Nutrition...that's internal isn't it???

[harry_the_monk]

Just wanted to know if there are any veggies out here who train really hard(lots of cardio stuff.)
I don't actually understand what my qi is, or if it is related to what I eat.(although I do know I get tingly stuff running round my body when I practise my WC sil lim tao.)
I have just decided to stop eating fish(I think that classes me as not eating any sentient beings now.)
To get to the point, any suggestions on what I can eat to stop myself from doing myself damage...
My main diet is oats, yoghurts, and fruit/veg. although I am not really sure how much I should be eating and in what quantities, any suggestions??? :confused: ???

Peace...

[harry_the_monk]

Sorry, just to clarify a bit, i gave up eating fish at about the same time as I started my WC, and am also checking that the fact that my body feels like jelly most of the time(especially my legs) is not due to the fact that my protein intake may have gone down.....

[Fish of Fury]

high protein food incl: eggs(too sentient? :) ),tofu/soy,dairy (also often high fat)
combine beans and grains, or nuts and seeds
eg. brown rice with tofu, baked beans on wholemeal bread.
lots of theories on how much protein you need, but if you start fading in the afternoon, lose hair, get weak often, poor immune function(often get sick) etc you may need to up the protein

__________________________________________________ _________________________ "I never drive faster than i can see...other than that...it's all in the reflexes" Jack Burton

[harry_the_monk]

Thanks for the reply, and I'm really sorry, but I only just realised this is probably in the wrong section.... :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
If anyone else can come up with some other comments, it would be great, if the mod of this forum deletes it, I can understand and will post where it is probably more relevant... :rolleyes:
Hassles of dealing with a newbie eh guys??? :rolleyes:
Peace...

[The Willow Sword]

LOTS OF TOFU AND LOTS OF VEGETABLES AND A TON OF WHOLE GRAIN brown rice. TRY THIS DIET WITH OUT THE USE OF ANY PASTAS OR BREADS (EXCEPT SPROUTED GRAIN BREAD) PLUS ITS NOT ONLY THE FOOD THE GREEN TEA AND THE HERBS SUCH AS GINSENG. CHINESE HEALTH PRACTITIONERS SAY TO EAT EGGS ONCE A WEEK.
AS FOR CHEESE THEY ALSO SAY IT IS DETREMENTAL TO THE ESSENCE(AS IN SPERM) BECAUSE IT INCREASES SEXUAL DRIVE.
TRY THIS DIET OUT AND SEE WHAT THE RESULTS ARE FOR YOU. pROTIEN IS IMPORTANT AND COMPLEX CARBS ARE EVEN MORE IMPORTANT. ELIMINATE ALL SIMPLE CARBS FROM YOUR DIET AND ALSO REFINED SUGAR. THESE IDEAS ARE TAKEN FROM THE BOOK "CHINESE HEALTH AND HEALING" BY AUTHOR DR DANIEL REED.
MANY RESPECTS,,WILLOW SWORD

Whatever you think i am or want me to be,,, i am.

[origenx]

Harry - I've been veggie for almost a year now. Although I've eaten meat maybe once every few months on social occasions. And I eat a pint of ice cream like once a week. But otherwise, I just eat fruits & veggies, nuts, beans and soymilk (+ some junk food). And meanwhile, I also stopped weightlifting. The overall result being that I've prolly lost 7 lbs and some muscle, although I'm still toned (just not rock-hard anymore). There was a transition period when I seemed to get even skinnier, but I think my body has adjusted well and stabilized now. I have gained a lot of flexibility and seemingly energy - as I typically sleep maybe 7 or 8 hrs now, whereas I used to crave 10. I also think my qi flow has gotten stronger and s*xual energy too. On the other hand, I have lost physical strength (mostly in my upper body).

Now, I don't know if I can attribute all this to vegetarianism, stopping weightlifting, more meditation, sleeping w/my window open, or some combination. There is no way I could possibly break it down like that. But, I do think they're helping toward my new goals of physical and spiritual health.

PS - Frankly I think people are way too paranoid about not getting enuff protein. I'll eat a handful of nuts and/or beans everyday and get by just fine. It's not something I even worry about it anymore!

[Fish of Fury]

i agree about the obsession with protein.
in the book "Healing with whole foods" by paul pitchford(great book), he says that modern assessments of protein requirements are all based on rat studies, not human needs, and we don't need anywhere near the amount of protein most people think we do.
on the other hand the latest thinking in nutrition is swinging back towards the high protein diet (which was popular 20 to 30 years ago , then went "out")

i think everyone has individual needs, so experiment with it.some people definitely don't thrive on vege. diets, but others do

__________________________________________________ _________________________ "I never drive faster than i can see...other than that...it's all in the reflexes" Jack Burton

[harry_the_monk]

This is really cool, it is really the sort of stuff I needed to know, problem being in last six months I have TOTALLY changed what I stick inside my body(has been gradual process though!).
All my mates are giving me stick telling me I should be back on the junk, and I guess I just needed some info to prove them wrong/reinforce my belief that I'm doing the right thing.
(also the sleep thing, I've gone down to 5 hrs from about 10, and started thinking I might be turning into a freak or something :) )
Thanks also for recommending the books...

Peace...

[Stumblefist]

Eating nails and crunching glass is really EXTERNAL kungfu. But then again it isn't really nutritious.
I eat every kind of junk possible. Does it show? Anyway my cambodian friend thinks chinese eating spice makes their blood better and their body stronger/fiercer.
Anyway we ate only veggies on the mountain, no even any eggs, and exercised all day. After 6 weeks everyone looked like ghosts and when i came down all my pants were wanted to drop to my ankles. Body fat all gone gone gone. I quit even coffee too on the mountain. Quit sleeping (so much) also.

[This message was edited by stumblefist on 06-17-01 at 12:50 PM.]

[origenx]

Fish of Fury - Well, I don't think it's so much a hi-protein diet as a lo-processed carb (e.g. - flour-based foods) diet. Flour-based products will definitely pack on the fat and water-retention. (e.g. - you can eat a bagel for lunch and notice some puffiness in your face by night.) If you remove that from your diet, you will lose weight, regardless of if u replace that with protein or fruits & veggies. But if u replace it with animal meat, u r now increasing your risk of a host of other diseases.

The REAL problem with the Standard American Diet is processing. Of course, I guess no dietician can really pinpoint that b/c he'd get his *ss sued by the food processing industry.

My evolving diet is simple. Natural is better than processed. Plant better than animal.

Stumblefist - yes, u might experience some rather rapid weight loss initially when u switch over to veggy (and exercise hard at the same time). However, after a while, your body will normalize to its natural weight

[harry_the_monk]

Forgive me if I am being naive, but aren't flour based foods a neccessity???
Can I get by on normal rice as brown rice is too expensive here.(as are a lot of more healthy foods)
I already asked for this in another thread, but can anyone give me a cool web site or some advice on what a good daily intake of food should be???
I am pretty much vegan now btw...
I also run, swim, cycle my bike everywhere, as well as do weights and of course my beloved WC.(quite active in other words.)
Before anyone asks, I haven't got the money together yet to buy the books :)

Peace...

[Ma_Xu_Zha]

a good start would be going on a steady diet of eating vegetarians. The meat is pretty healthy, especailly those macrobiotic vegetarians. :p

[RAF]

"Living on a purely vegetable diet has only been a possibility since the development of agriculture and witha distancing from our "animal nature," which simply takes what it can unreflectingly. But is vegetarianism a nostalgic harking back to a mythical age of innocenece or a step forward into a new kind of consciousness.

We have seen that discomfort at killing to eat is as old as humanity, but that this is crucially tied in with the development of ritual and social cohesion. . . . Once a reliable vegetable diet becomes available, however, separateing slaughter from nutritive requirements, there arises a new possiblility of compassion for animal suffering being experienced in a new way, unmixed with feart that the slaughtered beast might take revenge. Among the Greeks and Romans there were those who experience such compassion acutely:

He who can slit his calf's throat, hear its cries,
Unmoved, who has the heart to kill his kid,
That screams lik a small child, or eat the bird,
His hand has reared and fed! How far does this, fall short of murder?

As these lines imply, a link tends to be felt between violence and violence toward humans, so that meat eating is often connected with aggression generally, and with warlike behavior. It has been noted above that hunting and warfare are closely linked. Vegetarianism by contrast is frequently supposed to induce a peaceful nature.

Living without meat, moreover, has always tended to suggest a further distancing from the animal. . . . picking up in the hand a greasy piece of flesh and bone and tearing at it with the teeth has long had a dubious reputation as "animal behavior," and where once the conspicuous carving of a whole animal on or in sight of the table was looked upon with pleasure, this process has in Western culture tended to retreat behind the secenes, while in China and Japan such barbarisms were confined to the kitchen much earlier, along with the potentially threatening knife, in favor of delicate eating with chopsticks. (80) [This evolution of table manners is recorded in fascinating detail by Elias in his classic book THE CIVILISING PROCESS].

...To refrain from eating meating has regularly been associated with spiritual commitment, along with that other carnal act, SEX, and has also implied a degree of asceticism (one who practices rigid self denial esp as an act of religious devotion). From this point of view, meat feeds the baser, more earth-bound aspects of manking. With Christianity, abstention from meat on prescribed days has always been intended as self-denial or penance, rathat than concern for animal welfare.

THE QUESTION IS, THOUGH, HOW FAR AWAY FROM ANIMAL BEHAVIOR CAN WE GET, SINCE WE ARE UNDENIABLY ANIMALS AND NOT DISEMBODIED SPIRITS? Lopez-Pedraza observes of vegetarians that they have:

a fantasy of purity and cleanliness, a rigidity, a feeling of superiority, a guilt-making projection upon meat-eaters, and a lack of consciousness of any cruelty and destructiveness in themselves. (81) [HERMES, pp. 22f]

The viciousness with which supporters of vegetarianism and animal welfare sometimes express themselves demonstrates the aggressive shadow (unconscious and in denial). Cruelty and destructiveness belong to us, and we had better recognize that if we are to avoid endless bitter entanglemenets through shadow-projections. If we follwo the morality of vegetarianism to the ultimate conclusion, we must fact the fact that dairy produce involves the premature and distressing separation of young from mother, and the slaughter of young males. . . . The development of humanity is inseparable from the use and abuse of other species on a massive scale, through their labor and through the uses of their carcasses, so we are all profoundly implicated in this business and indebted to it, whether we like it or not. As a race we are a very long way from dispensing with all these dependencies. VEGETARIANS MUST LOOK INTO THEIR OWN INCONSISTENCIES AND HYPOCERISIES IF THEY ARE NOT TO FALL INTO FANTASIES OF SUPERIORITY.

In Buddhist Tibet, where vegetables have been scarce and meat eating is a vertual necessity, those who had takens vows of nonkilling were permitted to eat meat as long as they did not kill it themselves. In consequence, the butchers on whom they depended were usually Muslims, onto whom the guilt could be shuffled in the same way that Jews in Christendom were made to carry the guilt of usury.

Futhermore, at this point most of us assume that plants are not sentient. We have left behind the old animistic beliefs that plants had souls, which meant that gathering and agriculture were attended by guilt feelings similar to those surrounding animal slaughter and required propitiation.


To understand the recent surge of vegetarianism, we should note the important ecological pressures and the relative wastefulness of stock raising compared to meeting our nutritional needs directly from the produce of the fields, and also put it in the context of current meating eating practice. In the past, in most settled communities all over the world, meat has been a relative rarity, a LUXARY ITEM. The decision to slaughter one of the stock was not taken lightly, and hunting expeditions brought in only occasional prized beasts, every bit of which would find a use (See what the Chinese and/or Italians do with a pig). THE REALITY OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FOOD AND DEATH WAS PART OF EVERYONE'S EXPERIENCE, TOGETHER WITH THE MIXED FEELINGS FO PLEASURE AND GUILT. The ready availability of prepackaged supermarket meat and the distnace of the average city dweller from the live animal and the slaughtering process has meant that the meat-eater can enjoy considerable protection from feelings of guilt concerning the animal's death. meanwhile, split off from collective consciousness, the quality of life of the typical food animal has diminished, often grotesquely, and the circumstances surrounding its death have arguably become far more terrible.

Though some of its members may simplistically imagine that to refrain from meat is to refrain from being destructive, the vegetarian movement ahs brought back into general awareness the conflict surrounding the consumption of meat. Re-relating to the suffering animal is no doubt also an attempt to reconnect with and respect our own ill-treated instinctual nature.

The nineteenth-century French gastronome Brillat-Savarin declared, "Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es."(86) ["Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you who you are," Physiologie du Gout, p. 5]. We might compare this with the epigraph to this chapter, the advice from the I Ching to pay heed to the providing of nourishment, and to what a man seeks to fill his own mouth with, further explained by Richard Wilhelm: "If we wish to know what anyone is like, we have only to observe on whom he bestows care and what sides of his own nture he cultivates and nourishes (and denies).

Somewhere scientific dietetics (subject ot constant revision) merges with collect and individual projections onto foodstuffs: fish is good for the brain (Three Stooges, "Then you should eat a whale!"), beef makes you manly or aggressive, oysters are an aphrodisiac, "No sugar, thanks, I am sweet enough as I am." What we eat can be associated with which gods were serve.

WHO ARE WE NURTURING WHEN WE NURTURE "OURSELVES"?

A woman with an ulcer took to eating baby food. It was the baby that really wanted feeding.

Whether we are feeding our individualism or our traditional values, eithical judgements or our nonchalance, whate we take in through our mouths tells us something about where we direct our energy.

After his long practice of asceticism (rigid self-denial) failed to achieve the desired result, the Buddha turned from feeding the spirit and starving the body--he accepted some milk-rice from a woman. In so doing, he was not only being fed by but also feeding the earth mother, not living on spirit alone.

THEN HE ATTAINED ENLIGHTENMENT, FOR IN ABANDONING HIS ONE-SIDED STRIVING HE HAD DISCOVERED THE MIDDLE WAY; HE WAS HONORING BOTH HEAVEN AND EARTH, SPIRIT AND BODY.

Food and Transformation: Imagery and Symbolism of Eating, Eve Jackson, Inner City Books, 1996, pp.76 to 81.

Food for thought? Balance? Yes, I eat both vegetables and meat.

[harry_the_monk]

You forgot to include the ritualistic cannibalism enjoyed all over the world before 'civilised' man settled and showed the 'barbarians' the errors of their ways....

Peace... :cool:

[The Willow Sword]

the problem with alot of vegetarians is that when they switch over thier body metabolism changes and goes through a with drawl process. because theyre not getting the protien blast when they used to eat chicken or beef they would tend to get tired and weak. the reason being is that now the body is starting to assimilate the carbs now being taken into the body,,,mostly simple carb which will now crash the blood sugar system. the pancrease(which produces insulin) now overreacts and everytime something is consumed there is a drop due to the insulin shooting into the blood stream. hence you get the dreaded syndrom X. most vegetarians i know eat a lot of pasta and bread to help sustain thier energy levels. but to thier dismay they are just prolonging the process of syndrom X. which in effect is hypoglycemia(low blood sugar). the body will then try to counteract the carbs and store it as fat and then you gain weight.(my mother is a tank now because she eats too much simple carb)she has been a vegetarian for over 20+ years. i have a lot of experience in this field and i will say hat if you are going to go vegetarian the complex carbs and protien is a MUST Complex carbs:WHOLE GRAIN
PRODUCTS AS IN BREADS OR RICE(BROWN)
VEGETABLES (ALL)EXCEPT FOR YAMS AND POTATOES WHICH ARE ROOT VEGGIES, CONSUME THESE IN LESS QUANTITIES. SOY PROTIEN IS GOOD BUT ALMOND PROTIEN IS BETTER(MUCH MUCH BETTER BECAUSE IT IS A COMPLETE PROTIEN BY ITSELF,BUT ALMONDS ARE HARD TO DIGESTSO THEREFORE MUST BE SOAKED IN WATER OVERNIGHT TO BETTER ALLOW FOR ASSIMILATION AND DIGESTION. LEGUMES ARE WONDERFULL BUT ARE NOT ALL COMPLETE,,COMBINING WITH THE RICE MAKES THEM COMPLETE. SPICES IN EVERYTHING YOU COOK IS EXCELLENT FOR THE SPICES ACTUALLY HELP FACILITATE BETTER DIGESTION(IE: CURRY, CINNAMON, PEPPER ETC.)
AS FOR SUGARS FRUIT; SUGARS ARE THE BEST AS WELL AS PURE CANE(UNPROCESSED UNSTRIPPED SUGAR)
AS FOR VITAMINS SUPPLEMENTS,,YOU DONT NEED THEM UNLESS YOUR BODY CANT ABSORB CERTAIN VITAMINS FROM PLANT SOURCES. CALCIUM:CHARD, KALE,,SPINACH.
GOOD SOURCES. MOST GREENS WILL HAVE IT.
DAIRY: BAD VERY BAD,,AVOID AVOID.
NUTS AND SEEDS: GREAT BUT SOME YOU MUST SOAK FIRST BEFORE CONSUMPTION, OTHER WISE IT IS JUST FILLER AND WILL NOT BENEFIT YOU.
FATS: OLIVE OIL IN ITS RAW(NOT FRIED STATE) IS THE PERFECT SOLUABLE FAT TO CONSUME IN MY OPINION. CLARIFIED BUTTER(GHEE) IS OKAY BUT REMEMBER WHAT I WROTE ABOUT DAIRY.
I THINK THAT IS ABOUT ALL,,,,,THIS KNOWLEGE IS A CULMINATION OF STUDY AND RESEARCH OF 10= YEARS OF BEING VEGETARIAN.
I AM NO LONGER A VEGTARIAN BUT I STILL FOLLOE THE DIET MENTIONED ABOVE I JUST INCLUDE SEAFOOD AND A LITTLE CHICKEN IN WITH IT. WHY? CAUSE I LOOOOOOOOOOOVE SEAFOOD. HEY IM NOT PERFECT.
MANY RESPECTS, WILLOW SWORD :cool:

Whatever you think i am or want me to be,,, i am.

[Fish of Fury]

origenx
the hi-protein diet for weight loss is a pretty new concept (i think, maybe it's just the latest recycled idea? :) )
i haven't looked into it much but i have some colleagues who use it clinically, the basic theory being that high protein intake stimulates thermogenesis ie. alters the metabolism to help you burn fat.not sure if it's valid or not.

"The REAL problem with the Standard American Diet is processing. Of course, I guess no dietician can really pinpoint that b/c he'd get his *ss sued by the food processing industry.
My evolving diet is simple. Natural is better than processed. Plant better than animal."

i totally agree with that :)

Willow Sword :)
good info.
all i'd add is that it may be worth considering the levels of Vit.s and Minerals in the fruit and veg. to start with.if the soil/growing conditions are deficient, the vege.s may be too.
eg. i've heard that oranges studied in the lab several years ago had no detectable vitamin C in them.

__________________________________________________ _________________________ "I'm just trying to lull you into a genuine sense of security!"

[origenx]

RAF - Geez that was a long post - I'll have to read it more in detail later - but yes humans do seem to have a natural aversion to meat (but not plant) eating. And you'll notice that our closest relatives, primates, are also largely vegetarians. And speaking of animals, horses are vegetarians, they are rock-solid muscular, have loads of energy and can run 45 mph!

But anyhow, notice how we take various steps to distance and disassociate ourselves from the live animal:

First, we often rename the animal (cow = "beef," pig = "pork," lamb = "mutton," deer = "venison," meat scraps = "hot dog," hot dog scraps = "Chicken McNugget," etc.) But notice how we DON'T do that with fruits and veggies. Ever think about why we do that then? DISASSOCIATION.

Second, most of us buy meat already processed, and don't actually kill the animals ourselves. I'd imagine if you had to personally kill a cow everytime u ate a burger, u might not be eating that many burgers. DISTANCE.

Willow Sword - I'm vegetarian and have loads of energy. I know, I can speak from experience.

Harry the monk - Flour-based foods a necessity??? LOL - if that was so, how do animals survive? How did man survive before he invented flour? H*ll no they're not a necessity. In fact, before man invented flour, no one really got cavities b/c flour-based foods are also a leading cause of cavities.

[This message was edited by origenx on 06-21-01 at 03:31 PM.]

[RAF]

Orignex

Your right, it was quite a long post. The book is very interesting.

I think the point of the text is not whether vegetarianism can be proven better or meat eating is better but the choice reflects some very deep unconscious self statements. I've tried both and feel much better eating meat and keeping grounded in my instinctual side. However, I will also eat many so-called vegetarian dishes because I like them and they keep a balance.

My experience with two friend who went vegan was horrible. They were as self-righteous as a Christian zealot and horribly condemning and judgemental. They did, as the post state, develop an air of moral superiority.

I still have my copy of Diet for a Small Planet but I choose meat eating (not tons of it) and vegetable eating in search of preserving an unconscious sort of balance (instinct v. spiritual). Those who are on the extremes, the hefty meat meater and the granola crunchers tend, in my experience, to exhibit similiar aggressive traits. Meat eaters (at the extreme) are very explicit about their aggressiveness and the vegans very passive aggressive.

Interestingly, most Chinese I meet prefer meat but in very small portions (I like that) and the killing isn't so troublesome: I find nature to be amoral.

Later

[Anarcho]

RAF, I know what you mean about the self-righteous vegetarians...A friend of mine was once told he was "worse than Hitler" for eating meat. But don't you think that's a problem with pretty much any lifestyle choice? It's really just another manifestation of the "my style's better than yours" phenomenon. People have made a commitment to a certain way of doing things, and some people then feel that the only way they can justify that significant commitment is to represent anyone who doesn't make that commitment as ineffective, unfeeling, stupid etc.

Sure, there are nasty vegetarians, but there are also happy friendly vegetarians like me. :p

Soup is good food.

[RAF]

Yeah, that's what the whole point of the text. Our choices reflect both conscious and unconscious energies.

Believe toufu gan and toufu pi are some of my favorite dishes. I have had friends who are strict meat and potatoes guys---a steak a day.

Glad to know we got some friendly vegetarians out there. I once watched some vegetarian chick freak out because her ma po bean curd was made with chicken broth. She went bonkers on the poor Chinese waitress.

I am also in favor of more free range meats, not necessarily because its good for you but it also raises the price of meats and in my own deviant way, makes meat a luxary, which I think it should be.

But you are right about lifestyles and those **** boca burgers really taste good! With the potential threat of mad cow, they substitute quite well.

[bryandavis]

I train 3-5 days a week in my class 3 hours average. And I dont eat to much. My average daily meal is like this...

breakfast: Toast (2pcs), one peice of fruit, 1-2 glasses of juice.

lunch: vegie sanwich, or vegi dish with tofu, salad with light dressing, some rice or a slice of toast, juice or icetea.

dinner: fruit, veggie dish or peanut butter sandwich. and juice.

snacks: one or two during the day, trail mix or rasins.

water all day, juice now and then.

I feel full of energy, lively and ready to go.