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Most people who practice yoga regularly have at least a passing acquaintance with the 8 Limbs of Yoga as outlined by Pantanjali in the Yoga Sutras.  I wrote a series of posts on them last year.  The first two limbs are the Yamas and Niyamas - guidelines to live your life by – guidelines which, for the last decade, I have been trying my best to live my life by.

Yama numero uno is Ahimsa, often translated as non-harming or non-violence.  In the yoga world Ahimsa tends to go arm-in-arm with vegetarianism or veganism.  Which is just great, until you realise you might be causing harm to yourself.

Earlier this year when my health was really bad, when I ached all over every day, woke up every morning feeling like I’d been hit by a bus, when I looked too skinny and drawn and had dark circles under my eyes, I went to see a nutritionist.  We talked for a long time about this, that and the other.  And we came to the conclusion that a) I was protein deficient and b) I needed to start thinking about cutting inflammatory foods out of my life (ie diary and wheat).

I have eaten very little dairy for years, on the whole it makes my stomach do things that you don’t really want your stomach to do. No problem, dairy can pretty much go.  Wheat….well I’d had an idea in the back of my mind since the end of last year that I should probably look into how much wheat I eat.  After a few false starts and a long conversation with my lovely friend Svasti, I have been pretty much wheat-free for three months!  And I do feel better; less bloated, less sore, and I really do notice when I (either accidentally or otherwise) do eat wheat. So wheat and dairy.  Gone!

But then there was the protein issue.  For one reason or another I just wasn’t absorbing enough protein from vegetable sources and it wasn’t that I wasn’t eating the right foods, it was just that my body wasn’t doing what it should.  I tried various things, including taking a bunch of digestive enzymes before every meal.

I already ate eggs, but the nutritionist I spoke to thought I should start eating fish (which I have to admit didn’t take much persuading), and maybe some chicken (again it took a lot less persuading than you’d think) and Himself saw the whole thing as a massive excuse to barbecue a lot of different lumps of flesh…..

Ultimately, I have never been vegetarian because I don’t like meat.  I do, I love it.

There I said it.

Ultimately I have always been vegetarian because I don’t want other living beings to die because of me, I don’t want to cause harm, I just want to be guided by Ahimsa.

But as I said, what if you are inadvertently causing yourself harm?

The school of yoga in which I trained teaches that everybody’s body is unique and all of us need different practices and that practice will change as we progress through the cycles of life.  And over the last couple of years I have come to believe that the same is true of diet.  There is no “one diet fits all”.  I know a lot of vegans and raw foodies who are so full of energy it’s a beautiful thing to see but when I eat like that (and I know this is true for others as well), I feel quite the opposite; lethargic and tired.

Over the last few months, as my diet has slowly changed to remove the inflammatory foods and include more organic animal protein (as well as discovering that I don’t digest leafy greens and most raw vegetables very well either), I have started to feel much more like my old self; less tired and much more zingy! I have also noticed my hair, skin and nails are vastly improved.

I spent so long worrying about non-harming towards other living beings I had forgotten about having a non-harming attitude towards myself.  My health has always been a struggle, and I do need to keep on top of it.  I need to be kind to myself and live the life that suits me best, without allowing myself to be made to feel guilty by other’s interpretations of the Yamas or the paths that other people must tread.  If I do not keep on top of my own health, keep myself in top condition, how can I be expected to serve others in my work?

Alistair Shearer, in his interpretation of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, asks us to think about Ahimsa as “a dynamic peacefulness that is prepared to meet all situations with a loving openess.  It is the state of living free from fear.”

To live free from fear we must put judgement aside, love ourselves as much as we love others (for how can we truly know love if we do not show it to ourselves) and find the path that suits our own unique body, our own unique mind, our own unique soul.

I am, as always, a work in progress.

There is no recipe this week, I’m gearing myself up for next week.  You’ll see why.  Some of you know why.  It’s going to be non-stop cooking for weeks, so this week let me tell you about these babies.

Let’s start from the beginning. My grandad on my mum’s side was a chef. He joined the Merchant Navy and started off peeling potatoes.  After travelling the globe for 35 years and ending up as head chef on the Oriana (big posh round the world cruise ship), he retired, got a clock (which we still have — it never works) and became head chef at Christ’s College in Cambridge.  Ma and Pa Yogini had their wedding reception there.

Like all good chefs my grandad had his own knife roll — a set of knives like those you see above, in their own canvas bag which rolls up and tucks under your arm.  I think mum still has that set of knives.  As a child I loved to hear my grandad’s stories about being on board the ship, I loved his travel tales and I loved the stories he told about how to cook (he never cooked at home though, my nan did, he was old fashioned like that), but most of all I loved how fast he could wield a knife.  From my grandad I inherited these itchy feet that have travelled the globe a fair few times themselves and a desperate love of cooking.  So much so when I was 19 I came back from Australia and enrolled in culinary school. Sometimes I think I did it just to have a knife roll of my own.

I probably didn’t think this through very well.  Firstly, the college was in Eastbourne, which is one of those run down and dismal British seaside resorts full of old people and drunken youths.  We passed five old people’s homes trying to find the college and the only nightclub was called “Ziggys” which gives you a sense of what it was like.  Secondly, we had to cook a lot of animals.  And I mean a lot.  Every damn week we cooked another animal.  We had to bone them, boil them, look at their brains.  It was as though a meal without animal couldn’t possibly be a meal.  The tutor (or “Chef” as we had to call him) spent a lot of time shouting at me for wanting to invent vegetarian alternatives (old habits die hard clearly). He had a chip on his shoulder because he was teaching kids to cook rather than actually being a chef but let’s not get into that right now.

Needless to say I wasn’t very happy.  I spent a lot of the day crying and the evenings cooking vegan food that nobody really wanted to share.  I had to share a bedroom with a girl who kicked me out when her boyfriend got leave from the Army.  Yes, it really was almost as pathetic as I make it sound.

The final straw came on the day we learned to cook lobsters.  We were each given two large and very much alive lobsters to throw into a vat of boiling water.  And I couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t allow myself to be responsible for another living being’s demise.  I let my lobsters roam free on the kitchen floor.  And I cried a lot. Again.

To say “Chef” wasn’t very happy was an understatement.  I left after Christmas knowing that I could never learn to cook somewherewhere meat featured so highly and decided to teach myself everything I possibly could.

Which, you know, I did.  A mixture of trial, error, working in a lot of restaurants and eating a lot of food that was really rather disgusting during the experimentation stage I have reached where I am now — this ridiculously over-confident place where I believe I can veganise anything!

And then last week my mum gave me my knife roll back — the one I had for culinary school, the one that has barely been used but has my initials carved into every blade.  She found it in a cupboard and it was a delight to have it in my hands again.

Let the madness begin!

A guest blog post for you today readers from Lucas Rockwood of YOGABODY Naturals LLC

Busy, busy!  Things afoot.  You lovely lot will be the first to know when I am at liberty to divulge.  In the meantime, enjoy!!

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The breath and body awareness you cultivate in yoga class quickly spills over into everything you do. Through yoga, most students notice and work through imbalances in their bodies; while at the same time, many begin to notice and work through imbalances in their diet and lifestyle too.

True balance is impossible, of course, but moving toward that middle path is a huge part of what this yoga thing is all about.

So let’s talk about food, yoga, and the bendy-bodied reality of the age-old saying, “You are what you eat!”

When it comes to food, there are so many different opinions about what to eat and what to avoid that it’s easy to get overwhelmed. One teacher tells you that you must be a vegetarian; another suggests that a diet high in lean animal protein is best.

So what’s a yoga student to do? And what about coffee? And ghee? And does this mean I can never have chocolate again?

There’s no “one size fits all” answer to diet questions, as everybody is different and everybody changes over time, but there are some general rules and a handful of powerful “food experiments” that can make your yoga life easier.

Let’s take a look:

• Whole Foods Rule – let the experts and dieticians argue about protein-to-carb ratios and ideal fat intake all they want. Meanwhile, you focus on the one thing that everyone agrees on: whole foods rule!
  Whole foods are foods that look like things found in nature. An apple, for example, is a whole food. Applesauce is not. An egg is a whole food. A jar of mayonnaise is not. The healthiest people in the world eat very different diets—some are strict vegetarians, others eat almost exclusively animal products—but across the board, the one thing they all have in common is their propensity for whole foods.

• Fresh is Best – Brazilian acai berries might be a goldmine for anti-oxidants, but if you had to choose between a processed acai berry drink or a handful of fresh blueberries, go for the blueberries every time. When we’re looking at micro-nutrient density in foods, fresh is best. The fresher the foods, the more bio-available nutrients. Period.
• Ugly, Bumpy, Army Green – the most commercially used foods like corn, soy, and wheat tend to be the most calorie-dense and the least nutrient-dense. Centuries of selective breeding and decades of genetic engineering have left many of the most prevalent foods limp and lame, nutritionally speaking.So, yoga students do well to avoid the white, overly pretty foods on offer, and instead should aim for the ugly, bumpy, and army green produce that’s often ignored. The more wild the plant, the more micro nutrients it contains—almost without exception. Go for the dinosaur kale, the army green cabbages, bitter herbs and lumpy squashes. These neglected plants are the real nutritional treasures in the grocery store.
• Conduct Food Experiments – every yoga student should indulge in at least a month of food experiments at some point in their practice. It’s a ton of fun and is the best way to learn more about your unique body and its preferences. Food experiments usually involve a single food elimination diet for a period of 7 days.Elimination? But that sounds hard!

Keep in mind, we’re just talking about one food for one week. It’s really not that difficult at all. For example, if you’re considering becoming a vegetarian, try it out for 10 days first. Give it your 100% best effort, keep a food journal and see what happens.

If you feel terrible the entire week, well, maybe it’s not for you. If you feel light and energized and your bowels are more regular than usual, then perhaps it’s an experiment you might try for a month? A year? More?

I suggest everyone do an elimination food experiment with dairy, wheat, meat, and sugar (at separate times) for at least 7 days each. Completely eliminate the food in question from your diet for the week; and then, when you break the experiment, eat LOTS of that food right away and see what happens.

Food experiments will give you huge insight into your internal chemistry—more so than any amount of theory or medical testing could. Once you “feel” how particular foods affect you, it’s so easy to start making food choices that nurture your unique body. 

As a yoga teacher and nutritional coach, I’m constantly amazed at the power of foods. The tiniest changes in diet compound over time and can result in dramatic physical and mental shifts.

Some students who cut back on dairy, for example, find their pranayama practice is so much easier with less mucous in their sinuses. Other students discover the power of magnesium-rich green juice for relieving soreness and tension in their post-practice bodies.

With food, you never know until you try; and since most people eat the same foods they were fed as a child, they are moving through life like a horse with blinders, completely unaware of the fun, bio-diverse, and nutrient-dense world that is all around them. Take off your blinders, conduct experiments, focus on whole foods, and make your food choices an integral part of your yoga practice today!

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LUCAS ROCKWOOD is a yoga teacher trainer, an author, and the founder of YOGABODY Naturals, an education and food supplement company that creates powerful yoga tools for real people. LEARN MORE HERE.