Today I am excited to feature a conversation with a special guest who shared so many insights on menopause, aging, ayurveda, and her personal experience with bioidentical hormones. Victoria Moran has been featured twice on Oprah and listed by VegNews among the “Top 10 Living Vegetarian Authors”. Victoria has written fourteen books on wellbeing and eclectic spirituality, including Younger by the Day, Main Street Vegan, and her latest Age Like a Yogi: A Heavenly Path to a Dazzling Third Act. Victoria is the founder and director of Main Street Vegan Academy, training
vegan lifestyle coaches since 2012. (By the way, I personally attended in 2015 and highly recommend it.) Victoria is also the host of the Main Street Vegan Podcast. Enjoy the interview!
AP: Hi, Victoria. Welcome to the podcast.
VM: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me on.
AP: Yeah, thank you for being here! I'm so thrilled for you to talk to our listeners about the subject of aging. It's really important for all of us.
And since our listeners are navigating menopause or preparing for menopause, would you like to share what your experience with menopause was like?
VM: Yeah, it was surprising because I didn't think it would be anything because I wasn't one of those girls that had to get out of gym for her period and stuff like that. And I just thought, you know, I breezed through that stuff, so I'm going to breeze through menopause. It won't be any kind of big deal.
Plus, I lived really well and I ate really well. I'd had a whole food, plant-based diet for, you know, decades, even by then, a couple of decades nearly. And so I was so shocked when it hit me.
So the first thing I noticed, I was 49 when I had my last period. And I was probably maybe three months in, two months in, something like that, when I literally felt that there had been invasion of the body snatchers in my bedroom. Because I got up and it's like, where did my flat stomach and my round bottom go?
Because now I have a round stomach and a flat bottom. I mean, it felt like it happened overnight. Maybe not, but that was how I felt.
I was so shocked. It was like, what happened? And then I started looking at people when I went to the gym.
And I'd be like those annoying people at the bar that say, I know your sign, because I'm like pre-menopausal, pre-menopausal, post, pre, post, post, post. I was like judging and figuring out, you know, where people were and that whole kind of trajectory. And then the hot flashes hit.
And I was embarrassed because -- I don't know how many of your listeners are like in the world of people who are trying to be super healthy, maybe ridiculously healthy. But in that world, everything is supposed to go well. And if it doesn't, then you feel like you're doing something wrong.
And I'm looking all around, what am I doing wrong? And, you know, do I need more soy? And then some people say, no, you need less soy.
And it's like, what do I do? And so I tried all kinds of herbal sorts of things and different kinds of remedies. I didn't know about ayurveda at that time.
If I did, I would have done that. And I think I would have been better off because ayurveda, at least for me, seems to be rather magical. So I had hot flashes for two and a half years and I couldn't stand it anymore.
Victoria's Experience with Bioidentical Hormones
And I went on bioidentical hormones. And I thought it would be six months or a year and I kept cutting down, but I couldn't cut them out because when I went completely off, the hot flashes would come back with a vengeance. So I just kept taking them.
And some people are very clear, some practitioners, that they can have the same carcinogenic effects as the terrible hormones that come from the urine of pregnant horses. But these supposedly came from wild yams or whatever, but they did come from a compounding pharmacy. So they were definitely, they weren't big pharma, but they were pharmaceutical anyway.
And so I got them down to the tiniest little dose, but I kept taking them. And I would try every, maybe every six months to go off and it just didn't work. And then last spring, now we're talking over 20 years of taking these things, I got breast cancer and it was very small and it was contained and no lymphatic involvement.
And I had the six month checkup and I'm all good. I'm all clear that you can't say you're cured until two years, but I'm clear as of six months and that's wonderful. And of course I'm off the hormones, but I now have hot flashes and I'm 74 years old.
So the moral of the story is you can't fool Mother Nature. And it's just something if I had it to do over again, I would have done differently, but hopefully my story will help somebody who's maybe looking at hormones or maybe they've been on them a while and thinking about getting off them. If my experience is anything that helps anybody else, you might want to be getting off of them sooner rather than later.
AP: Wow! Thank you so much for sharing your story. And I'm glad that you're doing okay. That's great.
VM: Thank you. I feel very confident because I do live really well. And if this had been some other kind of random disease, I would have been surprised.
But because I've been taking the hormones and that is definitely something that they can cause like, okay, well, this makes sense. Learn my lesson, start over. And here we are.
Menopause, Ayurveda, and Herbs
AP: What would you have done differently if you were in peri-menopause today?
VM: Well, I think if it was today, I would know more. I would know more people. And I would also have more confidence to be honest about this stuff and say, Hey, look at this.
This is what's going on with me. What am I supposed to do about it? Somebody help me.
Somebody guide me. Because in those days, I was pretty much hiding it. It's like, what?
Who had a hot flash? You know, not me. I mean, I didn't go out and say, I have never had a hot flash. I didn't like lie about it, but I didn't advertise it either. So I think today I would see an Ayurvedic doctor. In fact, I have an appointment now.
I've been taking herbs, you know, for the hot flashes. There's one that actually, you know, knock on wood does seem to be helping. You're probably familiar with it.
I don't even know if I'm pronouncing it right. It's Remifemin, which is basically a black cohosh formulation. And it seems to be helping more than anything else.
I'm taking a couple of other kinds of herbal blends and didn't really notice anything. And when I added that, it helped a lot. So I'm hoping that it will continue to help a lot.
And then whenever I hear from the Ayurvedic physician, we can add on and work with some of that. And, you know, the bottom line, I guess, is if these just have to go on as long as they're going to go on. And I know that for some women I have read, they go on for life, heaven forbid.
I think that's a very small number, but I'm alive. I'm functioning. And, you know, sometimes you just have to pay some tax for the privilege of living on earth.
AP: Yeah. And like you mentioned, you already had a really good foundation with health. So I'm sure that's definitely helped you out.
VM: Well, you can't go wrong with having great general health, whatever befalls you. And one of the things that I'm seeing now from this stage of life, you know, way past menopause and that is that the body, I mean, we all know that we're mortal and that the body is going to not be ours at some point in time. And yet what I think I didn't understand was the sort of gentle trajectory that that is, that things really do start kind of going a little bit here and there and good general health props that up.
Certainly what I've learned in ayurveda props it up a lot. And you just come to realize that the important thing, the most important thing is identifying with this interior spirit that doesn't change, it doesn't get old, it doesn't die. And I think that that provides a lot of vitality and a lot of energy and a lot of hope as you go on through life. I'm finding that.
AP: Oh, that's beautiful.
How Does Meditation Affect Aging?
AP: I wanted to talk about meditation. Is meditation a part of your life?
VM: It is. And something that I have that a lot of older people tend to get is tinnitus, which is ringing of the ears, which makes meditating more challenging because silence used to be silence. And ever since I flew with an ear infection and ended up with tinnitus as a result, I don't hear silence and the sound that I hear is not pleasant.
I wish I heard music! I've heard that some people have that. That might be annoying too.
But anyway, what I need to do to meditate these days is have a little white noise in the background. And whatever it takes to be able to meditate is worth doing whatever it takes.
So some people say, "oh, I can't sit on the floor cross-legged like a yogi". Well, that's okay! Then you sit in a chair and put your feet on the floor or you sit on your bed and lean against the headboard. Whatever it takes.
"Oh, I don't have enough time." Find the time. Make the time.
Start with five minutes. Because it could be said that all of the eight limbs of yoga, starting with ahimsa and asana, which are the postures, and all of these other aspects that we think of as the totality of yoga, are really prerequisites, that's a tough word to say, for meditation. So the way that I meditate is pretty simple.
It's certainly not the only way. Don't know that it's the best way, but it works for me. And that is that I count from one to ten.
I count my breaths. And as I do that, I kind of envision myself going deeper and deeper into silence and into myself. And then after that, I bring up a mantra.
And for some people, that's a Sanskrit term like om shanti or something like that. Absolutely lovely, beautiful mantra. Some people have gurus that give them mantras.
But all a mantra needs to be is a point of focus. And sometimes, even though I have a mantra, I will at times, when I need it, revert back to a phrase in English because I'm a word person. I love the English language.
I think in words. And sometimes, I'll just do "all is" on my inhale, and I'll exhale "well". And then I'm getting in not only this mantra, "all is well" to focus on, but it's also an affirmation.
And it's kind of funny because when life is very crowded and very busy, and I find this especially in my later day meditation, when I meditate first thing in the morning, you know, everything's lovely. A miracle could happen today. This day is fresh and new and perfect and fabulous.
And then I don't need a lot of help. I can just use my regular Sanskrit mantra and all is well. But sometimes, after a really tense day, I just need to be brought down.
And using that all is well is so good because I'll do it once or twice, and my monkey mind will say, well, all is not well. I mean, look at what happened today. That wasn't so great.
And I'll go all is well, all is well. And then the mind will go like, haven't you watched the news lately? Don't you know what's going on in the world?
All is well. And it's this beautiful, beautiful process of bringing myself into the state of knowing that at a level of consciousness where I don't hang out nearly enough, all is really well. So what's the point?
If you're not doing this for spiritual enlightenment, why should you be doing it? Well, spiritual enlightenment tends to bring with it a lot of physical health and vitality. And they have done so many studies about meditation over the past 60 years.
And my very favorite was how it makes people younger. And they looked at people who had meditated regularly for five years or more, comparing them to people who had not. And what they found was that the meditators were 12 years younger physiologically than the people who didn't meditate.
So just do a little math. Take your current chronological age and subtract 12 years. And regardless of what your age is, that's a huge difference, 12 years.
They say you get seven years back if you stop smoking, but 12 years, my goodness, that's a lot. And so what they were looking at were all kinds of what we think of as signs of aging. So they were looking at cholesterol levels, body mass index, and joint flexibility, hearing, vision, all the things that we think go south over time.
But for the people who had meditated regularly for more than five years, it wasn't happening for them. They had literally slowed down the aging process. So what happens when you get your mind in that alpha state, which is just so gloriously parasympathetic, things slow down.
And I really think that while you're meditating, you're not aging. I don't have scientific backing for that, but it's through my experience and over the years of meditating for long periods and then giving it up for a while and coming back to it, it really feels like it's doing rejuvenation in a way that is almost alchemical, and I wouldn't be without it.
AP: Yeah, I think we can definitely use more meditation, especially in this overstimulating lifestyle. So many benefits to it, and especially during menopause.
VM: It just seems that every decade you can take stock of, okay, what have I been doing that I'm really glad I've been doing? And to just give yourself so much credit for that, because we work so hard, we try so hard, we accomplish so much, we fail, we get up and try something else. So we need to really acknowledge that about ourselves.
And then we also need to look at what do I want my life to look like 10 years from now? What do I want to do with this decade that I haven't been doing? And one of those things, if you haven't been a meditator, is to really bring that into your life.
And if you think in these longer periods of time, like if you think about a decade, I mean, if you meditate fairly regularly for a decade, that's twice as long as some of those people in that they didn't age very fast study. So it's a beautiful, beautiful path. It's just a beautiful anchor in what you talked about, Anna, this kind of busyness that's just beyond, I think, what anybody historically ever imagined that was supposed to happen.
And it's great to be busy. It's great to have things to do and have your mind occupied and feel that you're making a difference in the world. But sometimes, and I think more time than most of us give to it, we just need to say, no, I'm going to stop doing.
I'm going to start being and just feel the healing and the rejuvenation that comes from that.
AP: Beautiful and well said.
Victoria's New Book - Age Like a Yogi
AP: Tell us about your new book, Age Like a Yogi.
VM: Oh, thank you. I am so excited about Age Like a Yogi. It was a long time coming.
I started on it in 1971, and it took a lot because there's a lot of research in it. And then it took a long time to get a publisher, even though it's my 14th book and I've had some big books and some successes. The bigger publishers were saying, but she's a vegan and general spirituality author.
She doesn't have a platform in yoga. And here I am thinking, wait a minute, I started doing yoga when I was 17 and I didn't become vegan till I was 33. But I guess because I don't do yoga on Instagram, it didn't count.
So I'm with a small, lovely publisher, Monkfish Books, and Age Like a Yogi will come out in January. We're doing pre-orders now. We have a wonderful pre-order special that I can tell your listeners about.
And the gist of the book is a marriage of yoga philosophy and Ayurvedic self-care, because the better we can take care of ourselves and the more energy and the less sickness and the more happiness and vitality we can have going forward, obviously, the very much better. But also the more spiritual strength, the more kind of foundation of an inner life that we can have going forward to meet whatever comes. Whoever said getting old is not for sissies was a brilliant person.
And so stuff comes. And without having some kind of core foundation to help meet that, it's a lot more difficult. And something I love about yoga is that anybody can take any of these principles that they like, regardless of worldview or religion or whatever, and incorporate some of the yogic ideas to make life better physically and spiritually.
AP: Ayurveda tells us that something happens around and after menopause that no one else is talking about. What is that?
VM: Yes. Yes, and it's absolutely brilliant. And that's why I'm so glad that I know about it.
So for anybody that's new to ayurveda, it grew up alongside yoga in ancient India. But why doesn't everybody know about it? Everybody knows about yoga.
And what I've learned is that when India became a British part of the empire and there was this exchange of ideas, we were getting these kind of religious and spiritual ideas in the cross-pollination because any good colonizer knows that you need to leave people's religion alone or there'll be all kinds of uprisings. But you can take away other things that are cultural so that you can get more of the new culture in there so that when England was in India, they left alone the yogic teachings that are peripheral to the Hindu religion, but they took ayurveda because that was considered just health and lifestyle. So that only came back after 1947 when India became independent.
So we didn't start hearing about it until probably 1990 when Deepak Chopra wrote his first book, Perfect Health. And I do use that as a kind of bible. I think I've read it 25 times and still find it really, really useful.
Ayurveda and Aging
So what ayurveda has to say about aging is that there are these three doshas. And if you've heard of ayurveda, you've heard of the doshas. Maybe you've done a quiz to determine your dosha, your body type.
If you haven't done one, it's fun and it's enlightening, I think. There's a good one, a good dosha quiz on Deepak Chopra's website. There's another good dosha quiz at banyanbotanicals.com.
And that will tell you your humours or your body type that are established at the time of conception. And what's cool about that is your body type, whatever it is, is perfect. And all you have to do is live up to that and stay being who you are.
Trouble is sometimes we can get out of balance. And so the job is to get back into balance, which is your perfect setup. So there are three doshas, vata, pitta, and kapha.
And everybody has all three. And if you are maybe 50% vata and 40% kapha and 10% pitta, you might say, oh my goodness, I'm all out of balance. No, you're perfect.
Those percentages are perfect for you. You just need to stay that way. And what happens with the stresses of life, if we end up eating some of the wrong food, we're traveling a lot, we're in different time zones, we have some sort of traumatic experience, we get a virus, all these things, and they upset that doshic balance, particularly the one dosha, vata, which is air and ether.
Ayurveda and Menopause
So this was a long introduction to answer your question. What happens kind of around menopause, after menopause and andropause for men is everybody, regardless of what your own body type is, and that's yours forever, everybody is more influenced by vata, by this air and ether energy. And the cool and to me revolutionary thing that comes to us from ayurveda, which I talk about so much in Age Like a Yogi, is if you can pacify vata, if you can balance vata and keep it from getting too much control over your life and your body, then you forestall some of the parts of aging that we consider negative.
So what vata conditions look like when they're out of balance is more nervousness, anxiousness, and fear. More feeling cold all the time. This is why so many older people move to hot climates.
I always wondered when my mom was in Florida and I would go there and think, this is so hot and humid, why would anybody go here voluntarily? Well, we feel a little bit different when you get older. Joints tend to get a little creaky, a little noisy, a little more arthritis sets in.
You also can run into digestive difficulties, and I think this is particularly vexing for people who eat really well, and we've been eating cabbage family vegetables. Oh my goodness, they're so full of antioxidants, and we've been eating all these wonderful beans that all the people in the long-lived cultures eat. But why is it that all that food that was so easy to digest not that long ago isn't so easy to digest anymore?
How Ayurveda Helps Menopause
Well, ayurveda says that's vata. So you want to bring down the vata, and the cool way to do that is with comfort. I'm always so afraid when somebody tells me about a new kind of health find, like, what am I going to have to do that is difficult and uncomfortable?
Are you going to make me fast? Are you going to make me drink green juice for 11 days? The cool thing about ayurveda is it's all about just taking sweet, cozy, comfortable care of yourself.
And how you do that to bring your vata into balance is to stay warm, to stay rested, to have a nice daily routine where you get up early and you go to bed fairly early. You give yourself an hour or so before bed without electronics to kind of wind down. You have your bigger meal in the middle of the day if that's possible and eat a little lighter in the evening and a little bit early so that you have at least two hours, even three, between when you finish your dinner and when you go to bed.
And some of these lovely, lovely sweet little tweaks can make a huge difference in what's going on with vata and how those signs of aging show up in your body and your life.
AP: That's so interesting, Victoria. I can relate to that because I was always pitta, so I was always hot and I'd always have to take off my jacket and I was just hot all the time. And now I just started really craving the sun and just wanting to be warm under a blanket all the time.
VM: And it can be so difficult and confusing because you're starting to feel colder most of the time and then if you have hot flashes, it's like, what just happened? Whatever happened to 70 degrees and nice. 70 degrees down here in the lower 48.
Do you have Fahrenheit or Celsius in Canada?
AP: Celsius.
VM: Well, whatever very nice and just gently warm is in Celsius. That's what I keep looking for and sometimes it's hard to find.
How Ayurveda Can Help Us Thrive in Midlife
AP: What are some Ayurvedic ideas that can help us thrive in midlife and beyond?
VM: Yeah. Well, some of those things that I'm talking about, one really important thing is, unless you're having a hot flash or unless it's 90 degrees, you do want to keep yourself warm. And particularly as we come into winter, what's interesting is we're talking about the vata season of life, which is kind of postmenopausal and on.
Like the older you get, the more vata you tend to get. And so that's the vata season of life. But there's also a vata season of the year and we're in it.
It's late fall to kind of early winter. And in that time of year, even if you haven't gotten to the vata stage of life yet, you want to kind of take care of that vata dosha by keeping yourself warm, by keeping your head covered when you go out, keeping your ears covered, maybe a scarf around your neck, warm drinks. And they're all very, very comforting.
I used to wonder why my greatest indulgence, even though I knew it was full of sugar, was those chai teas from Starbucks. And I would make sure I only had one a week because I knew it's like, this is more sugar than I eat in the whole rest of my life. But oh, why is it so good?
And ayurveda taught me later. Well, it's because vata likes sweet and vata needs warm. And so that combination of warm and creamy and then all those wonderful warm spices was just really appealing.
And of course, you can do a beverage similar to that without the kind of sugar that Starbucks puts in it by making some of these kinds of beverages on your own. And when you're not doing the nice, hot, creamy, I just love like a soy milk or oat milk with various spices. And vata loves the sweet spices of all spice, cinnamon, clove.
And of course, they're also full of antioxidants and they're just wonderful, wonderful. But a drink like that in the evening, it just changes the world if you've got a little bit of out of balance vata. And it's the kind of thing as you watch your body, as you learn more about what vata looks like when it's not in balance, you can kind of get a sense.
If you wake up in the morning and you're warm under the covers and maybe you do what my first yoga teacher advises -- and she's doing something right because she's 99, she still teaches one yoga class a week and she lives in a third floor walk-up. And what she suggests is in the morning when you're under the covers and you're feeling really sweet and balanced, just do some gentle stretches while you're there in bed because you're already warm, you know, you don't have to warm up your muscles because they're warm from all your lovely comforters and blankets. And just see what your mood is like as you go through the day.
And lots of times early in the day, if you haven't had a lot of stress yet, it's just real calm and nice. And so you can start your day by hydrating yourself with warm or hot water or lemon water or ginger tea. Those are all wonderful Ayurvedic recommendations.
And a couple of things happen with that. One is that you're going to warm yourself up a bit. Then you're also going to alkalinize your system, especially if you're using the lemon or the ginger in the water, and you're going to hydrate.
And you're going to help yourself have a bowel movement first thing in the morning, which ayurveda says is very important.
So interestingly enough, in ayurveda, this big, big cup, you know, 12 ounces, 16 ounces of water in the morning is the only time when they recommend like a big gulp. Otherwise, it's sipping this warm or hot water through the day. And a lot of people who are into ayurveda get a very attractive kind of thermos and just have that on their desk or carry it around with them through the day.
So there's always some water or some gentle herbal tea. vata loves licorice, loves ginger, so that we're hydrating through the day. Another thing that is lovely for vata is warm oil massage.
In ayurveda, it's called abhyanga. And you do that ideally with sesame oil. If sesame oil feels too sticky or whatever there is about it, you don't like it.
Maybe you're allergic to sesame and don't even want to put it on your skin. That's okay. You can use almond oil, coconut oil, olive oil, but sesame is standard in ayurveda and supposedly nice and balancing for vata, but they all are.
So what you do is you heat up a little bit of oil. And the way that I do that is in a little essential oil burner. So I put a little tea light underneath and the oil heats in the little container.
Or you can put the oil in a little plastic bottle and put that in a mug of hot water because you don't want it to be hot. You can injure yourself. You just want it to be very gently warm.
And then you start at the top of your head. If you're not going to wash your hair that day, obviously skip your hair. But ideally, you're going to spend some time on the head.
And I'm saying like a minute, you know, I mean, I know we're early in the morning and busy and all that. But you start with your head if you can or your face if you're not going to do your hair. And traditionally, they say use the flats of your palms instead of your fingertips.
Not really sure if that's important or if that's just tradition. Sometimes you have to ferret out what's one and what's the other. And even if you tend to have skin outbreaks, usually the sesame oil doesn't do that.
So you might want to give it a try or you might want to skip your face. But otherwise, you're going to take long strokes on your long bones. You're going to really work with your joints.
And what will happen as you do this, spending the most time on your head and on your feet, is that it's going to balance vata dosha in the most beautiful way. Now, if you're in a hurry and you can just put the oil on yourself and then you have to jump in the shower, well, number one, be sure that you don't slip. So wipe your feet off and be sure you have a shower mat and all that kind of thing.
But if you have a little extra time or maybe you meditate in the morning and you could do your warm oil massage, put on a bathrobe and then go meditate. And that oil is going to sink in. And the more vata you are and the drier you are, the more it's going to sink in.
I can remember when I first learned about this 30 years ago, I would do it. I would wait 15, 20 minutes. And then I would really have to be careful to wipe all the oil off my feet so I wouldn't slip because I was still pretty oily.
But now that I'm older and more vata, that oil practically disappears because my body is just soaking it up. So you get this wonderful warmth as well from doing this. So particularly this time of year, we know we're going to put on our layers and whatnot to go out.
But if you've done the abhayanga and then taken your nice warm shower, it's as if you have another layer when you go out into the wind and the cold. And it doesn't make you uncomfortably hot at all. It's just like you don't get as chilled.
So that is another wonderful one. And then the other thing that's really, really essential for balancing vata is to have a daily routine that doesn't vary a lot. So everybody would do well with some kind of daily routine, although the kapha body type that tends to be really kind of sluggish sometimes, they can use a little bit of, you know, upset just to get going a bit more.
But everybody as you get toward the vata age would do well to kind of know what time you're getting up and what time you're going to bed and what you're going to kind of do in the morning and maybe what you're going to have for breakfast. And you don't have to have the same breakfast every day. You just kind of have to have a sense of, yeah, I'm hungry in the morning.
I eat a big breakfast or I'm not very hungry in the morning. I eat a small breakfast, whatever it is, that you just kind of know what's coming. And in terms of food, your digestive fire, which ayurveda calls agni, needs to be stoked three times a day.
So it needs something in the morning, even if you're not very hungry. It needs a major meal in midday because that's when the fire is hottest. That's when you can handle some of the foods that maybe you're feeling like you maybe are not digesting as well as you used to.
And then in the evening, more like supper, which comes from the same root as supplement. So that little meal in the evening is more to supplement the more substantial meals that you had earlier in the day. And I know if you work in an office and your lunchtime is short, it's not as possible to do that.
But when you possibly can or on the weekends, if you can kind of shift those meals, so you're more in keeping with what your body's rhythms are, because that's really what ayurveda is all about. It's about being in tune with your own rhythms, the rhythms of nature, the rhythms of the season, and the rhythms of your life.
AP: So many great tips there. Thanks for sharing all those.
VM: Well, you're so welcome.
AP: I do have a question about the oil because it sounds really lovely. And also I know that as we get older, our skin definitely gets drier. So I'm really interested in that.
I'm just wondering, how can you protect your clothes or how do you deal with the clothes and like avoiding the oil getting onto your clothes?
VM: Yeah, well, you don't use a huge amount of oil. That's one thing. I think Deepak Chopra says two tablespoons for everything.
So it's not like a big slathery kind of oil procedure, although there are some Ayurvedic treatments. I remember getting one at an Ayurvedic Institute in Iowa. And I always remember the name of it because it's called Pizza Chili. And so who could not remember that? But that was just very oily and there were two practitioners and there were these alleys, gutters on the side like a bowling alley. And all the extra oil would go in these alleys.
And I just remember thinking, oh, this is so opulent. But what you do at home is not like that. There's a little bit of oil.
And you're doing it in the morning when if you don't own a terrycloth bathrobe, that would be such a wonderful thing to ask Santa to bring because it's just yours. It's not like you're going to go out in it. If it's not pristine, it doesn't matter.
But it just feels so wonderful to put on after you've done your massage or after you come out of the shower. And then you're just careful.
It is interesting. There was a time when people dressed for different kinds of occasions and now we pretty much put on the yoga clothes in the morning and unless you have to work or go to an appointment or something, that's kind of it all day. But there is a teaching that for some of these activities, particularly more sacred kinds of activities like meditation, it's a reasonable idea to have some garments that you only wear for those activities. Maybe we need to get back to more of a little bit of that.
AP: Yeah, that sounds like a great idea!
Being Vegan for Over 40 Years
AP: You've been vegan for over 40 years.
VM: I have.
AP: What difference do you think this choice has made for your life?
VM: Oh, wow. Well, I'm so grateful to have been an early adapter. And it's very interesting to kind of see the cycles of acceptance of living and eating as a vegan.
So when I started out, it was so little known that nobody gave me a hard time. I raised my daughter vegan. Other than one acupuncturist who didn't like that she was eating this way, I don't think we got any flak from a pediatrician, from anybody, because it was just like, okay, you know, it's kind of like, I don't know, being Amish or something.
It's like, all right, I don't understand it, but it's your thing. So I respect it. And then we got more into people knowing what it was and people could start to pronounce it.
I remember back in the 80s, this guy started a group that was called Vaygan's for Reagan. And he couldn't find very many members, but I guess in the interim, you know, he learned how to pronounce the word as everybody else did too. And so we've been through a period, I would say the last 15 years or so, when it's been pretty respectable to be a vegan.
And of course, we have all the wonderful science coming from the world of plant-based nutrition about how it can prevent an even reverse heart disease. There've been studies on reversing diabetes. So it's come out in the world as a very respectable way to be.
And I'm just seeing something different starting now. I wonder if you're seeing this too, where there's this push where the next kind of trend looks like it's going to be more raw milk and fertilized eggs and grass-fed beef and all that kind of stuff. And it's so fascinating to me because in the world of diets, well, they always change.
I mean, Benjamin Franklin said, you can't be sure of anything but death and taxes, but you can be sure of death, taxes, and the next diet. But for me, being vegan is not a diet at all. I mean, it's a lifestyle choice that causes me to make different dietary choices than I otherwise might.
But to me, it's so much a part of my life. It's part of my yoga practice. It's part of my spiritual practice because it's this idea of reverence for life, this idea of Ahimsa, which is also the first moral precept of yoga, that we simply live with regard for all, not just for ourselves.
And that's just the most beautiful thing, I think, for going through life at any age and certainly in the later stages. It's like, what will we have to take with us when we go, what we've done for others, and just being vegan, which is not even difficult and certainly not a sacrifice and the food is fabulous -- we still get to take with us this knowledge that we have lived with others in mind.
It's a beautiful, beautiful thing.
Veganism and Yoga
AP: Was it the practice of yoga and Ahimsa that got you into being vegan in the first place?
VM: I don't think I even heard of Ahimsa in my first early days of yoga, just like people now. You get into yoga and it's about downward facing dog and working towards a headstand and that kind of stuff. And so it took me a little bit to find more of the philosophy.
But even in those early, early days, even before I found my first teacher and I was just looking at books at the Kansas City, Missouri library, I realized that vegetarianism had been part of yoga from the very beginning. And veganism, that's something else that's a little bit more difficult because there is an Indian cultural connection to dairy, but a lot of wonderful, wonderful yogis from India and in India are turning to veganism now as well. So it's interesting about yoga and the vegetarian history because these beautiful wise people, these sages called rishis, figured out that there were two reasons for being vegetarian at least, one being the practice of Ahimsa because you can't make spiritual progress when you are knowingly harming another.
And the other was to have a really healthy way to eat and live so that you have the stamina to sit for long periods of meditation. So when the ancient yogis talked about the ideal diet, they said it's fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and seeds, legumes, which is just what the lifestyle medicine people are saying today. Now the only difference is the yogis did say milk from healthy cows, but I would contend that it's pretty hard to find truly healthy cows these days and certainly not karma-free dairy given the size of the population and what has to happen, which is not good for cows to provide milk to a large number of people.
So it just looks like in 2024, yoga and veganism are very much aligned and I feel very grateful to have both of them in my life.
AP: Do you address this in your book?
VM: I do, yeah. Because people come to yoga from different reasons. Most of them find it at the gym or the day spa or the Y because they're looking for flexibility, maybe a little alternative to Pilates or for some peace of mind.
And then other people come to it because there's this soul yearning for just something deeper, something quieter, just a way to turn within. And yoga offers all that.
Age Like a Yogi
AP: You have some truly special offers for anyone who pre-orders Age Like a Yogi. Can you tell us about those?
VM: Yes, thank you. Thank you for asking, Anna. So pre-orders are really important these days in the book business.
As I said, this is my 14th book. My first book came out in 1985. It was I think the first book about veganism to come from an actual publisher.
Compassion, the Ultimate Ethic. So I've been at this such a long time and it's changed a lot. And nowadays, the sales made before the publication date determine how many copies bookstores and online booksellers will buy.
And it's just a big important thing. So I'm trying to encourage people to help me out with that. And if you take a look at Age Like A Yogi on Amazon or BarnesandNoble.com or wherever you like to buy books in person or online, and you decide to buy a copy, if you send your receipt or a copy of your receipt to assist@VictoriaMoran.com, then you will be invited to a live all-day Zoom webinar and Age Like A Yogi webinar. Beautiful, beautiful way to get connected for the new year and have a wonderful start to 2025. And in addition to the webinar, which will be recorded if you're not available live on January the 12th, you will get the Age Like A Yogi eCookbook. So take a look and I hope it resonates with you.
One Suggestion for Growing Older Better
AP: Oh, amazing. And if you could share only one suggestion for growing older better, what would that be?
VM: I think I'm going to repeat myself and say something that I said at the very beginning, but I really do think it's absolutely vital. And that is to identify more closely with your inner self, your inner self that doesn't change, that doesn't age, then that helps in the outer expression.
AP: That's so beautiful. So Victoria, can you share where people can find your book?
VM: Yeah, you can find it anywhere that books are sold. It's on Amazon and all of the online booksellers. And if you go to your wonderful bookshop in your town or your city, it should be hopefully on the shelves after January 12th, but you can pre-order now.
And I would just be so honored if you took a look at it. You can also find me online at victoriamoran.com. And I am on Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn at Victoria Moran Author.
So I'd love to connect with you there. Let me know that you're one of Anna's listeners and then I'll just consider you part of the family because Anna's part of my family because she went through my program Main Street Vegan Academy to become a certified Vegan Lifestyle Coach and Educator. And everybody who does that is absolutely kith and kin for me.
The Main Street Vegan family. Yeah, it is. And if you're interested in that and checking out the program, which is now on Zoom and fabulous with the amazing speakers and it's live every time, it's live.
So you get to know the instructors, you get to know the other classmates, you get to know me. And I'm pretty generous with things like health afterwards and blurbs for books and recommendations for colleges and all sorts of things. It really is a family.
And you can check us out at MainStreetVegan.com.
AP: Thank you so much, Victoria, for sharing your insights and your wisdom. You're such an inspiration. And I really appreciate having you on the show.
VM: Well, I'm just so pleased that you have this wonderful podcast and that you've picked this topic and this audience because it's a very important turning point in life and to have support and guidance and somebody to laugh with as you traverse this time means the world. Thanks for being out there.
AP: Thank you.
If you enjoyed this article, check out my interview with Dr. Neil Barnard on Phytoestrogens and Menopause or my interview with Linda Tyler on Menopause, Chronic Inflammation, and Aging.
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