What if there was a way to feel more love? “That was the aim of this three-day detox workshop,” explains Nuthan Manohar, a yoga instructor, wellness expert and founder at Me Met Me, a wellness institution. The last weekend (February 11 to 13), Nuthan along with celebrity nutritionist Gayatri Asokan conducted a ‘Love Detox’ workshop.
“The participants were given foods like avocado, banana, honey and chocolate to fit the theme along with regular detox foods like berry smoothies, lot of fruits and vegetables’” says Gayatri. “The aim of a detox is to eliminate all toxins from your body,” she explains. Our body tends to accumulate toxins by eating junk food like pizzas, pastries, drinking alcohol, colas, etc. “The idea is to eat light food to meet your calorie requirement and purge your body of these toxins in the process.”
“Organs affected when you fill your body with unwanted food and pollution mainly are lungs, liver, kidney and colon,” explains Nuthan Manohar. A monthly detox, like fasting or eating a larger share of fruits and vegetables will help you cleanse these organs. “It will help in resolving issues like constipation and will give you glowing skin,” Gayatri adds.
She however warns us from going overboard with it. “2-3 days is the maximum a body can be detoxed without feeling weak,” she informs us. But an overall balanced diet that excludes junk food and meets our nutritional requirements, goes a long way in making us feel light and energetic as opposed to sluggish and lazy, according to the founder of Nutrisolutions, a nutrition health care clinic located at SRM road, Kaloor. She also believes that when one is on a balanced diet, cravings tend to be rare.
Gratitude is Key
“During the workshop we taught participants to help detox through various asanas and kriyas and to feel more love with help of gratitude,” Nuthan says. Sometimes, we might only think of people who directly affect our lives like our parents and spouses. But, our neighborhood shopkeeper, milkman and even the farmer whose produce we eat has affected us in someway. So, it is nice to be grateful for every little and big thing life offers us. “This will automatically make us more satisfied and feel more loved,” Nuthan says. Even a tough boss we may have despised might have taught us something like importance of time or paying attention to detail- so be grateful for that too!
“The participants of the workshop would come every morning for an hour of yoga and would be sent back with a kit that had their day’s worth of detox food, “Nuthan says. “We taught them breathing exercises like kapalbhaati, bastrika and simha kriya to improve breathing. As for yoga poses, we did trikonasana, cat-cow pose, ardhamatsyendrasana or lord of fish pose, pavanamukhtasana and marichyasana. The last day of the workshop had the participants do partner workouts with their spouse, child or parent.
Started three years ago, Me Met Me located at Panampilly nagar offers various classes and workshops on topics like hatha yoga, vinyasayoga, kalaripayattu, kalari yoga, yin yoga, pregnancy yoga and lessons in mudra, chanting and more. An MBA in Marketing and Strategy, Nuthan has worked with brands like Kraft and Bosch and Laumb as a consultant. She took to yoga as a tool to reduce stress and started teaching it about seven years ago after learning yoga from Sivananda Vedanta Yoga Centre, Trivandrum. She continues to gain the knowledge of yoga, psychology, anatomy, alternate healing through various internationally renowned teachers like Sadie Nardini, Bo Forbes and Janet Lau. Nuthan is also currently pursuing MSc in Yoga from Annamalai University in Tamil Nadu.
So, are you ready to feel some love with good eating and yoga moves this Valentine’s Day?
