Setting up for cleansing your system

[Guest guest]

Hello everybody.

I have been struggling to learn the various postures and because of

my health and fitness level it has been a tremendous struggle. I

have found myself looking at many disciplines to assist me towards

the goal of practicing ashtanga yoga. Only recently have I been able

to be flexible enough and breathing enough to make it through my

asanas (doing downward dog at 245lbs and with a 46" waistline for 4

breaths in the 5th cycle is hard for me!). I am so happy that I am

beginning to flow through these postures. I feel sometimes as though

I am swimming underwater and floating free. God willing, I will

break thru my 200lb weight barrier for the first time since 1990. I

would like to cleanse my system and set-up some type of routine

maintenance I could use regularly. I am confused on what to do and

what comes first, etc. Can I lean on you guys for some of your

experiences? Any good reading materials out there that works?

 

Namaste

[Guest guest]

ashtangayoga, "Gearhart, Margee" <mgearhart@s...> wrote:

> I know many people who have gone on fasts for a week, 3 days, a

month, etc.

> and it is not the way to long-term success with weight management.

In order

> to do Ashtanga, especially in the beginning, you need energy. I

still stick

> to my version of healthy eating in smaller amounts and slow long-

term weight

> loss. The leaner you become the more energized you feel and the

more

> successful at your practice you will be.

> What is IMHO??

> Margee

>

> i agree totally, as a muslim i fast every year for 40 days, during

daylight hours and i never lose weight at all in this month!!!

its good for cleansing you system but its not a weight loss option

and when you first practise you need lots of energy, i had to lie

down in a darkened room for about two hours when i first started

practising!

but funnily enough when i did start practising i found that my body

instinctively began to crave more healthy and 'light' foods and also

my will power increased ten fold.

more of whats healthy and less of whats not thats the best option

[Guest guest]

wow. what an amazing letter. that part about swimming underwater and

floating free really captured the beauty and power of this practice.

that feeling of both physical and metaphysical freedom is what

separates ashtanga from, say, aerobics with a lot of stretching.

 

there is no doubt in my mind (or anyone else's on this list who has

been doing the practice for a while) that, if you stick with it, you

will not only break your weight goal but far exceed any and all

preconceived ideas you have about what your body can achieve. just

practice and be gentle with yourself. ashtanga is such a `yang' style

of yoga, it is to our great benefit to approach it with a `yin'

attitude. take the long view! this is something that you will

(hopefully) be doing 20, 30, 40, even 50 years from now. allow your

breathing to open up the body from the inside out, and don't force

anything. ever.

 

back to your question regarding an internal cleansing regimen.

there's a quote from john robbins' book `diet for a new america' that

says "we aren't what we eat. we are what we don't shit." pretty

funny, but the message is: regulate that colon, baby! i'm sure you're

finding that primary series is helping out a lot with that already

because of all the forward bending, but you can help it along even

further with supplements, exercises, etc. my instructor, david

williams, recommends a daily colon cleansing regimen that includes

supplementation with psyllium husks, and also this cleansing practice

called `nauli' where from a standing position you bend forward

halfway, place your hands on your thighs, exhale fully and lock your

chin to your chest, then lift your abdomen in and up. isolating the

abdomen, lift it and drop it up and down quickly as many times as

possible (start with 10… and be careful to keep the spine still)

before releasing the chin lock and inhaling. then exhale again, lock

the chin, and repeat 10 times (so you've done 100). do this first

thing in the morning after you've brushed your teeth. when you get

really good at isolating the abdominals like david, you can move the

abdomen around and around in a circle, clockwise and

counterclockwise. it's a pretty neat trick, and it does the job to

boot. not only that, it helps strengthen the abdominals which will

also help you with your practice.

 

moderate fasting (either a total fast with just water, or a modified

fast where you can consume such things as herbal teas, garlic,

vegetable broths, carrot/beet/celery juice, etc.) CAN provide great

detoxification benefits… read up a bit about them and maybe try a

short one and see what you think. also, that one-food-a-day thing

recommended by someone else is not as silly as some here have

suggested. doing it for a day or a few days at a time will NOT send

your body into starvation mode. commonplace in ayurvedic medicine

(which is hardly the barbaric pseudoscience another list member

painted it to be… akin to completely disregarding the western medical

tradition because its practitioners once upon a time used leaches as

a treatment for illness), eating one food a day and reintroducing a

new food item to your diet every day thereafter is actually a well-

known method in western medicine to help people isolate food

allergies. what a great way to `test out' all the things you commonly

eat and see how they are REALLY affecting you.

 

consider a vegetarian diet. try it and see if you feel better. now

that you're checking in with your body more often when you do your

practice, its becomes easy to tell what foods make you feel heavy and

stiff, what foods make you feel light and free. listen to your body.

 

here's an interesting quote from a book i'm reading now, `jivamukti

yoga' by sharon gannon and david life:

 

"dietary restrictions in the form of vegetarianism, veganism,

fasting, and so forth can also be forms of svadhyaya (self study),

because they can help you acquire knowledge about the higher Self… a

restrictive food tapas… is not undertaken by a yogi to affect his or

her health but as an investigation into the nature of Self. after

all, our body is made of the food we eat and our mind is affected by

the food we eat."

 

good luck to you!

-jennifer