How to Build a Balanced Breakfast

High Fiber Carbs. Carbohydrates are your body’s preferred energy source. High fiber carbs like oats, fruit, whole grain bread, quinoa, oat bran and whole grain waffles/pancakes provide you with nutrients that support digestion and balance blood sugar levels for sustained energy. 

Quality Protein. Adding protein to your breakfast helps to keep you feeling fuller for longer and can support optimal metabolic function. Protein is also important for maintaining lean muscle mass. My top protein sources for breakfast are eggs, greek yogurt, cottage cheese, turkey sausage, smoked salmon, tofu, beans, protein powders and high quality protein bars.

Healthy Fats. Fats are an essential nutrient that support nutrient absorption, hormone function and provide satisfaction when eating. For breakfast, the best fats to choose are avocados, nut butter, nuts (almonds, walnuts, cashews), seeds (like chia, flax, sunflower or hemp) or cooking oils like avocado or olive oil.

A Boost of Color. This means adding in a variety of fruits and veggies. The more color you have in your day, the better. Most people opt for fruit in the morning, which is fine, but if you can sneak some veggies in too, that’s great! For example, try a fruit and veggie smoothie, an omelet with veggies or savory oatmeal. 

Now that we have the formula, let’s review some ideas. One of my favorite go-to breakfast options lately is a yogurt bowl topped with my favorite protein bar, Zing Bars. Check out the recipe below:

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Picture this: Two dudes, each on a horse, in a huge field. At the same time, each horse starts moving. That’s where the similarities end. 

Dude #1 is holding on for dear life. He looks terrified and is bouncing around like he’s on a pogo stick instead of a horse. Basically, he happens to be there while the horse is doing whatever it darn well pleases. It prances, bucks, gallops, walks, spins around, runs in wide arcs. Through it all, the feller is off-balance, barely breathing, occasionally uttering a yell or expletive, and hoping for it all to calm down so he can catch his breath before the next rampage.

Dude #2, however, is a whole different story. His horse is moving under its own significant power, of course, but our guy is guiding it, encouraging it first one way, then another. He’s slowing it down when it wants to bolt ahead, and communicating firmly what he wants. Through it all, he sits tall in the saddle, holds the reins in a way that allows him the clearest communication with his ride. 

Got the metaphor?  

Your life is like the horses. It moves of its own volition, under its own steam. There are external factors and lots of unknowns that create circumstances beyond your total control. But the way you show up to your experience of life will make all the difference in your “ride.” You can feel like a victim of life’s twists, turns, and bucks, or you can learn how to ride and respond. Doesn’t mean you (I, we) won’t occasionally fall off or lose control, but it does ensure your ride will be a much, much more fulfilling experience.

Following are some of the most fundamental mindsets and practices successful life leaders put into place as they take the reins, improve their skills, and learn how to ride this thing called life! 

1. Know They are ALWAYS at Choice

What’s that? You’re a human being in the world? Welcome to the club! Membership means you will, for sure, be judged, impacted by circumstances, and swept off your feet with awe. You’ll be loved, dumped, and loved again. You’ll have to hear (and say), “No.” You’ll hear (and say), “YES!” You’ll suffer disappointment, staggering grief, and moments of complete clarity…possibly followed by totally engulfing confusion. The world will surprise, delight, and throw you. And through it all, you are at choice.

2. Take RESPONSIBILITY for their Lives

It follows from the above that if we are fully at choice in our lives, we then hang out and take responsibility for what our choices create. The alternative? Being at choice (yay!), not liking or feeling good about the outcome (boo!), and sliding into “victim” mode, pointing the finger of blame at someone or something (mega BOO). The biggest problem with that (aside from the guarantee it’s going to create some seriously negative juju in relationships and the ethers of the world, and the world has plenty, right?!) is in how completely disempowering it is.

When we shirk responsibility for what we’re creating through our choices, it’s like we’re standing tall and then with one exceedingly long and muscular arm, we pull the rug out from under ourselves, then yell at someone else (or the breeze) about it. 

“The secret to a fulfilled life is not only to do well but also to do good.” – Tony Robbins

3. Believe Their INNER FOUNDATION is Everything, and Act Like It

If you’ve got no roots, your tree’s gonna fall when the first wind blows. What grows deep, strong, far-reaching roots? Daily doses of sunlight, nutrients, water. And yeah, yeah…I know that you can see by the rings that trees go through stressed, lean years and healthy, full years, and they survive. But if trees had a choice (ahem, see #1 above), you can bet they’d keep up a steady dose of what’s going to help them thrive continuously. 

The most sustainably successful life leaders I know are people who fully and consistently exercise their power of choice when it comes to creating a strong, deep foundation of self-care they can rely on…and in so doing, they learn they can rely on themselves. The thing is, this one isn’t rocket science. By now, *we know* the value of even short bits of meditation, prayer, or whatever stillness practice jives with each individual. We know that tending our most important relationships can make, well, just about every single thing better.

4. Get a Handle on Their FEAR

Fear gets a bad rap. Seems like everywhere we turn, we’re being called to “be fearless!” and kick our fear to the curb. Thing is, fear is one of THE core emotions we’re hardwired for, and we need it. Though we might not be running from actual tigers, our fear plays an incredibly key role in keeping us from entering unsafe situations and in helping us know when it’s time to vamoose when a situation becomes unsafe, emotionally or physically. 

Enter life leadership, where we practice and practice and practice creating a conscious relationship with our fear, managing it down to size, seating our most empowered selves behind the wheel of our lives, and gleaning the wisdom this primal part of us has to offer…while moving forward. 

5. Know That IF NOTHING CHANGES, NOTHING CHANGES

Does all this make sense in yer noggin, yah? And…when it comes down to it, ya gotta do the work.Life leaders zero in on what’s most important, they figure out why it’s worth it, and they take responsibility (cough-cough…#2 above) for getting the support and accountability they need to start making shifts in a more empowered.

HERE’S PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF ALL OF THIS: If what you just read *doesn’t* describe you, but you *want* it to, take heart! Any of us out here doing this life leadership work started right where you are. We’re no different, we’re not special (though, c’mon, we’re all pretty damn fabulous in our own ways), and it’s totally doable. You’ve got this, and you’re so worth it!

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By Kyle Shrivastava

When people think about yoga, strength isn’t always the first thing that comes to mind. But this doesn’t mean it can’t or shouldn’t be a part of your practice!

Traditional asana practices often feature long holds (which build endurance) and passive stretching (which increases passive flexibility). However, as yoga evolves we’re seeing a shift towards building power and increasing active flexibility through dynamic movement. Perhaps the most distinct shift is the strength that yogis are now cultivating. This is partly spearheaded by yogi’s bringing in lessons and knowledge from other athletic disciplines such as dance, martial arts, and calisthenics. 

The physical practice of yoga is actually quite well-suited for strength building for two reasons. The first is that it utilizes repetition. When we repeat a motion, whether it be a Chaturanga or Warrior II, we progressively fatigue our muscles which allows them to grow back stronger. Secondly, each posture in yoga has numerous modifications that allow us to make it easier or more difficult. Therefore, as yogis build strength, it’s easy to find more demanding and difficult progressions that will allow us to continue that growth. By utilizing reputation and adaptation, we’re able to achieve the principal of progressive overhead (i.e. increasing demand on the musculoskeletal system to gain strength, size, and endurance) just as we would in any other athletic discipline.

However, gaining strength in yoga requires us to actually incorporate principles from exercise science into our approach to structuring our yoga practice. So let’s discuss how learnings from gymnastics and strength training can help us create yoga flows that build strength (and allow us to master fun new skills). 

The Science

To very quickly summarize (before we get into what it all actually means) –– to gain strength with yoga, we first need to think about how strength is built. Let’s try and simplify this as much as possible.

Exercise science tells us that strength is equal to neural adaptations –– how our body responds to stimulus, plus cross sectional muscle growth –– the size of our muscles (Lowe, 2016). The former is more influential on our overall strength (Nathaniel et al, 2017). When talking about neural adaptations, we can think in terms of motor units (motor neurons sent by the brain to the muscles), and the type of muscle fibers being activated. The two ends of the motor unit spectrum are Low Threshold Motor Units (LTMUs) and High Threshold Motor Units (HTMUs). LTMUs correspond with slow twitch, endurance focused muscle fibers and take a weaker electrochemical brain signal to activate. HTMUs correspond with strength and power. These innervate fast twitch muscle fibers and are activated by a higher-intensity electrical impulse in the brain. Put simply, this means that if we want to gain strength (and nail that press to handstand), we need enough stress to activate HTMUs and fast twitch muscle fibers. Still with me? Great, let’s get started!

Putting this into practice

First, let’s get this out of the way–-building strength will not make you overly muscular or necessarily decrease your flexibility (unless you’re exclusively tossing barbells overhead in the weight room). So get that powerlifter image out of your head, and think more about the lean and muscular physique of a gymnast or circus performer. 

So how do we do it? And how will this be different than how yoga is usually practiced? Here are a few ideas? 

1. Begin with a warm-up that doesn’t kill you. 

The idea behind this approach is that part of your strength-based yoga practice is going to be putting a heavier-than-usual stress on the body, which means it’s essential to warm up thoroughly without wasting energy or exhausting yourself. Just warm up until your heart rate is elevated and you’re sweating lightly. This could mean a few Sun Salutations, or short flow like one of these. 

2) Do some skill-based work first.

Trying to nail Eka Pada Bakasana (one-legged crow) or a freestanding handstand? Do it after your warm-up. This is going to be the time when you have the most energy and focus to work on skill-based movements. In yoga, we often put these challenging positions as peak poses at the end of a practice. While not necessarily harmful, this doesn’t allow us to approach them with our full ability since we’re often already exhausted.

Please note that there are two exceptions to this approach. Firstly, if you’re working on drills to support difficult postures (i.e. handstand holds against the wall, etc.), do that after your skill work. Secondly, if you’re working on positions that mainly require flexibility (as opposed to strength or balance), place these later in practice once you’ve spent more time opening up.

3) Add some strength-based work early on.

After warming up and working skills, now is the time for your strength work. One of the best ways to do this is with a short but challenging (think very challenging) flow that you can repeat 1-3 times. After each repetition of the flow, take a long rest in Childs pose. Make the difficulty of this mini-flow match your (or your students) level, while throwing in one or two “reach” movements or postures. You/they will eventually adapt to the challenge. For an example of a challenging strength-focused flow for intermediate-advanced practitioners, check out a “Super Human” Strength sequence here.

4) Move through the rest of your regular practice after strength work.

After having used your maximum strength in your mini-flow, feel free to move through the rest of your practice as you usually would. This could focus on more dynamic movement, slow endurance-focused postures, breath work, or whatever other priorities you have. 

5) End with additional mobility and flexibility work.

Since you’re putting an extra level of stress on the body during your difficult strength-focused flow, be sure to end by giving those parts of the body a little extra love. If you were hand-balancing, open up the wrist joints. If you were working the core, take some time in Sphinx pose. The extra work means you’ll need a little extra cool down to assure that you’re able to avoid injury and keep up with your practice. 

Yogi’s are able to accomplish some amazing feats. But to do so, we have to be experimental and scientific about our approach to practice. Part of this should be drawing on what we know from other disciplines. Gaining strength in yoga isn’t difficult. However, it does require us to structure our flows so that we explicitly perform strength-focused movement at the right times, while using repetition, and adapting to use progressively harder variations of each posture as we grow.

Hopefully, these quick tips can help you along your journey? Have you tried our (or a similar) approach? Let us know about your experience! 

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Kyle Shrivastava. Kyle is a yoga teacher based in Washington D.C. and co-founder of www.yogahumans.com, a resource site for new and aspiring yoga teachers. Kyle is certified in yoga anatomy and works to showcase the many diverse offerings yoga can provide from strength, to functional mobility, to meditative focus.

References

Low, S. (2016). Part 1. In Overcoming gravity: A systematic approach to gymnastics and bodyweight strength. Houston, TX: Battle Ground Creative. https://stevenlow.org/overcoming-gravity/ 

Nathaniel D. M. Jenkins, Amelia A. Miramonti, Ethan C. Hill, Cory M. Smith, Kristen C. Cochrane-Snyman, Terry J. Housh, Joel T. Cramer. Greater Neural Adaptations following High- vs. Low-Load Resistance Training. Frontiers in Physiology, 2017; https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2017.00331/full 

Photo by Ginny Rose Stewart on Unsplash

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