Tag Archives: healthbenfits

The YogaLean Benefits of Garlic

Mmm, garlic! I can’t get enough of this tasty, aromatic ingredient and love to incorporate it abundantly in my home recipes. Garlic adds an irresistible depth of flavor to my dishes and it’s an essential part of that comforting aroma we often associate with fresh, home cooking. But, in addition to its sensational culinary properties, garlic is packed with a variety of powerful health benefits that are enormously helpful in keeping us lean by guarding our immune systems against infections, detoxifying the liver, and even lowering blood pressure.

Here are the primary reasons I love garlic, plus a couple of my favorite recipes that include it generously.

*Garlic Boosts Immunity    

Garlic is a fierce defender of the immune system with great capacity to prevent and banish colds. Garlic has been called a natural antibiotic because of its high concentration of manganese, calcium, vitamin B1, Vitamin B6, vitamin C, phosphorous, copper, potassium, and selenium. This combination of nutrients unite in garlic like a veritable bacteria-and-virus-fighting army. If you feel yourself starting to sniffle, this is the ingredient to grab for in the grocery store. I also like to supplement my immune defense by taking garlic capsules, a potent alternative to eating it in food, (and startling your partner with the smell of your breath!)

Here’s one of my favorite garlic-y recipes, perfect for staying cold-free, lean, and satisfied, especially in the wintertime!

Beth’s Immunity Soup

What You’ll Need:

4 to 6 cups vegetable or chicken broth

2 teaspoons olive oil

5 cloves crushed garlic

finely minced hot peppers (as many as you like depending on your spiciness preference)

½ teaspoon cumin

¼ cup cilantro

2 ½ cups chopped tomatoes, juices included

juice of one lemon

brown rice (optional)

avocado (optional)

Make it Lean:

  1. In a stockpot, bring broth to a slow boil

  2. in a skillet, heat olive oil over medium heat. Sauté garilc and hot peppers and a dash of cumin.

  3. add the cilantro, tomatoes, adn lemon juice to the broth. lower to a simmer and mixi n the garlic, peppers, and remaining cumin.

Optional:

  1. Add brown rice if you would like carbs

  2. Garnish with avocado

*Garlic is a great Detoxifier  

Garlic triggers the liver to release toxins from the body, allowing you to better digest and metabolize food, and helping to maintain a healthy, lean stomach.

*Garlic Lowers Blood Pressure

Garlic has a natural ability to lower blood pressure, which is very favorable for those of us who navigate fast-paced lives and high stress levels, which can spike blood pressure or increase it over time. According to the Mayo Clinic, garlic releases nitric oxide, naturally dilating  blood vessels to decrease blood pressure.

This flavorful salad has superb detoxifying and blood-pressure lowering power of raw garlic, plus the diuretic properties of artichoke and the citrus freshness of lemon.

Lemon Garlic Artichoke Salad

What You’ll Need:

5 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

¼ cup olive oil

½ teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

¼ cup parsley

3 cloves garlic. diced

12 baby artichokes– frozen or canned, chopped

6 cups mixed greens

Make it Lean:

  1. In a blender, blens the lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper, parsley, and garlic until smooth and thick (approx. 2 to 3 minutes.)

  2. Toss dressing with artichokes and serve over mixed greens

Garlic is an all-around wonderful ingredient with a very versatile set of uses in cooking and so many lean benefits. Keeping your breath mints handy, I recommend consuming garlic in abundance to keep your body’s natural defenses up, to detox your liver, and to help keep your blood pressure in a healthy range. YogaLean loves garlic!

Kathryn Herbert on Ancient Healing in the Modern World

July 27, 2015 | Emelyn Daly, YogaFit Media

Ayurveda, ‘Life Science,’ and Common Sense

Expert Ayurvedic Practitioner and founder of Ayuway of Life Kathryn Herbert has me totally convinced of the value, efficacy, and do-it-yourself easiness of the ancient Holistic healing modality she teaches and practices. Herbert, who is thrilled to share her expertise at YogaFit’s first Ayurvedic Lifestyle Coaching Retreat in Austin, TX this September, has dedicated her life to using and educating others on Ayurveda. Here, she gives us an exclusive introduction to her upcoming workshops, which focus on making Ayurveda fun, user-friendly, and 100% applicable in daily life.

What is Ayurveda? What are some of the most common misconceptions about it?

“The first thing I like to tell people about Ayurveda is that in order to use it in your daily life, you don’t shutterstock_223478743have to know how to spell or pronounce it correctly! The word may sound a little unusual, but it’s much simpler than you think. In Sanskrit, ayu means ‘life’ and veda means ‘knowledge’ or ‘science.’ ‘Life science’ isn’t just ancient Sanskrit; it’s for everybody living in modern times. To me, it is the perfect owner’s manual package of common sense for the human mind, body and spirit.”

Ayurveda comes from India, correct? How does it relate to other forms of medicine?

“So, yes, the ancient health and wellness knowledge we know as Ayurveda does come from the Indus Valley. And from there, it actually traveled East and West, influencing both Chinese and Western medicine. Hippocrates was an Ayurvedic practitioner! The father of Western medicine himself said, “let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food.” That is Ayurveda.”

Do you think that Ayurvedic medicine could replace Western medicine?

“No, I would never recommend that Ayurveda can or should replace Western, aka ‘Modern’ medicine, yet it certainly does complement any and every form of medicine including surgery and as a preventative, it is designed to keep you out of the doctor’s office.

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You know, in the West, we have a way of putting everything on a hierarchy. This or that has to be better or worse than something else. The East integrates healing approaches as opposed to creating that separation, which is the absolute definition of Holistic, it treats the whole person. In India, for example, an Ayurvedic doctor is a medical doctor, and there is a modern Ayurvedic hospital right next door to the modern Allopathic hospital, patients are sent back and forth by doctors from both sides. Both forms are equally valuable and used to compliment each other. I experienced this daily during my internship there.”

Which piece of your workshop in Austin are you most looking forward to?

“So many! I love my work because I get to translate this powerful knowledge into modern language and practical uses. In Austin, I’ll get to share my academic knowledge of Ayurveda, which works amazingly well with the YogaFit system. We’ll look at a couple Sanskrit words to demystify these new, hard-to-pronounce terms into common sense simplicity.

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And there’s the practical end of things, which is really exciting! I’ll be showing people how to use this stuff in their daily lives. We’ll spend time on really concrete techniques that will be easily remembered to take home and use. We’ll spend plenty of time on food, and turn the tabletop into a classroom using food as medicine to learn why your kitchen is actually a pharmacy to be in service of yourself, those you love, and those you coach. Plus there are really fun Ayurvedic treatment practicums including the ‘meda buster’ massage to reduce fat on the body—one of my favorites!”

For more information about Kathryn Herbert and her workshops at the YogaFit Ayurvedic Lifestyle Coaching Retreat in Austin, TX coming up this September, visit YogaFit.com!

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Kathryn Herbert practices privately in Southern California at the Ayurway of Life facilities and conducts national workshops to promote the benefits of Ayurvedic lifestyle choices. She lives in Los Angeles with her two teenaged children, two dogs, a cat, and three horses. She hopes to welcome chickens to her home soon!