the land is a desert, one can find 15 different types of cereals. India has only three or four left because we are wiping them out.

In India, almost 87 varieties of pulses, grains, legumes and cereals have been lost for good!!

Traditionally, people always ate a broad spectrum of all these on a daily basis. But if we look at our plates today, it will comprise of mostly rice or wheat roti, dal and some vegetables like aloo. With this kind of diet, conditions like obesity, cholesterol, diabetes & arthritis become inevitable. This shift to a mainly carbohydrate, single grain diet, that has happened in the last 50 years, needs to be reversed!

And, right now!

If only we re-look at every aspect of how we live… how we eat, breathe, sit, sleep and go about our everyday living, we can, not only live disease-free. Rather we can live at the peak of our physical and mental capabilities through our old age, just like our forefathers did.

Only question is, are we willing?!