enLIGHTened

Book excerpt: Meet your new best yoga-and-healthy-eating friend in this smart, accessible, and funny memoir of dieting and discovery. For years, Jessica struggled with fluctuating weight and bouts of unhappiness. Like many of us, she found comfort in food and craved cigarettes and self-confidence. Then one day Jessica took her first yoga class in Katmandu. She lost 40 pounds and changed her life forever. In enLIGHTened, Jessica shares the core principles of yoga philosophy—not the poses and postures, but the ancient system of ideas that lies behind them, drawn from a 2000-year-old text called the Yoga Sutras. The inspiration for this memoir-driven diet and health book is studied by devout yoga students and teachers, and offers answers to eating smartly, living right, and losing weight. Jessica goes beyond yoga's merge into mainstream—beyond trendy diets, unsustainable exercise routines, and the quest for the perfect figure. Using spiritual philosophy, and personal stories everyone can relate to, she sets the reader on a journey to self-acceptance, personal peace, and long-term health.