Indeed if someone were to say they thought Yoga was just stretching after they saw a student leave a Yoga class and later on eating at McDonalds or something, they probably would be right.
Why?
Well, Yoga, in its entirety, includes a proper diet. One doesnt exist without the other. This is THE factor that anyone seriously interested in taking up Yoga must understand. If one wants to do Yoga, youve got to include all its principles.
When I started doing yoga some 6 years back, I did extensive research on the subject of diet and Yoga. Perhaps this was fate, as co-incidentally, this was around the time that an associate had told me to look into fasting and a natural diet as a means to cure my horrendous acne at that time.
I stumbled on a book called The Complete Illustrated book of Yoga by Swami Vishnu-Devananda, and this had a whole chapter on diet. What he explained here made it clear that as beneficial as most- if not all- yoga poses could be for overall health, if one constantly subsists on unhealthy foods, it defeats the purpose of exercising in the first place.
This is perhaps even more important in regards to Yoga.
Why? Well, Yoga...