As Geneen Roth explains in her book Women Food and God, "In an April 2007 UCLA study of the effectivness of dieting, reseachers found that one of the best predictors of weight gain was having lost weight on a diet at some point during the years before the study started. Among those who were followed for fewer than two years, 83 percent gained back more weight than they had lost. Another study found that people who went on diets were worse off than people who didn't.

Failing is built into the weight game. There is no way to play it and win. [To be healthy, we need to move beyond being] brainwashed by a sixty-billion-dollar-a-year diet industry."

At Thrive Wellness Coaching we support lasting lifestyle change by working with clients to establish permenant healthy habits; no diets allowed! Learn about our personal coaching services and leave the dieting yo-yo cycles behind on your path to sutainable healthy living. 

Thank you to everyone who joined our yoga practice this weekend where we reflected on the relative nature of good and bad.
 
The more we commit to our yoga practice, the more we come to understand the value of working to move beyond our mind’s automatic habit of quickly labeling things, people and experiences as "good" or "bad," (or other such judgmental adjectives). We all see the world through tinted glasses based on our values and past experiences. When we cultivate the ability to realize this limiting behavior through meditation, mindfulness or yoga, we get closer to seeing things the way they really are.
 
This 2,000-year old Taoist parable beautifully illustrates this concept, and invites us to reframe our thinking to consider the big picture when it comes to our lives.
 
"An old Chinese farmer lost his best stallion one day and his neighbor came around to express his regrets, but the farmer just said, ‘Who knows what is good and what is bad.’ The next day the stallion returned bringing with him 3 wild mares. The neighbor rushed back to celebrate with the farmer, but the old farmer simply said, ‘Who knows what is good and what is bad.’ The following day, the farmer’s son fell from one of the wild mares while trying to break her in and broke his arm and injured his leg. The neighbor came by to check on the son and give his condolences, but the old farmer just said, ‘Who knows what is good and what is bad.’ The next day the army came to the farm to conscript the farmer’s son for the war, but found him invalid and left him with his father. The neighbor thought to himself, ‘Who knows what is good and what is bad." (Parable language quoted from the Secular Buddhist Blog.)
 
As Kent Moreno explains, "The Taoist prefers to look at life events without judgment or interpretation. According to Taoism, the true significance of events can never be understood as they are occurring, for in every event there are elements of both good and bad. Furthermore, each event has no specific beginning or end and may influence future events for years or even centuries to come."
 
As Moreno touches upon, events in life will always involve good and bad. The great achievement is often accompanied by many sacrifices. The turn of bad luck usually comes with a silver lining. And from the wider-angle perspective, something "bad," but small in scope, may happen that prevents a major calamity down the road.
 
If these ideas resonate with you, a great way to practice application of the philosophy is to begin with asanas (the physical practice of yoga). Work for a while with the intention to accept yourself exactly as you are each time you come to the mat. Make your yoga practice a no judgment zone. Ignore what the teacher and other students look like in identical poses. If your energy level is low, modify and observe child’s pose when needed, instead of pushing yourself to replicate yesterday’s practice. Use your flow to practice radical acceptance of the self. And above all – drop any notions of what “should” be happening! Once you find your way on the mat, begin to think about how these concepts can be extended into other parts of your life.
 
As Jon Kabat-Zinn puts it, "give up coercing, resisting, or struggling, in exchange for something more powerful and wholesome, which comes out of allowing things to be as they are without getting caught up in your attraction to or rejection of them, in the intrinsic stickiness of wanting, of liking, and disliking."
 
The more involved with yoga and yoga philosophy you get, the more you will learn that these ideas are fundamental to the tradition. Buddha describes yoga as "the journey of the self, through the self, to the self." Yoga is not a competitive sport (as much as Instagram may sometimes suggest that). It is not a place where we should be thinking along the lines of good, bad or most especially, should. It is an avenue to living a self-accepting, and therefore authentic, life. 

If you spend any time observing young children and how they learn, you may notice that being new and "not good at something," doesn't deter them in the least from whatever skill they are pursuing. Unlike adults, they have not yet learned to be embarrassed or frustrated when they are not immediatly proficient at something with which they have no experience. But the reality of any beginning in life is that we will start out rather clumsy, and need to muster patience for the learning process.

Beginners make mistakes and often this phase, while annoying, leads to our biggest strides. If we can suspend that critical internal voice that craves perfection, we will have a much easier and pleasent time with the learning process.

When you are able to give yourself time and space when you are new at something, you won't be working against yourself. This in turn helps to keep the experience positive and exciting, factors critical to long-term success. Remember the mantra: "You've got to be a beginner before you can be anything else." 

Thank you to everyone that attended yoga today where we focused on cultivating non-judgement on and off the mat. Today's class reading are included below. 
 
Reading from Wherever You Go There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn
 
"It doesn’t take long in [yoga] to discover that part of our mind is constantly evaluating our experiences, comparing them with other experiences or holding them up against expectations and standards that we create, often out of fear. Fear that I’m not good enough, that bad things will happen, that good things won’t last, that other people might hurt me, that I won’t get my way, that only I know anything, that I’m the only one who doesn’t know anything. We tend to see things through tinted glasses: through the lens of whether something is good for me or bad for me or whether or not it conforms to my beliefs or philosophy. If it is good, I like it. If it is bad, I don’t like it. If it is neither, I have no feelings about it one way or the other, and may hardly notice it at all.
 
When you dwell in stillness, the judging mind can come through like a foghorn. I don’t like the sensation in my knee…. This is boring…. I like this feeling; I had a good [yoga practice] yesterday, but today I’m having a bad [yoga practice]. …It’s not working for me. I’m no good at this. I’m no good period. This type of thinking dominates the mind and weighs it down. It’s like carrying around a suitcase full of rocks on your head. It feels good to put it down. Imagine how it might feel to suspend all your judging and instead to let each moment be just as it is, without attempting to evaluate it as "good" or "bad." This would be true stillness, a true liberation.
 
[Yoga is a practice] of cultivating a non-judging attitude towards what comes up in the mind, come what may. That doesn’t mean judging won’t be going on. Of course it will, because it is in the very nature of the mind to compare and judge and evaluate. When it occurs, we don’t try to stop it or ignore it, any more than we would try to stop any other thoughts that might come through our mind.
 
The tack we take in [yoga] is simply to witness whatever comes up in the mind or the body to recognize it without condemning it or pursuing it, knowing that our judgments are unavoidable and necessarily limiting thoughts about experience. What we are interested in [with yoga] is direct contact with the experience itself – whether it is of an inbreath, an outbreath, a sensation or feeling, a sound, an impulse, a thought, a perception, or a judgment. [In this way] we can act with much greater clarity in our [practice, without immersion] in a stream of unconscious liking and disliking, which screens us from the world and from the basic purity of our own being."
 
Beginning from "Where We Are" from The Heart of Yoga
 
"When we go into a posture or carry out a movement that feels tense, it is difficult to notice anything else besides that tension. Perhaps when we sit in a cross-legged position our only thought is for the pain in our strained ankles. In doing this we are not really in the asana we are striving for – we are obviously not yet ready for this particular position. Rather, we should first practice something easier. This simple idea is the foundation for our whole yoga practice. Practicing the postures progressively, we gradually achieve more steadiness, alertness, and overall comfort.
 
If we want to make this principle of asana practice a reality, we have to accept ourselves just as we are.
 
If we have a stiff back we have to acknowledge this fact. It may be that we are very supple but our breath is very short, or perhaps our breathing is all right but our body gives us certain problems. It is also possible to feel comfortable in an asana while the mind is somewhere completely different. That is not asana either. It is only possible to find the qualities that are essential to asana if we recognize our own starting point and learn to accept it."
 
This quote from Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hanh, speaks more abstractly to our theme, allowing us to think about non-judgment as an enlightened frame of mind.
 
"Do not think that the knowledge you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth. Avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. Learn to practice non-attachment from views in order to be open to receive others’ viewpoints. Truth is found in life and not merely in conceptual knowledge. Be ready to learn throughout your entire life and to observe reality in yourself and in the world at all times."
 
CLOSING DHARMA QUOTE
 
Cultivating Non-judgment Quote by Rumi
 
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about."

​Thank you to everyone that joined us for yoga this morning. Below are the quotes we explored around the theme of being present.  

“Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry – all forms of fear – are caused by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of non-forgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence.”

Eckhart Tolle  
 




​“The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.”
Buddha
 

“Remember then: there is only one time that is important – Now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power.”

Leo Tolstoy  
 
“The meeting of two eternities, the past and future.... is precisely the present moment.”
 
“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land, there is no other life but this.”

Both quotes by Henry David Thoreau 

The late grand master of modern yoga, B.K.S. Iyengar was born in Belur, India, on December 14, 1918. When he was 14, his brother-in-law, T. Krishnamacharya, introduced him to a yoga practice, which improved his tuberculosis. Iyengar pioneered the use of props to make poses accessible to a wide array of students. He has written a number of books, including Light on Yoga, which many practitioners esteem as the bible of yoga. 

Iyengar himself described his variation of yoga as follows, "I just try to get the physical body in line with the mental body, the mental body with the intellectual body, and the intellectual body with the spiritual body, so they are balanced. Each asana has an optimum line or position. From the head to the foot, from the front to the back, from the right to the left—without deviation, without distortion."

To learn more about B.K.S. Iyengar and Iyengar Yoga, visit the official website at
http://bksiyengar.com.

"In the breath, the soul finds an opportunity to speak."

From “Breath” by Danna Faulds

You may have noticed that all yoga classes, no matter the style, begin and reinforce an emphasis on intentional breathing. Teachers that weave Sanskrit (the ancient language of India in which classical yoga texts are written) into their classes will refer to this focus as Pranayama breathing. 

Pranayama is defined as the regulation of the breath through certain techniques and exercises. In Sanskrit it is derived from prāṇa "breath" + āyāma "restraint."

Another similar translation of the concept describes prana as the life force or breath sustaining the body; with ayama translating to “extend or draw out." Together two mean breath extension or control.

"In many ways, the cosmic energy that is Prana corresponds to that of modern nuclear physics, which regards all matter as energy ‘organized’ in different ways. This is Prana with a capital P. It is Prana that knows no boundaries. Its source is the energy of the universe, that which is unchanging within you, your very soul, and it feeds your energy body, what the ancient texts call the pranamayakosha. Prana (small p) refers to the energy in the atmosphere – oxygen-rich air. This prana, also known as vaya, feeds the physical body, what the ancient Yogis called the annamayakosha.

What does knowing how to breathe look like? It is breathing that moves like a wave through your body, originating in the diaphragm rather than the thoracic region of the chest. It is full and deep and calm. To breathe this way, the body must be relaxed. When we consciously tense the muscles and hold the breath, there is a relaxed feeling that accompanies the release. So the simplest way to relax is by contracting the muscles while holding the breath, then letting the muscles and breath release completely."

Amy Weintraub

If you are a beginner to pranayama techniques, check out this in-depth Breathing Lessons article online that includes instructions for several variations on breathing exercises you can include with your home yoga practice. 

​Shiva Rea has been practicing yoga since the tender age of 14, and is one of the leading yoga instructors of our times. First driven to explore the enlightening world of yoga to understand her birth name, Shiva’s goals have since progressed to include sharing her knowledge with any and all comers. Shiva believes that yoga enables everyone to realize their true potential. She focuses on Vinyasa (roughly translated, “breath-synchronized movement”), and enjoys worldwide fame as a teacher of Prana Flow Yoga and Yoga Trance Dance. Shiva Rea’s expertise in the Krishnamacharya lineage of yoga as well as Tantra, Ayurveda, Bhakti, Kalaripayattu, world dance, somatic arts, and yogic arts has led her to be invited to many important conferences and festivals in the yoga world, including Chant 4 Change, Yoga Journal Conferences, the Telluride Yoga Festival and special events at Kripalu and Omego. 

She has participated in pro-environmental events, and led retreats and pilgramages all over the world. During these retreats, Shiva helps students experience transformational yoga, healing, and sacred sanctuaries to supplement and freshen their yoga knowledge. Her teacher training programs merge Tantra, Yoga, and Ayurveda to prepare teachers for meditation, advanced asanas, and service in the world. 

Shiva’s fame extends to the world of media as well. She has been featured in a variety of yoga and fitness publications, and produced award-winning yoga DVDs and CDs. These products have helped revolutionize the in-home practice of yoga. Shiva Rea’s unique blend of traditional and revolutionary yoga, fitness, and music has enabled her to attract both novice as well as long time practitioners. Shiva Rea currently lives in Pacific Palisades, California. 

The strongest foundation for romantic love is two partners that enter a relationship with their own established self-love and acceptance. 

But what do we mean when we use the term "self-love?"

According to Deborah Khoshaba, Psy.D., a Clinical Psychologist and Director of Training and Development for the Hardiness Institute, self-love includes the following behaviors.


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Become Mindful
​People who have more self-love tend to know what they think, feel and want. They are mindful of who they are and act on this knowledge, rather than on what others want for them.

Act on What You Need Rather Than What You Want
You love yourself when you can turn away from something that feels good and exciting to what you need to stay strong, centered, and moving forward in your life, instead. By staying focused on what you need, you turn away from automatic behavior patterns that get you into trouble, keep you stuck in the past, and lessen self-love.

Practice Good Self-Care
You will love yourself more, when you take better care of your basic needs. People high in self-love nourish themselves daily through healthy activities, like sound nutrition, exercise, proper sleep, intimacy and healthy social interactions.

Set Boundaries             
You'll love yourself more when you set limits or say no to work, love, or activities that deplete or harm you physically, emotionally and spiritually, or express poorly who you are.

Protect Yourself
Bring the right people into your life. I love the term frenemies that I learned from my younger clients. It describes so well the type of "friends" who take pleasure in your pain and loss rather than in your happiness and success. My suggestion to you here: Get rid of them! There isn't enough time in your life to waste on people who want to take away the shine on your face that says, "I genuinely love myself and life." You will love and respect yourself more.

Forgive Yourself
We humans can be so hard on ourselves. The downside of taking responsiblity for our actions is punishing ourselves too much for mistakes in learning and growing. You have to accept your humanness (the fact that you are not perfect), before you can truly love yourself. Practice being less hard on yourself when you make a mistake. Remember, there are no failures, if you have learned and grown from your mistakes; there are only lessons learned.

Live Intentionally
You will accept and love yourself more, whatever is happening in your life, when you live with purpose and design. Your purpose doesn't have to be crystal clear to you. If your intention is to live a meaningful and healthy life, you will make decisions that support this intention, and feel good about yourself when you succeed in this purpose. You will love yourself more if you see yourself accomplishing what you set out to do. You need to establish your living intentions, to do this.

Thank you to everyone that attended this afternoon's Beginner Yoga class at Ways to Wellness. Today's class theme involved many different translations and interpretations that define yoga, to expose students to the tradition's rich history. 

Yoga has its roots in Indian thought, but its content is universal because it is about the means by which we can make the changes we desire in our lives. The actual practice of yoga takes each person in a different direction. The practice of yoga only requires us to act and be attentive to our actions. We begin where we are and how we are, and whatever happens, happens.

What is Yoga?
​Translations, Interpretations & Personal Definitions 

Yoga is the Calming of the Fluctuations of the Mind.

Yoga, in Sanskrit, means to completely know yourself, and to be at peace in yourself.  


​This is a very personalized peace, that includes freedom for all suffering, doubt and confusion.  

At its most practical level yoga is a process of becoming more aware of who we are, teaching us about balance and health, and unfolding our potential.  
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Yoga allows us to be more aware of ourselves and feel connected. It is a never-ending process of self-discovery.  

Buddha describes yoga as “the journey of the self, through the self, to the self.”  

Yoga for me (Yoga Teacher Katie Engels), is a systematic way to focus ongoing learning with regard to self-care.

Thank you to everyone that joined us today for yoga where we closed our practice with this beautiful poem by Tomlinson to reflect on the power of pausing to observe stillness. 

Farewell to Van Gogh

The quiet deepens. You will not persuade 
One leaf of the accomplished, steady, darling 
Chestnut-tower to displace itself
With more of violence than the air supplies
When, gathering dusk, the pond brims evenly 
And we must be content with stillness.

Unhastening, daylight withdraws from us its shapes 
Into their central calm. Stone by stone
Your rhetoric is dispersed until the earth 
Becomes once more the earth, the leaves
A sharp partition against cooling blue.

Farewell, and for your instructive frenzy 
Gratitude. The world does not end tonight
And the fruit that we shall pick tomorrow 
Await us, weighing the unstripped bough.

Charles Tomlinson 1960

Politics block accurate health info from reaching the public because of money. Americans are very confused about what type of food they should eat and its no wonder since the media is flooded with contradictory and reductionist health and nutrition information. This is an issue created by the way collusive capitalism allows the tremendous influence of the industrial food industry, the diet industry and the pharmaceutical industry to influence food policy and medical education. Why is this so? Frankly, there is no money in the simple message that a whole-foods plant-based lifestyle and physical activity lead to health. Also, in the decade of post-grad medical education doctors receive, most physicians are only exposed to a few hours of nutritional science. Mush of their education, and the education for nutritionists and registered dietitians, is funded and/or facilitated by the food and pharmaceutical industries. 

Perhaps to best understand the situation, lets consider what money is LOST to these industries when an American is healthy. 

• A healthy person does not require monthly medications such as statins or insulin to treat chronic conditions over decades of their adult lifespan. 
• A healthy person does not require chemical or radiation therapy for cancer or high-risk surgery to treat heart disease. 
• A healthy person doesn’t pay for one unsustainable yo-yo diet program after another year after year, convinced the issue is their willpower. 
• A healthy person doesn’t spend money every single day to buy processed foods made from our commodity crop surpluses of corn, soy and wheat. 
• A healthy person dose not consume multiple sodas a day at a 90% profit margin to the manufacturer. 
• A healthy person does not eat fast food every day for lack or time or money to make better food consumer decisions. 

The food industry, which devotes vast sums of money to advertising, lobbying and political contributions, wants everyone to believe exercise is the key to health and weight maintenance. Because of this influence, our collusive federal government has adopted the food industries party line asserting that “all foods fit” and exercise is the primary avenue to attain health. This bias is regurgitated into national food guidelines and school lunch programs. Dr. Richard Carmona, former surgeon general during the Bush administration has even testified before Congress that bureaucrats routinely silenced him against speaking out against obesity. 

Thank you to everyone that joined us for yoga today. Check out this fabulous infographic describing the benefits of cultivating a regular practice both in the short and longterm. Namaste!

The kind of food we eat is the food that is most profitable. The profit margins for soda are 90%. The profit margins for produce are 10%. Fresh fruits and vegetables comprise only 2% annual U.S. food sales. 

Toxic food is cheap and good food is comparatively very expensive, as it is not artificially subsidized by the federal government. People with the least amount of money eat the most calories in our society because we have created a system where the most calories are the cheapest. Most processed foods are man made concentrations of sugar, fat and salt that contain way more calories than any food found in the natural world. These foods can easily contribute to a diet so high in calories, burning them off in a single day is actually impossible. With soda, the body has a hard time recognizing liquid calories. The worst part of these foods is that they are also addictive - foods high in fat and sugar provide the release of opioids in the brain. Nature delivers whole foods as nutrient complexes on purpose, not concentrated isolates like high fructose corn syrup that wreak havoc on our blood sugar control mechanisms. 

Because many people fail to see the correlation between quality nutrient dense foods and good health, they cannot justify the investment of money and time to buy and prepare the foods we need. Cooking in the home – the best single thing you can do to improve your health – is not commonplace or valued in our society. Quantity has become the most important measure of food quality but as long as you are starving on a nutritional basis, you will remain hungry regardless of the amount of calories you consume. People tend to eat based on the amount served to them on a plate and restaurant portions are 5-7 times the amount of food we need. We need a paradigm shift to value eating for nutrients, not calories. 

In America’s toxic food environment, only 1 in 3 people can maintain a healthy weight. Regional differences are different shades of terrible. A child born in 2000 has a 1 in 3 chance of being obese. If that child is of color the chance in 1 in 2. In America, less than 1% of citizens qualify for the 7 factors of ideal cardiovascular health. 

Thank you to everyone that joined us for yoga today where we reflected on cultivating an internal focus. 

Below are the strategies for self-focus during yoga that were shared throughout our practice. 

“The wise man lets go of all results, whether good or bad, and is focused on the action alone.”

Bhagavad Gita

Being You in Yoga Practice
"Whether on or off the mat, you have the opportunity to live more into who you are. Here are some tips for being you in yoga practice:

• Show up on your mat with the intention of giving yourself the gift of being present in this moment.
• Close your eyes as much as possible (and when it’s safe to do so) during your practice to help you stay inwardly focused.
• Use your breath to synchronize the movements of your physical body from one asana to the next.
• Approach new poses with curiosity, an open mind, and a playful heart. Remember that at one point in your life, you didn’t know how to ride a bike and now it’s effortless.
• When given instruction on a pose you find challenging or scary, have the courage to ask the instructor for guidance. That is what they are there for and they will be happy to help.
• Take new asanas one step—or phase—at a time. Don’t rush into the full expression of a pose just because someone else is doing it.
• Honor where you are today. Some days you will be stronger, some days you will have more or less flexibility, and other days you will have better balance.
• Look for correlations between your practice on the mat and how you’re navigating your daily life. Where are you feeling strong? Where can you practice being more flexible or cultivate more balance?
• Acknowledge and appreciate the beauty of those around you and then immediately come back to your mat.
• Have fun and BE YOU!

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if you can wrap your leg around the back of your neck or hold a handstand in the middle of a busy intersection. Yoga is about connecting to, integrating, and being you. It’s about showing up exactly as you are and allowing yourself to express in whatever way feels authentic in the moment.

There will always be distractions, and your aim is to find your center in the midst of all that’s going on around you—on and off the mat. There will always be beauty and inspiration in those around us and the key is to find that within yourself. Stay in your own lane and on your own mat. Just be you."

Tris Thorp
Vedic Educator and Lifestyle & Leadership Coach

Tris Thorp is one of today’s leading experts in the field of emotional healing. Having spent the last decade traveling the world, being trained by and sharing the stage with Dr. Deepak Chopra in the field of consciousness and mindfulness-based practices, Tris has a real gift for integrating the ancient spiritual teachings with modern-day mindfulness to help people all over the world let go of their past and create an empowered new future.

In Clean Food, Terry Walters explains the differences between what we now eat and our Grandparents' food supply by stating “their food supply was not as adulterated as ours is today and likely did not travel as far or as long to get from the farm to the grocery store to the table. They did not eat processed or fast foods. Their meals were balanced and prepared fresh daily.

Fields were not sprayed with herbicides and pesticides to the extent that they had to be unfarmed for entire growing seasons in order to be brought back to life. Animals and fish were not fed steroids, growth hormones, antibiotics and pesticide-laden foods.


​
​Produce was not genetically engineered or grown with pesticides so that it could be harvested at reduced cost and increased productivity; nor was it picked and then shipped across the country, tossed around in cases, placed on grocery shelves and intended to appear unblemished and freshly picked weeks later.”

Our industrialized food system has been a major contributor to the obesity crisis in this country, which now costs $190 billion annually in treatment costs alone. According to United States Department of Agriculture data, the average American now consumes 600 more calories per day than in 1970. Most come from the added fats, sugars and refined grains commonly found in highly processed foods and junk foods—soda, frozen pizza, donuts and scones, burgers and fries, and the like. These additional calories have overwhelmingly come from corn (corn starches, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, feed corn fed to livestock), soybeans (soy proteins, vegetable oils, salad oils, partially hydrogenated oils, and fryer oils in fast-food restaurants) and wheat (refined flour). These three crops account for the vast majority of crop acreage planted in the United States.

Thank you to everyone that joined us for yoga today where we closed with this poem by Robert Frost. 

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.   
His house is in the village though;   
He will not see me stopping here   
To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   
To stop without a farmhouse near   
Between the woods and frozen lake   
The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   
To ask if there is some mistake.   
The only other sound’s the sweep   
Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   
But I have promises to keep,   
And miles to go before I sleep,   
And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost

In the last 75 years we have industrialized our food system based on commodities. If you look around the supermarket, there is the illusion of food diversity and choice, but really, almost all packaged foods are clever rearrangements of our commodity crops: corn, soy and/or wheat. 
​
In “Our Unhealthy Food System,” David Wallinga, M.D., M.P.A. explains, “When talking about our [industrial] food system, we are referring to everything from the farm to the plate—food production, harvesting, processing, marketing and distribution. Industrialization describes the increasing tendency of economists, policymakers and agribusiness companies to treat farms as rural factories, with off-farm inputs (energy, antibiotics, synthetic fertilizers, genetically modified seed) marshaled in the service of producing caloric energy (feed corn and starches, soybeans and refined flour). Industrialization also describes a system in which economic return is paramount—more important than concern for the public’s health, the potential health effects of pesticide exposure, the long-term resilience of the land where crops are grown, and the methods by which food is processed and delivered.”

We are so excited to be starting a new yoga winter session January 14, featuring two class times every Sunday at Ways to Wellness. Full class details are below; I hope you can join us!

10-11a Sundays | All-Level Vinyasa Flow
Noon-1p Sundays | Beginner Yoga 
Location: Ways to Wellness (formally Raindrop Yoga) 9 White's Bridge Rd, Windham
Class cost: $12

ALL-LEVEL VINYASA FLOW
Every Sunday from 10-11a join me for All-Level Vinyasa Flow, providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for all mobility levels. This class offers a unified flow featuring many modifications throughout to offer beginner, intermediate and advanced tracks within the same yoga practice. This way the flow is appealing to both students new to yoga and seasoned yogis alike. I will also employ music and yoga philosophy class themes, such as being present, non-attachment, self-care, Ayurveda, etc., via quotes and readings weaved into classes to teach students about the other seven limbs of yoga, beyond just asanas. This approach tends to both the mind and body in a single class, offering students exposure to mindfulness and stress reduction techniques. To me personally, yoga is a way to focus on constant evolution and growth with regard to my self-care, and I hope to pass that philosophy onto students. Since class is offered at the Sunday morning timeframe, and appeals to all levels, this is a great one to attend with friends and family members.
 
BEGINNER YOGA
I believe that yoga is for everyone and every type of body so I am so excited to start teaching a weekly Beginner Yoga class every Sunday from noon to 1p. Beginner Yoga is taught assuming students could be walking into their very first class, or just getting back to regular movement. It therefore fuses gentle yoga poses, stretching, Restorative poses and many modification options. Classes also feature in-depth demonstrations to introduce poses, with both visual and audio cues, as well as content about what body parts and muscles poses hit. In this way I hope to covert a community of people new to yoga, impressing upon them the countless wellness benefits students reap with a regular practice. Class will also weave yoga philosophy throughout class that focuses on beginner dharma content to teach students about yoga beyond asanas. Such topics could include the meanings of common yoga terms such as Namaste and Om, the many health benefits of yoga, committing to a self-care practice, Chakras, and seasonal or emotional wellness themes. I often like to quote something I read, “you are new to yoga for the first ten years you practice,” because that really puts things into perspective with regard to the sheer scope of things we can learn and teach that are part of yoga. Beginner Yoga cultivates an environment free of intimidation, reinforcing that yoga can be highly variable to meet the needs of any student demographic.

ABOUT YOUR YOGA TEACHER
Katie Engels studied Vinyasa yoga with Chanel Luck at Radiant Yoga Boston to complete teacher training, and has been teaching yoga for two years. Katie’s yoga classes weave yoga philosophy and music along with asana (the physical practice of yoga), to cultivate a warm and welcoming atmosphere for new and seasoned yogis alike.

Why Does America Struggle with Such a Preventable Health Crisis?

The answer is very complicated and most frustratingly, it has a lot more to do with our environment than failings or lack of willpower on the part of the individual. As many have observed, if you “go with the flow” in America, you will be overweight or obese. 

This does not mean, however, that individuals are powerless or that we should accept this with certainty as our assured fate. Education and wellness coaching can go a long way in empowering individuals to swim against the current towards better health and wellness. 

This blog post will explore some of the issues that tangle together to make healthy living in this country so elusive for the majority. 

The more you learn and know about the environment in which we need to make food, activity and ultimately health decisions each day, you more you realize weight issues and obesity can not be blamed on a failure of individual agency or willpower. We are not doomed, but understanding the issues described below is imperative for the individual to have a chance of navigating themselves and their families towards health. In America, health is the ultimate “knowledge is power” issue of our time. 

Our Very New Toxic Environment is at Odds with Our Evolution
In the last 75 years, we have created a toxic environment in America that is incompatible with the way our body’s needs have evolved. Our modern world is characterized by excess energy reserves hard to avoid and this abundance of calories is evolutionarily new. For 4 million years humans have inhabited an environment of food scarcity so we are programed to eat as much as possible when calorie dense foods, such as meat, become available. 

This hardwiring allowed us to survive food insecurity, and even famine, but in our current landscape of overabundance, the instinct becomes disadvantageous. Food is now obsequious everywhere in America – we see it at gas stations and bookstores and vending machines are present at every school and workplace. This is another new development and it provides us with unrelenting external cues to eat. 

We are also designed to walk several miles a day in search of food, water, and firewood—as indigenous people do to this very day. Since our bodies depend on this activity to function properly, our new sedentary, indoor lifestyles cause chronic discomfort, pain and arthritic conditions for the 1 in 4 American adults that get no physical activity at all. 

Additionally, up until the very recent past, people lived and worked in dwellings without the consistent temperature control of central heating and air conditioning. That meant that many calories consumed in past generations where expanded to maintain the body’s internal temperature. 

These biological factors put us at odds with our new food supply, which has become completely industrialized during the same period of time. Stay tuned for upcoming blog posts that take a deeper dive into the health and wellness issues that arise as a consequence of our industrialized food system. 

Explore Wellness Coaching to Combat These Issues 
Learn more about developing your own personalized formula for heath and wellness to combat these issues by working with a Thrive Wellness Coach.