Easy weight control: Keep meat off your plate

Eating meat may lead to weight gain, and this recent study provides the data (check out the NPR story here).

They looked at the association between meat consumption and weight gain, following 103,455 men and 270,348 women for 5 years.

3 important findings from this study:

1. There is a strong link between weight gain and meat consumption, even after controlling for variables such as total calories, weight, age, sex, and physical activity.
2. A diet that contains 250 grams of meat per day leads to 4 pounds of weight gain after 5 years.
3. Red meat is not the only culprit: weight gain is most strongly correlated with poultry consumption (which people tend to think of as the lower fat/ healthier meat option).  

Conclusion:

• Decreasing meat consumption (all types of meat) may help with weight management. High animal-protein diets will most likely not lead to long-term weight loss.

All I can think about is the massive amount of meat that we serve sick people in our hospitals and children in our schools. How much evidence will it take for us to actually start changing this?

High school yoga lesson: Set goals

I officially love doing yoga with high school students. Teenagers can be so smart and I’ve been learning a lot from them.

The other day before class, one of the kids was talking about his life goals. He talked about how his main goal is to live a good and fulfilling life. In order to achieve this, he has many goals underneath that: graduate from high school, get a better GPA, go to trade school.

Then he said:

“It’s good to set goals. Better to write them down. Even better to write them down with detail.”

Yes! If we want to accomplish something, writing it down makes it much more likely that we will actually do it.

I’m wondering if there are yoga teachers out there who incorporate goal setting into their classes? I’ve always liked it when teachers start a class with the opportunity to silently set an “intention” for the practice, but what about writing down these goals/intentions (and maybe sticking them under the mat during the practice)?

Similarly, what about doctors having their patients write out their health goals (in detail)? It would be like writing a personal mission statement, only this would be more like a "personal health statement."

Cannot wait to see this

Cannot wait to see this documentary: FORKS OVER KNIVES.

From the website:

“FORKS OVER KNIVES examines the profound claim that most, if not all, of the so-called “diseases of affluence” that afflict us can be controlled, or even reversed, by rejecting our present menu of animal-based and processed foods."

The documentary tells the stories of these two important and influential researchers:

• Dr. T. Colin Campbell. Nutrition researcher who focuses on the role of nutrition in cancer, and author of the well-known book, The China Study.
• Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, Jr. Surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic and author of long-term nutrition research on reversing coronary artery disease (check out this study on how a plant based diet reversed coronary artery disease, and this paper on how moderation may actually kill when it comes to heart disease).

What I wish we learned the first day of school

“If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health.” 

~ Hippocrates

So simple and so true. I wish we learned this the first day of medical school. Better yet, I wish we all learned this the first day of elementary school.

I think this is one reason why people like yoga so much. While everything else in life has gotten so complicated, yoga is a simple prescription for health based on the right amount of nourishment and exercise.

Is your yoga working?

“If the practice has any value at all, it’s because of the changes that occur outside of the yoga practice.” 

 ~John Campbell 

I liked his explanation for why yoga works outside of the practice:

Yoga eases some of our physical pain and strengthens our mind, “making us less prone to self-absorbed and dysfunctional behavior."

When we have fewer worries on our mind, we naturally think less about ourselves and think more about other people.

5 things your yoga should be doing:

• Fewer self-obsessed thoughts
• Better interactions with others
• More compassion towards others
• More sensitivity
• More creativity 

If these are not happening, then the yoga is not working (or you may not be being guided properly).

It's so easy to get stuck in the self-focused physical practice (I want to jumpback, do a handstand, grab my heels in kapotasana, get the next pose, on and on). But the important question to continually ask myself is: "Is the yoga actually working?"

High school yoga lesson: Get out of your comfort zone

A local high school started yoga as a daily part of their summer school program so I’ve been teaching there a couple mornings a week. I never expect too many kids to actually show up but they’ve been slowly trickling in.

Before class yesterday, one of the students was talking about how he’s been trying to get out of his comfort zone more often. He said:

“When you only do what is comfortable, your comfort zone stays small. But when you widen it by doing things you’re not comfortable with, more opportunities become available to you.”

He had perfectly put into words one of the main reasons why I love the ashtanga mysore practice. It makes us push our physical and mental boundaries every morning. When things start getting too comfortable, we get something new to work on (jumpbacks, handstands, more backbends, a new pose). This practice of getting comfortable with the uncomfortable then bleeds into other areas of our life creating more opportunities for ourselves.

Experimenting with food

The Hatha Yoga Pradipika (chapter 1 verse 64) says the following:

"Wheat, rice, barley, shastik (a kind of rice), good corns, milk, ghee, sugar, butter, sugarcandy, honey, dried ginger, Parwal (a vegetable), the five vegetables, moong, pure water, these are very beneficial to those who practice Yoga."

I'm not sure how well this verse applies to my life, but it is certainly true that my interest in food has increased along with my yoga practice. What is good food to eat? How will eating certain foods make me feel? Which foods support the intensity of the ashtanga yoga practice (as well as other physically and mentally demanding activities)?

A lot of times I turn to my yoga teachers with these questions, but something John Campbell said last weekend made me think differently. He said something like,

"People over-relied on Guruji for questions on how to live their lives (What should I wear? How fat or skinny should I be?) Don't ask your guru questions that you should figure out yourself."

Just as experimentation is important for the physical asana practice, we should be experimenting with food. How else do we figure out what we like? What works for one person may not work for someone else.

For me, my general food criteria include the following:

• Simple and easy to prepare (does not require fancy kitchen equipment or ingredients I don't typically have)
• Efficient use of time (can make large amounts to be eaten over several days)
• Made from local and fresh foods (for the most part)
• Energizing (does not cause post-consumption mind-fog)
• Nutritious
• Tasty
• Portable (can easily pack in bag and bring to work) 

Most importantly, I like leaving lots of room for experimentation... which is how I discovered this:

***Kale Banana Smoothie***

Blend handful of kale, a banana, yogurt, water, ice (and whatever else you think might be good!)

Perfect post-practice. 

Make lots, keep in the fridge, and look out for kale stuck in teeth.