The Baby Boomer Diet

As Baby Boomers age, the excesses of the past start to catch up with us, and we see that we must adopt a different approach in the second half of our lives. How do we achieve balance after years of full-throttle intensity?

Baby Boomers who practice yoga are probably familiar with the famous “Tree Pose,” also called Vrksasana. This beautiful pose, where you stand on one leg while reaching toward the ceiling with your arms, requires both a focused muscular energy and a calm, easy grace. Many people find it much more challenging than they expected. If you hold yourself too loose and forget to concentrate, you’ll topple over. If you hold yourself too tight and forget to breathe, you’ll miss the wonderful feeling of openness and extension this pose can bring. When done correctly, the Tree Pose makes you feel rooted and strong, just like the trunk of a tree connected deeply in the earth, but it also makes you feel free and dynamic, the way branches release and reach to the sky. In short, this pose requires balance.

Like most yoga poses, the Tree Pose embodies yin and yang, a careful harmony of contractive and expansive energy. Yin and yang are complementary opposites, two interdependent and creative forces of change that are always seeking equilibrium.

These universal Chinese principles have been essential to helping humans classify and understand the natural world.

Yin and yang energy has been applied to the use of herbs and to food as well. Even disorders within the body can be better understood and brought into balance when these two opposing energies are utilized skillfully.

Yang energy is outward, activating, drying, and warm or hot. These words may stimulate thoughts of the sun and of fire.

Yin energy is inward, stored energy. It is nourishing, moistening, cooling, and anti-inflammatory. These words may remind you of water or of the moon.

Yin and yang are only relative terms. For example, women are thought to be more yin (receptive and nurturing) and men more yang (protective, forward, and aggressive). In reality, however, a woman can have so much yang energy that she is more yang than many men. But because yin and yang are never static, this very yang woman may have a yin, sensitive, nurturing side as well.

These two terms are fascinating and fun if you are a seeker of the truth. And this concept of yin and yang is amazingly useful in reversing aging.

Supposedly inscribed over the entrance to the ancient temple at Delphi were the words KNOW THYSELF. An extended version of this is sometimes cited as: “Know thyself—and thou shall know all the mysteries of the gods and of the universe.”

One of the great gifts in growing older is to finally have a better understanding of who you are—your strengths, weaknesses, desires, and needs. But have you given much thought to whether you’ve inherited a yang or a yin constitution?

If you are more yang, you have larger bones, may be sexually aggressive, and have higher levels of testosterone. You might be more outgoing and hot-tempered, and you could anger easily. You may rarely become tired or ill, but when you do, illness comes on suddenly and can be quite intense.

If you are more yin, on the other hand, you may be more reflective and quiet; have a smaller frame; be sexually passive and estrogen dominant; and be more cautious, anxious, and sometimes even fearful. You may have fragile health and suffer from lifelong chronic problems.

How might the principles of yin and yang apply to disease? Well, an earlier chapter discussed how illness and disease are caused by imbalances. These imbalances can occur when either yin or yang dominates in the body.

Yang illness emerges when there is too much fire energy (inflammation) or when we are too stressed-out (uptight, with pulses racing). Yin illness occurs when we are too depleted (fragile, exhausted, and anxious).

Yang problems show up in a dramatic way. An example might be sudden pneumonia. Yin problems are more elusive and mysterious. A low-grade viral infection that comes and goes is an example of a yin condition.

As we age, we have traditionally become too yin (weak and depleted). This weakness allows inflammation (too much heat or yang energy) to thrive in our bodies. The right foods and supplements help us build the foundation to reverse the signs and symptoms of aging.

Remember, one of the primary anti-aging goals of the Baby Boomer Diet is to create more daily chi energy and to restore our prenatal jing energy. Both can be accumulated or stored for later use, or exhausted or used up entirely. The foods on the Baby Boomer Diet will create the foundation we need to rejuvenate and store energy.

The principles of yin and yang are also embodied in what we eat, so it makes sense that food would become a powerful agent of change and rejuvenation. What follows is a brief explanation of the yin/yang Principle of Balance and diet. But please know that you do not have to fully understand this principle. Indeed, it is far too complex to master quickly. It is, however, inherent in the Baby Boomer Diet and is one of the reasons why The Diet works so well.

Foods can be classified as too contracting, too expansive, or naturally balanced. Salt, for example, is considered very contracting and can even “shrink” the fluid in our cells. When our foods are too salty, we become edgy, even irritable. We might even suffer from a “yang” headache. Other examples of yang foods are eggs and animal proteins. Animals contain salt in their blood, making this food more contracting. When we eat too much animal protein and salty cheeses, we can become tense and closed, resulting in constipation.

Conversely, sugar is considered an overly expansive food. The bloodstream quickly absorbs it and produces quick energy (most people reach for a candy bar, alcohol, and even tobacco when they are too constricted with stress, because these are expansive substances … they relax us and produce a calming effect). An excess of sugar from substances such as coffee, alcohol, and chocolate; and from refined carbs such as breads, can create an imbalance in the blood, resulting in a hyperactive and overly kinetic ADHD state.

What this means for your diet is that you need to constantly be aware of balancing expansive and contracting foods. Too many contracting foods create a desire for expansive food, and vice versa. There’s a reason most nightclubs and bars include bowls of salty peanuts and pretzels on the tables. The constricting salt creates a craving for something more expansive and sugary (alcohol). Alcohol, in turn, creates a need for something more contracting and salty (peanuts). This forms a vicious cycle that leaves the body swinging back and forth in an attempt to stay balanced.

Anti-Aging Application

978140193545012_0135_001

Combine sugar with stress, and you’ve got a recipe for cellular death—the bubonic plague of modern times. In the Middle Ages, it was called the Black Death. Today’s plague might be called the “White Death.” This is how devastating long-term use of processed sugars and refined carbs can be to our health and longevity. (See the mitochondrial-decline theory of aging in Chapter 3.)

Some foods have built-in or inherent properties of balance and harmony: green land vegetables, sea vegetables, grain-like seeds such as quinoa and millet, and red-skin potatoes fall in the middle between contractive and expansive. These foods provide the most balanced and most healing energy for your body.

On the next page, you’ll find a chart that shows you the continuum of expansive and contracting foods. It can help you plan meals that leave you feeling balanced and satisfied.

Balance is not just about food, and it is a process rather than a final destination. We at Body Ecology regard the quest for balance and moderation in our lives as an ongoing awareness and conscientious effort. It’s a practice and a principle that pervades every aspect of our lives—from our relationships, to how we manage our time, to the effort we give to healing ourselves.

The last section of this book will provide you with some proven anti-aging methods for reducing stress and achieving balance and well-being in your life. Next, we’ll look at an important area of balance in the diet: acid and alkaline.