Eating well

Eating for balance:

Choosing foods for an ayurvedic diet

According to ayurveda, every individual has unique needs

for balance. Since diet is one of the most important
ayurvedic tools for achieving balance, ayurvedic healers
generally design individualized diets for people they see,
based on various factors such as age and gender, the doshic
tendencies that need to be balanced at a given time, the
strength of the body tissues and the digestive fires, and the
level of ama (toxins) in the body. The place where a person
lives and the season are also factors that affect dietary dos
and don'ts.

Notwithstanding the individualized approach to choosing

foods for balance, there are some universally applicable
principles that are important to follow if you are living an
ayurvedic lifestyle:

1.Include the six tastes at every main meal.

In ayurveda, foods are classified into six tastes--sweet, sour,

salty, bitter, pungent and astringent. Ayurvedic healers
recommend that you include all of these six tastes at each
main meal you eat. Each taste has a balancing ability, and
including some of each minimizes cravings and balances the
appetite and digestion. The general north american diet
tends to have too much of the sweet, sour and salty, and not
enough of the bitter, pungent and astringent tastes.

A fruit-spice chutney or a spice-mix can provide a little of

each of the six tastes if you are in a hurry, but it is ideal to
choose foods from each category for complete, balanced
nutrition. Just in the category of fresh vegetables and herbs,
for example, you could choose fennel bulb or carrot for the
sweet taste, fresh lemons for sour, arugula or endive for
bitter, radish or white daikon or ginger root for pungent and
cabbage or broccoli or cilantro for astringent.

The amalaki rasayana, made from the amla fruit, offers five of
the six ayurvedic tastes--all except salty.

2. Choose foods by balancing physical attributes

In ayurveda, foods are also categorized as heavy or light, dry

or unctuous/liquid and warm or cool (temperature), and
different qualities balance different doshas. A balanced main
meal should contain some foods of each physical type.
Within this overall principle, you can vary the proportions of
each type based on your constitution and needs for balance,
the season of the year and the place you live.

To keep vata dosha in balance, choose more heavy,

unctuous or liquid, and warm foods, and fewer dry, light or
cool foods. To help balance pitta, focus more on cool, dry
and heavy foods, and to balance kapha, try more of light, dry
and warm foods.

If you live in cooler climes, you'll want to gravitate towards

warm comfort foods, and vice versa. Similarly, in winter,
when vata dosha tends to increase in most people's
constitutions, almost everyone can benefit from including
warm soups and nourishing dhals, fresh paneer cheese and
whole milk in the diet. In the summer, plan on eating more
cool, soothing foods to help keep pitta dosha in balance.
3. Choose foods that are sattvic

A third ayurvedic classification of foods is by the effect they

have on the non-physical aspects of the physiology--mind,
heart, senses and spirit. Sattvic foods have an uplifting yet
stabilizing influence, rajasic foods stimulate and can
aggravate some aspects of the mind, heart or senses, and
tamasic foods breed lethargy and are considered a deterrent
to spiritual growth.

Everyone, whether actively seeking spiritual growth or not,

can benefit by including some sattvic foods at every meal
because they help promote mental clarity, emotional serenity
and sensual balance and aid in the coordinated functioning
of the body, mind, heart, senses and spirit. Almonds, rice,
honey, fresh sweet fruits, mung beans and easy-to-digest,
fresh seasonal vegetables and leafy greens are examples of
sattvic foods. To get the full sattwa from sattvic foods,
prepare and eat them whole and fresh.

4. Opt for whole, fresh, in-season, local foods

Authentic ayurvedic herbal preparations are made by

processing the whole plant or the whole plant part, not by
extracting active substances from the plant. Similarly, from
the ayurvedic perspective, the most healthful diet consists of
whole foods, eaten in as natural a state as possible, the only
exception being when removing a peel or cooking helps
increase digestibility and assimilation for certain types of
constitutions. If the digestive fire is not strong enough, even
wholesome foods can turn into ama (toxic matter) in the
body.

Foods that are frozen, canned, refined so as to denude the

food of its nutritive value, processed with artificial colors,
flavorings, additives or preservatives, genetically altered, or
grown with chemical pesticides or fertilizers are not
recommended by ayurvedic healers, because such foods are
lacking in chetana--living intelligence--and prana--vital life-
energy--and will do more harm than good in the physiology.

For the above reasons, it's best to choose foods and produce
that is locally grown or produced, foods that are in-season,
and foods that are organic, natural and whole.

5. Rotate menus and experiment with a variety of foods

The sages that wrote the ancient ayurvedic texts would be

horrified by our current fascination with the low-carb diet or
the no-fat diet or the juice diet--from the ayurvedic
perspective, any diet that is exclusive in nature is by
definition incomplete in its nutritive value and ability to
balance all aspects of the physiology. Eat a wide variety of
foods for balanced nutrition--whole grains, lentils and
pulses, vegetables, fruits, dairy, nuts, healthy oil or ghee,
spices and pure water all have their roles in the balancing
process.

If you find yourself eating the same dishes several times a

week, or you gravitate towards the same produce or foods
every time you shop, resolve now to start making your meals
an adventure. Every week, try at least a few new foods or fix
familiar foods in new ways, so that your taste buds and your
digestion are constantly exposed to some new stimuli in
addition to the familiar.

According to ayurveda, each meal should be a feast for all of

your senses. When your plate reflects an appealing variety of
colors, textures, flavors and aromas, your digestive juices
start freely flowing in anticipation and your body, mind and
heart are all fulfilled by the eating experience.
6. Include spices and herbs in your daily diet:

Spices and herbs are concentrated forms of nature's healing

intelligence. They are particularly revered in ayurveda for
their ability to enhance digestion and assimilation, help
cleanse ama (toxins) from the body and their yogavahi
property--their ability to transport the healing and nutritive
value of other components of the diet to the cells, tissues
and organs.

Spices, in ayurveda, are generally eaten cooked. Sauté

spices in a little olive oil or ghee (clarified butter) and pour
the mixture over cooked foods, or simmer spices with foods
like beans or grains as they cook. Fresh herbs such as
cilantro or mint are generally added at the end of the cooking
process, just before serving.

Ayurveda recommends spices/herbs to stimulate the

digestion before a meal, during a meal and after a meal.
Eating a bit of fresh ginger and lemon about 30 minutes
before a main meal helps kick-start the digestion. Eating
dishes cooked with a variety of spices and herbs helps the
process of digestion --absorption--assimilation--elimination.
Chewing fennel seeds after a meal helps digestion and
freshens the breath naturally as well.

Ayurvedic rasayanas such as amalaki and triphala offer

additional ways to help nourish and cleanse the digestive
system. Amalaki rasayana helps enhance digestion, helps
balance the production of stomach acid and nourishes the
body tissues. Triphala rasayana helps tone and cleanse the
digestive tract and helps nourish the different tissues.

Note: this information is educational, and is not intended to

diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. If you have a
medical concern, please consult your physician.
Ayurveda & natural healing
Ayurveda weighs in on the obesity epidemic

I was paging through the new yorker recently when a cartoon

caught my eye. In my memory, it’s a stenciling of pedestrians
ambling down a metropolitan street. They are almost
spherical, like blimps about to lift into the air. A tubby boy
and his mother are standing across the road, watching the
herd of roly-poly people (whose clothes, incidentally, are so
tight that their buttons are about to pop off). But one woman
stands out in the crowd: a thin, leggy young lady striding
along in high heels and a pencil skirt.

The fat boy tugs on his mother’s pant leg, gesturing with
wonder. "look, mom," he blurts. "a skinny lady!"

The cartoon is a twist on last year’s breaking news: for the

first time in u.s. history, people who are not overweight are in
the minority. Two-thirds of americans are carrying around
too much weight, and half of those are obese. In the last
three decades, obesity rates have doubled, and the
percentage of pudgy kids has tripled. Today, even our pets
are packing on the pounds: 25 percent of cats and dogs are
overweight.

Last year, medical authorities like the surgeon general, the

national institutes of health, the centers for disease control
and prevention, and the american heart association released
ominous warnings about the future of our country’s health,
including the prediction that obesity might soon overtake
smoking as the no. 1 cause of preventable death in the
united states. Our nation’s weight problems are draining
both our economy (racking up an annual $117 billion in
medical bills) and our lives (killing 365,000 people a year).

In an attempt to reverse this trend, overweight americans

who are sick of the consume-fewer-calories-and-exercise-
more equation are darting in other directions, searching for
greener (less fattening) pastures. They’re popping bogus
"fat-trapping" pills full of shellfish skeletons (a.k.a.
Chitosan). They’re eating ungodly amounts of bacon on
atkins. They’re paying $30,000 to get their stomachs stapled.
And in the field of genetics, the situation has become so
bizarre that stem cell researchers at ucla and the university
of pittsburgh predict that in five or ten years, you may be
able to use the plethora of stem cells embedded in your
midriff’s "spare tire" to help treat the medical complications
caused by obesity.

These developments are disturbing. How—and when—did we

get so out of control? So far removed from nature? So
complicated and high-tech and absurd? I’ve been following
the media hype about our nation’s weight problems for more
than a year, and i’ve contemplated the purported causes, the
proposed solutions, the people and the industries nominated
for blame. After a while, i began to wonder: what would
ayurveda say about our eating imbalances?

In search of answers, i spoke to three of the most articulate,

knowledgeable experts in the field. Robert svoboda, david
frawley, and vasant lad are the trailblazers who, over the past
few decades, have introduced ayurveda to a wider audience
around the world and have collectively written more than 15
books on the subject. These experts—scholars, teachers,
and practitioners who are grounded in the ancient texts and
in the lineage-based tradition of ayurveda—reveal the real
causes behind america’s weight problems and offer natural
solutions (that don’t cost $30,000).

Problem #1: material abundance often adds pounds. We’ve

tried to compensate with erratic dieting, which slows down
our metabolism and makes us even heavier.

Thousands of years ago, ayurveda classified obesity as a

disease of affluence, because only the rich had the luxury of
becoming fat. As lad points out, "the fact that two-thirds of
americans are overweight shows that there is great
prosperity in this country. This is a land of milk and honey."
but interestingly, one out of every four adults who live below
the poverty level is obese. How could this happen? Is the old
ayurvedic principle outdated? Yes and no, say lad and
svoboda. On one hand, bad-quality food is cheap and readily
available, while high-quality food is expensive and harder to
find. So poor people often get more bang for their buck in
weight-producing junk food than in fresh whole foods, even
though the former promotes weight gain and ill health.

On the other hand, says svoboda, "although there are a lot of

poor people in this country, when you compare them to poor
people in india, for example, it’s a little ridiculous to say that
you’re poor because you can’t afford high-quality food.
Granted, the food that is available to poor people in america
is often undesirable, but still, the kind of poverty that we
have here is much richer poverty than there is in other parts
of the world."

Svoboda thinks that america’s obesity problem is mostly "a

problem of excess." he says: "there’s too much food, there’s
too much entertainment, there’s too much leisure, there’s too
much of everything. As a result, people are not trained to
evaluate for themselves what is the best way for them to live,
and nobody teaches them. . . . When you add all of these
factors together it’s surprising that anyone in this country is
thin."

Standard american behavior—overeating (especially junk

food) and underexercising—makes you fat, svoboda says.
Crash dieting does, too. Ninety percent of dieters return to
their original weight or even add pounds. That’s because, as
he explains, "when dieters go back to their normal eating
habits at the end of the diet, they burn off fewer calories and
store more fat than they did previously. Their metabolic rates
have dropped, and their bodies are now wary of starvation
and want to store even more just in case such an episode is
repeated. Crash dieting therefore increases the body’s fat
ideal and makes you fatter." frawley says that in addition to
suppressing your agni (digestive fire) and slowing down your
metabolism, dieting also disturbs or increases the vata
dosha and aggravates "nervous-type obesity," which is very
common in our culture. [see "problem #6: emotional eating"
for more.]

Solution

Your body has adapted to your eating patterns—even if some

of them are unhealthy. "and it tends to hold onto its habits
tenaciously," explains svoboda, "so you need to be patient
about reeducating your body." ayurvedic texts recommend
reducing the amount of the unhealthy foods you eat by
fourths, he says, instead of shocking your body by going on
a strict diet for a short period of time and then reverting back
to your old ways because you can’t maintain the austerity.

In the old days, overweight patients would slowly eliminate

unhealthy foods over the course of seven days. As svoboda
explains, "on the first day, they would eat one-fourth less
than normal, on the second and third days eat one-half less,
and on the fourth to sixth days eat only one fourth as much
as they were accustomed to eating, so that by the seventh
day they are free of the addiction. . . ." nowadays, svoboda
says, "the modern body often needs more than a week to
adjust, but the principle of gradual removal is, when feasible,
far better for the system than the sudden, cold-turkey
method."

Problem #2: we overeat poor-quality, lifeless food.

Another problem, according to frawley, is this: "we’re

overeating food that is too heavy, too greasy, too oily, too
processed, and too weight-producing. We use poor-quality
oils and eat too much refined sugar, refined flour, fast foods.
We have a diet that according to ayurveda increases not only
kapha, but also ama, or toxins, because of its lack of
freshness and its lack of prana. And we don’t cook anymore;
we microwave processed food. This food tends to be heavy
and tends to accumulate as fat instead of being built up into
better-quality tissues."

Ayurveda’s list of "dead foods" includes frozen, canned, and

microwaved foods; processed foods that come in a bag or a
box; overcooked or undercooked food; unripe or overripe
food; stale or burned food. These foods have less prana than
fresh food, says frawley, and often contribute to the buildup
of toxins in the body, which can lead to diseases of ama, like
arthritis. As he explains, "the goal of eating is to absorb the
prana of the food. If food doesn’t have prana in it, it doesn’t
have a vitalizing effect on the body. Instead, it makes us
heavy and sedentary."

Solution

The yogic rule of thumb is to eat "living" food: fresh fruits,

veggies, rice, and beans that have been ripened by the sun
and harvested as recently as possible. These whole-foods
ingredients have a more nourishing, vitalizing effect on the
body and mind, offering more satisfaction in smaller
quantities and fewer calories than the more conventional fast
foods. [for more, see "phony foods" by dr. Carrie demers,
page 00.]

Problem #3: our digestive fire is weak.

According to ayurveda, properly functioning agni, in the form

of digestive fire, is one of the keys to healthy body weight
(and to vibrant health in general). Agni helps us assimilate
nutrients and eliminate wastes, or ama. When agni is
balanced and burning brightly, we’re blessed with efficient
digestion, minimal toxic buildup, healthy body weight, and a
sense of energy and vitality. But when agni is weak,
digestion is incomplete and leaves behind toxins that
interfere with the flow of blood, lymph, and energy
throughout the body. When we’re unable to rid ourselves of
these wastes, ama accumulates and can lead to weight gain
and, eventually, disease.

Unfortunately, says frawley, we do a lot of things that

suppress agni (overeating; eating too frequently; eating too
much heavy or cold food, sleeping too much; and not
exercising enough) and very few things that strengthen it.

Solution

Stoke your digestive fire with these simple ayurvedic

techniques.

Solar work

In the human body, the seat of agni is the solar plexus.

Strengthening this area will kindle your digestive fire. So in
addition to regular exercise, include abdominal
strengtheners such as sit-ups, crunches, or leg-lifts for 5-10
minutes a day. And under the guidance of an experienced
yoga teacher, learn the hatha yoga kriya practice of agni
sara.

The 12-hour fast

According to ayurveda, the body is programmed to direct its

energy toward cleansing and assimilation in the hours just
before midnight, when agni is the weakest. To support this
process, ayurvedic physicians recommend refraining from
late-night snacks and going to bed around 10 p.m. They
recommend fasting for 12 hours every night—between dinner
and breakfast (7 p.m. To 7 a.m., for example). This frees the
body from the burdens of meal-related digestion so it can
conduct mental, emotional, and cellular cleansing in a more
concentrated way.

The 12-hour fast also respects agni’s daily waxing and

waning cycle which, according to ayurveda, corresponds to
the rising and setting of the sun. That’s why it is wise to eat a
healthy breakfast in the morning, eat your largest meal at
noon when the sun is the strongest, eat a lighter dinner as
the sun is waning, and then allow your stomach to rest until
the sun comes up the following day. This fast supports
metabolism, prevents ama accumulation, normalizes weight,
and, according to frawley, is especially recommended for
people with kapha imbalances.

Other quick tips

• avoid taking cold drinks like ice water, milk, or coke with
your meals. They suppress agni and increase weight in the
body.
• add some mild spices such as ginger, black pepper, garlic,
cinnamon, and clove to your food. This will also kindle agni.

• make sure that your right nostril is open. According to the

ancient texts, nostril dominance has subtle effects on your
energy and can help or hinder your digestion. When the right
nostril is dominant, the energy in your body is warm, active,
and ideal for digestion.

When you finish eating, keep your right nostril open for a bit
longer by taking a stroll for 5 to 10 minutes, or by lying on
your left side in a quiet room. Don’t fall asleep, though—
napping after a meal will impede the digestion process and
encourage weight gain.

• fast for at least three hours after eating. This gives the body
time to digest most of the previous meal before it begins
digesting a new meal or a snack.

Problem #4: mindless eating.

Lad points out that most americans eat anywhere but at the
kitchen table. We eat while we are watching tv, driving to
work, walking down the street, talking on the phone,
checking our e-mail. This is a bad idea, he says. How can you
digest your food if you’re not paying attention to it?

Solution

It is much healthier to sit down at the table and give full

attention to your meal. "before eating, ask yourself, ‘am i
really hungry, or not?’" lad advises. Here are a few more tips
to bring you into the present moment with your food.

Before you eat, do 5 minutes of diaphragmatic breathing.

This activates the body’s rest-and-digest response, relaxing
the nervous system and enhancing blood flow to the
digestive organs. It also helps you tune into your body so
that you eat only what your body needs.

Say a prayer of thanks. Svoboda believes this is the most

important of all the ayurvedic rules of eating (and there are
many) because "food is the prana, the life force, of all living
beings." in ayurveda for women, he writes, "eating is a
sacred act, an offering made into the internal digestive fire in
much the same way that offerings are made into external
sacrificial fires." [for more about food and prayer, see points
of practice, page 00.]

Eat in solitude or in pleasant company with a cheerful mind.

Strong emotions distract your attention. Efficient digestion
will take place when you eat at a relaxed pace, pay attention
to the sensations of eating, and chew each bite of food 32
times.

Problem #5: we have become couch potatoes.

Only 24 percent of americans work out vigorously at least

three times a week, even though everyone knows that regular
exercise is one of the main keys to weight loss (and to
optimal health in general). Why, then, don’t we exercise
more?

Frawley believes our couch potato habits reflect deeper

social problems. "we don’t have enough physical or mental
movement in our society," he says. "we’re too dependent
upon entertainment and stimulation. People are becoming
more passive. It shows a basic lifestyle imbalance, and we
have many."

Lad agrees. "some people will sit on the couch with a big
bucket of popcorn drenched in salt and butter and a large
can of coca-cola and watch a football match—and that’s their
exercise!" but people who want to lose weight can’t afford to
be sedentary. As lad points out, "american food is rich in
calories, proteins, fat, and carbohydrates. But to digest rich
food, you have to do rich exercise. Otherwise, the unburned
calories add to the adipose tissue, and you become chubby."

From an ayurvedic point of view, says svoboda, exercise has

countless benefits. In ayurveda: life, health, and longevity, he
writes, "exercise . . . Enables more prana to reach the tissues
by… clearing all channels, promoting circulation and the
excretion of wastes, improving lung efficiency, destroying
fat, and increasing stamina." it also improves immune
function, he says.

Solution

Ayurveda recommends that you exercise daily until sweat

forms on the forehead, under the arms, and along the spine.
This signals your breaking point, which comes when you
reach 50 percent of your capacity. Stop here. Exercise that
causes discomfort or strain is considered harmful because it
gives your body extra repair work to do.

A few other ayurvedic principles:

• exercise outdoors when possible.

• exercise alone or in pleasant company.

• don’t distract yourself by listening to music, watching tv, or

talking excessively while you exercise. Ayurveda urges us to
be mindful when we exercise; when you’re grounded in your
body, you’re less likely to overdo and injure yourself.

• choose enjoyable activities that are suited to your nature, or

prakriti. Your prakriti is composed of three doshas (humors):
vata, pitta, and kapha. In most of us, one or two predominate.
Vata types need exercise that is low impact (to protect their
joints) and stabilizing. Because they tend to overdo it, they
need to pay particular attention to their bodies and stop
before they reach their breaking point.

Pitta-dominant people will reap more benefits from activities

that cool their fiery nature (like swimming) and encourage
them to enjoy themselves instead of competing against
others (like hiking).

Kapha types gravitate toward laid-back sports like golf but

they benefit most from hard, sustained exercise that makes
them break a sweat.

Problem #6: emotional eating.

According to svoboda, loneliness and fear can make you

gain weight because these emotions will drive you to
overeat. Lad has a similar opinion. "there is a very important
relationship between love and food," he explains. "food is
the food of the body, and love is the food of the soul. When
individuals are missing love, they may try to seek love
through food, but if their agni is not strong enough to
assimilate, digest, absorb, and metabolize what they eat, they
gain weight."

Svoboda has another take on the underlying causes of

emotional eating. "we live in a very unstable world," he says.
"political and economic forces are encouraging us to be
uneasy. Unease creates anxiety, and anxiety creates vata.
When there is plenty of vata, the organism experiences a
sensation of danger, and this tells the mind to encourage the
body to do all sorts of things to make it feel more stable. One
way to create a greater sensation of stability is to increase
the amount of mass in your system." so according to
svoboda, people overeat in an attempt to create a sense of
stability and calm their fears.

Solution

If emotional eaters want to lose weight, says svoboda, they

will need to re-create a sense of stability for themselves
through activities other than overeating. Lad recommends a
regular routine of asana, pranayama, and meditation. These
basic yoga practices are the best remedies for loneliness and
fear, and, according to lad, "they will help you drastically
lose weight."

Lad also recommends including an ayurvedic dish called

kitchari, a one-pot meal of seasoned rice and mung dal, in
your diet. "kitchari is the sanskrit word for ‘food of god,’" lad
explains. "ki also means ‘space,’ and chari means ‘move,’ so
kitchari helps you move into the inner space, the inner sky of
consciousness. It’s a wholesome, sattvic, balancing food
that promotes cleansing and detoxification. Also, kitchari
improves clarity of perception and promotes a calm, quiet,
loving, and compassionate state of mind.

"when people are eating emotionally, the foods they choose

don’t satisfy their cellular needs. This leads to more desire to
eat, which leads to bingeing and other eating disorders.
Kitchari, on the other hand, gives the body cellular
satisfaction."

An empowering way to lose weight

Ayurvedic experts have always been skeptical of quick-fix

weight-loss tactics because there is no magic pill, no perfect
diet, no flawless surgery to make our excess flab disappear.
It takes a long time to become clinically overweight, and it
takes a long time to whittle our way down to a healthy weight
again.

While pill popping, crash dieting, and gastric bypass

procedures may produce dramatic, short-term weight loss,
the risks are high and the benefits illusory. Yet in spite of all
this, the demand for quick fixes continues to skyrocket. Half
of all herbs sold in the united states are geared for weight
loss, and the federal trade commission estimates that annual
revenue from sales of diet foods and beverages is a
whopping $40 billion. Entrepreneurs everywhere are selling
the new american dream: "lose weight, burn fat, and build
muscle effortlessly and become healthy, happy, and sexy."
but selling the dream is not the same as offering a solution.
For that, we need to look to the wisdom of ayurveda.

If you’re struggling with your weight or know someone who

is, you may want to consider the weight-loss strategies that
frawley, lad, and svoboda offer here. These low-tech
solutions—making gradual dietary changes, eating prana-
rich food, stoking digestive fire, eating with full attention,
exercising regularly, and practicing yoga—can help us shed
pounds in ways that enhance our health instead of harming
it. But the excess weight will gradually melt away—never to
reappear.

Exercise facts

• people who walk for 30 minutes a day are healthier than

those who opt for high-intensity workouts.

• studies show that people who exercise regularly feel more

confident, capable, and able to handle life’s challenges than
those who don’t.
• every additional daily hour that you spend in a car (instead
of walking, biking, rollerblading, etc.) Will increase your
obesity risk by 6 percent.

How to make diet kitchari

(serves 4)

1 cup basmati rice

1 cup mung dal

1 tablespoon ghee

1/4 teaspoon cumin seeds

1/4 teaspoon brown mustard

1/4 teaspoon turmeric

1/4 teaspoon rock salt

4 cups water

1. Rinse the rice and mung dal until the water is clear.

2. In a saucepan over medium heat, heat the ghee and add

the mustard seeds and cumin seeds. Stir a moment until the
seeds pop.

3. Add the rice, mung dal, turmeric, and salt, and stir until
well blended with the spices.

4. Add the water and bring to a boil. Boil for 5 minutes,

uncovered, stirring occasionally.
5. Turn down the heat to low and cover, leaving the lid
slightly ajar. Cook until tender, about 20–25 minutes.

(adapted from ayurvedic cooking for self healing by usha lad

and vasant lad)

Did you know?

• although 64 percent of americans are overweight or obese,

only 30 percent realize they are too heavy.

• 25 percent of all vegetables eaten in the united states are

french fries.

• american teens drink nearly twice as much soda as milk.

Twenty years ago, the ratio was reversed.

• 30 percent of kids between 6 and 19 years old are obese,

overweight, or in danger of becoming overweight.

• 86 percent of kids who are obese get that way before their
6th birthday. According to ayurvedic expert robert e.
Svoboda, "children who are overfed poor diets are sure to
develop a large number of fat cells, and until the ends of their
lives they will find it easy to gain weight and difficult to take
it off again. Fat babies make for fat adults."

• in the 1970s, kids were exposed to about 20,000 tv ads a

year. Today they see about 40,000. Researchers estimate that
up to 70 percent of those ads are for food. According to time,
"ads for high-fat, high-salt foods have more than doubled
since the 1980s, while commercials for fruits and vegetables
remain in short supply."
• for the first time in history, there are as many overfed,
overweight people in the world as those who are underfed
and underweight.

Playing with fire

Mid-day is the time when your digestive "fire" is at it's most
potent and that's why ayurveda advises making lunch the
main meal of the day. Allowing 4-6 hours between lunch and
dinner and eating a light evening meal helps reduce acid
reflux because you're not settling down for the night on a full
stomach.
 
 

Get water wise

Sip room temperature water with meals. According to
ayurveda, ice cold drinks weaken the digestion. Milk doesn't
mix with meals either. Hot water or herbal tea is good to sip
when eating and if your digestion is sluggish you could make
a simple ginger tea by grating some fresh ginger and adding
it to a cup of freshly boiled hot water. This is very good for
digestion, thirst quenching and cleansing to the deeper
tissues of the body.
 
 
 

Eating habits
  Food should be full of nutrients having an ideal mixture
of all the six tastes (sweet, sour, salty, spicy, bitter and
astringent).
 Healthy food should be taken regularly twice a day only.
 The gap between two meals should not be more. Hence,
ayurveda recommends that one should fill-up his belly
daily at least twice with small quantities of snacks so as
to remain active. Such a small meal is known as antar-
bhojan.
 After eating a full course of meal, neither should we
allow our stomach to remain empty for more than 6
hours, nor should we fill it up again before at least 3
hours are passed. It means as long as we are active
during the day we should take something at an interval
of 4 to 5 hours. 
 A meal should neither be taken too hastily nor too
slowly. It should be masticated well before swallowing. 

ayurvedic medicines and weight loss

ayurvedic medicines are designed, taking into consideration

mind-body relationship. According to ayurveda, imbalance of
vata, pitta, and kapha systems leads to health problems
which include being overweight or underweight. Different
ayurvedic body types are treated with different medicines.
Here are some of the best ayurvedic medicines for weight
loss.

Triphala: triphala benefits include weight loss, improved

digestive system, improved eye health, detoxification,
improved heart health, clear skin, etc. Triphala means three
fruits and the triphala choorna (powder) is a mixture of
amalaki (emblica officinalis), bhibitaki (terminalia chebula)
and haritaki (terminalia bellirica). It contains antioxidant
vitamin c. It stimulates the production and release of bile. It
helps lower excessive water content of body tissues and it
also lowers hunger pangs.

Guggul: guggul extract benefits include improved rate of

body metabolism and healthy weight loss. Guggul helps
lower cholesterol and triglycerides levels and ensures heart
health. It enhances the function of liver as well as thyroid
gland. This helps improve the rate of metabolism which in
turn leads to weight loss.

Herbal medicines: doctors and dietitians recommend natural

herbs for weight loss. Herbal medicines are prepared by
mixing various herbs. Guduchi (tinospora cordifolia), shilajit,
aloe vera, gotu kola, trikatu (a combination of equal parts of
black pepper, ginger, and pippali or indian long pepper),
barberry are used to make weight loss medicine in ayurveda.

A number of herbs help get rid of obesity but you need to

follow an ayurvedic diet and yoga exercises regularly.
Sedentary lifestyle, lack of exercise, genetics, eating oily and
greasy foods, consuming highly processed foods, etc. Are
some of the main reasons of excessive weight gain. To
achieve desired weight loss, you need to follow a weight loss
diet and improve your eating habits. According to ayurveda,
improper mixing of food items in one meal can result in
several health problems. Take a look at the following tips if
you want to take ayurvedic medicine for weight loss.

Ayurvedic weight loss: tips

 Use hot water for drinking. Avoid caffeine, sodas,

alcoholic drinks.
 Mint promotes weight loss. Include mint tea or mint
chutney in your diet.
  Drinking amla juice regularly is beneficial if you are
thinking of losing weight naturally. Read more on amla
juice benefits.
 Avoid foods rich in fat, for example, cheese, butter, meat
products. Avoid rice, potato, sugar which are high in
simple carbohydrates. Avoid too much of salt also.
 Benefits of cinnamon and honey are well known. Both
promote weight loss. You may read more on cinnamon
and honey diet. You may take ayurvedic medicines with
honey.
 Include more number of pungent (spicy), bitter, or
astringent spices and herbs in your diet. For example,
turmeric, cumin, ginger, mustard seed, cayenne, and
black pepper.
 Include lots of fruits and vegetables in your diet. Bitter
gourd and bitter variety of drumsticks promote weight
loss. Keep a list of low calorie fruits and vegetables
handy.
 Opt for a juice fasting plan or a liquid diet once in a
week. You can have fruit or vegetable juices, warm skim
milk, light soups, herbal teas, etc. Regular intake of
carrot juice promotes weight loss.

Traditional ayurvedic medicines are being used in india,

since six thousand years. These medicines are available in
various forms such as juice, powder, infusion, paste, tablet,
decoction, etc. Medicated ghee and oils are also taken
internally or applied externally (massage therapy) to attain
desired weight loss. Some of the medicines may exhibit
laxative properties. It is better to consult a doctor before
opting for new medicines. I hope you find the above
information regarding the best ayurvedic medicines for
weight loss. Do not forget to follow the instructions provided
with medicines.

The best way to beat your cravings and lose any extra weight
is to train your body to burn fat instead of carbs. To make
that happen, and to bring your body back to balance,
douillard and other ayurvedic practitioners say you need to
follow these four golden rules.

Golden rule #1

Eat foods appropriate to each season.

Eating foods when they're in season helps your body

connect with nature. When you're synchronized with nature's
cycles, douillard has observed, you reduce the chances that
your body will go into emergency mode and burn
carbohydrates instead of the nonemergency fuel, fat.

You'll also start to yearn for healthy foods as they're ripening

and will be less likely to crave chips or soda. Nancy lonsdorf,
m.d., medical director of the maharishi ayur-veda center at
the raj in fairfield, iowa, says it's okay to give in to unhealthy
cravings sometimes. But she recommends that you try to
interpret your cravings and give your body what it really
needs. If you're longing for something sweet, try a juicy pear
instead of a candy bar.

Seasonal eating means separate menus for spring, summer,

and winter. (what happened to fall, you ask? Ayurveda
divides the year into six seasons. Douillard combined those
six into three main seasons to simplify matters.) The idea is
that you can eat whatever you want and as much as you want
as long as the food comes from the correct harvest. This
doesn't mean you're restricted to locally grown foods; you
can supplement with foods harvested around the world in
that same season. Northern states, for example, don't grow
much produce in winter months, but northerners can eat
grapefruits, which are harvested in winter in other parts of
the world.

Knowing a little about growing seasons makes it easy to

choose the right fruits and vegetables for each time of year.
But to figure out when to eat foods like fish, poultry, and rice
(which don't have an obvious growing season), it helps to
understand some basic ayurvedic principles. Practitioners
classify foods according to the way they affect your body,
and one way they arrange them is by their warming or
cooling energy. Some foods warm you up, and others cool
you down. Dairy products, for example, are considered
cooling foods that are best eaten in the summer to balance
the heat of that season. Chicken and fish are warming, so
you should eat them most often in winter. Foods like rice are
naturally balanced, meaning they fall somewhere between
hot and cold, so you can eat them in more than one season.
For more examples, see "the right foods for each season,"
page 126.

The summer season stretches from july to october, so right

now, naturally cooling fruits and vegetables should make up
the bulk of your diet. Sixty to 70 percent of what you eat
should be carbohydrates, and the rest should be split evenly
between fats and protein. The carbs will give you energy for
the last of summer's long, busy days.

In november, begin the winter diet, which emphasizes

warmer, heavier foods, including good fats from nuts and
cold-water fish. Foods like these may lead you to gain extra
pounds in winter, but douillard says you'll lose them easily
because the spring diet ignites your body's ability to burn fat.
(if you skimp on heavier foods in winter, you'll crave
inappropriate foods the rest of the year, he says, leading to
more weight gain.) Your diet should be 40 percent protein, 30
percent fat, and 30 percent carbs.

The spring diet, followed from march to june, is low-fat and

low-calorie to detoxify your body and help you shed winter's
excess. Plan meals around foods like sprouts, berries, and
bitter greens. Douillard says you should shoot for about 60
percent of your diet from fats, 60 percent from carbs, and 30
percent from protein.

These dates for the seasons are approximate. Pay attention

to the length of each season in your area. If you live in the
southwest, for example, where winters are short, adhere to
the winter diet for just four to six weeks and move to the
spring diet sooner.

Golden rule #2

Adjust your diet for your body type.

According to ayurvedic teaching, each of us has one of three

doshas, or body types. These types are based in part on your
body shape, but they also take into account your
temperament, sleep habits, and dietary preferences.
Ayurvedic practitioners know these types as vata, pitta, and
kapha, but douillard prefers to think of them in terms of
seasons; he says you can be a winter, summer, or spring
type. Most of us possess characteristics from all three types,
but one or two usually predominate. Which of the following
profiles best matches you? (for more help determining your
dosha, take the quiz "what's your type?" next page.)
Vata/winter you feel cold even when the mercury rises. You
tend to have a thinner build and to perform tasks quickly.
You're intellectual, and you're prone to worry when under
stress.

Pitta/summer you often feel hot, even in winter. You have a

medium build and perform most tasks at a moderate speed.
A driven competitor, you appear self-confident and are a
good public speaker. Stress makes you irritable or angry.

Kapha/spring if you tend to retain water, this could be you.

You have a larger frame and are sociable, easy-going, and
less vulnerable to stress. You usually move slowly, but you
have high endurance. You're a go-with-the-flow type, with a
slower metabolism.

To get the best results from the seasonal diet, you need to
fine-tune it according to your body type. That's where
douillard's names for body types come in handy. If you're a
winter type, you need to pay close attention to the winter diet
and try especially hard not to eat out-of-season foods in
winter months. The same goes for summer and spring types.
The second way to fine-tune is to extend the diet for your
personal season, starting it a month early and ending it a
month late.

Golden rule #3

Eat your biggest meal of the day at lunch.

"one of the best ways to end cravings is to have a full tank of

gas," douillard says. Ayurvedic experts recommend eating
your big meal at midday, which will give you long-lasting
energy to power past prime craving time in the mid to late
afternoon. If you're voracious at dinner, douillard adds, you
haven't eaten enough lunch.
Ayurvedic practitioners believe your body digests a big meal
better in the afternoon than at night. And if you eat too much
at dinner, your body will be so busy digesting that it won't be
able to detoxify, a process that should occur around
midnight.

Douillard recommends starting your day with a light

breakfast so you're ready for a big meal at lunch. Dinner
should also be a light meal, like a bowl of soup or a salad.

Douillard acknowledges that a big lunch isn't always

possible, but he suggests practicing the 51 percent principle:
eat this way most of the time and you'll benefit. Try to have a
large lunch twice during the work week, and on both days of
the weekend.

Ayurveda teaches that when you eat a meal, you should be

doing just that, not working on a crossword puzzle or
watching television. "make mealtime a ritual," says virender
sodhi, m.d., n.d., an ayurvedic physician and naturopath in
bellevue, wash. Create an inviting atmosphere and prepare
your own food when possible. Your body digests food best
when you relax, so eat slowly and make an effort to use your
entire lunch break. Douillard adds that if you sit quietly for 10
minutes after you eat to aid digestion, you won't get sleepy.

Relaxation and mindfulness have other mealtime

advantages, too: you will notice when you're satisfied and be
less likely to overeat. "in ayurveda, we encourage people to
honor those signals by not putting anything in their mouth
unless they are getting strong hunger signals from the
body," says david simon, m.d., medical director of the
chopra center for health and well-being in la jolla, calif., and
co-author of grow younger, live longer: the 10 steps to
reverse aging (harmony books, 2001). He uses an appetite
scale of 0 (empty) to 10 (what you might feel on
thanksgiving) and suggests that you stop eating at about
level 7.

According to john douillard, ph.d., d.c., an ayurvedic

physician in boulder, colo., vatas can also be thought of as
winters, pittas as summers, and kaphas as springs.

The right foods for each season

To ward off cravings and weight gain, here are some of the
foods ayurvedic practitioners say you should emphasize in
each season. (fall is divided between summer and winter.)

Summer (july through october)

* cooling summer vegetables like asparagus, cucumbers,

lettuce, and zucchini

* juicy, sweet summer fruits like cherries, grapes, and

melons

* light white rice, especially basmati

* wheat, soybeans (including tofu), and ice cream

Winter (november through february)

* sour citrus fruits like grapefruits and lemons

* autumnal root vegetables like carrots, beets, and sweet

potatoes

* warming whole grains like brown rice and wheat

* filling fruits like avocados, bananas, and dates

* healthy-fat foods like nuts and cold-water fish (such as

salmon)
* protein-rich and warming tofu and chicken

Spring (march through june)

* detoxifying bitter greens like kale, mustard greens, parsley,

and spinach

* all legumes, including chickpeas, lentils, and mung beans

* warming whole grains like buckwheat and millet

* dried fruits such as apricots and raisins