Want to have the perfect and shapely butt a la Hollywood star Jennifer Lopez and Bollywood’s very own beauty Malaika Arora Khan? If yes, then eat healthy, exercise, do yoga or else go under the knife, suggest experts.

I ran across this article in The Hindu this morning, an English-speaking Indian daily newspaper, with circulation of 1.2 million (the New York Times clocks in at 1.6 million). The article explains how women in their 30s or post-pregnancy simply get fat butts. The article’s title politely refers to it as “firm posteriors”.

There was no subtly or reading between the lines: The Problem = fat women. The Solution = diet, exercise and to adopt a long standing tradition for yoga for the single aim of moulding your ass.

My naivety was rocked. I know that the ideal body has taken shape globally (not a rounded-edge form, but shared on a global-scale). I just hadn’t expected India to blatantly bastardize their own tradition for the purpose of a materialistic goal.

It got better.

Thanks to increasing awareness, women in India have started talking about their dissatisfaction with their butt and are consulting cosmetic surgeons to solve their problem.

Increasing awareness! It’s almost sounding like a grassroots movement! Crack open the dialog and take action, ladies. I’m not an expert, but I feel that this is part of our Western gift back to the world. The media is our tool for increasing awareness, and the message is clear. Women around the world are being pressured into conforming to a physical ideal by taking external measures to combat their natural shape. I’ve written about this recently in The New Yoga Diet.

It’s interesting that in the West, we’re much more subtle with these messages. The ideal body is a known undercurrent in our society, but not spelled out so blatantly. Perhaps it’s due to the fact this publication is written in a second language; the subtly got lost in translation. But the tone seems moth-eaten to me, something dredged up from the 50s or 60s for the homemaker audience. With such a blunt message, my reaction was equally as candid: it’s time to get over this focus and devaluation of our external selfves.

I’ve written this piece because I feel there is a solution that’s being shadowed by the huge industrial complex of food, health and beauty. I’m calling it the “new yoga diet” because it challenges the traditional version – which I feel, like other regimens, fails to restore internal balance.

People close to me know that like many, I’ve had a less than ideal relationship with food. But I’m tired of fighting with it. I’m now in a place where I’m trying to seek a long term solution, and I’m somewhere on that path, and the signs are pointing in the right direction. So this doesn’t make me an expert, just a fellow voyageur, trying to make sense of it.

Furthermore, I feel that anyone who finds peace in their own choice of diet is beyond the need for justification. If it works for you, that’s all that needs to be said.

Food is a basic requirement for life

As human beings, we have undeniable basic needs: oxygen, water, food and shelter. Out of those four, the one that has the greatest number of dimensions and complexity is food. Food has physical, psychological, cultural and philosophical aspects – we think about it a lot, we eat often, we prepare it and share it with others. Everyone has a unique and compound relationship with food.

For most of us, it’s generally a positive relationship. If we strip away the social stigmas and internal battles, food is something we enjoy. We are biologically wired to find pleasure in it, this motivates us to consume enough to survive.

The trouble is, we have the tendency to eat past the point of pleasure and necessity. We eat things that aren’t good for us, but they taste really good. Our evolutionary chemistry seems to drive us to eat while food is there, and to eat food that is high in energy. Our instincts pressure us because the future is uncertain, and eating in the present will sustain us into that future.

In the developed world, most of us benefit from a regular, abundant and diverse supply of food. This is a good thing, except that living in the developed world, we also have a decreased need to be physically active. In fact, at our level of technological development, a person really does not ever have to move their physical self to sustain an independent life.

The Internal Imbalance

What we are left with is a food and energy equation that’s out of whack. We have a desire for food beyond our need for it. I’ll call this the “internal imbalance”. It negatively affects our health, our longevity, and even our environment. But humans are smart and opportunistic; we seek solutions to problems, like this imbalance.

So how have we collectively chosen to deal with this problem? The first collective decision is a “perfect form”, an external physical goal to strive towards. The idea of the perfect body is powerful yet cliché, we’ve seen it in so many forms of media that it’s imprinted in our mind’s eye.

The second part to our societal solution is to decide on a method to reach that goal. The core belief is that we need to consciously take control over our food intake, or energy output, or both, by following “regimens”.

Huge industries are grown and sustained desire to overcome the internal imbalance through regimens. Food manufacturing, diet systems, health and pharmaceuticals companies are “helping” us gain control, and ultimately strive towards societally dictated equilibrium: the “optimal form”.

Diets, Regimens, and Disorders

The problem with the external goal and it’s prescribed solution is that we are compelled to follow them. It’s an external push/pull, driven by billions of dollars, when the problem originates from an internal imbalance. The means to this end; activities, things like food restriction, weight lifting, stomach stapling, dietary supplements are all external control mechanisms.

The effort to meet externally set goals misaligns us from our natural tendencies. We continually make resolutions, prescribe ourselves the optimal yoga diet, resolve to adhere to a new exercise plan. But these activities do not work in the longterm, they do not rectify our imbalance.

Instead, there are two paths, two patterns with which our internal pendulum can swing.

Cyclical Imbalance

Deep down, human beings don’t like doing unnecessary things. Life is too short and too complicated for this kind of noise. When we quietly abandon these external goals, the stress is compounded by a sense of failure. We are back to square one; we wait a little, then try again.

The only winner here is economic benefactor of the products and services we subscribe to in our effort to find balance through their neatly packaged solutions.

Disorders

This outcome may result too, though it is more rare. By controlling food intake and/or exercise in an extreme way, over a sustained period of time, a false sense of control and peace arises.

Your sense of self gets split, and a controlling drill sergeant voice begins to take a more active role in day-to-day decision making. An ongoing conversation between your dominant unkind self, and kind nurturing self, takes hold. Over time, the controlling self gains ground because it’s strategy works – in the mind of the believer, things are in control and in balance.

I am not a psychiatrist, but I am speaking from personal experience. It’s a devastating cycle, and cannot be left to run its course.

The New Yoga Diet

It should be no surprise that I am strongly opposed to the notion of a “diet” – in my lexicon it’s a four letter word. My solution is not a list of do’s and don’ts. There is no regimen.

Instead, I believe that a true yoga “diet” is an internal balance of food and energy, based on the same mindful principles that we apply to yoga practice.

It is personal.
It is different for everyone.
It should feel natural, not a something we are compelled to do.
It should make one feel whole and balanced, not deprived.
It will take a long time, probably a lifetime.

The first step is to lay the groundwork. You need to calm your mind, create space to work within. For me, this is where yoga comes in, it’s my way of exercising mindfulness. But for you, it doesn’t need to be yoga or meditation.

Ekhart Tolle has some beautifully simple things to say about it in The Power of Now and A New Earth. A couple times a day, you need to find a quite mental place where you can be aware of yourself. It’s up to you to find this place in a way that works for you. But breathing deeply seems to be a common aid for most people (remember the first basic human need? Take care of that).

The second step is to listen, internally to what our selves (body and mind as a unified whole) are communicating. The body gives us continual feedback through sensations.

The trick is to catch the sensation before it becomes a thought. Thoughts are awash in judgments, guilt.

The Eating Experience

Eating in it’s pure form is such a simple pleasure – take everything you can from it. Taste, smell, texture, temperature, spice… there are so many great things about food. This is where natural, low-processed foods step-up. There are so many more layers of flavor to enjoy. Hunger is uncomfortable, so enjoy the experience of satiating it.

After you’ve eaten, be a thought-warrior. If you are thinking “I shouldn’t have eaten that” and the word “shouldn’t” relates in any way to guilt (fortunately an easy feeling to identify), let it go! The thought is based on an external judgment and it has no positive purpose. Let it go.

If you feel physically uncomfortable from what you’ve eaten, learn from it. Your body really does want you to learn and adjust your habits; that’s why it’s giving you the cues. This could be a feeling of being too full, a sugar rush, a sense of lethargy, difficulty digesting, or a feeling of acidity.

The simpler you keep your meals, the easier it is to isolate your body’s reaction to your food. This means choosing whole foods with less processing. You can create your own ideal diet, over time, by making simple choices, listening to the feedback, and adjusting.

Get in Touch With Your Hunger

Hunger is your cue that it’s time to eat. It takes many forms: a feeling of hollowness, cramping in your gut, or it may feel more mental, like apathy.

Most of the time, it’s important to wait for this cue before you eat. Eating without hunger is okay in many circumstances, like “you’ve got to try this cheese” or you have to eat the bowl of cereal before you hop on your hour transit ride to work. But whenever you can, wait for your hunger. Food tastes better when you’re hungry, and you can be sure then that you need it.

The being said… do not let hunger go on for too long. I mean “get in touch with it”, but don’t grab hold of it and sit with it for lengths of time. I’ve wallowed in hunger a lot, and it’s not healthy. If a meal is not practical, have a healthy snack. Cure it, though temporarily.

What are You Hungry For?

By listening to your body’s feedback, you get more in touch with what foods you are hungry for. For me, the morning is when my body wants carbohydrates, but I can’t eat much protein beyond nut butter. When I’m hungry I quickly go over a range of possibilities, like trying to fit the perfect puzzle piece.

How do you make healthy choices? For me, I try to think ahead. You have to sit with the after-effects longer than you spend eating. I know how my body reacts to french fries vs. a banana with almond butter. I think ahead to the outcome, and make choices based on that. That’s how I choose healthy food, most of the time.

And I like ice cream, and chocolate, and wine. It’s all part of the balance. Be mindful as much as you can, and let go of the guilt.

A Few Extra Pointers

Focus on vegetables, vegetable oils and vegetable based proteins.

Find a cheap local produce market, or walk into the produce section of the grocery store first. Load up. There are many reasons for choosing vegetables, I’m not going to preach about it in this particular post. But I do incorporate a lot of them into my recipes.

If you eat meat, enjoy it, but make sure you get your veggies first.

Obsessing over carbs is a personal pet peeve of mine. Just choose lesser processed carbs, your brain needs them to think. The problem is that simple carbs (sugar, white flour) don’t give your body clear cues about when you’re full. Complex ones do. Hooray!

Oils and butter make food tasty. If you’re cooking, use enough to get the flavor you’re looking for. If you make a higher-fat meal, it packs more punch, and you won’t need to eat as much volume.

Have trouble drinking water? Dilute your juice. I have trouble drinking enough water, but I don’t want to load up on juice. I combine ¼ juice (usually something strong and clear like blueberry) with ¾ water or soda water. With a bit of flavor, I drink like an elephant at a watering hole in the African Savannah.

I recommend Michael Pollan’s – In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto. His writing was hugely inspiring, and converted me from a nutritionally fixated eater to a holistic one. It’s a long journey, but I think I’m finally getting it.

Related Article: Read more about eating disorders and recovery from the anti-identity crisis through yoga.