Right kind of food key to perfect yoga results: Book

Yoga with the right food is a complete and effective treatment for weight watchers, who are tempted to combine it with other slimming methods for better results, says a new book.

Noted integrated yoga therapist Bijoylaxmi Hota in her book Yoga and Diet for Weight Loss seeks to break slimming and weight loss myths and prescribes certain postures of yoga, along with the diet one should take in order to achieve better and faster results.

Unlike most other weight loss programmes that are partial and superficial in their approach, yoga is an ancient Indian practice, which, when accompanied by the right kind of food, does magic, the author says.

Slimming, according to her, is not just about what one eats, how much one eats, how much one exercises or what form of exercise one does but more importantly, how fast one's body utilises food.

The key question is how efficient is one's metabolism.

The target should be to hasten the process and make it so fast that without being a clinical problem, it can burn all your calories quickly, Hota writes in the book, brought out by Rupa Publications to coincide with World Yoga Day on June 21.

She says yogic treatment starts with ridding the system of chemicals and other toxins.

It is a general impression slimming food is not tasty, she says, adding there is absolutely no truth in it.

She suggests slimming ingredients like mustard seeds, pepper and fennel to make food tastier.

The book also has recipes like steamed mustard fish, fish with tomato and celery, baked salmon, chicken teriyaki and beans with fennel.

Hota also advises a balanced lifestyle to be truly healthy saying there is a misconception that doing an hour of yoga is sufficient to maintain good health.