Strike a healthy balance between diet and exercise with yoga

Healthy eating and regular exercise are two of the most important considerations for your overall health. They're like two sides of the same coin: if you don't eat the right amount of healthy food, you won't have enough energy to exercise. Without exercise, you run the risk of developing high cholesterol, obesity or any number of other modern lifestyle disorders that are so prevalent.

Over-exercising, on the other hand, can lead to injuries (thus disrupting our regular exercise routines). Excessive eating or craving sugary foods or junk foods can result in vicious cycles of guilt/shame and indulgence/punishment.

For many of us, striking a healthy balance between diet and exercise can be a challenge. Enter yoga: its regular practice not only brings physical benefits, but also helps balance our emotions, keeps us grounded and virtually eliminates stress. It is rigorous enough to yield tangible results, yet gentle enough to be practiced every day. 

Combined with Ayurvedic concepts of the trigunas and tridoshas (bio-energies), yoga also helps us have a better attitude towards food. It teaches us that the cause of most disease is through under- (ajjeranatvam), over- (atijeeranatvam) or incorrect (kujeeranatvam) digestion. We also learn about our approach to food, the kinds of foods that suit our specific body type and the importance of timing and moderation in diet. In time, yoga reduces harmful cravings in the body, which makes a healthy diet more enjoyable.

Overall, yoga offers a sustainable, holistic solution to the problems associated with balancing diet and exercise. A combination of modern nutrition, yogic practice and Ayurvedic thought can do wonders for our health and longevity - and there's no better time to get started than today.

Have you experienced better health through yoga? Share your experiences with us here.