Niyamas

In my last post, I described the Yamas. This post is the Niyamas, the second of Patanjali's 8 Limbs Yoga. These posts are a series of posts reviewing the 8 Limbs of yoga with the purpose of helping my think through my 2016 Intention of being more "yogic".

The yamas, the first limb are focused on how to treat with beings outside of you, with other people. It talks about being honest, not stealing or not being greedy. The Niyamas are more focused on how you should treat yourself or personal actions. Literally meaning positive duties or observances.

Weekly Tao Te Ching Verse - Week #7

Welcome to this week's Tao Te Ching verse. See here for what this is all about.

Just to comment though, for now I am not adding any commentary. I am just going through the verses. At some point, I'll probably do it again but take my time and thinking more about each one.

Verse 7

The Tao is infinite, eternal.

Why is it eternal?

It was never born;

thus it can never die.

Why is it infinite?

It has no desires for itself;

thus it is present for all beings.

Weekly Tao Te Ching Verse - Week #6

Just returned from our two week whirlwind tour of Japan. I'll have at least one post on that experience.

Welcome to this week's Tao Te Ching verse. See here for what this is all about.

Verse 6

The Tao is called the great mother:

empty yet inexhaustible,

it gives birth to infinite worlds.

she welcomes both saints and sinners.

It is always present within you

You can use it any way you want.

Weekly Tao Te Ching Verse - Week #5

Still in Japan, but still not going to miss the weekly post.

Welcome to this week's Tao Te Ching verse. See here for what this is all about.

Verse 5

The Tao doesn't take sides;

it gives birth to both good and evil

The Master doesnt' take sides;

she welcomes both saints and sinners.

Weekly Tao Te Ching Verse - Week #4

So just because I'm in Japan right now you thought I wasn't going to post? Think again! :-)

Welcome to this week's Tao Te Ching verse. See here for what this is all about.

Verse 4

The Tao is like a well:

used but never used up.

It is like the eternal void:

filled with infinite possibilities

Weekly Tao Te Ching Verse - Week #3

Welcome to this week's Tao Te Ching verse. See here for what this is all about.

Verse 3

If you overesteem great men,

people become powerless.

If you overvalue posessions,

people begin to steal.

Tao Te Ching - Weekly Verse - Week 2

I am currently reading the Tao Te Ching will be posting one verse per week for the rest of the year or until I am through all of them.

Verse 2

When People see somethings as beautiful,

other things become ugly.

When people see somethings as good,

other things become bad

Tao Te Ching - Weekly Verse

So I recently bought Steven Mitchell's translation of the Tao Te Ching. In another life, I think I read this as an East Asian Studies major in college but I have zero recollection of it.

Memorial Day Weekend 2016

Had Caitlin Hawkins​ and Barbara Hawkins​ over yesterday for Memorial Day, my birthday, George Hawkins’​ birthday, my graduation from Marni Task’s​ Jivasara Yoga Teacher Training and Caitlin's graduation from grad school at Case, the finding of an apartment, and landing a job here in Cleveland!

Since it was Memorial Day weekend, I wanted something "traditional". So I decided to try carrot dogs as a replacement for the typical hot dogs. To be honest, I was skeptical. In addition to the fact that I'm not really a fan of trying to recreate "meat" foods with veggies, since that's like an alcoholic drinking near beer (not really a good idea) I'd rather just go straight for a new thing altogether.

Much to my surprise, though, it was actually really good. The liquid smoke I think is really what makes it, but I topped it with arugula, mustard, Ketchup and caramelized onions.

I also tried out two new recipes this time from the PlantPure Nation Cookbook. Three actually since one them called for Tofu Cashew Mayonnaise also from the PlantPure Nation cookbook. The first was a Thai Tofu Wrap which was only okay. It'll be good if I can figure out something else but it needs a little more moisture, more of a kick, and more peanut butter maybe. It called for Sriracha which we didn't have so I used Cholula which we did, but probably not enough.

You can see the wraps on the plate covered in saran wrap. There's a pun in there somewhere.

The second recipe used a quarter cup of the Tofu Cashew Mayonnaise. For my fellow no oil friends, this recipe calls for 1/2 teaspoon of tahini. I bought tahini that had no extra oil added but it was still quite oily. I like the flavor of tahini I just don't want the oil. But for yesterday I used 1/2 teaspoon of tahini.

Other than that though the tofu cashew mayonnaise was fantastic. Here's the recipe

Recipe

1/4 raw cashews soaked for 2-3 hours

7 ounces extra firm tofu

1/2 teaspoon sea salt (I used less)

1/2 teaspoon tahini

4 teaspoons lemon juice

1 1/2 teaspoons white vinegar

1 tablespoon Dijon Mustard

2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar (I bought the Braggs because of Theresa's comment at the last PlantBaseCle meeting)

2 1/2 Tablespoons Agave Nectar (I only used 2, but will probably use 1 next time)

2 Tablespoons Water

1/4 teaspoon xanthum gum (I didn't have any so I used potato starch as a kind of binder

Tweak to your heart's content, particularly perhaps just grinding sesame seeds up yourself will reduce the oil.

I used this mayonnaise for the Eggless Tofu Salad. For what it is worth I never really liked egg salad so I don't consider this a replacement :-) The Tofu Salad was fantastic, the dill adding it the perfect flavor. The bowl bigger bowl in the picture to the left is a Quinoa salad my wife Arisa featuring Chayote.

I used my friend Lori Palmer’s (website) suggestion to make "chips" out of Engine2’s Sprouted Ancient Whole Grains Tortilla (you only need to bake for maybe 5 minutes, I had mine in a just a little bit too long), and used them to scoop the tofu salad. Thanks Lori that was a fantastic suggestion!

For scheduling reasons we started earlier than we would have normally and we finished earlier as well. Which was just as good because by the time we would have normally just been settling in to eat we were inundated with rain.

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Handstand Success

Some times I think it's okay to celebrate, so I'm posting my handstand. It took me 14 months of practicing a little bit pretty much every day. I finally hit it for an extended period of time.

Of course as a yogi I should not be attached to the rewards of my hard work but let's say that attitude is still a work in progress. High fives are welcome! :-)

CNN Reports on GOP Debate

So CNN was reporting on the debate had the following paragraph.

The big questions of the night: Which senator did a better job convincing voters they can best take on Trump? Did Rubio's attacks and interruptions show a new side of himself? Did Cruz do enough to persuade people he's worth another look? Or did Trump's dismissive counters -- Rubio is a "choke artist," while Cruz is a "liar" -- leave him looking like a strongman swatting away the sorts of politicians that turned his supporters furious in the first place?

These are not the questions that need to be asked. What needs to be asked is what has gone wrong with this country that these morons are our Presidential candidates for one of our two political parties.

Links For A Friend

I have a friend that recently disclosed that they experiencing some issues that sound to be dietary related. Or perhaps their cures are. The person is seeing a nutritionist that I know so I'm feeling good about the information they are getting. I did want to provide some links as well and decided to do it via this blog so others might see it as well.

In general, I strongly recommend nutritionfacts.org. This site contains work by Dr. Greger to review various scientific data "so you don't have to". You'll get that if you watch this behmoth of a video which is over an hour long. And the content, oh my. It's incredibly informative, but it's long. The video is called Food as Medicine and was released on August 23rd, 2015.

The Yamas

It So I mentioned in my 2016 Intentions post, my main goal for 2016 is to graduate from Yoga Teacher training with Marni Task. Stemming from that are more specific goals, one of which was to apply more yoga principles to my life. I listed them out in that post and here they are again.

1. Yamas
2. Niyamas
3. Asana
4. Pranayama
5. Pratyhahara
6. Dharana
7. Dyhana

Of course the last is Samadhi or bliss, the final stage which I am fairly confident I won't get to by May or even this year. These are actually from the The Yoga Sutras Patanjali and are described in the 3rd Book.

I did not get into these specifically. Also one of my goals was to blog more frequently and consistently than I have been. So I will use the fact that I haven't talked about these things in detail nor how I will apply them, I'll write up blog posts about that - two birds with one stone 一石二鳥ですな

The first post will be about the Yamas

Plant-Based Lifestyle

So a friend came up to me recently and asked me how I did it. It, you ask? The implied question really was on multiple levels. The first implied question was how did I lose the weight that I've lost, was it really only diet and which one. The second implied question was about my diet and how I stay plant strong, plant perfect or what have you. At the time I answered it well I think but upon thinking about it could have put more thought into answer better.

This post will attempt to describe what has really made me successful up til now - and hopefully out into the future.

2016 Intentions

So if you haven't seen my recap of 2015 you might want to read it first. This year goals, targets, intentions, whatever you want to call them are built off the success and failures of last year. Probably the most important of which is the fact that I am in teacher training. The teacher training with Marni Task will be the catalyst for most of my goals.

Another key factor is that weight loss is not part my 2016 intentions as I am at the general weight I want to be.  I fully intend to maintain my weight of in and around 140 pounds. So if I have to tweak what I'm eating to make sure I stay in that weight range I will. Weight loss per se, though, is not important enough to be part of my annual intentions.

2015 Year in Review

If you have been in and social media site in the last week or so you have been probably been bombarded with year in reviews which randomly select pictures you have posted over the last year to create a montage of the last year. So you know it's that time of the year again. You would also know it is that time of the year again since I have started posting on this blog again. :-)

In January of this year, I posted my goals for the year, here. I did not say resolutions because that seems to imply binary, yes or no. You either did it or not. Resolution doesn't need to be binary but that seems to have become the norm. So in my post I called them targets. So let's review them to see how we did.

Moderation is the Key?!

So one of the comments I hear from people when I respond to what I eat is that my diet is so extreme. Actually I hear that from my family, particularly my Mother. They believe that moderation is the key. For those people, check out the following video which is relatively old news but I keep coming back to it. The shear number of usable quotes, data and information is amazing. It is a *long* video of 1 hour 15 minutes but it is so worth watching.

The Target Goal Is Dead Long Live The Target Goal

I think it is safe at this point to say that I have achieved my initial target weight. I weighed in at 146.8 this morning. I think the scale is a little wonky since yesterday though. Yesterday morning I was like 148.something and then later in the day it was saying I was 144. Right after Arisa had wiped the scale with a cleaning cloth. But also right after yoga so it's not inconceivable. Could have been water weight loss.

Anyway, I think it is safe to say that I have reached my initial target weight of 150 pounds. And I did it while I was still 50, so I finally completed my 2014 Resolution.

Yay!

Okay, enough celebration

There are Numbers

Then there are numbers!

Yesterday, I was finally able to get an updates biometrics test. I was hoping to get it at the same time as the Holiday Hold weigh-in but a change for expanded services in the Wellness Center at Hyland delayed that until just recently. But yesterday I was able to get the test done.

But first a recap just in case you forgot.

Holiday Hold Update

Happy Post Holidays! So how was your Holiday Hold? Here is a quick post to let you know where I am at with mine.

I pretty much crushed it, losing 10 pounds! As I tweeted, I celebrated a little bit this afternoon per the picture below.