Yoga

Creatine administration was shown to significantly improve performance in cognitive and memory tests in vegetarian individuals involved in double-blind, placebo-controlled cross-over trials. Vegetarian supplementation with creatine seems to be especially beneficial as they appear to have lower average body stores, since meat is a primary source of dietary creatine.

- Creatine Supplements: Mental Performance, Wikipedia

In humans, approximately half of stored creatine originates from food (mainly from fresh meat). Since vegetables do not contain creatine, vegetarians show lower levels of muscle creatine which, upon creatine supplementation, rise to a level higher than in meat-eaters.

- Creatine: Sources, Wikipedia

Both quotes have sources cited in the relevant wikipedia article.

Now I have to say that taking creatine and hitting the mat I do feel like I just killed and ate some small animal, or maybe like I need to kill and eat a small animal. If the tag line for Bodyquick is "Got Kill Speed?" and the supplement gives you kill speed (it boosts reaction time by up to 35%), then Creatine gives you "extra killing power".

I'm taking Kre-Alkalyn, a relative new form of creatine supplement. It is "pH-corrected", weighing in at a whopping pH of 12 - extremely alkaline.A pH of 7 is neutral, less than 7 acidic, more than 7 alkaline - up to a maximum of 14 - pure alkaline. The human body operates optimally at around 7.36, on the alkaline side of 7.

Exactly how creatine increases your killing power is still up in the air. This very informative and only slightly technical article describes three current hypotheses.

Apparently (this is according to the Kre-Alkalyn website, which by the way has a horrible 90's design using frames - go here to get the navigation menu), non-base pH Creatine supplements break down in liquid (like in your stomach) into creatinine [wikipedia], which is the exhaust produced when creatine does its thing in your muscles. Creatinine is filtered from your system by the kidneys.

I've been using Creatine for a whole three days now, and I've read a number of testimonials on the internets, and I've got my own story already.

Lots of people are asking questions like: "I'm going on a cruise in a couple of weeks. Can I take creatine and look buff?"

The answer to this is: only if you use the additional creatine in your system to go harder in your exercise program.

Some people report no benefit to their long distance and endurance running.

Some people report "bulking up" and looking "fuller", but losing muscle definition due to water retention.

Some people report sore joints as a result of taking a creatine supplement.

According to the makers of Kre-Alkalyn (who bill it as "the benefits of creatine without the side effects" and "the results without the bloat"), these side effects are due to the deterioration of the creatine supplement to the bio-waste product creatinine when it encounters a liquid.

I have another theory. If the other creatine supplements are non-base pH, and Kre-Alkalyn claims to have a patent covering all creatine supplements with a pH in the range of 7 -14 which implies that they are, then all creatine supplements, with the exception of Kre-Alklyn, are acidic.

If you put something acidic into your muscles then your body will respond to that by diluting the acid to bring it back to your bio-optimum. It will do this by pumping water into the muscle cells. This is why you have to drink a lot of water when you take creatine supplements, and why you immediately bulk up and lose definition.

I haven't noticed any water retention (bloat) with Kre-Alkalyn. What I have noticed is increased strength and muscle recovery. Available creatine in the body enables the production of ATP [wikipedia]. This means more energy at the cellular level. One article I read explained it like this: "you won't go from bench pressing 200 lbs to 250 lbs, but you will go from 5 reps to 7 reps."

In other words, Creatine supplementation doesn't increase your strength per se, it increases the ability of your muscles to recover. This allows you to push yourself more, and this will increase your strength. This is not going to be much good if you're doing long distance and endurance events, which don't have an exertion / recovery cycle. However, it's perfect for Bikram Yoga with the 20 second shivasana (corpse pose) between reps.

Especially for a weedy little vegetarian like me, creatine supplementation seems to be working well. The main thing is that I am able to play faster mrdanga beats for a longer time, and also sing while I'm doing it. I'm getting to test this each morning at mangal-arati and measure the results. And that's ultimately what it's all about. This body is simply an engine for Sri Krishna sankirtan.

Addendum: I cast a wider net, and found other sources of Creatine: juniper berries, apparently, and also this NZ bee pollen. The other day Hari Sauri prabhu mentioned bee pollen as a source of Vitamin B12 as well, so while I'm in NZ I might see if I can get some of this.

Hydration is super important when you are doing hot yoga, or any other kind of intense exercise. However, simply drinking water is not enough. If you've ever drunk your sweat off your mat (and believe me - some days I have!) you know that you're not sweating pure water - you're sweating a complex blend of vitamins and minerals. Just drinking water will soon have you as depleted as a strip mine. You need an electrolyte replacement drink. Commercial drinks like Powerade are full of sugar, and simple carbohydrates (sugars) are no good when you're all about getting ripped. You need to reduce carbs and increase protein to get muscle definition. So I've been mixing my own electrolyte replacement drink - The Sita-pati Koolaid.

I start with a base of Pureau water, then add Herbs of Gold Muscle Resuscitation. This is a bio-enhanced magnesium powder. Magnesium depletion leads to sore muscles, and ultimately to muscle cramping during exertion. The Herbs of Gold powder also contains a number of B vitamins, a range of other trace elements, and stevia - a powerful natural sweetener.

The Herbs of Gold Muscle Resuscitation also gives the Sita-pati Koolaid that rad patented yellow colour. I tell anyone who asks that I'm trying out urine therapy to boost my performance on the mat. ;-)

Next I add 24 drops of Cellfood. Ekendra put me on to this. It has 78 ionic minerals, 34 enzymes, 17 amino acids, electrolytes and dissolved oxygen in it.

Then I add a cap of Lifesprings Colloidal Minerals. This stuff has 75 plant-derived colloidal minerals in it.

Then I add a cap of Colloidal Silver. Colloidal silver is a natural antibiotic.

Sometimes I add a packet of Percy's Powder. Percy's contains Magnesium, Iron, Zinc, Potassium, and Manganese, as Sulphates. More often though I'll take this neat in the juice of a lemon and with a B Vitamin complex capsule. Doing this on an empty stomach, for example straight after a yoga session, is the optimum way to absorb it.

The end result of all this is the supercharged Sita-pati Koolaid.

You can make your own electrolyte replacement drink too. Go to the health food store and have a look at the different things they have. Fire up Google and do some research - read some testimonials and some overviews such as wikipedia (be sure to follow the links to original references), and start trying stuff out.

Don't waste your money or your health drinking commercial cordials. Drink your own Koolaid!

I forgot to mention in yesterday's post "Why Dairy Makes You Stiff that dairy products are acid-forming in the body. They result in the same lactic acid build-up that I described in Why Drinking Green Juices Makes You More Flexible.

You can read more about it here: Latose and Lactic Acid.

Yesterday was Ekadasi and I ate lightly and had a "dairy detox" after the cheese on Wednesday. A world of difference on the yoga mat today.

Last night I had some Parmesan cheese. Not a lot, just a little bit, over my beans and rice. This morning in my Bikram class I felt stiff, and was clearing my throat of mucus continually.

Doing the same thing every day, like clockwork, I notice variations like this. I had a similar experience a couple of weeks ago - the day after I drank 500ml of organic milk.

Diary produces mucus in the body - not simply in the lungs, which causes you to clear your throat, but also in the body tissues.

I take a whey protein isolate each day. I also treat myself, from time to time, with a Cherri Berri frozen yoghurt with fresh fruit. Neither of these produce the same reaction as the small amount of cheese did, or the 500 ml of milk.

Diary is good for bulking up. That's why body building shops have huge tubs of whey protein concentrate and isolates. As the lady in the health food store told me: "Compared to rice and soy protein, whey protein concentrates have the most bio-available protein. It's more easily absorbed into the body".

In his "Rules for the Temple", Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura writes:

Excessive foppery, excessive drinking of milk, eating luxuriously like a big man, should be totally given up. We don't want gymnasts (body builders) in our math.

Diary is animal protein - "meat" in another form. Whereas the blood of the cow is salty, her milk is sweet. Otherwise the nutritional value is similar, as Srila Prabhupada would point out.

An early practice in ISKCON was to add salt to burnt milk to remove the burnt taste. Srila Prabhupada wrote to devotees to tell them not to do this, and that this is a "cause of leprosy." H.H. Jayapataka Swami pointed out to me that adding salt makes it again salty like cow's blood.

Milk is a natural food for infants. Small animals and birds are unable to forage for themselves, and unable to digest large amounts or difficult to digest foods. By nature's arrangement their parents are able to supply them - birds by regurgitating into the mouths of their young, mammals by producing highly concentrated milk.

After a number of years a human being develops lactose intolerance, which is a natural way for them to wean off their mother's milk and begin to eat solids.

However, it turns out that a significant number of humans do not become lactose intolerant. Investigation has shown that there are five distinct genetic adaptations for suppression of lactose intolerance.

This indicates that in geographical isolation different groups of humans discovered that instead of expending huge amounts of energy hunting animals for protein, they could get protein by milking cows. Their bodies adapted to this - in a different way in different places.

For a hunter-gatherer a nice big cup of milk is a great way to get protein - little energy has to be expended to get it, versus hunting down and killing an animal - and it's comparatively low risk.

For a subsistence farmer, it can be a life saver. When you farm locally for survival a failed crop doesn't just mean that the vegetable prices go up in the market - it means you starve.

People who could stomach milk had a greater chance of survival. It's not that human beings are "not designed to eat meat". They obviously can. I think the more accurate thing to say is that they are "not optimized for meat eating".

Mucus is the body's reaction to foreign invaders. Because milk is animal protein, it's identified by the body as foreign. While the body can absorb the proteins and bulk up on them, it also bulks up with mucus. This mucus can cause persistent cellulite, and it also makes the muscles stiffen up.

Modified milk, such as yoghurt, which has acidophillus bacteria in it that aid assimilation, and whey protein isolates, are more easily absorbed by the body than straight milk or cheese.

All foods have an effect on the body. Which ones we choose to take is influenced by what we want to do. If I had the choice between starving and drinking millk, I have absolutely no doubt which one I'd choose. If I had to be really big and strong to swing a sword, I'd be knocking it back by the keg. However, right now I'm opting to pass on the milk when I'm working on increasing my flexibility, because I have first hand experience of what it does to me.

For the past four months I've been drinking two or three caps of Oxyrich, an oxygen donor, in a litre of water.

I drink it during my Bikram class, in the water breaks, and the effect has been to almost completely eliminate the soreness and stiffness that I used to feel the day after a class.

According to the marketing speak Oxyrich is "5% v/v of pure di-atomic oxygen in a base of pH balanced De-Ionised Grander Living Water and unrefined Atlantic Sea Salt".

What that translates to is this: diatomic oxygen means O2.That's oxygen gas. According to information on the Oxyrich website, oxygen gas is somehow stabilised in water using electrolysis.

(Read about the use of liquid stabilised oxygen in treating cancer)

Soreness in muscles is caused by lactic acid build up. Lactic acid is a by-product of anaerobic respiration. The word "anaerobic" comes from the Greek an- = without, aer = air. At a cellular level when oxygen is exhausted, when the blood can no longer supply sufficient oxygen to the muscle fibres to meet their demand under load, the cells switch to anaerobic respiration. They "breathe" by burning blood sugars. The byproduct of this anaerobic respiration is acid. The acid build up leads to soreness and stiffness in the muscles the next day.

By supplying the body's cells with extra oxygen by drinking oxygenated water, anaerobic respiration is avoided. When the water hits the body the oxygen is easily absorbed at a cellular level. You can go harder without exhausting yourself, and the next day you aren't sore and stiff.

One of the things about Bikram is that being in the hot room with 30 or 40 other students can quickly lead to oxygen depletion in the air. To get the most out of the practice I oxygenate at a cellular level by adding Oxyrich to my water bottle. You can probably get a similar or the same result by drinking 3% pharmaceutical grade hydrogen peroxide, but personally I'm sticking with the commercial stuff for the time being. I get a 1 litre bottle of it once every two months. Anyway, as Lord Krishna explains in Bhagavad-gita, the perfection of religion is direct perception - try it for yourself and see!

A couple of months back I followed a targeted ad on Facebook ("Yoga students ONLY!") and found Yoga Body - a website that states: "Yoga Poses & Yoga Exercises aren't Enough for Flexibility".

The main premise of the site is that drinking green juices makes you more flexible.

For a little over a month now I've been drinking a cup of juiced leafy greens, such as lettuce or cale, daily, half an hour before going to my Bikram class. My observation is that this premise is correct.

I ordered some of the formula that Lucas sells on the Yoga Body site, and I'll try it out when it gets here, and let you know how good it is. When you order the product you get a free yoga pdf from Lucas. In there he states that he doesn't really know why drinking green juices makes you more flexible, but he knows it's true.

In the meantime, I shared my realization about green juices making you more flexible with some work mates. Param Satya teaches yoga in my office each Wednesday, and we talk yoga over lunch (which she cooks) afterwards.

Being an engineer, of course my mate Jeff wanted to know "how it works".

"It's easy. " I told him. "Here's how it works - you drink a cup of green juice before you do yoga, and it makes you more flexible."

Not quite what he was looking for.

Today I visited Jeff's cube and told him that after a couple of weeks of research I can now give him a rational explanation for why this works.

For the past two days I've been listening to Anthony Robbin's "Living Heallth" Seminar, and connecting a lot of dots in my yoga practice, nutrition, and all of the diet and lifestyle changes that we've been implementing at Red Hill over the past year or so. This morning it all fell into place, and I have an explanation for why green juices make you more flexible. I don't have scientific evidence. It may not be true, but it's a good explanation that gives some context and rational support for something that I can directly experience by drinking green juice.

So finally, after all that preamble, here it is:

Why Drinking Green Juices Makes You More Flexible

Most people have a chronic yeast infection. Yeast is living inside their body, in their blood stream. Some studies indicate that 70%-80% of the population has it. Sometimes it breaks out as thrush, athlete's foot, or some other external manifestation, but a lot of the time it's just like a background noise - ignored but ever present.

This yeast eats the glucose in the blood stream. This leads to a drop in sugar level and sugar cravings. It also causes a drop in energy. To compensate for this and satisfy these cravings people take sugar and caffeine.

As the yeast eats the glucose it produces acid. This acid then enters into the muscle tissue, causing it to become hard - just like when you exercise hard and your muscles go into anaerobic respiration and produce lactic acid. The next day you wake up with sore, tight muscles. Well, basically this process is going on all the time at a low level internally due to the yeast.

So drinking green juices alkalizes the internal environment, which makes it inhospitable to the yeast. The yeast requires an acidic environment to thrive, and in turn contributes to creating an even more acidic environment. Once you start alkalizing the environment the yeast is toast.

So there's a good story for you. Regardless of whether or not it's "true", direct perception is the perfection of religion - so start drinking green juices daily and take your forward bend to the next level!

OMG - The Perfection of Yoga!!!

Bikram chanted the maha-mantra and recommended Bhagavad-gita during his recent seminar in Sydney, btw.

I recently finished a Bikram 30-day challenge. That's where you do at least one 90 minute class per day for 30 days, doing Bikram's signature 26 posture set in a room heated to 37 degree celsius.

During that challenge I went down to Sydney and did a 12 hour seminar (9 am - 9 pm) with Bikram himself. Great guy - very entertaining, and very dedicated.

Physically and mentally I'm completely exhausted after the effort. I got a flu towards the end, and spent a torturous couple of days in Sydney in a freezing cold hotel room unable to sleep or eat. I lost a few kilos of weight, but got a lot of realization out of it.

I liked Bikram. He joked around and gave his audience "credit for 5% of being humans, no more than that". He also explained that the number one reason for divorce in the West is that "women don't know how to cook". No apologetic annotations here.

Here's a shot of me just after I finished the last class of the 30 days:

I went back to the studio for three days in a row at the end, and each day was "Day 29". Every time I would go back there would be some recalculation. It was like being in the movie "Ground Hog Day", where the lead character keeps waking up to the same day over and over again. I was pretty shattered each time, as I didn't really have the energy to complete the challenge. I'm still trying to recover now, a week later. Hopefully my energy levels will go back up to their pre-challenge levels. I really don't like being lethargic like this.

Anyway, as far as Hatha yoga goes - Bikram is the only way. :-)

I'm 21 days into the Bikram 30 day challenge.

Friday I'm flying down to Sydney. There I'll do a class with Darren Ma, two time Australian Yoga Champion, and then on Saturday I'm spending the day with Bikram Choudhary himself.

Sunday morning I'll go to mangalarati at the Sydney temple, then fly back to Brisbane at mid day to attend the evening festival here. My band is playing at 8 pm. I'll try to get a video for y'all.

The yoga is going good. I've modified my diet a lot over the past year since I last did it, and the difference is huge.Yoga Body Naturals is a yoga nutrition product that I discovered through an ad on facebook. I haven't tried it myself, but my observation of the effect of the radical dietary restructure I've done over the past year on my yoga bears out his premise that diet affects your flexibility.

I did a stint of body building about 15 years ago, and I've struggled with flexibility in my shoulders ever since. Now I'm really working into that.

Anyway, that's the news on the yoga. At work I'm recruiting three people to build out the team of writers. I have a new ad that I'll have HR run - I'll post a link to it later.

At Atma, I've been going over in my lunch hour and doing cleaning there, listening to Alvin Toffler's "Revolutionary Wealth" on the new 16GB iPod Touch I got from a work colleague.

The iPod Touch is great in that it boots up and plays within seconds. I don't have any spare time. I don't have time to wait for some slow player to boot up. When I have five minutes I can listen to something on the Touch.

I also have an eeePC. It has a 5 hour battery life. Currently I'm running Ubuntu 8.04 with the Netbook Remix on it. I have a lot of things to do, but little time at the moment. If I don't respond to your email don't take it personally.

With the Bikram challenge on and changing my role from writer to manager at work I'm at full capacity. It's good because I am developing my capability.

I have been thinking a lot of Caitanya Mahaprabhu and Rupa Goswami. I'll make another post about that.

Bikram yoga for the win!