Healthy Spirits: New Arrivals

1. Allagash Interlude

2. Big Sky Powder Hound

3. Knee Deep Hoptologist

4. Knee Deep Ryedentity Crisis

5. Stone/Bruery/Elysian Collaboration: Citrueille

6. Stone Cali Belgique

7. Victory Helios

8. St. Feuillen Cuvee De Noel

9. Anchor Brekle's Brown

10. Dogfish Head TWENTY Pearl Jam Faithfull Ale

11. New Belgium Frambozen

cheers,

dave hauslein
beer manager
415-255-0610

Healthy Spirits: New Arrivals

We just received a small amount of the new Dogfish Head Pearl Jam TWENTY Faithfull Ale. It's on the shelves now so grab it while you can!

cheers,

dave hauslein
beer manager
415-255-0610

Arthritis, Exercise and Yoga

by Nina

Hey, I heard this really nice little piece on arthritis and exercise on NPR that I wanted to share with you. Fortunately, NPR has both the audio and a transcript of the piece on their web site (see here). What I liked so much about this particular piece was how simple and clear it was about why it is important to continue to exercise when you have arthritis (even though most people don't) because exercising, while it cannot reverse arthritis, is the only way to prevent the arthritis from getting worse. Here's why:

1. Arthritis breaks down your cartilage, the natural shock absorbers in your joints. As a result, blood doesn't circulate as freely and doesn't deliver adequate nutrition to your cartilage. Exercise massages the joints, improving the blood supply to the joints, providing your cartilage with more nutrition.

2. The stronger the muscles are around the joint, the more protection your body can provide for the joint. Your muscles take up the weight and pressure, instead of the joint itself.

The end of the piece even mentions yoga as a good way to improve the strength of the muscles around your joints! (That's refreshing because most people are under the misconception that yoga is only about stretching.) But yoga is also a good way to massage your joints to get the blood flowing because in a well-rounded practice you move your joints in every direction. Just think of all the directions in which your hip joints move in the various standing poses. And your knee joints are bent or straight, turning out to the side or even turning in slightly (such as in Eagle pose). Your shoulder joints really get a workout, too, as you hold your arms overhead, out to the side, behind your back, or across your body (again, as in Eagle pose).

For strength building, it's easy to think of standing poses (especially those with bent knees) and balancing poses that strengthen the muscles around the knees and hips. But what about your shoulder joints? Downward-Facing Dog and Plank pose spring immediately to mind because you are bearing weight on your arms as they extend forward. But there are also other poses that you can use to strengthen your shoulder joints in which you bear weight on your arms reaching sideways (such as Vashistasana, sometimes called Sideways Plan pose) or behind you (such as the backbend Purvottanasana, sometimes called Upward Plank pose). Here's Esther doing Purvottanasana:

That looks like it does a good job strengthening the hip joints, too! Yeah, it can definitely be a challenge to practice with pain in your joints or to practice modified versions of poses you used to be able to do without props (I know because I have mild arthritis in one of my hip joints), but enjoying more mobility in your daily life and possibly avoiding joint replacement surgery, well, that's a pretty big payoff.

Healthy Spirits: New Arrivals

1. 8Wired iStout

2. Lost Abbey Gift of the Magi

3. Shipyard Smashed Blueberry

4. Telegraph Winter Ale

5. Fuller's Vintage Ale 2010

6. De Ranke Pere Noel

7. Mikkeller Ris a' la M'ale

8. Dieu Du Ciel! Solstice D'Hiver

9. Mikkeller Hoppy Lovin' Christmas

10. Drake's Jolly Rodger

cheers,

dave hauslein
beer manager
415-255-0610

What is Mindfulness?

by Nina

In Baxter’s post yesterday (see here), he described how a student of his, after a day of mindful yoga, was able to achieve a state of detached awareness that helped her deal more effectively with her teenaged son. And in my original post on the relaxation response (see here), I mentioned mindful yoga practice as one of several ways to trigger the relaxation response. So today seemed like a good day to explain what we mean by mindfulness and to say a little about how it helps.

“All of us have the capacity to be mindful. All it involves is cultivating our ability to pay attention in the present moment.” —Jon Kabat-Zinn

Poppy by Joan Webster

You might not realize this, but your thoughts alone can make you stress out. Worries about the future, regrets over the past, and judgments about yourself and others can trigger the stress response because you are essentially telling yourself that you are danger! In fact, in many cases, it is your thoughts about what’s going on that makes you stress out, not the situation itself.

Practicing mindfulness means becoming an impartial witness to your thoughts and experiences as you have them. To do this, step back and tune into the constant judging and reacting to inner and outer experiences that constantly stream through your mind.

“The eye is for seeing; the mind creates doubt; the wisdom faculty is for ascertaining [the nature of things]; the Field-Knower abides as the witness of all these processes.” —Moksha-Dharma

Yogis believe that there is a witness or drashtri (the Field-Knower, the Seer or Pure Awareness) present in all of us. And this witness is the spark of the divine, the single, incomprehensible consciousness that unites all beings, that dwells within.

So how does this witness help with stress levels? Being in mindful state gives you a break from obsessive thoughts about the past or anxiety about the future. And when you are free from stressful thoughts of danger, the relaxation response kicks in.

Pineapple Sage by Joan Gibson

Being mindful also teaches you to recognize the physical and mental symptoms of stress so you can nip them in the bud by using your favorite stress management techniques. And it teaches you about your thought patterns, so you can learn not to react on “auto pilot” (Baxter’s story about Maleena is example of this), which can give you the ability to live more peacefully.

To practice mindful yoga, simply bring your witnessing frame of mind into your yoga practice. Jon Kabat-Zinn expresses how to do this so well that I’m going to quote him:

“We practice yoga with the same attitude we bring to the sitting mediation or the body scan. We do it without striving and without forcing. We practice accepting our body as we find it in the present, from one moment to the next. While stretching or lifting or balancing, we learn to work at our limits, maintaining moment-to-moment awareness. We are patient with ourselves. As we carefully move up to our limits in a stretch, for instance, we practice breathing at that limit, dwelling in the creative space between not challenging the body at all and pushing it to far.”

You can also practice yoga as a moving meditation by focusing on your breath during your practice or on a particular physical sensation, such as spreading your toes evenly on the ground in all your poses. Mindful yoga is one of my favorite ways to de-stress, as I bring into my home practice subtle physical alignment tips I learn from my regular teacher, and then just experiment and feel....

Detachment, Discrimination, and Mindful Yoga

by Baxter

At my recent workshop at The Yoga Project in Sellwood (see here), many insightful stories were shared among students over the course of our two days of practice together. One of my favorites came from Maleena on Saturday at the start of class. Maleena was one of the students who had taken both sessions on Friday. The practices we did that day included slower, introspective practices that involved noticing and feeling without jumping to judgment on the insights we perceived. An emphasis on grounded observation was encouraged throughout. Pranayama practices that were cooling, and long Savasanas were also a part of our work that first day.

Maleena mentioned a shift in reactivity that she had noticed upon returning home to her family on Friday evening. Maleena is a mother of three sons, ages 13, 15 and 18, and this night the 18 year old was up to some old patterns of interaction that would normally get Maleena stressed and worried, and could lead to a confrontation. But, to her surprise, she found that she was able to listen, observe and find curious the behavior her son was displaying without her usual emotional reaction.

Clouds Blowing By by Brad Gibson

As we explored this quite welcome discovery, it seemed that the slower, introspective yoga practices had grounded her is such a way that her old pattern had shifted. In yoga philosophy, this skill is known as vairagya, or detached awareness. The Yoga Sutras by Patanjali tells us that the practice of detachment is an important part of what it means to be a yogi:

“Renunciation is the practice of detachment (vairagyam) from desires.” Yoga Sutra 1.15, trans. B.K.S. Iyengar

This “detached awareness” does not imply Maleena did not care deeply about what her son was saying or feeling. But vairagya permits a yogini to have some space with which to apply another essential component of yoga, viveka, or discrimination, in order to chart a beneficial course of action for all involved.

 “The ceaseless flow of discriminative knowledge (viveka) in thought, word and deed destroys ignorance, the source of pain.” Yoga Sutra 2.26, trans. B.K.S. Iyengar

And, of course, the more one mindfully practices, the more readily these new habits, or beneficial samskaras, supercede and eventually replace the older, obsolete reactions. This is one of the many milestone changes that take place as we deepen our practice that let us know we are on the right path. Thanks, Portland yoginis! I’ll see you in March! 

For those of you who are interested in learning more about mindful yoga, Nina will be writing a separate post on the topic this week.

Triglycerides, VLDL, and industrial carbohydrate-rich foods

Below are the coefficients of association calculated by HealthCorrelator for Excel (HCE) for user John Doe. The coefficients of association are calculated as linear correlations in HCE (). The focus here is on the associations between fasting triglycerides and various other variables. Take a look at the coefficient of association at the top, with VLDL cholesterol, indicated with a red arrow. It is a very high 0.999.

Whoa! What is this – 0.999! Is John Doe a unique case? No, this strong association between fasting triglycerides and VLDL cholesterol is a very common pattern among HCE users. The reason is simple. VLDL cholesterol is not normally measured directly, but typically calculated based on fasting triglycerides, by dividing the fasting triglycerides measurement by 5. And there is an underlying reason for that - fasting triglycerides and VLDL cholesterol are actually very highly correlated, based on direct measurements of these two variables.

But if VLDL cholesterol is calculated based on fasting triglycerides (VLDL cholesterol  = fasting triglycerides / 5), how come the correlation is 0.999, and not a perfect 1? The reason is the rounding error in the measurements. Whenever you see a correlation this high (i.e., 0.999), it is reasonable to suspect that the source is an underlying linear relationship disturbed by rounding error.

Fasting triglycerides are probably the most useful measures on standard lipid panels. For example, fasting triglycerides below 70 mg/dl suggest a pattern of LDL particles that is predominantly of large and buoyant particles. This pattern is associated with a low incidence of cardiovascular disease (). Also, chronically high fasting triglycerides are a well known marker of the metabolic syndrome, and a harbinger of type 2 diabetes.

Where do large and buoyant LDL particles come from? They frequently start as "big" (relatively speaking) blobs of fat, which are actually VLDL particles. The photo is from the excellent book by Elliott & Elliott (); it shows, on the same scale: (a) VLDL particles, (b) chylomicrons, (c) LDL particles, and (d) HDL particles. The dark bar at the bottom of each shot is 1000 A in length, or 100 nm (A = angstrom; nm = nanometer; 1 nm = 10 A).

If you consume an excessive amount of carbohydrates, my theory is that your liver will produce an abnormally large number of small VLDL particles (also shown on the photo above), a proportion of which will end up as small and dense LDL particles. The liver will do that relatively quickly, probably as a short-term compensatory mechanism to avoid glucose toxicity. It will essentially turn excess glucose, from excess carbohydrates, into fat. The VLDL particles carrying that fat in the form of triglycerides will be small because the liver will be in a hurry to clear the excess glucose in circulation, and will have no time to produce large particles, which take longer to produce individually.

This will end up leading to excess triglycerides hanging around in circulation, long after they should have been used as sources of energy. High fasting triglycerides will be a reflection of that. The graphs below, also generated by HCE for John Doe, show how fasting triglycerides and VLDL cholesterol vary in relation to refined carbohydrate consumption. Again, the graphs are not identical in shape because of rounding error; the shapes are almost identical.

Small and dense LDL particles, in the presence of other factors such as systemic inflammation, will contribute to the formation of atherosclerotic plaques. Again, the main source of these particles would be an excessive amount of carbohydrates. What is an excessive amount of carbohydrates? Generally speaking, it is an amount beyond your liver’s capacity to convert the resulting digestion byproducts, fructose and glucose, into liver glycogen. This may come from spaced consumption throughout the day, or acute consumption in an unnatural form (a can of regular coke), or both.

Liver glycogen is sugar stored in the liver. This is the main source of sugar for your brain. If your blood sugar levels become too low, your brain will get angry. Eventually it will go from angry to dead, and you will finally find out what awaits you in the afterlife.

Should you be a healthy athlete who severely depletes liver glycogen stores on a regular basis, you will probably have an above average liver glycogen storage and production capacity. That will be a result of long-term compensatory adaptation to glycogen depleting exercise (). As such, you may be able to consume large amounts of carbohydrates, and you will still not have high fasting triglycerides. You will not carry a lot of body fat either, because the carbohydrates will not be converted to fat and sent into circulation in VLDL particles. They will be used to make liver glycogen.

In fact, if you are a healthy athlete who severely depletes liver glycogen stores on a regular basis, excess calories will be just about the only thing that will contribute to body fat gain. Your threshold for “excess” carbohydrates will be so high that you will feel like the whole low carbohydrate community is not only misguided but also part of a conspiracy against people like you. If you are also an aggressive blog writer, you may feel compelled to tell the world something like this: “Here, I can eat 300 g of carbohydrates per day and maintain single-digit body fat levels! Take that you low carbohydrate idiots!”

Let us say you do not consume an excessive amount of carbohydrates; again, what is excessive or not varies, probably dramatically, from individual to individual. In this case your liver will produce a relatively small number of fat VLDL particles, which will end up as large and buoyant LDL particles. The fat in these large VLDL particles will likely not come primarily from conversion of glucose and/or fructose into fat (i.e., de novo lipogenesis), but from dietary sources of fat.

How do you avoid consuming excess carbohydrates? A good way of achieving that is to avoid man-made carbohydrate-rich foods. Another is adopting a low carbohydrate diet. Yet another is to become a healthy athlete who severely depletes liver glycogen stores on a regular basis; then you can eat a lot of bread, pasta, doughnuts and so on, and keep your fingers crossed for the future.

Either way, fasting triglycerides will be strongly correlated with VLDL cholesterol, because VLDL particles contain both triglycerides (“encapsulated” fat, not to be confused with “free” fatty acids) and cholesterol. If a large number of VLDL particles are produced by one’s liver, the person’s fasting triglycerides reading will be high. If a small number of VLDL particles are produced, even if they are fat particles, the fasting triglycerides reading will be relatively low. Neither VLDL cholesterol nor fasting triglycerides will be zero though.

Now, you may be wondering, how come a small number of fat VLDL particles will eventually lead to low fasting triglycerides? After all, they are fat particles, even though they occur in fewer numbers. My hypothesis is that having a large number of small-dense VLDL particles in circulation is an abnormal, unnatural state, and that our body is not well designed to deal with that state. Use of lipoprotein-bound fat as a source of energy in this state becomes somewhat less efficient, leading to high triglycerides in circulation; and also to hunger, as our mitochondria like fat.

This hypothesis, and the theory outlined above, fit well with the numbers I have been seeing for quite some time from HCE users. Note that it is a bit different from the more popular theory, particularly among low carbohydrate writers, that fat is force-stored in adipocytes (fat cells) by insulin and not released for use as energy, also leading to hunger. What I am saying here, which is compatible with this more popular theory, is that lipoproteins, like adipocytes, also end up holding more fat than they should if you consume excess carbohydrates, and for longer.

Want to improve your health? Consider replacing things like bread and cereal with butter and eggs in your diet (). And also go see you doctor (); if he disagrees with this recommendation, ask him to read this post and explain why he disagrees.

Friday Q&A: Cautions for Inversions

Q: I’ve heard that some people should not do inversions, but you didn’t mention this in your post on Wednesday about inverted poses. Could address this?

A: Oops! My bad, as Buffy would say. It’s true that for certain medical conditions, inverted poses are, as they say, contraindicated. So I’m sorry I did not mention this earlier in my post "Just in Time for the Holidays: Inverted Poses".

First off, the poses you may need to be concerned about only include the full inversions and some of the partial inversions that are held for long periods of time.

If you have high blood pressure that is uncontrolled with medication, you should not do inverted poses, because, as I explained in my post (see here) they temporarily raise your blood pressure. And even if your high blood pressure is controlled with medication, talking with your doctor before doing full inverted poses is probably a good idea. People with heart problems should also consult their doctors.

If you are having eye problems, such as glaucoma or detached retina, inversions should also be avoided. Likewise, if you've recently had oral surgery. And those with neck problems should avoid the inversions that put pressure on their necks.

People with back problems will probably find that at least some of these poses may cause back pain, in which case, you should please come out of the pose and find an alternative (I’ve noticed Supported Bridge pose and Legs up the Wall pose can cause difficulties for people with lower back problems).

There are many yoga teachers who do not recommend inverted poses for women who are menstruating. However, as far as I know, there are no scientific studies to back up their concerns. What I recommend is that each of you do your own research on the subject, talking to your teachers, your gynecologist (I did that), and other female practitioners, and make up your own mind based on their advice.

Finally, if you are pregnant and not already experienced doing inverted poses, this is probably not the best time for you to start.

—Nina

Roasted Baby Beets with Pasta

Mmmmm....

Once you taste this mouthwatering pasta dish made with sweet onion, basil, and  oven-roasted beets, you'll be amazed. And you'll understand why this particular combination of foods has been popular since Roman times. Beets have a subtle earthiness about them, and their bright red colour is a cheerful addition to any recipe. These humble little globes are a veritable storehouse of good nutrition, and are an excellent source of potassium, iron, calcium and Vitamin A.  Try this recipe, and you'll be surprised at the depth of flavour from such simple ingredients. Last time I served this dish to a friend, he had thirds! 

You'll Need: 12 small baby beets; 1/2 cup sunflower seeds, soak, sprouted and air dried; 1 large sweet onion; 2 tablespoons almond cream or cream; 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard; 1 cup small brown rice pasta tubes; 1/4 cup fresh basil, finely chopped; 1 tablespoon + 1 drizzle olive oil; 1 teaspoon lemon juice; 1/8 teaspoon sea salt; 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper; 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves, salt to taste; 2 tablespoons hemp hearts; 2 tablespoons crumble goat milk or vegan seed feta cheese; 1 teaspoon dried thyme/oregano/summer savory blend.

Method: Remove tails and tops, and lightly scrub the beets with a vegetable brush. Place in a ovenproof dish, cover and bake in a slow oven, (325 degrees) until beets are soft. When cool enough to handle, slip off skins and set aside.  

Put sunflower seeds in a dry pan. Roast slowly over a low heat, stirring often, until seeds are lightly toasted, and very fragrant. Set aside.

Cut onion into small pieces. Put the olive oil in a small frying pan, add onion, and cook gently over medium heat until onions are soft and very sweet, almost beginning to caramelize. Stir Dijon mustard into almond cream and pour into pan stirring to form a thick sauce. Remove from heat.

Wash basil, and place in blender with 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1 teaspoon lemon juice, and salt. Pulse into a smooth pesto. Set aside.

Cook pasta, drain, rinse in cool water, and put into a casserole dish. Cut beets into quarters, length-wise, and add to pasta. Pour onion mixture over beets and pasta, and mix thoroughly. Gently stir in sunflower seeds. Dot basil pesto over top of dish, and fold in. Sprinkle with cayenne and ground cloves. Drizzle with a little olive oil, and cover.

Bake in a moderate oven for 10-15 minutes. Remove lid, sprinkle with hemp hearts, crumbled cheese and dried thyme/oregano/savory blend. Return to oven for 2-3 minutes until cheese is warm. Serve and enjoy.

Anxious in the kitchen? For ideas and techniques to enjoy calm while cooking: http://zen-cuisine.blogspot.com/ 

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving

Just to remind everyone that we will be closing at 3 PM today.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day.

Cheers,

Rami
415-255-0610

Peppermint Paradise...

So... today is actually Thanksgiving and I DO hope you are having a wonderful time celebrating with family and friends and rejoicing over the MANY things we DO have to be thankful for. I am thankful for my hard-working (at work, at home, and with me!) husband, my sweet kids, my precious family both near and far, dear friends, good health, and the many basic needs that the Lord provides daily for us. And... I am thankful for this time of year. The Christmas Season where we have extra opportunities to love on others, teach our kids about the world near and far, bless those who have little or a lot with our words and actions, a chance to create memories with our Advent Calendar, and some time to relish in the deliciousness of "Peppermint Paradise!" 

 Thanks to my good friends at Trader Joe's (that's actually true, I DO have some really sweet friends there thanks to my frequent visits and their sweet hearts!) they supply me with plenty of peppermint to get my fill for the whole year. I DO love me some peppermint - and if there is chocolate involved, consider it a done deal!

 Here are some of my favorite Peppermint Treats I think you ought to take a peek at if you are a lover of the Christmas Flavor...

Introducing the new and scrumptious "Mini Peppermint Waffle Cookies"... they are bits of waffle cookie covered in a rich chocolate sprinkled with peppermint crumbs...oh, they are dangerous!

Don't forget about the ever-delicious Peppermint Joe-Joe's...

If you want to make your own home made version of peppermint cookies, try these!

Did you know that they make a Peppermint Joe-Joe ice cream now?? Don't buy it if you don't want to eat the whole thing in 5 minutes... it's beautiful!

Also, on a healthier (non-chocolate note!) Trader Joe's has refreshing Peppermint Candy Cane Tea that is fabulous- a flavorful peppermint followed by a hint of sweet vanilla. It's Green tea and it's decaf!

And just for fun... look at these darling treats from here and here...








Don't you just want to put it out for decoration?? The cake stand alone is to die for!!!

Just in Time for the Holidays: Inverted Poses

by Nina

In my original post about the relaxation response and yoga (see here), I mentioned that inverted yoga poses are one of the many ways you can trigger the relaxation response. Inverted poses are my personal go-to stress busters of choice, and if I could get my hands on Paul Weston (see here), I’d certainly teach him one or more of these amazing poses. So today I’m going to explain what I mean by “inverted poses,” and I’ll also provide some scientific background on them because understanding why these poses work can help you get the most out of them. Okay, here goes:

Any yoga pose where your heart is above your head is considered to be an inversion. Inverted yoga poses include full inversions, such as Headstand and Shoulderstand, where your heart is directly over your head and the rest of your body is also fully inverted. Also included as inverted poses are partial inversions, such as Downward-Facing Dog pose and Standing Forward Bend, where your heart is less directly over your head and your legs are either not fully and not at all inverted.

Standing Forward Bend from Yoga: The Poetry of the Body

The reason these poses trigger the relaxation response turns to be related to the mechanisms that control your heart rate and blood pressure. The nerves that control your heart rate and blood pressure are regulated through pressure sensors called baroreceptors. Your baroreceptors are located in the wall of each internal carotid artery at your carotid sinus (the arteries on each side of your neck that carry blood from your heart to your brain) and in the wall of your aortic arch (just above your heart). These baroreceptors detect any changes in your blood pressure, stretching when blood pressure is high and shrinking when blood pressure is low.

If your baroreceptors detect a fall in your blood pressure, they send signals via your nerves to increase your heart rate, constrict your blood vessels to raise your blood pressure, and switch your nervous system to fight or flight mode. Likewise, if your baroreceptors detect abnormally elevated blood pressure, they send signals to slow your heart rate, relax your blood vessels to lower your blood pressure, and switch your nervous system to relaxation mode.

In an inverted pose, your heart is higher than your head, the opposite of its position when you are upright. With your heart higher than your head, gravity causes more blood to flow in the direction of your head, creating more pressure than usual on your carotid sinus and aortic arch. As the arterial pressure is increased, your baroreceptors are stretched and signals are transmitted to your central nervous system as if your blood pressure was high throughout your body. Feedback signals are then sent back to your body to reduce the arterial pressure, slowing your heart rate, relaxing your blood vessels, and releasing hormones that decrease adrenaline production. This automatically switches your body to relaxation mode.

In addition, inverted or partially inverted poses where your neck is flexed (that is, your chin is pointing toward your chest), as in Shoulderstand, Plow pose, or Bridge pose, puts additional pressure on your carotid sinus (the arteries on each side of your neck that carry blood from your heart to your brain). This added stimulation of your baroreceptors may enhance the calming effects of the inversion.

How simple is that? As long as you are warm, quiet, and comfortable in the inverted pose, all you have to do is let pose work its magic! Naturally, supported versions of the poses (such as Shoulderstand with a chair or Bridge pose on blankets) are more relaxing than straight versions of poses in which you must support yourself, so if you’re practicing inversions for stress reduction, choose the supported versions.

In the coming weeks, I’ll provide details about the various inverted poses, but until then, the following is classic sequence of calming inversions. You can do any or all of these poses, but if you do more than one, I recommend doing them in the order shown below.

1.    Downward-Facing Dog pose, with your head resting on a block or folded blankets (1 to 3 minutes)
2.    Standing Forward Bend, with your head resting on a block or with folded arms and head resting on a chair seat (1 to 3 minutes)
3.    Wide-Legged Standing Forward Bend (Prasarita Padottansansa), with your head resting on the ground, a block, or the seat of a chair (1 to 3 minutes)
4.    Headstand (3 to 10 minutes)
5.    Shoulderstand, with a chair (3 to 10 minutes)
6.    Half Plow pose, with your legs supported by a chair seat (1 to 3 minutes)
7.    Supported Bridge pose, with your shoulders and head resting on the floor, your torso and legs supported by blankets or bolsters (5 to 15 minutes or longer)
8.    Legs up the Wall pose (Viparita Karani) with your pelvis supported with a bolster or blankets (5 to 15 minutes)

I’ve taught this sequence many times, and there are always people in each class who have difficulty with one or more of these poses. So I always teach a non-classic pose as well, Easy Inverted Pose (see here), because this is one pose almost everyone can do. Use this as a substitute for Shoulderstand, Plow pose, Bridge pose, or Legs Up the Wall pose, or just use it on its own.

Caution: Inverted poses may be unsafe for those with certain medical conditions (see here).

THE ABYSS 2011

Hello Everyone,

The deep, the dark, the mysterious, THE ABYSS 2011 is here. We received a small quantity. I will try very hard to secure a second shipment. Limit 3 bottles per person. Beer club members can RSVP by calling the shop. Please do not email RSVPs. Open tonight until 10:00 PM. We are also open Thanksgiving Day until 3:00 PM. I can ship within California.

Happy Turkey Day.

Cheers,

Rami
415-255-0610

Thanksgiving Day Schedule

Hi everyone,

For your convenience Healthy Spirits will be open on Thanksgiving
Day until 3:00 PM. Best wishes for a happy, safe and healthy
holiday season.

Drrink less. Drink better.

Cheers,

Rami
415-255-0610

Larger Women and Yoga: Getting Creative

Tarot Garden by Baxter Bell

by Baxter

On my last teaching trip to Portland, Oregon, in February 2011, I was asked by studio owner Vilma Zaleskaite of The Yoga Project in Sellwood (see here), if I would be willing to offer a three-hour session to the students  in her Yoga for the Larger Woman class. You can imagine that as a skinny fella from Toledo, Ohio, I might think twice about such a proposition; but once I got grounded, I realized there was a lot I could share about my experience teaching students of all shapes and sizes, male and female, as well as my insights on how yoga could be a positive transformational practice for healthy aging.

Our first go around in February of this year was so well received that the students expressed interest in having an entire weekend experience of yoga. So I returned this past weekend for a 10-hour workshop with this enthusiastic group of practitioners. Topics we covered included healthy joints and improved mobility, and yoga for insomnia, digestion and metabolism, as well as stress and productivity. In addition to what I had to offer, I opened the floor up to discussion so I could also learn from this group of bright, intelligent and compassionate people.

What may seem obvious, but was often overlooked when these students attempted to take regular classes, is that most modern asanas are not that accessible to larger students, at least not the way they are usually taught. A lot of our work together focused on redefining the poses so that instead of cramming their bodies into the pose, the pose could be slipped onto them in a very appropriate way. I tried to encourage them to be creative, to think outside the “exact” structure of any given asana, and come up with ways to personalize the poses, so they will be more inclined to not only participate in class, but start to practice at home. One of the more experienced students echoed an idea we share with you here often: when she practices at home regularly, she feels better on many levels, but when she doesn’t, all bets are off. And it was so exciting to hear so many of the newer students already discovering positive benefits to the practice: improved sleep, mobility and ability to handle everyday stresses, and an improved relationship with their bodies.

Stay tuned for my next installment about how the practice changed the way one of these students dealt with unexpected stress....

Featured Pose: Hunting Dog

by Baxter and Nina

This week’s featured pose is one of Baxter’s favorite poses for lower back pain. Hunting Dog pose, which is a great precursor to strong poses like Warrior 3, is a wonderful way to tone and strengthen your upper body, especially the serratus anterior muscles, as well your pelvic stabilizers and core belly muscles. It’s also a good pose for anyone trying to improve core strength as well as strengthening the lower back.

Baxter prescribes this pose for:

• lower back pain
• balance issues
• fatigue (when standing poses are too tiring)
• improving right/left coordination
• building arm strength

General Instructions: Start by placing a folded blanket on the floor. Then come into a hands-and-knees position, with your knees on the blanket and your hands on the floor or yoga mat. Keep a neutral curve in your lower back and strong arms.

Next, slowly take your right leg back behind you into a lunge position, with your toes turned under and the ball of your foot on floor. Try to keep your pelvis area and lower back in the starting neutral position at all times—no tip, tuck or turn. 

If you are feeling stable, lift your right leg up until it is about parallel with the floor, but no higher. Again, no change to pelvic alignment!

Finally, consider reaching your arm forward parallel to the floor.

Hold the position for at least 6 breaths, and up to 16 breaths. When you release, shake out your left hand and wrist.  Repeat on the second side.

Cautions: If you are having lower back pain, keep the toes of your straight leg on the ground rather than lifting your leg. If you have wrist pain, bend your elbows and rest your forearms on blocks, rather than putting weight on your hands.

My transformation: How I looked 10 years ago next to a thin man called Royce Gracie

The photos below were taken about 10 years ago. The first is at a restaurant near Torrance, California. (As you can see, the restaurant was about to close; we were the last customers.) I am standing next to Royce Grace, who had by then become a sensation (). He became a sensation by easily defeating nearly every champion fighter that was placed in front of him. In case you are wondering, Royce is 6’1” and I am 5’8”. The second photo also has Royce’s manager in it – that is his wife. Their children’s names both start with the letter “K”. I wonder how big they are right now.

I think that at the time these photos were taken I weighed around 200-210 lbs. Even though I am much shorter than Royce, I outweighed him by around 40 lbs. Now I weigh 150 lbs, at about 11 percent body fat, and look like the photo on the top-right area of this blog - essentially like a thin guy who does some manual labor for a living, I guess. A post is available discussing the "how" part of this transformation (). I only put a shirtless photo here after several readers told me that my previous photo looked out of place in this blog.

My day job is not even remotely related to fitness instruction. I am a college professor, and like to think of myself as a scholar. I don’t care much about my personal appearance; never did. At least in my mind, putting up shirtless photos on the web should not be done gratuitously. If you are a fitness instructor, or an athlete, that is fine. In my case, it is acceptable in the context of telling people that a few minutes of mid-day sun exposure, avoiding sunburn, yields 10,000 IU of skin-produced vitamin D, which is about 20 times more than one can get through most "fortified" industrial foods.

Royce is such a nice guy that, after much insistence, he paid for the dinner, and then we drove to his house and talked until about midnight. He had told me of a flight the next morning to Chicago, so I ended the interview and thanked him for the wonderful time we had spent together. I had to talk him out of driving ahead of me to I-405; he wanted to make sure I was not going to get lost at that time of the night. This was someone who was considered a demigod at the time in some circles. A humble, wonderful person.

Royce helped launch what is today the mega-successful Ultimate Fighting Championship franchise (), which was then still a no holders barred mixed martial arts tournament. At the time the photos were taken I was interviewing him for my book Compensatory Adaptation, which came out in print soon after (). The book has a full chapter on the famous Gracie Family, including his father Helio and his brother Rickson.

I talked before about the notion of compensatory adaptation and how it applies to our understanding of how we respond to diet and lifestyle changes (). In this context, I believe that the compensatory adaptation notion is far superior to that of hormesis (), which I think is interesting but overused and overrated.

The notion of compensatory adaptation has been picked up in the field of information systems, my main field of academic research. In this field, which deals with how people respond to technologies, it is part of a broader theory called media naturalness theory (). There are already several people who have received doctorates by testing this theory from novel angles. There are also several people today who call themselves experts in compensatory adaptation and media naturalness theory.

The above creates an odd situation, and something funny that happened with me a few times already. I do some new empirical research on compensatory adaptation, looking at it from a new angle, write an academic paper about it (often with one or more co-authors who helped me collect empirical data), and submit it to a selective refereed journal. Then an "expert" reviewer, who does not know who the authors of the paper are (this is called a "blind" review), recommends rejection of the paper because “the authors of this paper clearly do not understand the notion of compensatory adaptation”. Sometimes something like this is added: “the authors should read the literature on compensatory adaptation more carefully, particularly Kock (2004)” - an article that has a good number of citations to it ().

Oh well, the beauty of the academic refereeing process …

Healthy Spirits: Stone Vertical Epic 11.11.11

Now in stock.

Any Activity is Better than None

by Nina

A recent article in the New York Times "Aging Well Through Exercise"  (see here) cited several studies on exercise and aging that confirm, once again, that through exercise you can preserve your muscle mass and your strength, and thereby avoid declining from vitality to frailty as you age. Here's a brief quote from the article:

“We think these are very encouraging results,” said Dr. Vonda Wright, an orthopedic surgeon and founder of the Performance and Research Initiative for Masters Athletes at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, who oversaw the study. “They suggest strongly that people don’t have to lose muscle mass and function as they grow older. The changes that we’ve assumed were due to aging and therefore were unstoppable seem actually to be caused by inactivity. And that can be changed.”

Yeah, well, we've pretty much all heard that by now. So what really struck me about the article, was the fact that all those scientists still haven't figured out what kinds of exercise are best for healthy aging, how much you need to do, or how intense the exercise needs to be. They're still researching questions such as: Is endurance exercise necessary for muscle sparing? Or weight training? 

In the end, the article concluded rather lamely: “What we can say with certainty is that any activity is better than none,” Dr. Wright says, “and more is probably better than less."

From Yoga: The Poetry of the Body by Yee with Zolotow

I pondered this for a couple of days, wondering how it applied to all us yoga practitioners. And I realized that the good news for us is that if any activity is better than none, we get to do whatever we want! So if you're thinking of starting a home yoga practice, go ahead and just do whichever poses make you happy. Or whichever poses intrigue you. Or whichever poses calm you down. Or whichever poses you want to learn to love. Or all the poses with animal names (I once did a practice like that with some children).

It Has to Be QUALITY

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Quality Food is a MUST

QUALITY life…WOW…doesn’t that sound absolutely FABULOUS...well of course and I really believe in that all the way around.  I am into quality relationships, quality healthy foods, quality splurge meals when I have them, quality time, a quality simple life, and YES…QUALITY moves during my workouts.  If it is not quality…forget it…I mean really.  I am not going to waste my time performing an exercise that will get me nowhere and in fact, would probably injure me in the process…A BIG NO THANKS. I am into QUALITY over quantity…maintaining my physique is not a competition of how much I can lift or rep…it is about creating and being the BEST ME with my quality exercise and with the new modified body that I have.   Society today is so caught up in fast this and fast that, competing with him or her….YUCK…I would love the whole world to get a good wallop on the head, slow down, and enjoy just BEING, enjoy the gift of moving their bodies for the health of that body and who the hell cares what he, she, or all the other somebody else’s are doing…being healthy is not a competition…it is a lifestyle…and a glorious one at that.  Quality has so much to do with that…if I did not live a quality life how could I be a quality person taking care of myself…I would be one of those rush in and out of the gym and maybe get it right…WRONG…NOT for this fitness girl.  What kind of example would I be setting for anyone, and especially those that I train/coach…YIKES?  It has to be QUALITY…it has to be GOOD FORM, TECHNIQUE…and everything that creates a MORE than great workout experience.  When it comes to my QUALITY workout, I concentrate on proper posture, always drawing my navel into my spine…this makes me wear my STRING (if you have followed my Blogs, you know that my String is my pretend connection from my sternum to the ceiling and ensures that I am standing in proper posture). 

Posture is key to Quality Exercise

I put my mind where the muscle is, think about that muscle moving through its range of motion (ROM), and the joint actions that are involved in the move…if I am performing a biceps curl for example…I will not be moving my shoulder joint, and definitely not swinging at the hips to get the weight up…OH MY…HURT MYSELF gosh.  Having a private studio is great because I definitely cringe going into public facilities where injuries are going to happen due to non-quality moves…this is a whole other story though…so back to my QUALITY workouts.  The point I am trying to bring home here, is that life is too short not to do things right….to be a quality person, eat quality foods, enjoy quality time with friends and family, and definitely perform QUALITY workouts…all these things done in a quality way…are truly a big part of happiness, success in health and a balanced life…and the QUALITY workouts…well…this 47 year young body says a BIG THANK YOU! Stay Healthy!

MOTIVATION OF THE DAY:  Quality Exercise Produces Quality Results

My Nutrition of the Day:

Meal 4

Coffee, one cup ~ splash of n/f creamer

1-Stay Healthy Harvest Protein Muffin

2-Post Workout Shake & ¼ pumpkin seeds

3-Four Egg whites on Thin Bun & Apple

4-Small sweet potato and ¼ cup N/F Plain Greek yogurt

5-Scratch Chicken Vegetable Soup

6-1 Tbsp peanut butter on Rice Cake

My Workout of the Day:

ARC Trainer for 20 minutes

HIIT Program (repeated 2 xs)

Move 1: Squat, Curl & Press
Targets: Quads, delts, glutes, biceps, & triceps.

Move 2: Walking lunge & Oblique twist with dumbbell/medicine ball
Targets: Quads, core/obliques

Move 3: Overhead Triceps Extensions
Targets: Triceps

Move 4: Low Rows
Targets: Back

Move 5: Medicine Ball/Dumbbell Pullover
Targets: Back, chest, shoulders, and abs

Move 6:  Pop Squats
Targets: glutes, thighs, and burns fat all over!!

 

Move 7: Calf Raise
Targets: Calves

Move 8: Seated Medicine Ball Twist
Targets: abs/obliques

Stay Healthy Harvest Protein Muffin..FABULOUS

Check out my Stay Healthy Harvest Protein Muffin Recipe perfect for the holidays or anytime…Newly Added to the In My Kitchen Page!!!

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Stay Healthy!