Though some people may use Ayurvedic as a tactic to lose weight, it is not designed as a weight loss program. Rather, Ayurvedic focuses on ensuring you have a mind-body balance through your diet and your eating habits to have a more healthy lifestyle and way of thinking.
Vatas tend to have irregular eating patterns, especially when feeling stressed or overworked. You may also be guided by food cravings for comfort foods like chocolate, baked goods, or pastas, rather than a consistent and healthy meal schedule, and you may be prone to skipping meals. You can have extreme eating habits that involve lots of snacking and stress eating or missing meals entirely. Your eating is often centered around stress and you may use eating as a way to deal with feelings of anxiety and imbalance.
Pittas crave order and predictability with their eating habits and diet, with structured meal times three times a day at the same time every day. You focus on stability and control in many aspects of your life, including eating, and may feel annoyed or grouchy if your meal schedule is thrown off or you eat later than usual. Pittas tend to overeat as a way to express anger, literally swallowing their anger, through eating too much at every meal. You may also view overeating as a way to rebel against stressful situations or larger issues in the world.
Kaphas usually have a natural love of eating and can become addicted to food. If you are feeling imbalanced, you may eat constantly, before and after meal times. You may use food to hide your intense emotions and as a way to avoid confrontation with others or with your own feelings and emotions.
Sweet: These include foods such as whole grains, dairy, meat, chicken, fish, honey, sugar, and molasses. Sour: These include foods such as cheese, yogurt, alcohol, vinegar, pickled foods, tomatoes, plums, berries, and citrus fruits. Salty: These include foods such as seaweed, salted meats, fish, soy sauce, and any food that contains added salt. Bitter: These include foods such as green vegetables (leafy greens, celery, broccoli, sprouts, spinach, kale), endives, chicory, beets, and tonic water. Pungent: These include foods such as onions, garlic, chilies, peppers, cayenne, black pepper, cloves, ginger, mustard, and salsa. Astringent: These include foods such as dried beans, lentils, green apples, cauliflower, figs, pomegranates, and tea. The six tastes are ordered in the order you should digest them at every meal. Start with sweet foods and move down to astringent foods.
Consume more natural grains like barley, corn, millet, buckwheat, and rye. You should also have cooked rice, wheat, and oats every day. Go for sweet fruits like bananas, avocados, mangoes, plums, berries, melons, papaya, peaches, cherries and nectarines. Make it easier for your body to digest these fruits by stewing or sauteing them. Avoid dried and unripe fruits, as well as apples, cranberries, pears, and pomegranates. Have more cooked vegetables, using olive oil or ghee, such as asparagus, beets, green beans, sweet potatoes, turnips, broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, and carrots. You can use spices like cardamom, cumin, ginger, salt, cloves, mustard seed, cinnamon, basil, cilantro, fennel, oregano, thyme, and black pepper, but avoid bitter herbs and spices like coriander, parsley, turmeric, and fenugeek. Avoid eating beans as this can aggravate your stomach as a Vata. If you must eat beans, have chickpeas, mung beans, pink lentils, and soybeans (such as tofu). If you are not vegetarian, you can have organic chicken, turkey, seafood, and eggs, and reduce your intake of red meat.
You can have dairy such as butter, milk, ice cream, and ghee but you should avoid sour dairy products like yogurt, sour cream, and cheese. When cooking, you should use coconut, olive or sunflower oils, as well as soy sauce, but avoid almond, corn, and sesame oils. Focus on increasing your consumption of wheat, rice, barley, and oats and reducing your consumption of brown rice, corn, rye, and millet. You can also have sweet fruits like grapes, avocados, mangos, cherries, coconuts, pineapples, apples, oranges, and figs. Avoid sour fruits such as grapefruits, cranberries, lemons, and persimmons. Pittas should consume more cool fruits like asparagus, potatoes, leafy greens, pumpkins, broccoli, cauliflower, celery, zucchini, lettuce, okra, and green beans. Avoid hot, pungent vegetables like hot peppers, onions, garlic, tomatoes, and radishes. When cooking with spices, go for seasonings that are cooling and soothing like coriander, cilantro, cardamom, saffron, and fennel. Use hot spices like ginger, cumin, black pepper, clove, salt, and mustard seed sparingly. Avoid pungent seasonings like chili peppers and cayenne. You can chew on fennel seeds after meals to help your stomach acid cool down.
Have very low amounts of dairy products and only have low-fat milk or low-fat yogurt. You should only have honey as a sweetener and avoid other sources of sugar, as Kaphas are prone to issues like clogged sinuses, allergies, colds, and weight gain. You should have two to three cups of ginger tea a day to help with digestion and overall health. You can have all types of beans as a protein in your diet, but limit your consumption of kidney beans, soybeans, and soy-based foods like tofu. Go for natural grains like corn, millet, buckwheat and rye but have less oats, rice, and wheat. Go for lighter fruits like pears, apples, apricots, pomegranates, and cranberries and have less heavier fruits, such as bananas, melons, dates, figs, avocados, coconuts, and oranges. Do not have any dried fruits. Kaphas can consume lots of vegetables in all varieties except for sweet and juicy vegetables like sweet potatoes, zucchini, and tomatoes. When cooking, use small amounts of extra virgin olive oil, almond oil, sunflower oil, mustard oil, and ghee and use a variety of pungent spices like pepper, ginger, cayenne, and mustard seed.
Sit in a quiet area with your hands by your sides and close your eyes. Breathe deeply, focusing on your breathing as it flows from your lungs out through your nose. Inhale and exhale with awareness. Let your attention follow your breathe as it moves from your lungs and out your nose. Keep your eyes closed and continue to focus on your breath, pushing out all outside thoughts. Do this for five to ten minutes.
Allow your stomach, rather than your emotions, to dictate how much you eat every day and when you eat. Try to do this for two weeks in a row, eating when you feel hungry, which may mean you eat at unusual times or do not eat for a period of time until you feel hunger. Then, only eat until you feel comfortably full. This will allow you to be more in touch with your body’s natural eating cycle and avoid overeating or eating with your emotions.
If you have a constant craving for sweets, try having a cup of warm milk in the morning every day to prevent reaching for unhealthy sugar products. You can also have a cup of hot water with lemon and honey once a day to prevent sugar cravings.
You should also minimize your consumption of leftovers and microwaved meals, as these are not considered fresh and full of energy.
