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.

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.

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…

Transitions

Spring is trying hard to arrive right now. Where I live, some buds are on trees and some perennials are in bloom. But one day seems like spring only for the next day to turn cold again. I keep putting away gloves and hats only to take them back out again the following day. I love springtime so the transition seems like a good one to me. But still, enduring any change requires more effort than the status quo.

Life comes with many transitions, including relocating, entering or exiting relationships, and starting or ending new jobs and life roles. Sometimes people stay in relationships and work settings longer than they know they should if only because the change itself is so challenging.

Yoga has taught me that even through the impermanence of every situation I can find some stability in my breath and in the goodness of each moment. As in life, the transitions in yoga are least balanced. Moving gracefully from one pose to the next requires focused attention and long breaths.

I have worked on transitions this week by linking three standing poses: vrkasana (tree pose) into virabhadrasana 3 (warrior 3 pose) into garudasana (eagle pose). Any one of these poses is demanding so sequencing them together without letting the floating foot touch the ground is even more of a challenge. Still, once I am in any of these standing poses I can settle in and balance. Moving from one to the next is the tricky part. The best way I have found to approach the transitions is to acknowledge that there is something similar in each. I can build on the fact that the pelvis is level and the hip points aligned forward in each of the poses. The standing foot stays in full contact with the ground to provide stability. And my breath is with me always, helping me to focus and remain stable even as I move. I have learned to be graceful in these transitions by letting my breath move me and quiet my mind. I also am comforted in knowing that as much as one pose is different from the other, some components are constant among them.

Tools I have learned on the mat have helped me to endure transitions off the mat with a little more grace and focus. Even as things change, I love and am loved and life generally is very good. Breathing and focusing through it all makes life’s transitions a little easier. So I take another breath and pull out that winter coat again.