Dosha Kapha Diet for
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What to Favor: according to Kapha diet you should use dry cooking (baking, grilling and roasting instead of boiling, sautéing and steaming) with a minimum amount of cooking oils.
Favor coconut oil over any other fats, as it particularly balances your Kapha dosha, helping you to lose weight with much less effort.
Limit even the good fats and all heavy sauces.
Instead, use herbs and spices generously - ginger is particularly good for increasing your digestion. Also, sesame, turmeric, cumin, chilli, and fenugreek are all very good for you.
These spices improve your digestion, aid in burning body fat and reduce cholesterol - turmeric in particular.
Also, favor hot, stimulating drinks (energizing herbal teas) and warm, light and dry food with pungent, bitter & astringent taste (asparagus, beets, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, eggplants, endives, green leafy vegetables, lettuce, mushrooms, peas, spinach).
Kapha diet recommends to eat lightly cooked foods instead of raw fruits and vegetables (except salads), as they are difficult to digest and aggravate your dosha.
Here's an example of daily Kapha diet menus that will pacify your dosha imbalance, helping your body release the extra weight more easily.
- Breakfast is completely optional in your Kapha diet. In fact, you are better off with just a hot ginger tea or hot water with lemon juice and honey - these will keep you going till noon. If you really need to have breakfast some days, have a fruit stew (compote) made of apples, pears, peaches, berries or prunes; or, a corn/buckwheat muffin with just a touch of honey and a hot, spiced cider.
- Lunch (the heaviest meal): have 50% fresh vegetables (asparagus, endives, lettuce, mushrooms, peas, spinach), 30% rye crackers and cooked whole grains (favor basmati rice, buckwheat, barley, corn, and quinoa over wheat and brown rice), and 20% proteins (boiled eggs, chicken, turkey, shrimps, or beans). Quinoa is especially good for you, as it's "heating" (has the the energy of fire, or Pitta). Believe it or not, quinoa helps you lose weight, as it has a high content of zinc, a powerful weight loss booster. As a late afternoon snack, have some dried fruits (apricots, cranberries, figs, raisins) with sunflower or pumpkin seeds - the only seeds or nuts allowed in the Kapha diet.
- Dinner: try a warm vegetable soup spiced with a bit of cumin, fresh ginger, black pepper or turmeric and some rye crackers. Just before bed, have a warm cup of low-fat milk with a pinch of ginger or saffron for an exciting Kapha-balancing flavor.
What to Avoid: with a Kapha type you should avoid any frozen or cold foods and iced drinks, fatty, salty, deep fried foods and alcohol. Replace small quantities of raw, unpasteurized honey for all your other sweeteners (but don't heat it over 40°C/104 F). Avoid fruits & vegetables that are sweet, juicy or sour, like bananas, dates, grapes, melons, pineapple, oranges, tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes.
Also, avoid or reduce as much as you can fatty red meat, cold cuts, soy products, fermented & aged cheese, yogurt, and all dairy in general.
The worst foods your can eat according to Kapha diet? Butter, rich milk shakes, cream, and fermented cheese. Why? Because they aggravate your dosha immediately, slowing down even more your naturally sluggish digestion.
Most of all, stay away from chocolate, sugary pastries, and heavy, rich cold desserts like ice cream and cheesecake. They slow down your metabolism and increase the cold, dense qualities of your dosha, making you end up with increased sluggishness, heartburn, and even more body fat.
Supplements Recommended in Kapha Diet...
...useful in losing weight are natural thermogenics - plants that increase your metabolism helping you in burning more fat. The safest ones are:
- bitter orange (citrus aurantium)
- guggul
- triphala
- Siberian ginseng
- gumar (gymnema sylvestre)
Bitter orange increases your metabolic rate without any unwanted side effects, while guggul lowers your cholesterol & triglycerides level by increasing your thyroid function.
Siberian ginseng helps your body to burn more fat for immediate energy and gives you the endurance needed for exercising.
Gumar is a popular Ayurvedic thermogenic that reduces your appetite and cuts your sweets cravings. Due to an increased insulin production gumar helps increase the ratio of lean muscle mass over body fat.
A safe, proven, and very useful herbal remedy that you can use is this.
Mix triphala, turmeric, and trikatu - 1 part each, and 2 parts raw honey. Take half teaspoon of this paste with half cup of warm water every day before lunch.
This mix "warms up" your internal organs and revives their function for an increased digestion, metabolism, water and toxin elimination.
Kapha diet recommends to stay away from stimulants like coffee, black tea, yerba matte and ephedra (ma huang).
These stimulants have upsetting side effects like insomnia, tremors, anxiety and increased blood pressure and will make you will feel nervous, jittery and agitated.
If you're like most people, you're a combination of two doshas - a predominant Kapha and a secondary one, most likely Pitta. Both of them influence you, depending on the combination's percentage. Either one can be out of balance and needs to be "pacified" for your optimum physical and emotional equilibrium, so you may also want to check Pitta Dosha Diet >>
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