diet and practice

[Guest guest]

In - which derives from Taoist

Yogas (YinYang, 5 elements, 8 principles), the

Kidney-Meridian is thought to be very important for a person's

sexual energy, which is regarded as the "raw" form of a

person's general life-force. Among many perspectives, I

find the idea of kidney yang and kidney yin

determining a person's body-type especially useful and

relatively easy to understand: Ki-yang is responsible for

the hot, active sexual energy, Ki-Yin for the

cooling, maintainig sexual energy: A person with deficient

ki-yin/ excess yang will eg. suffer from premature

ejaculation, weakness, low body-weight, low endurance etc. The

person with too much Ki-Yin and deficient Ki-Yang will

be overweight, flabby, with little motivation, slow

etc. Strong yin and yang in a person will result in a

balance between the watery, cooling, enduring (yin) and

the firey, heating, originating (yang) energies in

that person.<br><br>According to their condition a

person is advised to choose her or his diet: An excess

Yang person (generally very thin) ought to avoid hot

foods (cayenne, ginger, garlic, onion, meat etc. -

these are also the foods to be avoided by accomplished

yogis - who are generally thin and have strong yang

energy). In addition cooling foods, greens, a little

dairy, fruits etc. can be adopted). Most ordinary people

in the West are overweight and flabby though: They

are deficient in Yang, have too much Yin. Overweight

is caused by accumulation of 1. Water and 2. Fat in

the body. By increasing the Kidney Yang's "fire", it

will evaporate the water and burn the fat. So for such

a person the daily diet including those foods

(garlic, ginger, onion, cinnamon, cayenne, LEAN meats

etc.) will be temporarily appropriate and balancing. In

addition I learned that drinking CHEAP (broken) black tea,

and drinking the tea boiled twice or even three

times, will cause a person to lose excess weight

quickly. <br><br>In some Tibetan styles of Yoga (and yoga

tantra)meat and alcohol are essential parts of the pujas. I

believe that populations in cold climates have over

millenia genetically imprinted to meat in their diets. If

one lives in a cold climate or has most of one's

genetical makeup from meat-eating ancestors, one may want

to be careful and attentive in changing one's own

body-type to that appropriate for yogic practice - this can

be seen as part of a yogi's or Yogini's work. It

also depends on what kinds of people one hangs out

with: In an environment where meat is everywhere (e.g.

most countries in Europe) and is regarded as an

important social nexus, vegetarianism is more of a

"constant battle", which costs a lot of valuable energy and

time, than e.g. on the West Coast, where a social scene

of vegetarians is established. Those areas friendly

towards vegetarians are often also more friendly towards

yoga practicioners, whereas in meat-eating circles

there seems to be the prejudice that yoga-practice is

something excentric, body-centered, and selfish, and the

person should better spend her or his time working on

"something decent" anyway.<br><br>The healthiest looking

Yogi I have met so far (I met him in Mysore in 1998)

claimed, that he had been a strict fruitarian for over two

years, i.e. ate nothing except fruit. He looked very

happy, strong, muscular, and "o.k." with himself. I yet

have to meet a true breatharian.<br><br>Comments,

Questions?

[Guest guest]

I really enjoyed reading your post. Although I've

read some on chinese and ayurvedic medicine and

beliefs, I was wondering if you could recommend any

specific books that you particularly found useful. Thanks

[Guest guest]

Namaste~<br>On the subject of diet, I have to

disagree with the opinion that raw food is hard to digest.

My experience has been the total opposite. My diet

is 3/4 seasonal raw fruit & some vegetables,

vegetarian for 10 years, yet eating some fish & chicken

again since doing ashtanga! Cooked food is totally

devoid of the enzymes required to break it down and

assimilate. Why do you think it takes 3-4 hours after a

cooked meal before you can do yoga? You can eat fruit

and wait only an hour!<br>The ashtanga, (I do it 6

days/week) has become food for me. It curbs my appetite,

gives energy, all the things you expect your food to

do. <br>Isn't macrobiotics lots of cooked grains? My

experience with that is that they tend to be mucus forming

and heavy. I don't miss them from my diet at all. Of

course, I am a dominant pitta/vata. I guess it's

different for everyone!<br>Namaste

[Guest guest]

different food types (carbos, fats, proteins)

take different times to clear the stomach and upper

small bowel. a typical meal has all those components.

the fats in the diet do take longer to clear. so, the

proscription to avoid significant exertion for several hours

after a full meal is appropriate. simmpler intake,

carbo's only for example, clears fairly quickly. i

rroutinely eats some bananas or other fruit a couple of hrs

prior to practice. cooked food is more readily

digestible than raw food. the enzymes neccessary to process

them or break them down are not in thew food, they are

in the gut. cooking food denatures or weakens the

bonds in the proteins of the food, making them easier

to break down, one of the initial steps in digestion

through the body's enzymtic process

[Guest guest]

Trishan<br><br>I found your post on diet very

interesting and useful.<br><br>A thought on meat-eating

cultures in cold climates. Presumably this is because in

harsh climates it is hard or impossible to grow crops,

so people had to survive on herding or hunting. Not

just cold places like Tibet or the Arctic, also desert

cultures. <br><br>But people in those cultures probably

weren't eating to gross excess much of the time, and they

were eating healthy animals. Most modern westerners

are eating to excess most of the time and are eating

obese animals stuffed full of bad food, antibiotics and

unnatural hormones. This is a bizarre cultural aberration

of the late twentieth century, nothing like a

traditional northern European peasant diet.<br><br>Are you in

Munich at the moment or Hawaii (or somewhere

else)?<br><br>Alan

[Guest guest]

I currently stay in Munich,

studying.<br><br>Another point I thought worth mentioning is that there

are types of yoga in several countries with cold

climate (e.g. Tibet) - yet these styles of yogic practice

have very little of asana practice tradition - mostly

just sitting in lotus or siddhasana are considered

sufficient. I think it is in part related to the fact, that

for survival in such places great energy expenditures

are involved in building and heating dwellings: Such

dwellings conserve heat-energy when the roofs are held low:

stretching out like in Suryanamaskar is of course difficult

in a small, low-ceiling dwelling - and not very

appealing to do outdoors when it snows and freezes.