Join me for a Complimentary Tea on Wednesday, December 19th in Virginia.

• Discuss and experience the benefits of coordinating your breath & movement in a set of gentle yoga exercises designed to heal & restore the parasympathetic nervous system.
• Breathe consciously and use yoga, mantra, relaxation and meditation to help you reduce your stress.
• Be part of the Life Wellness Centre community and enjoy Anu’s signature chai.

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Join me for a series  of semi-private introductory classes to Kundalini Yoga beginning November 7th in Virginia. 

New Location: Beloved Yoga in Reston

• Classes host a maximum of 6-8 students and cover a range of topics to serve your growth and interest.
• Use more movements with deep patterns of body and mind through Kundalini yoga.

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Join me for complimentary yoga, meditation and tea on Sunday, July 29th in Virginia.

New Location: Life Wellness Centre

• Nourish your mind, body and spirit.
• Learn how to boost immunity through nutrition and walk away with nutrition tools you can apply to your life today!
• Experience meditation, mantra and/or breath work to help increase your immunity.
• Be part of the Life Wellness Centre community while enjoying my signature ginger chai.

Date: Sunday July 29th, 2012

Time: 2:00 pm to 3:15 pm

Location: Life Wellness Centre, 13455 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite 300 Herndon, VA 20171

To Register: Call 703-855-4351 or rsvp to anu@anuhealthyyou.com

Anu Kaur, MS, RD, RYT
Wellness Coach, Registered Dietitian & Yoga Teacher

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I began this month by giving myself permission to put less on my calendar. As someone who does not “roll like that” it felt very unsettling. However, by the second week of this experiment I realized that I had miraculously created space in my life to think and breathe (literally). An excitement began to surface as I recognized I was calendaring the things I love and spending time on renewing friendships, partnerships, and connections. This excitement is contagious and I have started to think about my commitment to connecting to you the reader and creating a community around wellness, yoga and nutrition. I hope to hear from you as we grow together. The comments you post at A Nu Healthy You blog or our Facebook page allow each of us to consider wellness from a different angle.

It is amazing how the mind-body connection works. I have repeatedly found the minute I take good care of my mind-body and spirit through healthy eating, movement, strength training, yoga and the simple act of conscious breathing the universe joins in. It does it’s magic of allowing the things I need most to find their way into my life. Creating good habits around our personal wellness is not a selfish act. In fact, as we prioritize our personal wellness we become more present in giving to our family, our work and those around us in general. As you evaluate your priorities for 2012 consider giving the gift of “creating space” to yourself. The mind-body-spirit connection begins with creating space. It could be as simple as following Thich Nhat Hanh’s advice he shared this year in Washington DC at the Warner Theatre …“Breathe in, Breathe Out” consciously to check in with your mind, body and spirit as you bring in the new year.

What will you create space for in 2012?

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Join me for Yoga, Tea & Mindful Meditation on Sunday July 24th in Virginia

NEW LOCATION: Beloved Yoga’s Reston Studio
• Experience and discuss ways to infuse mindfulness into your daily life towards nourishing your mind (food), body (yoga) and spirit (meditation).
• Gain an overview of one of the most popular evidence-based complementary modalities, yoga, that takes the whole person into consideration to manage stress.
• Have an experience of coordinating your breath and movement in a Kundalini Kriya (set of yoga exercises) designed to heal and restore the parasympathetic nervous system.

I will be leading students in a class that allows you to experience your breath consciously and use yoga, mantra, relaxation and meditation to help you cultivate mindfulness in all you do.


Plus, we will be serving my Signature Ginger Chai Tea

Take a Sunday afternoon for your own self-care and nourishment!

* stimulate   *   strengthen   *   synchronize

Date: Sunday July 24th, 2011
TIME: 2:00 pm to 4 pm
Registration: $25.00 pre-registration and $35 at the door
Location: Reston Studio
To Register: Call 703-860-Yoga (9642) or RSVP to:  belovedyoga@yahoo.com

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After a very long time, I drove four miles to my parents’ house to have a home-cooked meal. Their home cooked meal. It immediately evoked what I already knew: food is not just about flavor but also about nourishment of the body and soul. In my family, meals were about the mothers’ and grandmothers’ love.

My grandmother was one of the first working moms in my family living in India. She was a principal of a school and got married late in life, 19-years-old was pretty late back then — because her father valued education. Although she was a professional, she still had her household duties. I remember when I was 4-years-old I asked her to repeat a story about how she would cook for the family when she got back home from school. She would come home and quickly throw off her sari to change into her daily salwar kameez and make fresh chappatis for all of her 7 children. The children would sit Indian-style, lined up on the kitchen floor as she served fresh chappatis to each of them. She would quickly spoon out portions of a fresh vegetable sabzi that was half-cooked to each child’s steel plate. To this day, my mom prefers her vegetables under-cooked because of her how her mother made vegetables.

I too love the smell of garlic and ginger sizzling on the stovetops and eating chappatis just as they are made. It reminds me of my childhood and my mom’s lamb curry and chickpeas. My mom made chappatis while we set the table and then sat with us while we said our daily prayer. More likely than not, she went back into the kitchen to finish making the chappatis as we started eating. At some point, I began to feel that a woman always keeping her eyes on the kitchen was anti-feminist. Fresh chappatis, that keep a woman apart from her family at dinner, just weren’t necessary. Though I stand on the shoulders of generations of women who brought food straight from the pan to the plate, I chose not to make fresh chappatis. (more…)

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It’s spring and even as I delight in the pastel flowers and locally-grown fruits at the market, I am reminded of our family’s road trip along the Pacific Coast Highway in California. More than one of the friends whom we stopped to visit offered us fruit from their own trees. The direct warmth of the sun still clung to the skin of the plums and figs and oranges that I sank my teeth into. And to think, a minute ago they were still gently swaying on their own twigs. Now that’s as local as it gets. That is how life ought to be, so my friends in California tell me.

An old college friend of mine in the San Francisco Bay Area made us lunch at home. I went into the kitchen to help her cook and she assigned me the banal task of making a salad. I would have just as soon picked one up at Panera Bread and watched the kids slurp their Gogurt while we reminisced about our college days. After all, this particular friend had once burned a dish I asked her to warm-up for a party. So I was surprised when she looked over my shoulder to see how I was doing, and then doubly surprised when she said that I was “doing it all wrong.” (more…)

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I drove through the beautiful back roads of Maryland and through the Poconos in Pennsylvania to the Himalayan Institute, a former monastery on 400 beautiful acres in Honesdale, Pennsylvania. The sold-out International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT) symposium was held over a weekend last fall in October 2010.

From the symposium I realized there is a sea of change occurring in our society as we take control of our health and stress management. The medical field is beginning to integrate the best healing practices from many cultures. As I indulged in all the yoga books I could afford and inhaled the smells of paper and binding I met yoga teachers and researchers from all walks of life.

The conference blended intellectual discovery with a daily yoga practice, while leaving ample time for reflection in solitude or quiet groups. I shared a dormitory with ten other women where we did not speak after 10 p.m. to honor silence in the monastery tradition. I discovered nuggets of truth from lectures and conversations over fragrant vegetarian communal meals and fresh chai. The IAYT conference showed me that yoga offers the possibility of transforming each one of us.

Dr. Sat Bir Khalsa

The IAYT conference experience reflects the vision of Dr. Sat Bir Khalsa an international speaker, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, Director of Research for the Kundalini Research Institute and Kripalu Center for Yoga. Join me for your own intellectual journey and experience of yoga on March 5, 2011 at The Science of Yoga seminar from 8 am to 12:30 pm in Arlington, Virginia as we welcome Dr. Khalsa to the Northern Virginia and Washington D,C, area.

Have your own yoga experience with the lovely Maryam in the morning and meet a yoga pioneer, Dr. Sat Bir Khalsa. Bring a friend, enjoy some tea and good food, do some yoga and learn how you can empower yourself. All levels welcome. Contact Anu to find out more information and register today.

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Dr. Dilip Sarkar suffered a heart attack on his 52nd birthday. He was a student of Western medicine, a vascular surgeon and, overall, very healthy. His heart attack forced him to re-evaluate. Eight years later, he practices yoga asana (postures), pranayam (breathing exercises), and teaches yoga therapy. In the first part of this series, he narrates his experience having a heart attack and making big changes in his life. Here, he answers questions about his new vocation and what he wants people to learn from his experience.

Anu Kaur: What is yoga therapy? And what type of yoga therapy do you teach?

Dilip Sarkar, MD: Yoga therapy is a state of empowering an individual toward wellness and health by the application of the philosophy and practice of yoga. The philosophy we teach is “Yoga Sutra of Patanjali” and the practice is “Patanjali Ashtanga Yoga.”

AK: As an advocate of yoga, how do feel yoga changes a person physically, mentally and spiritually?

DS: Yoga by definition is the union of the mind-body-spirit. It cures a disease and maintains health through self-realization. You look inside yourself, atman darshan (introspection), and observe what is bothering you and hurting you. Yoga tradition believes that, you are the cause and cure of your disease. By doing yoga, you achieve overall wellness and protect yourself against the progression of disease. (more…)

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Savor the Moment

Are you so busy that you multi-task in all areas of your life, including your eating habits? Functioning at maximum level, how many of us have eaten lunch in front of the computer or in the car, skipped a meal or inhaled something that our taste buds did not even catch? Is your schedule packed with meetings, chores, deadlines and social obligations? Have you ever found yourself in front of the candy dish at work without even remembering walking to it? Maybe you actually do sit down and have a meal, but you’re so preoccupied while eating that you still don’t taste the food.

If that is the case, mindfulness can be a wonderful tool to begin using in your life. Mindfulness is the opposite of being on autopilot. In today’s busy, information-loaded world, multi-tasking has become the accepted norm and eating is no exception. However, mindless and unaware eating can have an effect on us, both psychologically and physically—and eventually takes a toll on our body and overall quality of life.

More and more research is showing that mindfulness can play a role in managing stress, depression, anxiety and medical conditions such as heart disease, obesity and disordered eating. The beauty of mindfulness is that it is simple and available to you at all times. (more…)

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