Practicing Non Violence

My theme this week has been peaceful non violence in an effort to honor Martin Luther King, Jr. His message was an important one, though certainly not easy to implement. Committing to peaceful non violence in an effort to seek civil rights equality for all seems exceedingly difficult. Passion for a cause often creates excess energy, making it difficult to ground oneself in mindful awareness while protesting. I admire what I imagine King’s level of self caring must have been. In an age when norms and even laws defined him as a second-class citizen, he refused to believe the overt messages. He honored what he knew himself – that he was as loved and special as anyone of the majority race and he deserved the same rights and respect. His own self respect fueled his protest. I imagine it would have been difficult to adhere to non-violent approaches to change living in the social environment he did.

Yoga provides opportunity to practice peaceful non violence to ourselves, thus helping to make the world around us a better place. The scale is not nearly as comprehensive as the Civil Rights Movement, but I acknowledge that adhering to peaceful non violence to oneself creates a better world for everyone around us. Practicing non violence is a way to make yoga practice serve ourselves and the world around us. Self speak, telling ourselves we aren’t good enough on or off the yoga mat, leads to violence and harmful actions. Many people in dysfunctional relationships might hear these messages from others in their lives as well. These messages can be played out on the mat in many different manifestations. It might be the superficial self put downs (I’m not good enough to get into pincha mayurasana – forearm stand pose) that are extensions of telling ourselves that overall we aren’t good enough even off the mat. It might manifest as impatience getting into a deep forward fold, leading to a lumbar spine injury as a yogi pulls into paschimottanasana (seated forward fold pose). In reality, our poses certainly do not reflect how “good” we are at anything. My hope for these practitioners is that their practice creates a sense of peace and ease, not struggle and failure.

Practicing non violence on the mat protects us from getting into expressions of poses that are not yet physically available to us. It keeps us from experiencing neck injuries sustained in sirsasana (head stand pose) when the shoulders are not strong enough to hold weight, causing the yogi to collapse and harm himself. Collapsing at the neck this way is a violent act. Yoga should never be violent. Yet it happens often. I hope for these practitioners to one day experience the same level of self respect King had, keeping them from pushing beyond their limitations. Dolphin pose is a perfect alternative inversion to help honor one’s body while developing strength to potentially go into advanced inversions another time.

Practicing non violence on the mat means practicing yoga in a comfortable environment. Yoga is most often a physical practice. This means that the body will generate heat during a yoga class. The body is designed to maintain a healthy core temperature by dissipating heat through sweating. The sweat cools the body when it evaporates from the skin. Practicing in a room set higher than body temperature is violent. The body is doing its job trying to dissipate heat but it cannot because the room is too hot for the sweat to evaporate from the skin. This is violent, harming the body rather than respecting it. I hope the hot yoga fad will go away tomorrow. In the meantime I hope that the practitioners seeking these classes come to love their bodies enough to appreciate the amazing thermoregulation process and to treat their bodies with loving kindness.

Practicing asanas (poses) too quickly to maintain correct alignment is another violent way to practice. Asana practice is intended to move with the breath, not so quickly that the motions get sloppy. Practicing without attention to alignment principles is violent to joints and soft tissues that are more likely to be injured with repetitive practice this way. But choosing this pose means dampening one’s passion to practice hard, suppressing that excess energy, and grounding in mindful, peaceful awareness.

Mistreating our bodies equates to practicing self violence. When we push too hard, eat too much, drink too much, and perform other self-destructive behaviors we end up cranky. And being cranky only makes life more difficult for people around us. Practicing peaceful non violence on and off the mat better serves us and the world around us. Martin Luther King was able to do this even in the most difficult of social situations. My hope is that all people everywhere can be safe, happy, healthy, and at peace and that in yogis this peace is manifested in mindful, non-violent practice on and off the mat.

Surrender Experienced as Ease

I remind myself as I head into a few months of heavy travel of my ongoing lesson of learning to surrender. I’m a planner with every idea of how I expect my travel to be and my life to unfold. I expect airlines to transport me on schedule and on time so I can catch connecting flights. I expect menu items in foreign countries to be served the way I interpreted the menu. Of course none of these things happens often. More often than not travel goes awry and my plans get turned upside down. But travel is trivial. I’ve been fortunate to have only a couple of big life crises, way fewer than some people I know. Any of these events offer lessons to surrender.

I cannot control everything and there are times that I need to let go of my expectation. One day I’ll remember that it is my response to the event that causes me more suffering than the event itself. My pattern is to struggle against the disappointing event and to make it right. I argue to make the other person see my perspective and change course. I argue with the airline ticket agent even though he has no authority to find another plane. But because I have no control over these circumstances my only real course of action is to surrender. Only after I finally surrender my struggle do I finally find ease and peace. The outcome might not be what I wanted but in the end what will happen will happen. I may as long go with it and accept the outcome.

I find hip openers to be a great way to work with surrender on my mat and I hope that practice there helps me to surrender to life circumstances out of my control. Of course my dear yoga students practiced lots of hip openers last week because that is what was on my mind. For most people eka pada rajakapotasana (pigeon pose) is an excellent example of surrendering into the pose. In this deep hip opener people often tense the muscles around the hip and pelvis rather than relaxing them. In fighting against the pose they feel the challenge of the hip external rotation opposing hip internal rotators that are tight from sitting much of the day. People often feel themselves further opposing the pose by tensing through the jaw, lips, shoulders, and other muscles nowhere near the hips. This week we practiced exhaling away that tension. We tried to stay with the pose by surrendering into it, feeling length in the hip muscles and ease with the result. If that is an easy lesson then try it in double pigeon pose (knee to ankle pose)!

Perhaps posting this blog will help me to surrender to travel snafus. Who knows how well I’ll implement my own recommendations to stay present and find ease by surrendering to the circumstances. I know I will try. May each of you find ease and peace as you let go and surrender to the challenges the holiday season brings.

Living with Intention

Having been an academic forever, autumn is to me what New Year’s is to most people I know. Autumn is my time to reassess where I’ve been and where I’m going. With that comes reflection on what is my personal mission statement. I consider three values that I want to exude in my thoughts, words, and actions.

The yoga mat is a good place to consider intention. I invited students to set an intention for their practice and to find it there in every asana (pose) during the class. Then throughout the entire practice, I kept prompting them to return to their intention. The intention could be any value meaningful to them, perhaps strength, flexibility, balance, patience, acceptance, compassion, presence, generosity, awareness, mindfulness, the list is limitless.

Identifying the intention is often easy. The difficulty comes when we try to live that intention. It’s hard enough to remember to return to it during a 75-minute yoga class; remembering to live it each moment off the mat seems especially difficult.

Take one of my intentions, for instance: compassion. Sounds like a lovely intention to live by and I’d like to think that I do. But I’m human and from time to time I find myself forgetting to live as the compassionate being I aspire to be. On my mat it might be the day that I feel especially tired and worn out. I don’t feel up to par yet I push myself on my mat. On these days a slower practice of restorative poses or more folds and twists might be in order. But forgetting to have compassion for my body I push through a demanding practice of standing balances, arm balances, and inversions. Then I think – oh, yeah, I’m supposed to be emanating compassion. That probably should start with compassion for myself. Forgetting my intention to be compassionate can show up during any practice as boredom in a relatively easy pose like bhujangasana (cobra pose) or as ambition in a deeper pose such as urdhva dhanurasana (wheel pose).

I find even more opportunities and challenges to live as the compassionate being I aspire to be when I’m off the mat. That seemingly stupid and inconsiderate motorist driving in the bicycle lane deserves the compassion I intend to convey. But I forget. I’m not mindful of my intent and I resort to my automatic reactions emanating from my anger.( You can guess what those words and actions are; I don’t think I need to be explicit here!) Some days it takes me hours to reflect on my emotions. Other days my practice serves me and I am more aware that the words, thoughts, and actions I had in immediate response to the driver are not representing the way I intend to live. I am able to imagine the driver being distracted by illness or tragedy or just being late for an appointment. I become more aware of the driver’s need for love, acceptance, and respect just as any person desires. I become mindful of all the other perspectives that may contribute to the driver’s actions. I find the opportunity to thank the driver for helping me to live my intention.

Living with intention requires mindfulness and it isn’t easy. But it is rewarding and certainly worth returning to each and every moment.

Try it for Yourself

Apparently, Buddha had said “Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, not even if I said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense." I find equanimity when I remember to apply that philosophy to much of what I do. I try to avoid rumor mills by returning to this quote and know that there are multiple sides to every story and I need to rely on my own experiences with the people involved to come to my own conclusions. I try to empower myself by trying to do something difficult, regardless of who told me that I won’t be able to. I won’t know unless I try.
 

Buddha was right; everything is one’s own individual experience. Then it occurred to me that as a yoga teacher I say something and the roomful of people do as I say (if only my three cats would do the same, but that’s another story…). So this week we have worked more on students not just taking my word for it. We have worked on them trying different expressions of poses for them to make their own reality of the alignment principles I keep repeating in each class, every week. For instance, I always tell students to use blocks to find parsvakonasana (side angle pose) and ardha chandrasana (half moon pose). Most of the students believe me that using the block will help them maintain the length in the spine that makes the poses open their hips and hearts. Most of them believe me that by using a block rather than resting their elbows on their knees in parsvakonasana will help them retain knee alignment and reduce risk for injuring ligaments on the inside of the knee. But this week they tried it for themselves. After experiencing these poses with the blocks they tried to touch the ground without the blocks. Some of the students can maintain the pose without props but the students that can’t noticed the difference in their breath and body when they collapsed without a block.

Urdhva mukha svanasana (upward facing dog) is another pose we broke down more. I always tell the class to keep their gaze straight forward and most of them do. But some students come from other classes and lift their gazes up to the ceiling. So this week we tried both. The students learned for themselves that when they look up they don’t lengthen their spines as they thought they would. In fact, they collapse in their shoulders and upper chests and fall out of the pose. We also compared two versions of urdhva hastasana (hands up in the air pose) this week. I tell students to keep their palms separated, shoulders turned out so that their pinkies are nearer to each other. But some students come from other classes and put their palms together overhead. So we worked with both expressions and again students recognized that their shoulder blades come off their backs and they scrunch up their necks when they bring their hands together. So they didn’t have to just take my word for it. The students tried it for themselves and noticed the length in the spine and depth of the breath they get when they retain good alignment principles.

The yoga mat gives us so many opportunities to make life our own individual experience. The breath will tell us if we are doing the right thing. Sometimes holding the backs of the legs and bending the knees in navasana (boat pose) is the only way to keep a steady breath and truly spread the collar bones as the pose is meant to be practiced. But we won’t know for ourselves until we turn inward, check in with the breath, and find our own truth. Sometimes we do need to drop into balasana (child’s pose) to settle in before continuing through a vinyasa. We can’t wait for someone else to suggest we use a strap or a block, we need to always be present to our needs at the time and do what’s right. That is the only way we are sure to be true to ourselves, give up struggle, and reduce risk of injury.

The equanimity we feel when our breath smoothly moves from inhale to exhale in a rhythmic cycle tells us that we are doing the right thing. We will find the breath become shallow and staccato-like when we try taking a challenging pose without a prop as much as when we consider engaging in gossip or lies. Again, yoga practice on the mat can guide our lives off the mat.

Benefits of Yoga

I have seen many of the popular press articles and some of the research articles (most are not very well controlled – unfortunately the studies are for the most part too poorly designed to make confident conclusions) espousing the benefits of yoga practice. Every body system, including endocrine, cardiovascular, and musculoskeletal is supposed to be positively affected by yoga in some way. Perhaps they are.

Exercise certainly will positively affect every body system. Many well-designed studies have removed doubt that the higher intensity the exercise the more one will benefit (up to a point that is not likely to be sustained by anyone but a few elite athletes). Unfortunately, few articles that claim health benefits of yoga compare asana practice (poses linked with breathing) to traditional exercise so no one can say for certain if yoga is as good as or more or less effective than a workout that includes cardiovascular exercise and resistance training. There also are many styles of yoga practice, some more likely than others to benefit all body systems. Of all the classes available on any one day in any city, most will not be as beneficial as a gym workout for any body system because of the difference in workload intensity.

I personally look to the gym where I maintain an elevated heart rate during cardio exercise and lift my maximum weight during resistance training (see previous blog posts) for physiologic benefits of physical activity. It is the mindfulness part of yoga practice that keeps me coming back to my mat. Turning inward to time by breath with body movement keeps me present the entire time I practice. Anytime my mind wanders off to the huge list of things I need to do or issues I need to resolve, I come back to my breath and alignment to maintain my mindful yoga practice. My poses are deeper when I’m aware and my experience is more awake and alive.  I finish my practice feeling like I’ve been to a spa or had a nap in a way that other physical activity doesn’t offer. My mind is still after a yoga practice and I feel ready to tackle the to-do list and unresolved issues with new clarity and vigor.

 My awareness practice on the mat also helps me to return to the present moment during my experiences off the mat. I have learned to tune into the present by being aware of each breath and of the sensations of each moment.  I have come to appreciate the difference between gulping tea without awareness and presence and drinking with attention to the aroma, taste, and sight of the drink. I stay with each sensation to take advantage of each moment, particularly when I am enjoying an experience. Why get a fabulous massage when I’m busy mentally running down my to-do list?! Why indulge in a decadent dessert unless I’m enjoying each bite with all my senses?!

 I’ll rely on my gym workout to benefit me physiologically. It is the awareness and mindfulness I learn from my yoga practice that I see as the valuable benefit of yoga.

Balancing Diets

There is certainly room for treats and sweets in a balanced diet. It just requires strength to keep the balance from tipping in a direction that is both unhealthy and likely to lead to weight gain. Eating a balanced diet is similar to parsva bakasana (side crow pose) variation in that way. Yoga students tend to think the pose is all about strength when in fact it is more about maintaining a precarious balance.

 There is a role for desserts in a balanced diet as long as they are eaten in moderation and planned carefully as a component of the entire days’ calorie intake. I enjoy nice wines and friends of mine serve fantastic wine. I know that when I plan to dine at their home in the evening I will need to balance my anticipated extra caloric intake through a careful meal plan for the rest of the day. Another friend bakes incredible desserts and I enjoy her vegan fruit pies. But I have trouble deciding between the choices when she invites me to dinner parties. So I plan for the dessert as I eat my other meals for the day then eat a very small portion of two different pies. These are realistic strategies to plan for sweets. It is neither realistic nor balanced to never eat desserts or fine wine at all.

Treats need to be considered special, not eaten with each meal. The problem with calling a food “good” (vegetables) or “bad” (desserts) is that we lose sight of a balanced lifestyle based on moderation. Once a dieter deprives herself of a certain type of food that she has labeled “bad”, she finds she craves it even more. The strength to resist is less important than a balanced plan. She will be more likely to over indulge on the forbidden food and spiral into a diet that is further from her goal. A meal plan that includes less healthy options as part of one’s lifestyle is more likely to be sustained than dieting that excludes any one type of food.

It has become more difficult to be mindful of portion size because food manufacturers have increased the packages of familiar treats. Coca Cola had been bottled as 6-ounce servings in the 1950’s. That is a moderate portion of a sweet treat. A single 6-ounce serving every now and then as Coke products were consumed in the 1950’s would not be a diet catastrophe. The problem now is that people consume 28-ounce bottles even several times a day. That is when a reasonable indulgence becomes catastrophic for a healthy lifestyle.

Tiny bite-sized candy bars can be a solution to curb a sweet tooth as long as we eat only two or three of them and put the rest of the bag in an inconvenient location (maybe in a box in the garage for the serious Snickers fan). To take time to enjoy the sweet makes it more satisfying than mindlessly polishing off the huge theatre-sized bar that will unbalance any meal plan.

Candy bars do not happen to tempt me; I’m more of a crunchy/salty type. So I don’t often purchase corn chips. If I do, I grab a handful and put the bag back in the pantry before I start to mindlessly plow through more chips than I needed. Another solution to control portion size is to purchase single-serving bags of chips.

We cannot sustain a diet that has drastically cut sweets, fats and salts without eventually feeling hungry and deprived, leading to later gauging. However, a diet high in sweets, fats and salts will lead to unwanted weight gain and potentially unhealthy insulin and lipid protein profiles. We each need to find balance by developing strategies that work for ourselves to reduce unnecessary calories (a number greater than the calories we burn in a day) without feeling deprived. It is a balance of consuming fewer calories from treats while enjoying each small portion.

Today I’ve enjoyed my lunch salad without rice crackers. I’m saving my sweet calories for some Ben and Jerry’s Berried Treasure sorbet. And when I do eat it on this hot evening I will take out only a couple of spoonfuls and enjoy each taste. Perhaps I need a little strength to resist eating the whole pint, but it’s really all about balance.

Freedom

Freedom has been the lesson I keep returning to this week, (not coincidentally) timed with the country’s celebration of its freedom from a relationship that did not work to the advantage of the colonies nor the English. I have explored many ways to deepen the feeling of freedom, or moksha (liberation), on the mat that have followed me off the mat.
  

Some students requested that we work on hip openers for our Independence Day practice. We worked to soften through the hips and pelvis to find a sense of ease in several asanas (poses), including gomukhasana (cow face pose) and in many lunges and standing poses including parivrtta trikonasana (revolved triangle pose). We worked toward eka hasta bhujasana (elephant trunk pose) and astavakrasana (eight-angle pose). But these two are not easy poses. Many students did not get into them and some of the students that did were unable to hold the poses for five breaths. This is where we are presented with the opportunity to free ourselves from our egos. Difficult poses like these offer important lessons to let go of the ego that tells us we need to “nail” each pose and let us explore the pose and experience it as our bodies offers it at this point in time. We are free to develop our practice and our attention as we challenge ourselves – where is the opportunity to develop if we never practice a pose we find difficult? 

Many yoga students are challenged by hip openers like these. Others find these poses easier and need to explore freeing their egos in other poses such as shoulder openers like garudasana (eagle pose) and arm balances such as bakasana (crow pose). Whatever our challenge pose is at the moment, it will challenge us emotionally and mentally as much as it will challenge us physically. The challenging pose will become easier if we surrender into it and soften our resistance, using our breath to move into it, rather than pushing, expecting, trying and doing.

So where have I applied these lessons to my life off the mat? As a chronic perfectionist, I’ve been working on freedom from finding perfection in myself, others, and events. It is not easy for me to let go of my ego that I wrap in perfectionism. But I am more aware of softening expectations, looking for the best possible outcome perhaps, but finding something natural and generally ok about imperfection. I’ve been lengthening my breath and releasing resistance to what is and accepting it with a free and open mind. Just as every asana isn’t going to be perfect, nor will every action off the mat. If I accept freedom to experience fluctuation on my mat then I need to soften and release perfectionism off my mat.  

We find more opportunities to liberate ourselves by releasing habitual thoughts and actions. Habits by definition are the easy way to function and lead to our reaching for a less healthy food option or automatically finding the negative in someone or something. It requires more mindfulness to interrupt a habitual pattern by reaching for a peach rather than a chocolate bar when we feel stress. It is hard work, but that is where the opportunity to develop ourselves comes from. True freedom comes from controlling and interrupting patterns and habits that don’t serve us. The founders of our country declared independence from patterns that didn’t serve the colonies. The freedoms they sought did not come easy but were rewarding, liberating, and enduring much as the benefits of our yoga practice can be for us. If we could only surrender and let go of our ego then we can be free.

What's the Juice?

I am old enough to remember juice fads coming and going a couple of times. The practice of promoting juicing as a healthy diet has waxed and waned and is back in again. I have no idea why the practice keeps coming back. I suppose there are always companies trying to sell kitchen appliances and packaged foods to stoke the interest.

There are so many reasons to forego juice and eat the fresh vegetables and fruit that make the juice. Juice is a concentrated form of the fruit or vegetable. That means that for every ounce of juice one consumes more fructose while foregoing vitamins, minerals, and fiber that the fruit and vegetables provide. For example, a glass of orange juice has the number of calories and amount of sugar of three oranges yet has a higher glycemic index and less fiber than the orange. On every basis for eating nutritious foods, the whole food is healthier than the juice.

Juicing extracts the liquid component of the food, creating a calorie-rich form of the food. At the same time, juicing discards the pulp, or fiber, that the food offers. That fiber is an important component of a healthy diet. It also helps to feel satiated. One is likely to be hungrier after drinking a glass of juice than a piece of fruit or vegetable that has one third the calories!

Eating the whole food is particularly recommended for people motivated to reduce daily caloric intake to lose weight. Our minds are our biggest foes and allies in the quest to maintain a healthy weight. We can trick ourselves into thinking we had a larger meal by taking more time to chew and consume a meal. Biting, chewing, and even seeing the food in front of us helps us to think we had a meal. All of this benefit is lost in drinking calories as a juiced version of the fruit or vegetable.

A general rule of thumb for healthy eating is to eat all one’s calories, drinking none. The micronutrients packaged as whole food is always a healthier form than processing the food. Not buying into the juicing fad is better for your diet, your wallet, and counter space – I’d rather fill my limited counter space with fresh flowers and a fruit bowl than a juicer!

Yoga as Exploration

Yoga practice is much more than stretching and strengthening the body. If practiced with a sense of wonder and inquiry, yoga asanas (poses) can also help stretch and strengthen one’s mind and attitude. Expanding our sense of who we are requires a curiosity that can be cultivated on the mat and can stimulate our personal growth off the mat.

There is no one way to practice yoga. It is easy to discover different ways to move and reflect with so many types of yoga styles. I learned how to sequence asanas from one to the next by practicing ashtanga. I learned patience in staying in asanas by practicing Iyengar’s method. I learned how to be creative and playful by practicing vinyasa. I learned to be still by practicing restorative poses. No one of these styles serves me every day. I switch between the styles and use lessons from each at any given time – both on and off my mat.

Even within the same style, every instructor brings his or her own biases and backgrounds into a class and each studio offers different interpretations on what is yoga. The atmosphere can be more or less friendly and the music more or less soothing. Scents and colors of different studios also either draw me to or away from them. Sometimes I need more quiet. Those are the days I practice restorative poses and cancel my social engagements. Sometimes I need to challenge myself to extend past what I always do. That is when I seek out a different instructor or learn a new variation of a familiar asana.

I’ve challenged students to explore and discover something new in their practice. What happens if you stay in the pose a little longer; can it change the way the pose feels in the hips or the way your mind reacts? What happens if you change your gaze; does it feel different or provide a different perspective? What if you use a block or strap; does it change the expression of the asana? What if I change my verbal prompt; does it change your understanding of the pose? My intention is for students to learn more about their bodies, attitudes, and yoga practice. I invite them to continue this sense of discovery when they leave the studio and enter the real world.

Curiosity to learn more about our body’s movements and our mind’s attitudes helps us to do something slightly different. In our practice that might mean trying a new asana, teacher, or studio. Off the mat it might mean striking up a conversation with a stranger, entering a new vocation, seeing an issue from a different perspective, or trying a new ethnic cuisine. Curiosity supports our exploration that leads to new discovery. There is no such thing as success or failure in exploring something new and discovering something different about ourselves. Expanding our bodies and minds through exploration brings growth and that can only be a good thing.

Comfort Balanced with Effort

Yoga practice is based on philosophy outlined in the Yoga Sutras, organized as poetic verses written in the 2^nd century CE. Only a few of the 196 verses refer to the physical practice of asanas (poses) even though most Americans consider that the poses define the practice. Sutra number 2.46 does refer specifically to asanas, and even this message extends beyond the mat into our lives in the real world. This sutra has been translated to mean “It is essential that the posture be steady and comfortable”.  Any pose, then, should be performed in a manner that is challenging, yet relaxed in some way.

A pose as simple as sukhasana (easy sitting pose) has components of comfort and effort. One doesn’t sit rigidly in this pose as they begin a sequence or transition and rest between poses. There is more ease and comfort than rigidity. At the same time, the pose isn’t slouchy. The spine is erect and the spine is energized. The person in this pose is awake and alert.

The same duality applies to physically challenging poses such as natarajasana (dancer pose). This pose requires the person stand on one foot while holding the other leg behind the back with one arm and pressing into a bow shape with the back. This is challenging for balance, flexibility, and strength but it is also challenging to find comfort amidst all the effort. So many muscles must generate force to practice this pose. But many other muscles do not need to work. The jaw doesn’t need to lock and the teeth don’t need to clench. It is actually easier to balance if the toes don’t claw. Pulling the leg up too strongly will hike the pelvis and change the pose. So with all the effort of the pose, there will still be some ease and comfort.

This delicate balance between being alert yet relaxed occurs in our daily lives just as it does in asanas. We need to stay alert when we drive (and not use a phone – even with a hands-free device but I’ll save that lecture for another time) but we also need to have a certain amount of ease so that we can respond to unexpected obstacles and change course quickly if necessary. It requires some effort and control to chop vegetables yet there too, we need some ease as we do; we don’t use every arm muscle to dice a carrot. This balance extends to our relationships where we learn how much we need to give and how much to take in each one just as we learn which “battles to choose” with employees, spouses, and children.

More and more I find my life off my mat reflecting my yoga practice. I look to balance effort with comfort. I remind myself to back off when I push hard or to push when someone is taking advantage of me. This is just how a beautiful life should be lived: steady, comfortably, and in balance.

Protein Facts

Proteins are important to a healthy diet but most people eat more protein than is recommended and often choose less healthy sources of protein. Personally I have chosen to eat a vegan diet for nearly 30 years. It makes me feel great and I create a smaller carbon footprint, contributing to my own health and the health of the environment. But I do not try to influence everyone else to become vegan. I would like to get people to stop making two assumptions, though, to help them select their own proteins more wisely. First people tend to ask “How do you get enough protein in your diet?” and the second assumption is invariably “So you must eat a lot of tofu.” Whether you choose to eat a plant-based diet or to eat animal proteins, you might want to learn a little more about recommended protein intake.

Every cell in the body is made of proteins that are constantly being broken down and replaced. Amino acids gleaned from dietary proteins are the source of our cellular protein. Proteins are absolutely necessary parts of the diet, however the “average American diet” tends to include twice the recommended dietary allowance for protein. Anyone in America eating a healthy diet from a variety of foods will get enough protein without having to supplement or pay special attention to what he eats. The best diet includes a variety of wholesome foods rather than focusing on any one type of nutrient. The right amount of protein depends on one’s weight, but the guideline is to keep a diet in which 10-30% of the calories come from protein. More specifically, recommended dietary allowance is 0.80 grams of protein a day for every kilogram of body weight. That means that a diet for a 150-pound adult should include 54 grams of protein a day.

Yes, protein does come from tofu but also from many other sources. A vegan diet like mine gets most of the protein from nuts, seeds, beans, and peas. Grains (particularly quinoa), fruits and vegetables (particularly spinach and broccoli) contain protein, but not as much as the other sources and cannot be the sole source of protein. People that eat animal proteins get them from dairy, fish, poultry, and red meat. One cup of cooked beans has 6 grams of protein, raw almonds have 30 grams, asparagus and broccoli have 7 grams, spinach, mushrooms and tomatoes have 5 grams. A cup of milk has 8 grams of protein and an 8-oz container of yogurt has 11 grams. A 3-oz portion of meat contains about 21 grams of protein.

People are not very likely to experience serious health issues if they eat more than 0.80 grams of protein per kilogram of weight a day. The problem is that animal sources of protein tend to be higher in calories and saturated fat (associated with cholesterol) than plant-based foods. So the person that eats more than the recommended dietary allowance of protein each day is most at risk of experiencing the health risks associated with too many calories and saturated fats (heart disease, diabetes, some types of cancers, etc). By association, cutting back on animal-based proteins is a fairly easy dietary change can result in desired weight loss. (People with kidney disease need to reduce protein intake to help the kidneys function properly, but I refer here to people without kidney disease.)

Americans have become used to including meat and dairy at each meal now that food production has reduced the cost of animals as a food source. Including meat as a complement to plants for the evening meal rather than meat as the primary focus of the meal will have the effect of weight loss. Consider lean beef or chicken stir fried with fresh vegetables over a bed of brown rice rather than a larger-than-recommended portion of steak or chicken with a small portion of string beans and mashed potatoes. Replacing sausage at breakfast with an egg white omelet tossed with mushrooms and tomatoes will still provide animal-based protein but with fewer unwanted calories. Other ways to select healthier proteins include using black or pinto beans rather than or as a supplement to less hamburger meat in chili and sauces, selecting low-fat dairy products, choosing lean meats, and using egg whites without the yolks.

So, in answer to the questions I always get when someone learns my diet excludes animal products: I get plenty of protein using beans and nuts as my primary source. And although an ounce of tofu offers about 20 grams of protein, I probably eat it once or twice a month.

Benefits of Awareness and 100% Effort

My philosophy is that if I’m going to make time, whether it is 20 minutes or 90 minutes, to be on my mat then I’m going to make the most of it. I like intensity and focus that I put into my practice and my gym workout. Maintaining my attention on my body keeps my mind from drifting into crazy chatter that it does the rest of the day and that break is nice. But full effort also affords me all the benefits from the practice (or workout).

I can sort-of-kind-of be in virabhadrasana 2 (warrior 2 pose). You know what this looks like, a little wishy-washy. My front knee can be bent a little and my arms could be out to the sides but be soft and hanging limply because I’m not really aware of what I’m doing. Or I can choose to be in the pose completely with intention. This way my front thigh is parallel with the floor, my legs are working hard as I press them away from each other, and my arms are alive with activity. I’m not rigid, but all of my body is working completely, in the present moment, with all the effort that I can give. I’m going to be there for five breaths anyway, why not be aware, give it all I’ve got, and get the most out of it.

When I do manage 100% effort I’m more likely to have my muscles and joints aligned the way they should be. That alignment makes my muscles more efficient. If I want to develop muscle strength, mental focus, flexibility, balance, or any other benefit from practice then I’m most likely to get to those benefits if I’m completely aware and putting full effort into the pose.

Full effort also keeps me from injuring myself in the pose. It is when we are really thinking about something else that we get hurt. That is because we let the front knee cave in toward the inside of the foot and stretch the ligaments beyond what they should be. Or we can create cervical discomfort if the shoulder blades are riding high instead of anchored down on the back as they should be.

This intense mindful movement is important in the gym as well as on the mat. It is the moment I begin to think about the grocery list that I bang my leg with a dumbbell and bruise my shin (true story – happened last week). If I’m not thinking of alignment while I’m doing a set of flies then I’m likely to stress my shoulder ligaments and feel pain in the front of my shoulder. The ache might last a little while or it could end up being a serious injury, particularly if my inattention is habitual and I continually stretch the same ligaments. Injuries aren’t a badge of honor in the gym or on the mat. They mean that we didn’t do something right; we didn’t maintain awareness or we didn’t honor our body’s limitation that day.

Maintaining awareness for 100% effort on my mat and in the gym also helps me remain focused when I step into the real world. I get more from my relationships when I listen completely to what my friend is telling me. The intensity on my mat also helps me to stay focused when I’m doing anything else so that I am more likely to do it right the first time without errors. That happened last week, too. I breezed through the supermarket thinking about the yoga sequence I was planning to teach that evening and I left the store without a critical item.

No, I’m not able to put in 100% effort every single moment. But I do try. I’ve asked my yoga students this week to set the intention to put in 100% effort throughout the class. One woman learned that she compensates for weak abdominal muscles by using her shoulders in several poses. She realized that is why her shoulders are tight. Her devoted awareness during yesterday’s practice taught her a lot about how she uses her body and will help her get much more out of the time she already is committing to her practice. As long as she is on the mat, she might as well be there completely, 100%.

Thinking Outside the (Lunch) Box

A passage I read in a novel last month has stayed with me. The woman protagonist was about to prepare herself lunch when she was distracted by someone knocking on the door. As the scene proceeded and she answered the door I wondered to myself, “But I want to know what she prepared for her lunch.” Well, she returned to the kitchen table and I was disappointed to learn that she had made herself a sandwich.

Couldn’t the author think of something more creative – and nutritious – than a sandwich? I was disappointed on so many levels. Many people are perplexed about why they try to lose weight and they cannot. Some of them have gotten the message that they need to have a nutritious breakfast. People that skip breakfast weigh more than people that do not. Moving along to lunch, these very people who cannot understand why they aren’t losing weight need to look closely at their lunch habits. Taking lunch to the office from home will always save calories (and money). And avoiding sandwiches, whether one eats out or packs lunch, will also help shed unwanted pounds. Sandwiches are traditionally packed with empty calories and added preservatives, salt and sugar. We can construct one right now. Whole wheat bread purchased in packages from the grocery store will contain healthy fiber. But a single slice will have at least 100 calories. That is a lot of calories when it hasn’t been filled yet. Nutritionally the sodium content is relatively high (at least 7% RDA per slice) and the nutrient level relatively low (highest content is calcium and iron, about 4% RDA for each mineral). White bread has more saturated fat and simple sugars than whole wheat bread.

Condiments will add salt and sugar.  Mayonnaise will add the most fat and calories (90 calories for one tablespoon including 10 grams of fat and 90 milligrams of sodium).  Yellow mustard would be the wiser choice with only 3 calories, 57 milligrams of sodium, and 0.2 grams of fat in a teaspoon-size serving (Dijon has 5 calories and 120 milligrams of sodium).

People put all different things into their sandwiches, but processed lunchmeat is a popular filler. Two thinly sliced pieces are considered a serving. Ham adds about 92 calories and 730 mg of sodium. Lean ham cuts calories to 60 calories and about 596 mg of sodium. Turkey breast adds about 45 calories and 436 mg of sodium but smoked ham adds an additional 30 mg sodium to that. Roast beef will add about 70 calories and 410 mg sodium. But those are figures for the things people control as they prepare lunch at home. Most deli sandwiches will have portions at least three times this amount.

A single slice of processed American cheese adds 60 calories, 250 mg sodium, and 13% saturated fat recommended for the day. A slice of cheddar cheese adds 113 calories, 174 mg sodium, and 30% saturated fat for the day. Swiss adds 110 calories, 115 mg sodium, and 25% fat for the day.

Overall, a single sandwich (2 slices of bread, 2 slices of processed meat, 1 slice of cheese, condiments) means at least 500 calories and a lot of salt and saturated fat. At the very least, one sandwich represents about 25% of daily calorie intake recommended for most people.

There are many healthier and more creative lunch options. A smaller portion of dinner from the night before is easy to pack in small containers for lunch. Add a piece of fruit and the lunch is complete, nutritious, and easier to prepare than a sandwich. Two tablespoons of prepared hummus has 50 calories and eaten with carrots, cucumbers, green peppers, and celery is a filling and nutritious option. A can of beans (white, kidney, black, garbanzo, …) in a food processer with favorite herbs (thyme, cumin, cayenne, sage, …) ends up providing many spread alternatives. Heating up a serving of prepared soup from a cardboard container adds another 80 calories or so and rounds off the meal well but adds 400 mg sodium (about 640 mg of sodium if the soup is in a can).

A potato, baked in its skin (microwave for about 8 minutes) has only 160 calories, virtually no saturated fat, and 17 mg of sodium. Sour cream would add about 400 calories, half the recommended saturated fat for the day, and 180 mg sodium, though. Cheese sauce clearly is not the best choice (475 calories, 53% recommended saturated fat for the day, and 382 mg sodium). Adding salsa is the wisest option (10 calories, no fat, and 230 mg sodium in a 2 tablespoon portion). Top it with steamed broccoli and scallions to add more flavor and nutrition.

Salads that are primarily made of vegetables are perfect options but be careful to avoid the fat-, sodium-, and calorie-packed prepared salads, dressings and cheeses. Pre-washed greens with some carrots and green peppers and a handful of black beans or walnuts and raisins is a good choice when tossed with a little olive oil and lemon juice. This idea has as many combinations as there are people with their preferences for salad ingredients. Exchanging olive oil and walnuts for sesame oil and sunflower seeds changes the flavor to offer variety through the week.

Healthy lunch options can be varied, colorful, and exciting. There is so much more to lunch than a sandwich. As for that novel, I’m pleased that the plot and character development were much more enticing than the lunch the protagonist made that day!

Staying Balanced

We all are striving to balance something. Perhaps we are learning to balance our time to juggle all the demands required of maintaining relationships while achieving in our careers and caring for our children and/or parents as they need us.

Many of us are learning to manage our money so that we can strike the appropriate balance between saving for the future and spending for the present while we pay off debts from the past.

Some of us may be balancing our words so that we can offer criticism to employees while still relaying the fact that we appreciate what they do for us. Or we are trying to find that fine line between supporting someone in need yet maintaining our own protective boundaries.

Staying balanced may appear easier for some than for others. But no one of us has more time in a day than anyone else does. None of us has learned to grow money on trees. Each of us who cares about our relationships struggles with the way we communicate and support so we avoid misunderstandings. Those of us that seem to balance life’s challenges better than others know that to do so begins with a firm foundation in the form of friends, love, and integrity. But it also requires practice in focus and awareness. One result of this practice is learning to use the breath as a support. Think of the times you have had difficulty maintaining balance, managing your finances, or participating in a difficult conversation. You may have noticed that you were holding your breath. Holding the breath increases blood pressure and overall strain, perhaps making the situation even more difficult through this tension.

Yoga practice can help us learn to balance because on the mat we learn focus, awareness, and breath work that is required to maintain challenging poses as much as to manage life’s challenges. That is what my yoga students and I will be practicing this week. We will maintain balance and awareness in virabradrasana 2 (warrior 2 pose), checking to be sure we have equal weight on both feet and that our eye gaze remains steady over the front fingertips as our breath remains steady and long. We will work on arm balances like bakasana (crow pose) and adho mukha vrksasana (handstand). Sure, those poses require strength and flexibility, but no one will balance in these poses without focused awareness and timing the breath!

This blog and my yoga students will help me to “practice what I preach”. I am charging myself to remember to stay present and to keep breathing when I have that difficult conversation Friday morning with an employee…

Maintaining “Resolve”

This is the last full week of January; how are you doing with your new year resolutions? People have usually begun to drop off their intensity and interest for the goals they set for themselves a month ago. It might be because their resolutions were too vague to maintain such as “I resolve to be a better person.” It might be because their resolutions were not reasonable such as “I will lose 10 pounds a month until summer swimsuit season.” Human behavior requires that goals be measurable and attainable for us to stay interested, such as “I will add two servings of vegetables to my meals each day” or “I will park at the far end of the lot to get a brisk walk each morning and evening.”

A clear difference between those last two “resolutions” and the first two is that the latter are set as intended habits. We can schedule our activities and plan our meals in a way that adjusts our habits. We can track our success in adjusting our habits by reviewing our calendars or activity logs. Scheduling, planning, and tracking activities make them more obvious and easier for us to maintain interest. For instance, I could decide on a healthy habit to omit sodas, alcohol and juices from my diet, drinking unsweetened water, tea and coffee instead. It would mean planning to bring a water bottle or an insulated flask of tea with me when I leave the house in the morning. I could track my success by marking days on a calendar indicating the days I did not drink calories. I would be healthier because I would have ingested less sugar and salt, reducing my risk for certain cancers, heart disease, and diabetes.

Oh, and by the way, I would have reduced my caloric intake by about 200 calories a day per drink if I omitted sodas, alcohol and juices from my diet, drinking unsweetened water, tea or coffee instead. It takes about 3500 calories to burn a pound of fat. So by cutting out sodas, alcohol, and juices I could eliminate at least 200 calories from my diet a day and lose nearly two pounds a month. And that is by doing nothing else! If my second new habit is to use stairs rather than elevators each day or to take a brisk walk during lunch hour then I would be conditioning my heart and lungs and burn even more calories.

If our new year resolutions are really ways to improve our health then we don’t need to become frustrated by setting resolutions to “lose weight” or to “get healthy”. Weight loss and healthy hearts will become welcomed secondary benefits to developing new healthy habits.

Think of a healthy habit you can adopt for the month of February. Make your resolution to change your habit, not to achieve a goal. Plan your day to include that habit and track daily whether you maintained your commitment. If you miss a day, just start over the next day without looking back.

Chances are you will have maintained that resolve longer than a traditional new year “resolution.”

Creating Warmth

Ok, autumn is behind us and it is cold and dark now - really cold this week. It is difficult to get off the sofa to make my way to my yoga classes when my furry friends are piled on top of me keeping me warm. But once I get to my mat and class I warm up again quickly – from the inside.

I am not a fan of the “hot yoga” craze. The room temperatures are too warm to work my body hard and muscles aren’t required to generate as much energy. I prefer to practice in a comfortable-temperature room and build heat from the inside, finding my edge as I take expressions of asanas (poses) that will challenge me just as I need it on any one day. This week I’ve invited students to practice using large muscle groups of the thighs and abdomen. Using these muscles helps to increase blood supply to these areas as they require more energy to work harder. As large as the muscles of the thighs and abdomen are, there is potential to build lots of heat practicing standing asanas and asanas that rely on abdominal muscles like navasana (boat pose) and jumping through from adho mukha svanasana (down dog pose) to dandasana (staff pose).

But yoga practice is as much about community as it is about the physical practice. The students and I benefit at least as much by being in the room together as we do by finding our edge in different poses. The unity that yoga embodies comes from commitment to awareness and breath. That unity builds community and from community comes warmth and compassion. And warmth and compassion is what really matters. It all comes from within!