"An Ayurvedic Approach to Losing Weight"

 An Ayurvedic Approach to Losing Weight

Introduction

Ayurveda is a wellness system that originated in India around 5,000 years ago. Though it’s one of the world’s oldest healthcare traditions, millions of people all over the world practice it today. In fact, the popularity of Ayurvedic medicine is growing. The word Ayurveda derived from AYU and VEDA. AYU means life VEDA means science or knowledge. Ayurveda means the science of life. Charaka defines "That science is designated as Ayurveda which deals with advantage and disadvantage as well as happy and unhappy states of life along with what is good and bad for life, its measurement and the life itself (Charaka Sutra 1 - 4)".

Analysts expect that by 2022, Ayurvedic medicine will have become a nearly $10 million industry. According to sources, up to 80 percent of people in India use Ayurveda exclusively or combined with conventional Western medicine.

Are you tired of trying one diet after another without achieving your ideal weight? Perhaps you’re just ready for a more holistic approach to weight loss, or you’re just looking to reset after a brief period of feeling out of sync with your diet or lifestyle.


Welcome to the Ayurvedic approach to weight loss. You can do this. In fact, you may find it enriching your life in ways that no other “diet” could.

Eating according to your dosha

Practitioners of the Ayurvedic tradition teach that human beings need to balance three forms of energy and each energy is linked to natural elements:

  • Vata. The energy of movement associated with space and air.
  • Pitta. The energy of metabolism associated with fire and water.
  • Kapha. The energy of your body’s structure associated with earth and water.

Although all people have vata, pitta, and kapha, a person’s dosha is the form of energy most dominant in your constitution. In the Ayurvedic tradition, the way you eat should correspond with your dosha.

Determining your dosha

Determining your dosha could prove tricky to people who are new to Ayurveda. Although there are lists of characteristics for each dosha online, the National Ayurvedic Medical Association recommends that you consult with a trained Ayurvedic practitioner if you aren’t sure which dosha is dominant for you.

Ayurvedic practitioners are licensed and regulated in India. In the Ayurvedic tradition, your diet should correspond with your dosha.

What Are The Doshas? - Ayurvedic Minute

Dietary recommendations for vata-dominant people

  • Eat 3 to 4 small meals daily, at least 2 hours apart.
  • Incorporate lots of cooked vegetables.
  • Avoid nightshade vegetable, such as eggplants, peppers, tomatoes.
  • Eat juicy, sweet fruits and avoid astringent fruits like cranberries and raw apples.
  • Limit legumes.
  • Eat a wide variety of nuts and seeds, especially in the form of nut milks.
  • Avoid addictive products like sugar, alcohol, and tobacco.
  • Avoid foods that are raw, frozen, or extremely cold.

Dietary recommendations for pitta-dominant people

  • Eat lots of raw vegetables and salads, especially in spring and summer.
  • Limit your intake of animal foods like meat, seafood, and eggs.
  • Avoid spicy foods, coffee, and alcohol.
  • Avoid nuts and seeds.
  • Eat legumes and lentils in moderate amounts.
  • Eat and drink dairy products, especially those that have been sweetened.

Dietary recommendations for kapha-dominant people

  • Limit the quantity of food you eat.
  • Avoid dairy and foods high in fat.
  • Limit protein.
  • Eat lots of leafy greens and vegetables grown above ground (as opposed to root veggies).
  • Eat astringent fruits like apples, cranberries, mangoes and peaches.
  • Limit animal foods, nuts and seeds.

Talk to a doctor before making significant changes to your diet to be sure the steps you plan to take are the right ones, given your overall health.

Ayurvedic weight loss remedies

Herbs and herbal remedies are an important part of the Ayurvedic tradition. Many of these herbal treatments have been in use for over 1000 years, but few have been researched in clinical settings.

      Ayurvedic diet tips for weight loss

  1. Practice Fifteen Minutes of Yoga Every Morning: Establishing a daily yoga practice may seem a surprising first step in a comprehensive set of weight loss recommendations. But it is no coincidence that this is the first suggestion, nor that you are being asked to practice yoga first thing every morning.

Yoga is an incredibly powerful practice that benefits the entire being—body, mind, and spirit. It awakens, lubricates and cleanses the body, massages and stimulates the organs of digestion and elimination, tones the joints and muscles, increases circulation, kindles healthy internal heat, activates the digestive fire and facilitates detoxification.

But the practice of yoga also balances the mind and emotions, calms the nervous system and activates prana—the vital life-force within each of us.

There is certainly no harm in doing more than fifteen minutes, but you are much more likely to succeed if your commitments feel doable. And truthfully, fifteen minutes of yoga is enough to be transformative.

So every day commit to do Yoga at least fifteen minutes.

If you are new to yoga, a simple series of Sun Salutations (Surya Namaskar) is a great place to start. This practice is dynamic, rhythmic and flowing. Sun Salutations balance the entire system and can be modified to be more or less challenging—depending on the condition of each individual.

Start with a series of four and slowly build up to ten or twelve, if that feels appropriate to you. If fifteen minutes is up after eight or ten sun salutations, it’s also fine to stop there. The important thing is to work with the breath and to cultivate presence throughout the mind and body as you flow through the asanas.

How To Do A Sun Salutation | The Right Way | Well+Good 

Whatever practice is right for you, attending a yoga class on occasion (or even regularly) can provide an important sense of community, as well as the added depth of being guided by a qualified instructor. Yoga classes can also inspire a more engaged home practice and support you in maintaining this important commitment.

     2.  Eat Three Satisfying Meals Daily:

    Eating three satisfying meals each day will support you in being able to maintain a healthy Ayurvedic diet for weight loss. But this recommendation also makes sense physiologically.

In the Ayurvedic tradition, the concepts of fire, transformation, and digestion are intricately linked. There is an art to starting and tending a fire and the same is true for the digestive fire.

Maintaining a healthy metabolism requires appropriate kindling, and a regular and reliable source of fuel—with appropriate spacing in between. If we stop eating entirely, the digestive fire will inevitably die down.


Avoid Snacking Between Meals

While this is often a challenging adjustment to make, eliminating snacks is powerfully supportive of weight loss. The digestive fire is strongest and most efficient when it can fully digest one meal before being asked to digest anything else. Therefore, it is best to separate meals by at least four hours.

Interestingly, fat metabolism is kicked into high gear during this natural break between meals; without it, the body does not tend to use accumulated fat as energy. Therefore, avoiding snacks is a fantastic way to invite your body to burn through the accumulated excess.

If the desire to snack arises, have a cup of hot water with 1 teaspoon of honey and a squeeze of fresh lime juice instead. Or, if you must have something to eat, try a few raisins or some carrot or celery sticks.

Make Lunch Your Main Meal  

Digestive strength is strongest at mid-day, so eating your main meal at lunchtime (ideally between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.) capitalizes on your body’s naturally increased digestive capacity at this time.

Make Dinner as Light as Possible

Eating a light dinner (ideally eaten by 5 or 6 p.m.) allows your stomach to empty itself before you go to sleep and supports the natural detoxification processes that occur overnight. Even if it’s not possible to eat this early, you will be more successful if you avoid eating anything after 7 p.m.

Offer Your Full Presence to Each Meal

Eating is a sacred act, an act of love. It is therefore best to eat in a calm, peaceful environment, free of emotional upset, intense conversation, television or multi-tasking of any kind.

These practices allow your body to fully register the tastes and textures of your food, reduce the likelihood of overeating, encourage an experience of satisfaction and help prevent the occurrence of unhelpful cravings between meals.

Optional: Stoke the Digestive Fire Before Meals

If you feel inspired to go even further, you can stoke the digestive fire about thirty minutes before lunch and dinner by chewing a slice of fresh ginger (about the size of a nickel) with a pinch of sea salt, a few drops of lime juice and about 1/4 teaspoon honey.

      3. Eat a Kapha-Pacifying Diet:

As we have seen, excess kapha is inherently involved in being overweight, but it can also cause attachment, greed, resistance to change, lethargy, excessive sleep, heaviness in the mind and body, congestion, depression, a sluggish metabolism and water retention.

Eating a kapha-pacifying diet helps clear excess kapha from the system and can affect change in all of these areas—supporting the body in achieving a more balanced weight while improving overall health.

In essence, a kapha-pacifying diet seeks to neutralize excess kapha by emphasizing foods that are light, warm, dry, rough, and very digestible. In general, choose whole foods that are freshly prepared and seasonally appropriate over processed foods, or cold, stale foods.

Beyond that, there are a number of additional practices that can effectively reduce excess kapha.

·         Kapha-Pacifying Diet: a comprehensive overview.

     We can incorporate kapha-pacifying foods into our diet. Kapha is balanced by a diet of freshly cooked, whole foods that are light, dry, warming, well-spiced, and relatively easy to digest—ideally served warm or hot. These foods calm kapha by balancing mucous production, regulating moisture levels, maintaining adequate heat and by supporting proper digestion and elimination. That said, finding a diet that is appropriately satisfying is crucial to your success; so it’s extremely important that you enjoy the foods that you do eat.

Embrace Slow, Steady and Small Shifts

No one expects you to wake up tomorrow morning and eat a perfectly kapha-pacifying diet for the rest of your life! Even the most recognized Ayurvedic teachers have the occasional difference of opinion, which can create some discrepancies between different Ayurvedic diet and recipe resources.

We recommend that you begin by noticing where you might be able to make small, incremental changes in support of your healing journey—at a sustainable pace. From there, notice the ways in which these small shifts are supporting you, and where perhaps some of your current habits are costing you.

Qualities to Favor

Ok. Now that we’re on the same page about how to approach this, we’d like to introduce the qualities that you’ll want to favor in your diet and by contrast, the qualities that will tend to be inherently kapha-aggravating. By nature, kapha is heavy, cool, oily and smooth, so eating foods that neutralize these qualities—foods that are light, warm, dry, and rough—can help to balance excess kapha. This section offers a closer look at how you can begin to recognize the qualities of different foods.

Favor Light and Airy over Dense and Heavy

Fruits and vegetables are typically wonderfully light, so a diet that is built around a tremendous abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables—preferably cooked—is a great start. A modest amount of raw fruit may be suitable and, in moderation, kapha is also balanced by salads and other raw vegetables when seasonally appropriate (usually in the warmer spring and summer months). Green or black teas are quite light, especially when compared with coffee. In general, foods that are a bit heavy for kapha include hard cheeses, puddings, nuts, cakes, pies, wheat, most flours, breads, pastas, red meat, and deep fried foods, which are also excessively oily. Eating too much in one sitting also leads to excess heaviness, so it’s important to try not to overeat. A good rule of thumb is to fill the stomach one-third full of food, one-third full of liquid and to leave one-third empty for optimal digestion. Very heavy meals and highly processed foods also tend to aggravate the heavy quality in kapha and are best reduced or eliminated.

Favor Warm over Cool or Cold

The warm quality can be emphasized by eating foods that are warm in temperature or that have a warming energetic—and by using heating spices generously. Cooked foods tend to offer a warmer energetic and are typically easier to digest; so cooked food is preferable to raw—especially in the colder months. Kapha does best to drink room temperature, warm, or hot beverages and often benefits from sipping hot water throughout the day as well. If you like that, you can also try sipping warm water with a dab of raw honey in it; honey is both heating and detoxifying.

On the other hand, it is best to reduce or minimize foods with a cooling energetic, cold and frozen foods or drinks, carbonated drinks and even leftovers that have been kept in the refrigerator or freezer. The cold quality is inherently increased in these foods, so freshly cooked is best. Consuming large quantities of raw fruits and vegetables can also be quite cooling, so it is best to enjoy these foods in moderation and when seasonally appropriate.

Favor Dry over Moist or Oily

Kapha’s oiliness is offset by exceptionally drying foods like beans, white potatoes, dried fruits, rice cakes, popcorn and an occasional glass of dry red or white wine. When cooking, it is important to use as little oil as possible. You can even play with substituting water for oil to prevent sticking. Do your best to minimize oily foods like avocado, coconut, olives, buttermilk, cheese, fried eggs, cow’s milk, wheat, nuts, and seeds. It is also important not to over-hydrate because kapha can and does retain water easily.

Favor Rough over Smooth

There’s a reason that fruits and vegetables are sometimes called roughage; their fibrous structure gives them a very rough quality. This is why kapha responds so well to eating large quantities of fresh fruits and vegetables. That said, these foods are often much easier to digest when cooked, so be careful not to overdo raw foods and adapt your enjoyment of them according to the season. Some foods, like broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, dark leafy greens and many beans, are exceptionally rough and are therefore wonderful for countering kapha’s smooth, oily nature. Eating smooth foods and preparations like bananas, rice pudding, hot cereal, milk, cheese and the like—can quickly aggravate kapha.

Tastes to Favor

Kapha is pacified by the pungent, bitter, and astringent tastes and aggravated by the sweet, sour, and salty tastes.

Emphasize

Pungent

  • Pungent is a spicy, hot flavor like that found in chilies, radishes, turnips, raw onions and most spices. In fact, most spices are tremendously kapha pacifying.
  • The pungent taste is light, hot, rough, and dry—all beneficial for kapha. In essence, if you like spicy or fiery hot, go for it. And even if you don’t, favor a wide variety of milder spices in your dishes—things like cardamom, cloves, cinnamoncuminginger, garlic, paprika and turmeric.
  • The pungent taste cleanses the mouth and clarifies the senses. It stimulates digestion, liquefies secretions, clears the channels of the body, encourages sweating and thins the blood.

Bitter

  • The bitter taste predominates bitter greens (like kale, dandelion greens, collard greens, etc.) and is also found in bitter melon, Jerusalem artichokes, burdock root, eggplant, dark chocolate and in kapha-pacifying spices like cumin, neem leaves, saffron, and turmeric.
  • The bitter taste is rough, drying, light and generally reducing—all qualities that benefit kapha, but it is also cooling, so it’s important to add some warming spices to bitter foods.
  • Bitters cleanse the pallet and improve the sense of taste. They tone the skin and muscles, improve appetite, support digestion and help to absorb moisture, lymph, muscle fat, adipose tissue and sweat.

Astringent

  • The astringent taste is basically a flavor of dryness—a chalky taste that dries the mouth and may cause it to contract.
  • Legumes like adzuki beans, black-eyed peas, chickpeas, kidney beans, lentils, pinto beans and soybeans are classically astringent in taste and very kapha-pacifying. Some fruits, vegetables, grains, baked goods, and spices are also astringent in taste—things like apples, cranberries, pomegranate, artichokes, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, popcorn, rice cakes, crackers, basil, coriander, dill, fennel, parsley, and turmeric.
  • The astringent taste is dry, rough, somewhat light and it reduces kapha. But like the bitter taste, it is also cold, so it’s best to add warming herbs and spices to astringent foods. For Pomegranate, simply enjoying these foods in the warmer seasons makes a lot of sense.
  • Kapha benefits from the compressing, absorbing, nature of the astringent taste, which also helps to tone bodily tissues and utilize excess fluid.

Minimize

Sweet

  • The sweet taste is cold, heavy, moist, oily and kapha-provoking, especially in excess.
  • Reduce or eliminate the intake of refined sugar and sugary sweet foods as much as possible.
  • It would be impossible eat a nutritious diet and avoid the sweet taste altogether. But it is certainly reasonable to reduce the portions of naturally sweet-tasting foods like fruits, grains, root vegetables, milk, ghee, yogurt, eggs, nuts, seeds, oils and meats.
  • Sweet foods tend to aggravate kapha’s tendency toward heaviness, obesity, lethargy, and excess sleep. They can also cause excessive mucus, aggravate colds and coughs and depress the appetite in an unhealthy way.

Sour

  • Minimize sour foods like vinegar, cheese, sour cream, green grapes, oranges, pineapple, and grapefruit.
  • The moistening and oily qualities of the sour taste aggravate kapha.
  • The sour taste can increase thirst, create heaviness in the eyes, cause laxity in the body, and aggravate water retention or swelling.
  • An occasional squeeze of lemon or lime juice is the best way for kapha to ingest the sour taste.

Salty

  • The salty taste is almost singularly derived from salt itself.
  • Much like the sour taste, it is salt’s moist and oily nature that aggravates kapha.
  • In excess, the salty taste can cause water retention, high blood pressure, intestinal inflammation, grey hair, wrinkles, excess thirst and it can impede the sense organs. Further, it tends to spark a sharp desire for stronger flavors and can similarly trigger insatiability and greed.

How to Eat

When it comes to pacifying kapha, how we eat can have a profound impact on our degree of success, so this is an especially useful place to focus, if the prospect of radically changing your diet feels overwhelming right now.

As most people with kapha digestion know, kapha’s love of food and tendency toward emotional eating can easily lead to overindulgence. Eating at consistent times from one day to the next also helps to strengthen the digestive fire while regulating the appetite. You can further counteract sluggish digestion by chewing a slice of fresh ginger (about the size of a nickel) with a pinch of sea salt, a few drops of lime juice, and about 1/4 teaspoon honey about 30 minutes before both lunch and dinner. This helps to prepare the digestive system to receive food and to process it effectively.

During meals, it is very important to eat in a peaceful environment and to give your full attention to the act of being nourished so that your body registers satisfaction. This will help reduce overeating and emotional eating. Fast foods, sweets, and excessive amounts of bread and other comfort foods can be especially kapha-provoking. While you will likely not succeed in avoiding all kapha-aggravating foods, their detrimental potential can be minimized by making sure that they are served warm, in small quantities and with the support of heating herbs.Periodic fasts or cleanses can be very helpful—especially if you tend to be able to sustain your energy over long breaks between meals. A short fruit or juice fast (think apple or pomegranate) or a longer monodiet of kitchari can be very supportive.

Suggested Meals

Breakfast

Breakfast is often somewhat optional when kapha is elevated. Kapha benefits tremendously from the unforced, overnight fast between dinner and breakfast. If the appetite has not returned upon waking, it’s likely that a light breakfast of fresh fruit or tea will suffice. If breakfast does feel important to you, consider:

  • A substantive serving of fresh fruit: stewed apples, a fruit salad—choose fruits like apples, apricots, berries, mangos, peaches and strawberries, a fruit smoothie, or some freshly juiced fruit.
  • baked apple can also be satisfying.
  • Hot cereals, like seasoned barley or rice porridge, are excellent choices. You can even add a little dried fruit or a dab of honey if you like.
  • Another option would be muesli with warm rice milk and a slice of rye toast.
  • Add herbal, green, or black tea to any of these breakfasts but be careful not to over-decorate them; a dab of honey or rice milk is likely enough.

Lunch

Ideally, lunch is the main meal of the day, meaning it’s the largest and the most nourishing. Build your lunches around consuming lots of steamed and sautéed vegetables, and complement them with beans, appropriate grains, non-yeasted breads, a suitable meat, or an occasional egg. Try something like:

  • Red lentil-lemongrass soup and a side of steamed kale. The kale can be garnished with olive oil, lemon juice and black pepper.
  • A simple vegetable soup made with vegetables like onions, garlic, broccoli, celery, carrots, green beans, and asparagus and a slice of rye toast.
  • Saffron asparagus kitchari and a side of sautéed dandelion greens with lemon and mint.
  • Green chile soup with black bean tacos. Include black beans, sautéed onions and bell peppers, shredded romaine lettuce, cilantro, salsa and a squeeze of lime juice and serve over steamed corn tortillas.

Dinner

Dinner is ideally significantly smaller and lighter than lunch. Soups and stews are often a wonderful choice because they are warm and nourishing, even when light. A smaller serving of lunch can often work, too. For some, especially when weight loss is indicated, it’s best to forego dinner altogether in favor of a healthy breakfast and lunch, or to eat a more substantial breakfast and make dinner the ultra-light meal of the day. Try:

  • Minted toor dal and a small serving of quinoa.
  • Red lentils with basil and a small serving of basmati rice.
  • Potato leek soup with a small salad and a stimulating dressing, like lemon-ginger.

Specific Kapha-Pacifying Foods

Embrace eating regular meals without snacking much in between, eat your main meal at lunch with a lighter dinner, and make a concerted effort to be fully present with all of your meals. That is as good a starting place as any.

·         Kapha Pacifying Foods: a list of foods to favor and avoid.

Kapha can be brought back into balance by eating the right foods. 



Fruits

Fruits that pacify kapha will generally be somewhat astringent and only mildly sweet. Dried fruits are acceptable, on occasion, but should only be enjoyed in small quantities because they are so dense and concentrated.

Fruits to avoid are those that are exceptionally sweet or sour (like oranges or grapes) and any that are especially heavy, dense, or watery—like bananas, coconut, dates, melons, pineapple or plums.

And remember, fruits and fruit juices are best enjoyed alone—30 minutes before and ideally at least 1 hour after, any other food. This helps to ensure optimal digestion.

Favor

Avoid

  • Apples
  • Applesauce
  • Apricots
  • Berries
  • Cherries
  • Cranberries
  • Figs (dry)
  • Grapes (red, purple, black)
  • Lemons
  • Limes
  • Mango
  • Peaches
  • Pears
  • Persimmons
  • Pomegranates
  • Prunes
  • Raisins
  • Raspberries
  • Strawberries
  • Bananas
  • Cantaloupe
  • Coconut
  • Dates
  • Figs (fresh)
  • Grapes (green)
  • Grapefruit
  • Kiwi
  • Melons
  • Oranges
  • Papaya
  • Pineapple
  • Plums
  • Rhubarb
  • Tamarin
  • Watermelon

Vegetables

Vegetables that pacify kapha will generally be pungent, bitter, and astringent. Most vegetables include some combination of these tastes, so vegetables are an important centerpiece of any effective kapha-balancing diet.

Cooked vegetables are generally easier to digest than raw ones, so it’s best to have raw veggies, salads and kapha-aggravating vegetables in small quantities and at mid-day when digestive strength is at its peak. Raw vegetables are often more appropriate for kapha in the spring and summer seasons.

The only vegetables for kapha to reduce or avoid are those that are particularly heavy, dense, oily, or watery – like avocado, cucumber, olives and the other vegetables listed in the reduce or avoid column below.

Favor

Reduce or Avoid

  • Artichoke
  • Asparagus
  • Beet Greens
  • Beets
  • Bell Peppers
  • Bitter Melon
  • Broccoli
  • Brussels Sprouts
  • Burdock Root
  • Cabbage
  • Carrots
  • Cauliflower
  • Celery
  • Chilies
  • Cilantro
  • Collard Greens
  • Corn
  • Daikon Radish
  • Dandelion Greens
  • Eggplant
  • Garlic
  • Green Beans
  • Horseradish
  • Jerusalem Artichokes
  • Kale
  • Kohlrabi
  • Leafy Greens
  • Leeks
  • Lettuce
  • Mustard Greens
  • Okra
  • Onions
  • Peas
  • Peppers, Sweet & Hot
  • Potatoes, White
  • Radishes
  • Rutabaga
  • Spaghetti Squash
  • Spinach
  • Sprouts
  • Squash, Winter
  • Tomatoes (cooked)
  • Turnips
  • Watercress
  • Wheat Grass
  • Avocado
  • Cucumber
  • Olives
  • Parsnips
  • Pumpkin
  • Squash, Summer
  • Sweet Potatoes
  • Tomatoes (raw)
  • Zucchini

Grains

Grains that pacify kapha are light, dry, and rough. In general, grains tend to be staples in our diets because they are somewhat heavy and nourishing. But when it comes to balancing kapha, these qualities are best minimized, so reducing grain consumption overall can be a huge benefit.

Avoid grains that are exceptionally heavy, moist, or dense (like wheat, flours, breads, cooked oats, and pastas) as much as possible, and eat smaller quantities of appropriate grains. It often works well to supplement meals with extra vegetables or legumes, which are nutritionally rich, but also more balancing for kapha.

Favor

Avoid

  • Amaranth
  • Barley
  • Buckwheat
  • Cereal (unsweetened, cold, dry)
  • Corn
  • Couscous
  • Crackers
  • Durham Flour
  • Granola
  • Millet
  • Muesli
  • Oat Bran
  • Oats (dry)
  • Polenta
  • Quinoa
  • Rice (basmati, wild)
  • Rice Cakes
  • Rye
  • Seitan
  • Spelt
  • Sprouted Wheat Bread
  • Tapioca
  • Wheat Bran
  • Oats (cooked)
  • Pancakes
  • Pasta
  • Rice (brown, white)
  • Wheat
  • Yeasted Bread

Legumes

Legumes are generally astringent, which is one of the tastes that balances kapha. Kapha can enjoy a wide variety of legumes, but they should generally be well-cooked and well-spiced to make them more digestible. Even well-cooked tofu, tempeh and warm, spiced soy milk are acceptable. The only beans that don’t work for kapha are simply too heavy or oily to be balancing.

Favor

Avoid

  • Adzuki Beans
  • Black Beans
  • Black-Eyed Peas
  • Garbanzo Beans (Chickpeas)
  • Lentils
  • Lima Beans
  • Mung Beans
  • Mung Dal
  • Navy Beans
  • Pinto Beans
  • Split Peas
  • Soy Milk
  • Soy Meats
  • Tempeh
  • Tofu (served hot)
  • Toor Dal
  • White Beans
  • Kidney Beans
  • Miso
  • Soy Beans
  • Soy Cheese
  • Soy Flour
  • Soy Powder
  • Soy Sauce
  • Tofu (served cold)
  • Urad Dal

Dairy

Dairy products are best minimized when trying to reduce kapha because they tend to be heavy, unctuous and can increase mucus production. As a rule, dairy milks should be taken at least one hour before or after any other food.

Ideally, milk is boiled and served hot with a pinch of turmeric or ginger—to make it more digestible and less congesting. Goat’s milk and goat’s milk products are the best options for kapha because they are lighter, but are best in moderation. Almond and rice milks are good substitutes.

Favor

Avoid

  • Buttermilk
  • Cottage Cheese (ideally from skim goat’s milk)
  • Ghee
  • Goat’s Cheese (unsalted, not aged)
  • Goat’s Milk (skim)
  • Yogurt (fresh and diluted)
  • Butter
  • Cheese
  • Cow’s Milk
  • Frozen Yogurt
  • Ice Cream
  • Sour Cream
  • Yogurt (store-bought)

Nuts & Seeds

Nuts and seeds tend to be heavy, dense and oily and are generally not terrifically balancing for kapha. But there are a few types of nuts and seeds that are acceptable in small quantities. When trying to balance kapha, nuts and seeds are best enjoyed only on occasion.

Favor

Avoid

  • Almonds (soaked and peeled)
  • Charole Nuts
  • Chia Seeds
  • Flax Seeds
  • Popcorn (without salt or butter)
  • Pumpkin Seeds
  • Sunflower Seeds
  • Brazil Nuts
  • Cashews
  • Coconut
  • Filberts
  • Macadamia Nuts
  • Peanuts
  • Pecans
  • Pine Nuts
  • Pistachios
  • Sesame Seeds
  • Tahini
  • Walnuts

Meat & Eggs

Kapha does best with animal foods that are light and relatively dry (like chicken or freshwater fish), as opposed to those that are heavy, oily, or especially dense (such as beef, pork, or duck). Eating less meat all around is generally beneficial. In fact, kapha can be easily pacified without any animal foods, if your diet doesn’t already include them.

Favor

Avoid

  • Chicken (white)
  • Eggs (not fried, and in moderation)
  • Fish (freshwater)
  • Shrimp
  • Turkey (white)
  • Venison
  • Beef
  • Buffalo
  • Chicken (dark)
  • Duck
  • Fish (saltwater)
  • Lamb
  • Pork
  • Salmon
  • Sardines
  • Seafood
  • Tuna Fish
  • Turkey (dark)

Oils

Most oils are a bit heavy and well, oily for kapha. However, in very small quantities, the oils in the favor column are acceptable, if they are of good quality. Because toxins tend to concentrate in fats, buying organic oils may be more important than buying organic fruits and vegetables.

When trying to balance kapha, you can minimize reliance on oil by sautéing foods in water instead of oil or by simply steaming them. For those occasions when a tad of oil is needed, the best oils for kapha are corn oil, sunflower oil, or ghee.

Favor

Avoid

 

  • Almond Oil
  • Corn Oil
  • Flax Seed Oil
  • Ghee
  • Sunflower Oil
  • Avocado Oil
  • Apricot Oil
  • Coconut Oil
  • Olive Oil
  • Primrose Oil
  • Safflower Oil
  • Sesame Oil
  • Soy Oil
  • Walnut Oil

Sweeteners

As the sweet taste is not particularly supportive to kapha, most sweeteners are better avoided. Honey on the other hand – which is dry, light, and heating—is the one exception, when used in small quantities. Honey also scrapes toxins and fat from the tissues, so it benefits kapha on multiple levels.

Raw and unprocessed honey should be used. Foods and drinks that contain refined sugars or corn syrup can be especially detrimental and should be avoided as much as possible.

Favor

Avoid

  • Fruit Juice Concentrates
  • Honey (raw and unprocessed)
  • Artificial Sweeteners
  • Barley Malt
  • Date Sugar
  • Fructose
  • Honey (cooked, heated, or processed)
  • Jaggary
  • Maple Syrup
  • Molasses
  • Rice Syrup
  • Sucanat
  • Turbinado
  • White Sugar

Spices

Most spices are wonderful for kapha, so feel free to experiment with a wide variety of new and exotic spices. Kapha is the only dosha that can usually handle fiery hot foods. Even if those don’t suit you, a variety of mild spices will help to strengthen the digestive fire and can improve overall metabolism.

In particular, the pungent and digestive qualities of onions, garlic, ginger, black pepper, chili pepper, and cayenne pepper benefit kapha.

Favor                                                                                                               Avoid

  • Ajwan                                                                                                                        Salt
  • Allspice
  • Anise
  • Basil
  • Bay Leaf
  • Black Pepper
  • Caraway
  • Cardamom
  • Cayenne
  • Cinnamon
  • Cloves
  • Coriander (seeds or powder)
  • Cumin (seeds or powder)
  • Dill
  • Fennel
  • Fenugreek
  • Garlic
  • Ginger (fresh or dried)
  • Hing (Asafoetida)
  • Mace
  • Marjoram
  • Mint
  • Mustard Seeds
  • Neem Leaves
  • Nutmeg
  • Oregano
  • Paprika
  • Parsley
  • Peppermint
  • Pippali
  • Poppy Seeds
  • Rosemary
  • Saffron
  • Savory
  • Spearmint
  • Tarragon
  • Thyme
  • Trikatu
  • Turmeric
  • Vanilla
  • Wintergreen

Proper food combinations can also be tremendously helpful in supporting improved digestion. In our fast-paced modern culture, this ancient understanding of which foods should and should not be eaten together is quite foreign to many of us.

That being the case, it is best to embrace proper food combining slowly, by first simply becoming aware of improper combinations that occur regularly in your diet. As you are ready, make slow, manageable changes—one at a time.

Proper Food Combining

Combining Foods for Better Digestion

For many, the concept of food combining—the idea that some foods digest well together while others do not—is entirely new and somewhat foreign. But according to Ayurveda, it is an essential part of understanding how to eat properly, just as discovering one's constitution and state of imbalance is important for one's Ayurvedic self-discovery.

Careful food combining can dramatically improve the quality of digestion, support the body in receiving a deeper level of nourishment and positively impact our overall health. However, most people in the modern world are accustomed to eating a number of foods that do not usually digest well together (like fruit with nuts, or beans with cheese).

So why does it matter? The Ayurvedic perspective on diet is that each food has a distinct combination of tastes and energies—and a corresponding effect on both the digestive system and on the body as a whole.

Combining foods with radically different energetics can overwhelm the digestive fire (Agni) and can cause indigestion, fermentation, gas, bloating, and the creation of toxins. This is why proper food combining is so important.

Of course, certain combinations disturb the digestive tract more than others—an important consideration if this practice is entirely new to you. Regardless of your particular habits or symptoms, paying attention to how you combine foods can provide a valuable opportunity for insight, healing and improved health. 

A Balanced Approach to Food Combining

It is usually best to embrace the idea of food combining slowly and gently, allowing plenty of time to make the necessary adaptations. Some of the recommended adjustments are relatively simple; others can require a major recalibration in our habits, or be met with resistance.

Often, simply developing an awareness of the improper food combinations that you eat somewhat regularly is a great place to start. Notice which foods you combine that may be difficult to digest together and how often you indulge in them. Become aware of how you feel afterward. Do these choices affect your energy level, your digestion, your elimination, the coating on your tongue? Are particular combinations more noticeably influential than others?

These are all important pieces of information. They can confirm the importance of proper food combining and can help each of us to identify the food combinations that are the most disruptive to our systems.

The most important first step is to become aware of your needs and your habits; from there, you can evolve an approach to food combining that works for you.

Food Combinations to Avoid or Reduce

The following list highlights incompatible foods and offers suggestions for more appropriate combinations. It is meant to be a helpful guide, not an exhaustive list. In fact, you may be aware of other combinations that do not work for your body. Honor those instincts.

Because this resource is meant to help you determine optimal combinations at a glance, there is some repetition. Combinations listed in all caps are particularly challenging.

Yes, some of these are staple combinations in many households. Pizza and a number of other beloved Italian dishes combine nightshades with cheese. And who among us hasn’t enjoyed beans with cheese at some time or another?

Then there’s the fruit and yogurt taboo… So much for about 80% of all available store-bought varieties of yogurt; next time you indulge in a fruit-flavored yogurt, pay attention to how your digestion feels afterward.

In addition, there are some specific preparations that are challenging when combined with particular foods.





All of these rules can feel overwhelming, even irritatingly complicated. But, the rationale behind proper food combining really does make sense. Ultimately, combining mismatched foods generates ama, a toxic substance that is often at the root of imbalance and disease.

Ayurvedic Food Combining

For those of you who would like to understand a little more about HOW and WHY these food combinations tax our bodies, here are a few specific examples:

Bananas and Milk

Though commonly eaten together, bananas and milk are challenging to digest together because their qualities are so different. Bananas are heating while milk is cooling. That alone is problematic. Further, bananas become sour as they break down. So now our digestive fire has to process a sour substance and milk at the same time.

Ever added a squeeze of lemon to milk? Or maybe you’ve poured a little milk into a tangy, fruity tea… only to watch it curdle instantly? What happens to these mismatched foods in the digestive tract is not much different.

When bananas and milk are eaten together, their opposing qualities tend to smother the digestive fire and can disrupt the balance of intestinal flora, which results in the creation of toxins. This combination also frequently causes congestion, colds, coughs, allergies, hives and rashes. A similar situation arises when we combine any sour fruit with milk. 

Nightshades and Cheese

This combination is simply too taxing for the digestive fire. A nightshade is a common name for a member of the plant family Solanaceae, which includes potatoes, bell peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, cayenne peppers, paprika, tobacco, henbane, belladonna, datura and over 2500 other plants. 

Nightshades contain alkaloids, primarily as a means of defense against being damaged by insects. The alkaloids can be anywhere from mildly to fatally toxic to humans. As a result, diverse cultures around the world have long held an intriguing relationship with the nightshade family. Some have been used to make poisons, some contain incredibly addictive compounds such as nicotine, some are mind-altering and others create an incredible sensation of heat in the mouth. 

The bottom line is that nightshades contain a complex array of compounds that, once ingested, lead to a potentially dramatic cascade of chemical reactions in the body. Ayurvedically speaking, all nightshades are believed to be somewhat difficult to digest and to have the capacity to disturb the doshas.

When we mix these inherently challenging nightshades with cheese—which is heavy, oily and also difficult to digest—we can quickly overtax the digestive fire.

Beans and Cheese

Beans and cheese are similar in that they both tend to be heavy and are often difficult to digest. In order to break down properly, they both require a good deal of digestive strength. But, the similarities end there. Beans tend to taste mostly astringent and sweet, can be either heating or cooling and usually have a pungent post-digestive effect. Cheese, on the other hand, tastes predominantly sour, is almost always heating and usually has a sour post-digestive effect.

The post-digestive effect of different foods occurs once that food has moved into the colon; it affects the urine, feces, sweat, and tissues—sometimes even at the cellular level. Two foods with distinct post-digestive effects are typically quite different from one another.

This is the case with beans and cheese; when they are eaten together, they tend to overwhelm and confuse the digestive fire. Meanwhile, their combined heaviness makes them even more difficult to process, often resulting in poor digestion and the accumulation of ama.

Best Foods for Digestion

If you're not sure where to begin, it's a good idea to start simply by selecting foods that aid digestion and either combining those foods with like items that are energetically similar or eating them alone and waiting half an hour or so before introducing other foods to the body. 

Eating Fruits Alone

The reason fruits are best enjoyed on their own is that fruit is usually somewhat acidic, fairly simple to digest and often digests quite quickly. When fruits are eaten with other foods, there is usually a significant discrepancy between the amount of time required to properly digest the fruit versus the more complex food.

In addition, the combination typically introduces a number of conflicting qualities into the digestive tract all at once, which has the potential to overwhelm or stifle the digestive fire.

Grains and Vegetables

You'll notice that grains are recommended with just about everything but fruit. Since grains go well with other grains, vegetables, beans and more, they can make for a great starting place for many meals. 

Combining rice with dal results in kitchari, which Ayurveda considers one of the top easy to digest foods and recommends as the meal of choice to eat throughout a traditional Ayurvedic cleanse. Kitchari also contains ghee, digestive spices and can be paired with several varieties of vegetables.

Easing Into Easy-to-Digest Food Combinations

Embracing the wisdom of food combining slowly helps us to cultivate a refined awareness around how our dietary choices affect us. It is also important to remember that following an Ayurvedic diet for weight loss does not require us to give up everything we’ve come to love. Simply finding moderation in our choices can be a great first step in restoring balance.

Because cravings for detrimental foods will subside as our health improves, our bodies become better and better able to recognize wholesome, life-affirming foods, and increasingly reject dietary choices that compromise our well-being. This process takes time, but it’s important to be both patient and persistent.

Ultimately each step along the way will support our overall progress.

 4. Exercise at Least Three Days Each Week

Aerobic exercise is an important component of any weight loss strategy. This commitment is in addition to your daily yoga practice. Focus on activities that are invigorating, doable and fun for you.

For those of us with busy schedules, committing to a shorter exercise program can significantly reduce our sense of overwhelm and encourage success.

The great news is that workouts as short as fifteen to twenty minutes can be tremendously beneficial. Of course, if your preferred exercise routine is longer, that’s fine too.

Aerobic Exercise At Home To Lose Weight

Ayurveda teaches us that certain times of day are more conducive to exercise than others. These are the kapha times of day (approximately 6–10 a.m./p.m.), when atmospheric conditions lend a little extra strength and stamina to the system.

For the best results, plan your activities within this window in either the morning or the evening. Obviously, if those times will not work for you, find one that will; exercise at any time will be better than none at all.

Ayurveda also recommends that we exercise at fifty to seventy percent of our capacity—ideally, breathing through our nostrils the entire time. This prevents physiological stress and allows the body to benefit more deeply from our efforts.

You can apply this approach to walking, hiking, running, cycling, yoga, swimming, as well as cardio workouts at the gym.

In recent years, a method of exercise known as High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) has emerged around this concept. Because workouts typically range from eight to thirty minutes, HIIT may be particularly useful for those of us with less time to devote to exercise.

A HIIT routine usually involves a short warm-up period, a series of three to ten short sprints (twenty to sixty seconds each) interspersed with short recovery periods in between (ten to sixty seconds each) and a cool-down period.

Interestingly, there is a growing body of evidence suggesting that HIIT may actually boost metabolic function, reduce insulin resistance, burn fat, and support weight loss more effectively than traditional cardio workouts.

15 Minute HIIT Workout | High Intensity Interval Training For Everyone

Regardless of your preferred activity, the most important thing is to make your exercise regimen an inspiring and energizing part of your week so that you are motivated to keep at it. Please check with your doctor before starting a new exercise program.

 5. Establish a Daily Routine:

In the context of our busy modern lives, establishing a daily routine can actually be the key to success with this approach.

Not only does it ensure that our commitments become a natural part of each day and that we develop helpful, supportive new habits; a sense of routine also has a soothing effect on the nervous system, supports a calmer, more centered state of being and helps reduce stress.

On an intuitive level, it makes sense that reducing stress would support weight loss, but there are compelling physiological reasons that this holds true.

 The take-home message is that where stress is concerned, establishing a daily routine may be the single most important commitment you make.

A daily routine is a central element of an Ayurvedic lifestyle—one that is recommended for everyone—and there are a wide variety of traditional practices to choose from.

Establish Routine Sleep and Wake Times

Ayurveda has some valuable insights to offer about the timing of our sleep. The evening time (from about 6–10 p.m.) is a kapha time of day and is especially heavy, slow, and dull—an ideal time to let our systems settle down and prepare for sleep.

Many people actually feel a natural lull in energy during these evening hours. However, pitta’s fiery influence takes the reins after about 10 p.m., so if we are not already headed to bed (or asleep) by 10 p.m., we may feel reinvigorated and it can be extremely difficult to wind down and go to sleep until much later.

In the interest of aligning with the cycles of nature and getting good rest, an earlier bedtime is undoubtedly more supportive.

Kapha time reoccurs in the early morning, from about 6–10 a.m. This time of day lends extra strength and stamina to morning workouts, but if we are not fully awake ahead of its arrival, it has the potential to leave us feeling sluggish and groggy.

Therefore, we recommend that you wake up by 6 a.m. Not only will you feel more alert and awake, but your body’s metabolic capacity will also be better supported as well.

For example, if 5:30 a.m. is your ideal wake time and you know that you need at least seven hours of sleep in order to feel your best, then you should be in bed no later than 10:30 p.m. If on the other hand, you need eight hours of sleep in order to thrive, then your bedtime should be 9:30 p.m.

If any of this will require you to significantly change your current sleep habits, consider adjusting your sleep and wake times by about fifteen minutes at a time, working with each new time for several days before adjusting by another fifteen minutes.

There are three important things to consider when establishing your sleep and wake times.

  1. You need to get enough rest.
  2. It is best to wake by (or even well before) 6 a.m.
  3. You are likely to rest better if you retire by or before 10 p.m.

Many people find that the success of their daily routine depends largely on when they go to bed. This is because our bedtimes can either support the flow of the next day, or sabotage our ability to follow through on good intentions. Consistency and discipline around sleep and wake times can truly be an invaluable catalyst for positive change.

Set Aside a Time to Practice Your Fifteen Minutes of Morning Yoga

It’s only fifteen minutes, but it’s incredibly important to carve out a specific time each day for your yoga practice; otherwise, it may fall by the wayside. It is best to practice in the early morning before breakfast, but if that simply won’t work for you, find another time of day when you can practice on an empty stomach.

Eat Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner at About the Same Time Each Day

Eating your meals at consistent times from one day to the next ensures that there is adequate space between meals and reinforces the predictability of a routine—both for your metabolism and for your nervous system.

Classic Ayurvedic meal times are roughly 8 a.m. for breakfast, 12 p.m. for lunch and 6 p.m. for dinner. This exact timing may not work with your schedule and it’s important that your meal times are compatible with your daily routine.

That said, your body will benefit from eating lunch (your biggest meal) between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., when the digestive fire is strongest. Similarly, eating a light, early dinner will be the most supportive of your weight loss efforts.

Create an Exercise Schedule

The primary objective behind creating a schedule here is to make sure that your three days of exercise happen, but creating predictability with your new habits will have its own benefits.

It may require some experimentation to determine what works best for you, but once you find a rhythm, stick with it and be persistent. Being consistently active will help you immensely.

Optional: Quiet Time for Pranayama, Meditation, or Prayer

Ayurveda recognizes the power of a number of subtle therapies. In many cases, attributing excess weight to improper diet and inadequate exercise alone is a gross oversimplification—ignoring important emotional, psychological, and even physical patterns underlying the imbalance.

Emotional unrest is often a significant factor in poor eating habits, lethargy, depression, and anxious feelings. Undigested, unprocessed emotions quickly interfere with our physical health and our mental ability to authentically care for ourselves each day.

A mindfulness practice can begin to neutralize the powerful hold that these patterns often have on our behavior.

We also know that long-term stress can lead to weight gain by overtaxing the endocrine system, and ultimately, by compromising our metabolism (think adrenals, thyroid, and pancreas).

Spiritual practice can help reset the nervous and endocrine systems—supporting improved metabolic function and beginning to unwind the cycle of chronic stress that is frequently behind excess weight.

In short, if stress, anxiousness, and feeling overextended have become an integral part of your life, consider making a sixth commitment to some sort of daily mindfulness practice. Even ten to fifteen minutes can have a profound impact on your state of mind. If you don’t have an existing practice, consider one of the following:

Pranayama. Working with the breath through the practice of Pranayama is a powerful way to access and reset longstanding patterns in the energetic body.

There are several pranayamas suitable in Ayurveda for weight loss, such as Kapalabhati (Skull Shining Breath) and Bhastrika (Bellows Breath).

Those that are soothing, slow, grounding and calming, like Nadi Shodhana  (Alternate Nostril Breathing) will be best for clearing stress, anxious feelings and other unresolved emotions.



Meditation. Meditation can help us to re-pattern the brain on a very profound level—supporting our health in a myriad of ways.

6. Practice mindfulness, even while you eat:

Adding meditation to your daily life can reduce the amount of cortisol (the stress hormone associated with weight gain) in your body. Another way to increase mindfulness is to eat slowly and quietly. Listen to your body’s signals about how much to eat and when to stop.

7. Sip warm lemon water to start your day:

Doctors at Cleveland Clinic agree lemon water aids digestion.

Ayurvedic Herbs for Weight Management

In addition to the above commitments, consider supplementing with Ayurvedic herbs for weight management, kapha-balancing products, and other formulas that will support your efforts. The following herbs are particularly supportive of a robust digestive system and proper metabolic function overall.

 Triphala

Triphala is an herbal preparation that combines three superfruits, all of which grow in India:

  • amalaki (Indian gooseberry)
  • bibhitaki (Terminalia bellirica)
  • haritaki (Terminalia chebula)

Triphala is a traditional Ayurvedic formula comprised of three fruits that is balancing for Vata, Pitta and Kapha. It is revered for its unique ability to gently cleanse and detoxify the digestive tract while replenishing, nourishing, and rejuvenating the tissues.

About half an hour before bed, take two Triphala tablets with a glass of warm water. If you prefer, steep 1/2 teaspoon Triphala powder in a cup of freshly boiled water for ten minutes; cool and drink. Or try 30 drops of Triphala liquid extract in warm water before bed instead. A 2017 review Trusted Source of scientific literature found that triphala was effective at reducing blood glucose levels in people with type 2 diabetes. It also led to greater weight loss for participants in one study.

Trim Support Tablets

Trim Support Tablets gently detoxify the body, supporting proper nutrition and metabolic function. Improperly digested food can create toxins that coat the digestive tract, inhibiting absorption and leading to the accumulation of fat in the tissues.

Trim Support gently scrapes these toxins from the system while kindling the digestive fire, allowing for proper digestion, absorption and assimilation.

Lastly, consider one of Banyan Botanicals’ digestive formulas—Vata Digest, Pitta Digest, or Kapha Digest tablets. Each one helps support optimal functioning throughout the digestive tract by balancing a specific set of digestive tendencies.

Kapha Digest. This is the tablet form of a classical Ayurvedic formula known as Trikatu. It contains the herbs pippali, ginger, and black pepper. This powerful combination is traditionally used to enkindle the digestive fire and to burn fat and natural toxins.

Kapha Digest tablets support a healthy metabolism, allowing nutrients to be properly digested and assimilated, aid in weight management and rejuvenate kapha, supporting healthy lungs and clear breathing.

If you prefer a powder, consider using the powdered form of Trikatu for weight loss. In either form, this formula is quite heating and is therefore not the best choice for those who have excess heat in the digestive tract or high pitta in general.

Pitta Digest. This formula is a dynamic combination of herbs formulated to strengthen digestion without aggravating pitta. Excess pitta causes increased heat, sharpness, and oiliness in the digestive tract, which can aggravate and inflame the digestive fire, and cause discomfort.

Pitta Digest tablets cool and soothe the digestive fire and the tissues of the GI tract, help maintain healthy digestive acid levels and a healthy stomach lining, support a comfortable post-meal experience, and simultaneously support healthy, balanced digestion overall.

If you prefer a powdered formula, Avipattikar powder is a classical Ayurvedic formula with similar indications and benefits.

Vata Digest. This is the tablet form of the classical Ayurvedic formula known as Hingvastak. The vata-pacifying combination of herbs supports the entire digestive process, from appetite to elimination. In excess, vata’s cold, light, and dry qualities tend to inhibit proper digestive functioning and can cause gas, bloating or constipation.

Vata Digest tablets contain herbs that are heating, grounding and oily, effectively countering excess vata. This formula also kindles the digestive fire, stimulates a healthy appetite, calms excess movement of air, lubricates the intestines, helps ensure that nutrients are properly absorbed and assimilated and supports regular, thorough and healthy elimination.

Guggul

Guggul is the dried resin of the Mukul myrrh tree. Although it’s been used as a weight loss aid in Ayurvedic medicine, clinical research on its effectiveness has produced inconsistent results.

One 2008 lab study Trusted Source found that the active ingredient in Guggul preparations did cause fat cells to break down. However, another lab study in 2017 concluded that it had no effect on the hormone that causes fat metabolism.

Kalonji

Kalonji, also known as black seed or black cumin (Nigella sativa), has been studied extensively for a wide range of uses. In human studies Trusted Source, Nigella sativa seeds and oils have both improved weight loss for women and men living with obesity. 

Vijayasar or Kino tree

Extracts from the vijayasar tree (Pterocarpus marsupium), also known as the Kino tree, may help you lose weight. Although there are no published studies showing its effectiveness in humans, studies have shown that the extract caused fat reduction in rats.

Other weight loss remedies

Some Ayurveda advocates recommend these botanical or herbal remedies to aid with weight loss, but there’s not enough research to support their use for this purpose:

  • punarnava
  • aloe vera
  • ajwain
  • lemon-honey
  • pepper (piperine)
  • cabbage horse gram
  • ginger-garlic lemon

A number of Ayurvedic weight loss supplements can be found on the market in tablet, capsule, and powder forms. While some of these products may help you lose weight, there’s little research to support their use.

Is Ayurvedic medicine safe?

The principles of Ayurvedic medicine have been in use for a long time. An Ayurvedic diet is rich in whole foods, and an abundance and variety of vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins.

Ayurvedic diets emphasize moderation and mindful eating. In addition, an Ayurvedic approach to healthcare emphasizes prevention, physical movement, stress reduction, and balanced living. All of those principles and practices are safe and healthy.

Talk to your doctor about any recommendations you receive to be sure they’re appropriate given your overall health.

Conclusion

Ayurvedic medicine is a holistic, prevention-oriented healthcare approach that originated in India about 5,000 years ago. Ayurvedic diets are generally designed to support health in each of three constitutions or doshas: vata, pitta, and kapha.

Certain foods and exercise practices are recommended for each dosha. There hasn’t been much research into diets based on Ayurvedic doshas, so it isn’t clear whether they’ll help you lose weight.

More research is also needed for Ayurvedic weight loss supplements. While some of them are promising, many of the herbal preparations haven’t been studied adequately.

On the plus side, Ayurveda focuses on whole foods, exercise, stress reduction, and healthy sleep. There’s a substantial body of evidence to support these practices and their role in healthful living and weight loss.

Choosing to practice the Ayurvedic lifestyle will improve your health and make you more attentive to your intake, activity, and current state of being.

Reducing calories, increasing physical activity and finding support for your weight loss goals are all the best ways to lose weight.

Easy Weight Loss Tips & Tricks

Dr. Mayank Chandrakar is a writer also. My first book "Ayurveda Self Healing: How to Achieve Health and Happiness" is available on Kobo and InstamojoYou can buy and read. 

For Kobo-



https://www.kobo.com/search?query=Ayurveda+Self+Healing

The second Book "Think Positive Live Positive: How Optimism and Gratitude can change your life" is available on Kobo and Instamojo.


https://www.kobo.com/ebook/think-positive-live-positive-how-optimism-and-gratitude-can-change-your-life

The Third Book "Vision for a Healthy Bharat: A Doctor’s Dream for India’s Future" is recently launch in India and Globally in Kobo and Instamojo.

https://www.kobo.com/ebook/vision-for-a-healthy-bharat-a-doctor-s-dream-for-india-s-future


For Instamojo-


You can click this link and buy.
https://www.drmayankchandrakar.com

https://www.instamojo.com/@mchandrakargc 


















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