Chinese Diet continued: Shall we skip breakfest?

I got a lot of hits on the Diet article I posted weeks ago; I guess a lot of people are interested to know more about Chinese Diet. Talking about amount of food to take for each meal, the eastern culture differs from western Culture. In western culture, dinner is the most important. The best food should be served during dinner and we eat a lot of food at dinner time. Some people also skip breakfast to lose weight.

Unlike this, Chinese people think all three meals are important. Their eating habit is based on “Full breakfast, good lunch and small dinner.” Morning is a time that a person is very hungry since you don’t eat during sleep and you need a lot of energy for work for whole day. Chinese think that you need to eat a lot food to start the day (I still obey the 80% rule on mine- see last article). For lunch, Chinese think it’s the most important meal. They want have good lunch food to balance the breakfast and dinner. Chinese don’t eat a lot of food for dinner. I obey the rule of don’t eat any food/snack during 3 hours before your bedtime. We believe that eating a lot of food will adding work for your stomach, your stomach should rest at night just like the rest of your body do. Overeating on dinner will seed stomach problem for future.

Talking about choices of food, many Chinese think "Two legs are better than four legs, one leg is better than two legs ( or without legs is better than two legs)" Basically, two legs means chicken or other birds, they are white meat which is better than red meat like cow or goat( four legs). One leg means fungus such as mushroom and without legs means fish. These comments are not totally true, because every integrant has it’s helpful side. I personally think all the foods are import to your body but I do think taking more veggies, less meat and eating bit more white meat and less red meat is the way to go.

Please feel free to comment on this, offer your suggestions and share with your friends and family. I will be happy to share more with you on type, choices, and way of making healthy food if you think these tips are helpful to you.

Copyrighted by Huan's Tai Chi '09

Diet Plan for Tai Chi Practitioners & Rest of Us

While I was doing a Tai Chi Seminar, one student asked me,
“What do you eat for your daily life, what food is good for Tai Chi?”

My advice would be
“Don’t eat too much on one kind of food at once, even on some super food”.

For Example: Vitamin C is really good for your body, but if you take one bottle of Vitamin C, what will happen? Your diet should be a combination of Vegetable, grain, fruit and meat. You need to be careful about taking in different food. You should never eat too much. In Chinese, we say 80% full. Too much food will give a lot of work to your stomach and hurt your stomach in a long run.

We should not do Tai Chi with Empty stomach. If you have an empty stomach before doing Tai Chi, you should eat a little bit food, so you won’t feel dizzy or get a stomach ache while doing Tai Chi. Although it is not necessary to eat only vegetables, eating too much meat is not good for you since meat is acid and hard to digest. Don’t drink too much wine if you doing Tai Chi. Yang Chen Fu said that you shouldn’t do Tai Chi after too much wine.

Another very important reminder is that while exercise with Tai Chi, your breath will become long and deeper, which means a breath will go deeper to your chest. Strong wind and humidity can get into your body in this way. Yang Chen Fu also says to wear long sleeved clothes and not to perform in the wind. If you sweat, don’t take clothing off or take a cold shower, it will hurt your body. In the Ming Dynasty book “Talking of Cabbage Root”, it mentions that

“If you are always sick when you are old, it’s because you didn’t take care of your body when you were young.”

When you are young, you think you are ok to walk in the cold rain, you have fun under the strong wind while driving the boat, but these are actually hurting your body. It didn’t show because you are strong while you are young. These activities plant the seeds for sickness in you and they will occur in the future when you are older. When you know how to take care of your body while you are young, you will enjoy it more while you’re getting older.

Copyrighted By Huan's Tai Chi 09

Demon in Zen

The Buddha said, “ There is no Demons in this world, Demon comes from own heart/mind”, there is a story behind it. A Chinese monk decided to detach himself from the human world and went to a temple in a mountain to practice Buddhism. Every time he sat in Zen meditation, a big black spider came to harass him. He went to talk to his Master monk, “ Every time I quiet myself during sitting meditation, this spider appears and I can’t chase him away. Master, please clear my confusion.” Master monk told him to leave a paint brush nearby during his next sitting meditation. “When the spider appears, please draw a circle on it’s stomach, it will then show it’s real face.” He did what the Master monk told him to do. After he drew the circle, the spider went away. Later on, after he done his mediation, he saw a big black circle on his own stomach. He realized the black spider was himself, this is what we call Demon comes from own heart/mind. Sometimes, you are not confident, doubt things because you can’t trust yourself.

Demon appears in many ways. For example, a new student came to my Tai Chi class and left because he believed he could not learn Tai Chi. When I critiqued his move, he felt embarrassed and thought he couldn’t do it. I could see he was over reacting to my comments. “No worries!” I told him “In Chinese, we say, you can’t eat and become fat in one night. When I was first learning martial arts, many times, it took me repeating 300 or more times in order to get one move right” After I explained to him that Tai Chi took a while to learn, he still thought that he wouldn’t be able to learn because it’s too complicated. He thought if he couldn’t learn a move in class that night, then he didn’t have what it took to learn the material. The readiness of your heart and mind is important in any situation such as accepting new things to your life. If you filled the Demon in your heart, then no new things can come through. Keeping your heart/mind clear and healthy and trusting in yourself will help you a long way in your life.

Copyrighted by Huan's TAI CHI '09