So diet is a big thing in the yoga world. Svāmi Swatmarama’s Hatha Yoga Pradipika, from the 15th century A.D. recommends, among various other things, to avoid fish and meat, and to consume corn, milk, sugar and honey. Tonics should be well sweetened, presumably with sugar or honey.
Of course, this is a treatise on Yoga practices, physical exercise and diet dating from India’s Late Middle-ages, roughly the period between the 13th and 18th century, and doesn’t represent a modern understanding of how nutrition, physical exercise and human physiology interrelate, so you need to take it all with a huge grain of salt. Not too much salt if you follow the Pradipika’s recommendations though.
In a modern Yoga context, generalized ethical principles are usually referenced, with ahimsa; non-violence, being a key value. Generally, all animals are considered to have self-awareness, and to be on the same conveyer belt of karma, samskara and reincarnation as we humans. Avoiding causing suffering has informed the general diet principles that underpin how many practitioners eat. Vegetarianism is the norm, with veganism being increasingly common, so as to avoid adding to the suffering of factory farmed egg-laying chickens, dairy cows and honey producing bees. Suffering seems to be viewed as a kind of commodity that can be tallied up and accounted for. The internal logic here seems suspect to me; is a single bee’s suffering equal to that of a chicken, and a chicken to a cow, or is there some hierarchy based on cognitive ability? How do we test the sentience an insect?
Are all yoga practitioners dedicated vegetarians or vegans? No, of course not. I’m not. I eat what is euphemistically, and I’ll admit, ahistorically, called Paleo. I tend towards higher protein, moderate fat, low carbohydrate, and lots of vegetables, but hardly any fruit. I started this about 4 years ago, and haven’t fallen fully off the wagon yet.
I buy grass-fed and hormone free, and since it’s so damned expensive, I end up eating less meat overall. I have also been doing intermittent fasting for about four months now, and have had good results with that strategy for maintaining, even building strength, while lowering body-fat. Surprise surprise, not eating helps you lose weight. I know, it’s a shocker right there. What is more of a surprise is that there's been gains in strength and energy.
So, a normal day for me usually looks like this:
Wake up, have coffee with Stevia – Stevia is a natural non-caloric sweetener. It’s widely available, but I’d suggest trying to find a pure stevia, rather than anything with added preservatives.
I’ll either lift weights or do Primary Series over lunch, so I’m always exercising on an empty stomach. As an aside, I think that practicing on as empty a tank as possible really made the full bind in Marichyasana D accessible. Other than Brazilian Jiu-jitsu once a week, I don’t do anything even resembling cardio.
Blah, cardio sucks, and, especially in the case of long, medium paced jogging. If you do like to do those epic, morning runs, you can probably look forward to joint deterioration, very little fat loss, no increase in strength, tightening of your lower body ligaments, and lowered testosterone, which is a total shit-show for men on the dark side of 35; source here and original article/summary here. Seriously, if you’re a man past your early 30’s, stop running. Do sprints, HIIT and lift heavy weights, but stop going on long runs, unless you enjoy knee pain and man-boobs.
Post exercise lunch, usually around 12:30pm; a large salad, mixed cooked and raw vegetables, baked chicken breast, fish, or maybe once a week, venison or beef. I do like lamb, but I can’t eat a baby sheep. There you go, ahimsa. Are you happy now, Patanjali?
Around 3:30pm I’ll have a small snack, usually a handful of almonds or cashews, and a protein shake.
By 6:30 I’m bringing my son home from school, and eat dinner around 7:00, which is the same as lunch. If I’m really hungry before 9pm, I might eat another small handful of nuts, but I seriously eat a ton of vegetables, like enough for 3 people, so I’m usually pretty damn full. My diet is "plant based", just like the vegans. I just put some meat on the base.
And that’s it. No food after 8:30pm or latest 9:00pm until the next afternoon.
So what are the benefits, both from studies and my personal experience, having done IF most days, but no, not all, for the past 4 months?
Increased testosterone and Human Growth Hormone – source here. Testosterone and HGH are both critical in lowering body-fat, increasing muscle strength, emotional stability (yes, testosterone makes you feel more emotionally stable and reduces depression) and increases energy. This is as important for women as it is for men, so ladies, don’t think that you’ll turn into a hulking beast. What you will do is the same as men, but less dramatically. Strong is the new skinny as they say.
Fat loss – just personal experience, but I’ve cut down to around 7% body-fat from around 10%. This seems like a small difference, but at sub-10% every percentage point gets harder and harder to strip away. This isn’t just body-builder style aesthetics, but has practical application in a yoga practice.
Relative body-strength; strength in relation to body-weight, is hugely important in being able to move smoothly through vinyasas, maintain isometric holds and, as in the case of my hard-earned Marichyasana D, form binds around the body. Simply put, fat gets in the way. My lifts in the gym have either maintained or increased, and I’m able to move more smoothly and quickly while sparring in BJJ, so I'm confident I haven't lost any strength.
There are a few downsides, which need to be understood. They're not severe, but they can derail commitment early on.
For the first month, but especially in the first few weeks, I got really hungry in the morning and was going out of my mind by 11:00. Eventually, my body adapted to eating later in the day, and now it can be 1:00pm before I even think about food.
I experienced a really bad flu about a month in, which is pretty common. It sucks, but it went away of course. Nothing lasts forever.
Inconvenience is a big drawback. My wife likes to take our toddler to breakfast on the weekends, with prata being a favorite. Obviously, prata is not paleo, and even if it were, avoiding food until early afternoon can be tough. I choose to have a black coffee and feed my son so my wife can eat in peace.
Finally, do I occasionally break my fasting schedule or diet? Ya, of course. I ate some bad-ass chocolate cake on my birthday last month, might have a light, high protein breakfast if I know I might not be able to eat until the later part of the afternoon, and if I happen to eat past 9:00pm, I don’t worry too much. A healthy diet, like a healthy yoga practice, should be sustainable long term. Show ahimsa to yourself first. Guilt, disappointment or shame have no place here.
Also, about once a month, I eat an celebratory meal. Some people call this a cheat meal, but that implies some kind of bizarre infidelity - again, guilt and shame aren't part of the equation. My last one was the Omu Tomato and Mozzarella Rice followed by the Caramell French Toast at Hoshino Coffee, Level 2 of the Raffles Specialist Clinic at Holland Village, and it was bomb-freaking-tastic. Don't be afraid to intelligently reward yourself for a job well done.
So that about covers it. If you think intermittent fasting and it’s well demonstrated benefits are for you, give it a try. Diet can have a huge impact on a yoga practice, as ancient texts indicate. But, we shouldn’t feel obligated to credulously adopt every recommendation from sages, saints or gurus. Base your decisions on the best contemporary research, as well as what works specifically for you. Isn’t that what yoga is about? No dogma, faith or unquestioning trust; just hard work and direct, personal experience.
Of course, this is a treatise on Yoga practices, physical exercise and diet dating from India’s Late Middle-ages, roughly the period between the 13th and 18th century, and doesn’t represent a modern understanding of how nutrition, physical exercise and human physiology interrelate, so you need to take it all with a huge grain of salt. Not too much salt if you follow the Pradipika’s recommendations though.
In a modern Yoga context, generalized ethical principles are usually referenced, with ahimsa; non-violence, being a key value. Generally, all animals are considered to have self-awareness, and to be on the same conveyer belt of karma, samskara and reincarnation as we humans. Avoiding causing suffering has informed the general diet principles that underpin how many practitioners eat. Vegetarianism is the norm, with veganism being increasingly common, so as to avoid adding to the suffering of factory farmed egg-laying chickens, dairy cows and honey producing bees. Suffering seems to be viewed as a kind of commodity that can be tallied up and accounted for. The internal logic here seems suspect to me; is a single bee’s suffering equal to that of a chicken, and a chicken to a cow, or is there some hierarchy based on cognitive ability? How do we test the sentience an insect?
Are all yoga practitioners dedicated vegetarians or vegans? No, of course not. I’m not. I eat what is euphemistically, and I’ll admit, ahistorically, called Paleo. I tend towards higher protein, moderate fat, low carbohydrate, and lots of vegetables, but hardly any fruit. I started this about 4 years ago, and haven’t fallen fully off the wagon yet.
I buy grass-fed and hormone free, and since it’s so damned expensive, I end up eating less meat overall. I have also been doing intermittent fasting for about four months now, and have had good results with that strategy for maintaining, even building strength, while lowering body-fat. Surprise surprise, not eating helps you lose weight. I know, it’s a shocker right there. What is more of a surprise is that there's been gains in strength and energy.
So, a normal day for me usually looks like this:
Wake up, have coffee with Stevia – Stevia is a natural non-caloric sweetener. It’s widely available, but I’d suggest trying to find a pure stevia, rather than anything with added preservatives.
I’ll either lift weights or do Primary Series over lunch, so I’m always exercising on an empty stomach. As an aside, I think that practicing on as empty a tank as possible really made the full bind in Marichyasana D accessible. Other than Brazilian Jiu-jitsu once a week, I don’t do anything even resembling cardio.
Blah, cardio sucks, and, especially in the case of long, medium paced jogging. If you do like to do those epic, morning runs, you can probably look forward to joint deterioration, very little fat loss, no increase in strength, tightening of your lower body ligaments, and lowered testosterone, which is a total shit-show for men on the dark side of 35; source here and original article/summary here. Seriously, if you’re a man past your early 30’s, stop running. Do sprints, HIIT and lift heavy weights, but stop going on long runs, unless you enjoy knee pain and man-boobs.
Post exercise lunch, usually around 12:30pm; a large salad, mixed cooked and raw vegetables, baked chicken breast, fish, or maybe once a week, venison or beef. I do like lamb, but I can’t eat a baby sheep. There you go, ahimsa. Are you happy now, Patanjali?
Around 3:30pm I’ll have a small snack, usually a handful of almonds or cashews, and a protein shake.
By 6:30 I’m bringing my son home from school, and eat dinner around 7:00, which is the same as lunch. If I’m really hungry before 9pm, I might eat another small handful of nuts, but I seriously eat a ton of vegetables, like enough for 3 people, so I’m usually pretty damn full. My diet is "plant based", just like the vegans. I just put some meat on the base.
And that’s it. No food after 8:30pm or latest 9:00pm until the next afternoon.
So what are the benefits, both from studies and my personal experience, having done IF most days, but no, not all, for the past 4 months?
Increased testosterone and Human Growth Hormone – source here. Testosterone and HGH are both critical in lowering body-fat, increasing muscle strength, emotional stability (yes, testosterone makes you feel more emotionally stable and reduces depression) and increases energy. This is as important for women as it is for men, so ladies, don’t think that you’ll turn into a hulking beast. What you will do is the same as men, but less dramatically. Strong is the new skinny as they say.
Fat loss – just personal experience, but I’ve cut down to around 7% body-fat from around 10%. This seems like a small difference, but at sub-10% every percentage point gets harder and harder to strip away. This isn’t just body-builder style aesthetics, but has practical application in a yoga practice.
Relative body-strength; strength in relation to body-weight, is hugely important in being able to move smoothly through vinyasas, maintain isometric holds and, as in the case of my hard-earned Marichyasana D, form binds around the body. Simply put, fat gets in the way. My lifts in the gym have either maintained or increased, and I’m able to move more smoothly and quickly while sparring in BJJ, so I'm confident I haven't lost any strength.
There are a few downsides, which need to be understood. They're not severe, but they can derail commitment early on.
For the first month, but especially in the first few weeks, I got really hungry in the morning and was going out of my mind by 11:00. Eventually, my body adapted to eating later in the day, and now it can be 1:00pm before I even think about food.
I experienced a really bad flu about a month in, which is pretty common. It sucks, but it went away of course. Nothing lasts forever.
Inconvenience is a big drawback. My wife likes to take our toddler to breakfast on the weekends, with prata being a favorite. Obviously, prata is not paleo, and even if it were, avoiding food until early afternoon can be tough. I choose to have a black coffee and feed my son so my wife can eat in peace.
Finally, do I occasionally break my fasting schedule or diet? Ya, of course. I ate some bad-ass chocolate cake on my birthday last month, might have a light, high protein breakfast if I know I might not be able to eat until the later part of the afternoon, and if I happen to eat past 9:00pm, I don’t worry too much. A healthy diet, like a healthy yoga practice, should be sustainable long term. Show ahimsa to yourself first. Guilt, disappointment or shame have no place here.
Also, about once a month, I eat an celebratory meal. Some people call this a cheat meal, but that implies some kind of bizarre infidelity - again, guilt and shame aren't part of the equation. My last one was the Omu Tomato and Mozzarella Rice followed by the Caramell French Toast at Hoshino Coffee, Level 2 of the Raffles Specialist Clinic at Holland Village, and it was bomb-freaking-tastic. Don't be afraid to intelligently reward yourself for a job well done.
So that about covers it. If you think intermittent fasting and it’s well demonstrated benefits are for you, give it a try. Diet can have a huge impact on a yoga practice, as ancient texts indicate. But, we shouldn’t feel obligated to credulously adopt every recommendation from sages, saints or gurus. Base your decisions on the best contemporary research, as well as what works specifically for you. Isn’t that what yoga is about? No dogma, faith or unquestioning trust; just hard work and direct, personal experience.