food for thought

Yoga Yenta

I have a confession. Sometimes after yoga, when I’m driving home and just off the freeway, I break down and succumb to the addictive call of the golden arches. I know it is sooo bad for me – totally saw the super size movie – but sometimes I just cannot resist a filet-o-fish followed by hot caramel sundae. YUM! I disclosed this guilty pleasure to some fellow yogis, who were dismayed and horrified by my transgression. Weird, I thought yogi-ness was supposed to entail love and acceptance of all beings, regardless of eating habits. Guess not.

But, they did have a point. Yoga brings us to a state of wholeness. When our breath, bodies and minds are in harmony, we rise to a higher level of consciousness which naturally brings awareness to our internal systems and how we treat our bodies. Eating for a higher conscious makes total sense. So I went on a program to detoxify, cleanse and revitalize my mind, body and spirit.

First, I started cutting things out of my diet. First meat. Then wheat. Then dairy. Then sugar. Then anything cooked above 106 degrees. Fortunately, raw food restaurants are all the rage these days. Unfortunately, Nobu Matsuhisa is nowhere to be found in any of them.

After preparing my body by depriving myself of anything I was actually interested in eating, it seemed a good time for step two – cleansing my system with a fast. There are so many to choose from. There’s all kinds of juice fasts – lemon with cayenne pepper fast, melon-only fast, the 21 day detox, the master cleanse, oh, and the one that removes the crud from the walls of the intestines that I’d rather not think about”¦ Other than the psychological torture of life without Snickers for a few days, I actually kind of dig the fasting. It brought forth insights about how I approach the concepts of food and nourishment (or maybe those were delusions from hunger?), not to mention how svelte I look.

The final stage of my cleanse was a colonic. Although I was totally freaked out at first, there was really no other alternative for extracting that Twinkie that’s been there since 1978.

Wow. I feel so great. This whole process gave my digestive organs a well earned rest and made my whole body feel so clean and peppy! I believe if we all gave ourselves a deserved break every once in a while – physically, mentally, and emotionally – we’d all be in a better place. Who knew fasting would provide such food for thought? I remind myself to do it all again before bikini season.

Om Shanti & Infinite gratitude,

Yoga Yenta