Yoga and Eating

Ashtanga teaches you how to eat and drink all over again.  It’s a bit of a tough process and the logic behind it difficult for others to understand, so I’ve formulated some key talking points.

Don’t worry so much about eating breakfast.  People are consistently taught to never miss their first big meal of the day.  The idea being that a hearty meal will maintain energy throughout the day and reduce or eliminate overeating later in the day.  Ashtanga Yoga should always be practiced on an empty stomach first thing in the morning.  Though it may seem counter-intuitive at first, just replace breakfast with yoga.  Starting your day with a vigorous practice will produce enough energy to sustain you.  To break this down a bit more: people are also consistently told that they need to “fuel up” in order to perform.  That’s true to a certain extent.  If you’re an Olympian, a bodybuilder, or performing for extreme endurance, then you will need to feed every square inch of your body, certainly.  But Ashtanga Yoga — though it may appear extreme — is a practice that, physically speaking, realigns your body to how it should perform anyway…like how it should be able to perform every day.  So asking your body to wake up and perform without food is not an unreasonable ask, but will take some time as you and your body adjust.

 Leave the water bottle at home.  No, seriously.  Same as with eating, there is no drinking before yoga.  This is for obvious reasons — you don’t want water sloshing around in your stomach, you might have to pee, etc.  More importantly, drinking water during practice produces (at least) two major issues: 1. it brings your body temperature down, 2. it halts the circulation of lymphatic fluid.

• Proper exercise generates heat and subsequently sweat.  Heat will burn more calories, if you are into that, but it also relaxes your muscles, giving you a better chance at achieving strength and flexibility.
• The lymphatic system is passive in the sense that lymphatic fluid does not circulate autonomously within the body.  It is exercise that promotes the squeezing out of the lymphatic system and circulation of those fluids.  When you drink during exercise, you activate the digestive system, which actually halts the circulation of these fluids. And we all know your lymphatic system is key for fighting disease.

 At the root of Ashtanga Yoga is a set of fives yamas, or five ethical principles.  The first principle being ahimsa, or nonviolence.  One way in which we exhibit violence is through the eating of animals.  I should preface this by saying that we all know there are many negatives to eating meat, physically, environmentally, etc., so it seems natural to avoid eating meat anyway.  My caveat to developing ahimsa is not to quit eating meat immediately upon picking up the Ashtanga practice.  You’ll notice that your desire for meat will increase as Ashtanga will produce a robust (but mysteriously controlled) appetite.  You’ll probably stuff yourself with burgers and meaty pizzas, but this will fall away.  It’s a part of the process simply because your body will need to be weaned off of meat, and, in turn, will need time to adjust to utilizing energy from other food sources.  So, in short, be patient with this one.