“I had to leave the road and get myself together.”

These are the words of talented recording artist India Arie, who is featured on the August cover of Yoga Journal.

According to the magazine’s contributing writers Neal Pollack and Mary Bolster:

When she returned home to Atlanta after touring, the first thing she did was kneel down and press through the balls of her feet. “It was profound how good it felt,” she says. “I just started balling my eyes out.”

Traveling with a yoga mat religiously, practicing consistently, Arie explained how revamping her diet and fine tuning both herself and her music is a process:

“Everything in my music has always been emotionally and spiritually motivated … But after I started doing yoga, the place where I came from changed drastically,” she said.

This change in her life has been slow but rewarding process for Arie, who seems to have embraced love instead of the quick fix to health and wellness so many celebrities endorse.

But India learned the hard way when, after experiencing an emotional tailspin four years ago, she developed bad eating habits. She usually depended on her natural athletic build and genetics to get by, but when it came to the effects of emotional eating her body was no match.

A few months ago, Arie sat down with Essence.com to talk about getting her mind and her body back on track saying “It was challenging getting myself into the mind set to lose the weight. Once I got there the weight dropped off quickly.” She made a decision to do better by herself, physically and spiritually. Along with exercise, she also switched her diet.

“Our food choices show up on our body. [We have to] know that are no short cuts to looking and feeling our best,” she says. “I am still learning about this but it shows up on my skin when I am off-balance … and I feel more tired, too.”

Check out the companion video to her inspiring spread in Yoga Journal:

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3 Comments

  1. Went to New to Yoga classes in July, loved it and immediately signed up for the next 11 classes. Yoga evens my whole mood and body out and I love it! It is a challenged, but I’m gonna hang in there.

  2. Kudos to India for having the self-love and courage to take care of herself. So inspiring!

  3. I went out and bought a copy yesterday after seeing this story. Such a beautiful cover and an even more beautiful woman.

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