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Trophology

rm-rf

Bluelight Crew
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A martial arts instructor of mine recently introduced me to Daoism and Daoist philosophy, and Ive become fascinated with this dietary school of thought known as Trophology.

Trophology, in short, is the science of food combining for the goal of absorbing the maximum amount of energy from food with the minimal amount of digestive strain. Secondary to this, is the idea that any and all health related conditions can be prevented and / or cured by strict adherence to the rules of trophology, and furthermore, the further one strays from these rules the further one risks health ailments from colds to cancer.

Other similar schools of thought are the Gerson theory, Ayurvedic mecidine, and the philosophy of Hippocrates.

The Daoist dietary philosophy relates to contemporary Paleo Diet theory as well. Cooked foods are minimized, meat is drastically reduced (relative to most Western diets), everything is organic, vegetables are the most common elements, and raw and fresh are the primary focus. The reason being is that raw foods contain their own enzymes for digestion, which allows the work done by our complex digestive system to be lessened, which leads to faster and far more saturated levels of nutrient absorption, which in turn leads to a healthy body. The consequences of imbalance in food groups, such as excess nutrient poor and enzyme-less processed food, meat, pasteurized products, refined grains, and chemical preservatives leads to imbalances of digestive enzyme production by the body, excess production of unnecessary stomach acids, purification of undigested food in the bowels, poor health of the various digestive organs, and imbalances in other bodily systems like metabolism, production of proteins and cellular repair, immuno defense, etc. Its long been theorized that the body has its own natural defenses against cancer as well, and these sort of diets claim they can eliminate most of the risk, save for exposure to the ceaseless amounts of damaging elements in complex urban societies.

Ive been doing a diet like this for a few months now. First and foremost, its extremely difficult for a Westerner with an appetite fiercer than the barbarians at Romes gate. Ive had to maintain disciplines ive never known, and deny myself anything resembling "comfort food" altogether. So by that, you can imagine, that Western diets are about as in violation of the laws of trophology as can possibly be.

The results, however, are astounding. Meditating in the morning allows me to gather such resources of energy, I dont even need coffee anymore (I used to drink about 120-150mg caffeine every day). Its sometimes like that feeling you get on just the right amount of acid, where youre conscious of every single cell in your body, just for moments. Ill admit i still drink tea and coffee cuz I freggin love em and thats that, but I dont depend on them to start my day as I used to. I have unbelievable stamina now, and honestly feel a stronger sense of mental clarity most of the time. Knock on wood, I havent had a cold in close to a year. I can train about 2x as much/harder during the week as I used to.

Ive always keen to any theory that civilization is harmful to humans and the Earth, and have a wild spirit inside me that wants to just live in the jungle all the time. Dieting like this is hard, ESPECIALLY IF CANNABIS IS PART OF YOUR LIFESTYLE, but if you feel your body after a few weeks of it, you feel like a tiger all day. Its amazing how much we weigh ourselves down by neglecting dietary sciences, but most of the contemporary dietary theories out there dont take into consideration a few simple things; That our digestive system has been evolving in our phylogenetic path for millions and millions of years, and adapting to millions of years of a pre-civilization Earth, our closest relatives have had 4 or 5 million years of adapting their diets to a pre-civilization Earth, our particular species many hundred thousands of years, and our modern bodies only have had about 12,000 years to adapt to the phenomenon known as "Agriculture," about 60 years to adapt to chemistry and industry in modern food, and only just a few years of adapting to genetically modified foods. Despite what Republicans tout on TV, the USA has some of the worst, if not all of the worst, health problems in the developed world. A few weeks outside of the typical menu can really open your eyes to the way your body was intended to be.

But holy shit, I want to eat a 12oz beef burger with melted cheddar, pickles, tomatoes, lettuce, onion, whole what bun, thick ass steak fries, ketchup and mayo so fucking bad. Thats the first thing im doing right after my next tournament, gonna be like dope.

Anyone ever explored Trophology?
 
No but it sounds interesting. I'll have to look more into it, but the idea of doing pretty well the exact opposite of the average N. American diet sounds about right to me.

I also had a chuckle at your 'tournament reward' meal. Not at the content, but the specificity, and that you described it so precisely and lovingly. You will have certainly earned it by then, judging by your prior tales of training.
 
iv heard of this but never looked into it much, sounds really interesting!

im pretty conscious of my eating habits and i often eat in a similar way but never really thought about it like this.

I am quite fond of Taoism, if you enjoyed the Tao de Ching you should check out "The zhungzi" by zhungzi if you haven't yet. He is a great thinker and adds a lot to the school of thought. Hes regarded as a central figure of the school.

On a slightly off topic note, the current 'incarnation of zhungzi' is the head of the philosophy department in tokyo or bejing i believe, however ironically grew up in utah and was raised mormon.

There is some other lifestyle suggestions associated with Taoism that are pretty out there and kind of funny, one is gaining immortality by having sex with a certain number of women and abstaining from ejaculation while making sure the female reaches orgasm. goofy shit.
 
Thanks for sharing this, rm-rf.

Ayurveda has a similar approach to food combining, with less emphasis on eating raw food. There are also some contradicting "rules".

To simplify my life, I take note of some key rules (regarding melons, milk, etc.) but I've generally fallen into this practice of eating meals which are composed of largely vegetables and some proteins, with very little rice (sometimes two tablespoons full). It definitely makes me feel much lighter and have more energy. I think this may have come from just avoiding too much rice and focusing on things that give me nutrition. It's been working great.

I eat (drink with some strange sort of mastication) fruit in the morning blended with greens. I try to eat fruit alone.

Sometimes I will have a bad combination of food, as long as I minimize the quantities, and get some good exercise sometime in that day. Sometimes I feel the dulling effects of a bad combination (like, food coma even with small quantities!) but I never kill myself over them, it's also a constant process of testing the rules to see if they indeed are real. :)

Will read more deeply into the resources you posted soon.
 
I've been thinking a lot about eating pure foods lately. Raw is the way to go if you want energy. If you just want size, calories, and sedation, mash some ridiculous pan fried fatty protein goodness then wash it down with toast, jam, and a bottle of red wine.
 
^Me too! When my digestion was more delicate, I would avoid raw greens, but now I can't get enough. My head is incredibly clear and my energy is amazing. Feelsgoodman
 
There is some other lifestyle suggestions associated with Taoism that are pretty out there and kind of funny, one is gaining immortality by having sex with a certain number of women and abstaining from ejaculation while making sure the female reaches orgasm. goofy shit.

oh, there aint nothin goofy about that bro. the last thing you want is to fight someone after a few sessions of ejaculation control ;-). the chi-harvest is to the max. girlfriends dont complain about that too much either. its easy for me tho, i worship women.

baby, you dont love me, you just love my tiger style


as far as the food coma + bad combinations go, thats cuz your guts are like "holy shit dude were totally not prepared to handle this! move this stuff outta the way." if you need enzyme A and enzyme B and digestive acid X and also enzyme F and to begin the major portion of digestion in the lower intestine, but your tounge is sending signals to produce enzyme C, digestive acid Y, enzymes G and R, and also to start digestion in the small intestine, your result is low levels of absorbed nutrtion, and high levels of fermenting, putrefying food in the guts. over time, that leads to a lot of buildup. the average american male carries around 5lbs of undigested meat in his bowels at all times. thats like driving around in a car with a 200lb weight in the trunk during a gas crisis, except inside your body its also causing toxema and lowering your immuno defense, not to mention putting a heavy strain on the guts.

im not a raw foodist, i believe the human body has cooked as long as it has existed, and our ancient ancestors have been cooking food for almost 2-3 million years. its adapted. the key is to balance cooking with raw (bare minimum of at least 51% raw). the thing with combinations is we are in no way adapted to certain foods digesting at the same time. in a paleo world, youd mostly eat raw vegetables, and other foods would be more scarce, thus theyd be eaten alone or with vegetables. you wouldnt have the opportunity to mix grains (wheats, rice, oats, barley, whatever) with meat with fruit with root veggies (potatoes) with dairy with ... you get the point. modern society allows us to have access to all sorts of unnatural foods and unnatural food combinations, and we have had almost zero time to adapt to it. i for one dont wanna spend 500,000 years adapting to gross toxic shit in most supermarkets, i just vote for raw organic products with my wallet.

since my first post i can attest this is worthwile, and ill likely eat this way forever. note: im not a daoist, but they have some smart shit. daoism and zen buddhism are just way too eerily related to my favoried greek naturalists and stoics.

The purpose of life is to seek harmony with Nature. - Zeno
 
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^ It's like convergent evolution, but with ideas. Pretty cool, no? Usually a good sign that there might be some truth in what is said.
 
ive been searching the internet solidly since I read about food combining and paleolithic nutrition a day ago even before i saw this thread (coincidence?)

i found this extremely interesting and usefull article that seems to be reputable
http://www.healself.org/rawfood.html

also read in it that you need less hours of sleep 0.0

the more i read about this the more it seems some kind of breakthrough
 
2009-10-05-hair-of-the-dog.jpg


ive been searching the internet solidly since I read about food combining and paleolithic nutrition a day ago even before i saw this thread (coincidence?)

i found this extremely interesting and usefull article that seems to be reputable
http://www.healself.org/rawfood.html

couple mma guys i know swear by the paleo diet. i sorta follow this by eating things like beef maybe once every 15 days or so. i only eat grass fed / free range / natural diet, hormone free, antibiotic free, organically raised meat, and rarely eat meat more than once a week. i eat red meat raw or seared for no more than 5 or 6 seconds, always eat fish raw, cook poultry/eggs. i def dont diet paleo tho, i like grains too much.

pretty much same exact rule for dairy too, i hav
 
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has anyone found any good resources or books that i can get to practice trophology or even paleo properly

because at the moment im not sure the range of foods that are good to eat that are good in combination etc

like i'll have a green shake for breakfast, steak/fish almost totally raw with some sprouts for lunch and then another green shake for dinner

any ideas? 8)
 
one thing my teacher told me when i expressed interest in this science, is that you should first do the research and gain an understanding of the "rules." you may find the rules vary slightly from source to source, teacher to teacher. once youve gotten a thorough but broad sense of food combining, experiment with yourself. every person is going to be slightly different, so no one set of universal rules works for every single person. the bottom line is you have to use your own self, become very familiar with the fine tunings of the body's energy and physical systems, and figure out over time how to fine tune a general sense of food combining rules and eating patterns to your own body.

honestly, go to some large online bookseller and type "trophology." searching on the web for websites is even faster. find authors that lean more towards Daoism and ancient Chinese Medicine / Chi Gong. Dont mean to hop on the bandwagon, but no specific book is going to be the perfect place to start, because the ultimate wisdom is no longer the ultimate wisdom once it can be spoken ;-)
 
you dont get irritable bowel syndrome after eating raw/rawish meat do you?

btw thanks a lot for all your help and time ;)
 
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