Beth Shaws latestbook,YogaLean, which will be released this fall, offers a holistic approach to eating healthy, losing weight, and keeping it off. Here, she provides a sneak peek at her philosophy.

As I explained in my previous post, becoming YogaLean takes time, effort, and inner strength. By transforming your current way of thinking and embracing choices for mental and physical health, you will achieve a smoother, cleaner, and more energetic creation of space. I have developed seven principles of becoming YogaLean. I explained the first two in my last post, and now I want to preview the third and fourth principles:

3. Create your ideal multifaceted and holistic plan.

The wheel of a bicycle has many spokes. If one of the spokes is broken, bent or malfunctioning, the wheel is compromised and can collapse. The YogaLean program is the same way. It involves nutrition, exercise, yoga, meditation, supplementation, positive affirmations, and an action plan that all work together for a smooth ride. Your wheel also involves support groups, journaling, and community service work.

Crafting a plan that works for you and gets that wheel turning is crucial because if you feel bogged down by a plan that doesnt conform to your personality or even your work schedule, then it will feel forced and seem (and may even be) impossible. YogaLean and Lean Consciousness are truly about developing a lifestyle that is easy to follow, one that allows you to enjoy life to its fullest while maintaining a healthier lifestyle.

4. Get comfortable being uncomfortablelearn to love movement.

Lets face it: Dieting is uncomfortable, exercise can be uncomfortable, and so can yoga. In fact, in yoga we put ourselves in very uncomfortable positions in order to learn non-reaction, and how to stay present for lifes challenges. As Eckhart Tolle says, when faced with a difficult situation you can leave it, accept it, or transform it. Sometimes in life, leaving is just not an option, so we must learn to accept and transform the situation.

Many people live with so much fear and rigidity and resistance that being open is not an option. Even if you are severely uncomfortable with your weight or whatever life experience youre encountering, change can feel scarier. Human inherently dont like change. But the reality is, everything is always changing. So its better to get in the river and go with the flow then to try to hold back the tide with your little paddle. Its never going to work, and sometimes you need to surrender.

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Why it's good to get comfortable being uncomfortable

Routinely dismissed as a waste of time, Facebook can often be surprisingly educative. Amid the incessant stream of selfies, Instagrammed dinners and last nights party pix, every once in a while theres a project that makes you think. A few months ago, it was the art challenge, where users tagged friends asking them to post their favourite paintings. It was followed by a similar poetry challenge. Now, as all you Facebookers have probably realised, its all about books. Over the past couple of days, people have started naming 10 books that left a lasting impression on them and then tagging friends, asking them to do the same. If youre tagged, you need to post your list of 10 books, before tagging more friends and so on. So far, all the usual suspects have featured, from the Bronte sisters, to J.R.R. Tolkien and Paulo Coelho. Bringing up the Indian side, Arundhati Roy, Salman Rushdie and Vikram Seth seem the most popular. J.K. Rowling, now surprisingly, is on many peoples lists. As are a handful of childrens classics: Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, Anne of the Green Gables series by L.M. Montgomery and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe series by C.S. Lewis. Curious about what books authors would pick, the MetroPlus team quickly tagged this set of writers:

Arundhathi Subramaniam

I Am That by Nisargadatta Maharaj for its piercing and unfaltering clarity, its uncluttered wisdom, because it opens up new possibilities with each reading.

Mystics Musings by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev for the voice of a contemporary sage, not a mere scholar; for its ability to address every conceivable question burning up a seekers innards.

The Tibetan Book Of The Living And Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche for the quiet, unsentimental insight it brings to the subject of death an approach that is searingly contemporary and timelessly Buddhist all at once.

Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes for combining the voice of a storyteller and shaman; she reminds you of the alchemic possibilities embedded in archetypal tales across cultures. An incredibly rich experience.

The Power Of Now by Eckhart Tolle.Theres nothing fluffy and new agey about this book at all. Remarkably lucid, there is a meditative clarity about each line a sense of poise without tension.

The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing because it is quite genuinely a modern classic it covers such diverse facets of experience, from female friendship and political commitment to psychological breakdown and spiritual restoration.

The Complete Works Of Jane Austen (Jane Austen): because she still reminds you and with a capacity to slow time down to a series of exquisitely crafted frames that much of the world can be contained in a Regency drawing room.

Hymns For The Drowning by Nammalvar; translated by A.K. Ramanujan. For reminding us lyrically and unforgettably that bhakti is not genteel fervour but a wild, passionate sometimes even cannibalistic experience.

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The books that made us