How to Balance Vata Dosha: Ayurvedic Weight Loss Tips For Vata Body Type and Sample Menus
A Vata dosha imbalance may cause you to gain weight, be always in a rush, mentally stressed, even depressed. Discover here how to balance your dosha, recommendations of Vata Ayurvedic weight loss diet, including specific supplements helpful for your dosha.
With a Vata body type, you are naturally slender, but that doesn’t mean that weight gain will never be a problem for you...
You might be thin all your life, and then suddenly put on weight because your metabolism has changed and your digestion has been disturbed. Incomplete digestion creates toxicity in your body that clogs your whole system and causes weight gain.
Vata Dosha Ayurvedic Weight Loss Diet
The most important diet adjustment you could make to correct your Vata imbalance is to eat three warm, cooked meals per day at the same time every day, if possible. This greatly improves your digestion and assimilation of vital nutrients.
What to Favor: according to Vata Dosha Ayurvedic weight loss, you should favor moist cooking (sautéing, steaming, & boiling instead of frying, baking, & roasting), using coconut oil and butter (or ghee, which is clarified butter) as the most healthy cooking oils.
Also, favor warm drinks and whole, fresh, unctuous foods that are sweet, sour, salty, slightly oily, and mildly spicy; use ginger, basil, oregano, tarragon, thyme, cumin, and fennel as much as you can.
Here's an example of daily menus that will pacify your Vata body type helping your body release the extra weight:
Breakfast: try either a sweet & creamy hot cereal meal, or one that is based on sweet fruits: warm stewed berries, apples & pears with cinnamon & nutmeg; or fresh bananas, apricots, grapes, figs, and dates
Lunch (which should be the heaviest meal of the day): have 50% brown rice, couscous, or whole wheat pasta; 30% well-cooked vegetables ("warming" vegetables like beets, carrots, zucchini, leeks, asparagus, green beans, onions, sweet potatoes); and 20% light proteins (chicken, turkey, or seafood)
Late afternoon snack: try some halva with a hot herbal tea, or some raw & salted nuts with yogurt/kefir
Dinner: whole-grain bread & butter - with a hearty vegetable soup, or a cup of warm milk and fresh cheese (cottage, ricotta, labneh, goat or cream cheese). Just before bed, you can have a cup of buttermilk, or warm milk with honey and a pinch of ginger for a sound, restful sleep
What to Avoid: according to Vata Dosha Ayurvedic weight loss, you should avoid cold foods, raw salads and vegetables, astringent fruits, dry snacks (crackers, cold cereal, rice cakes, popcorn).
Also, avoid fermented & aged cheese, red meat, cold cuts, cayenne/chili/sweet peppers, alfalfa sprouts, cabbage, eggplant, tomatoes, potatoes, beans, all cereals (except wheat), coffee, black tea, ice cream, sugar, chocolate, iced drinks, frozen, canned, or packaged foods. Avoid flaxseed oil as well, as it activates too much your Vata dosha.
Supplements for Vata Imbalance...
...are helping you lose weight too. The most helpful ones are:
Ashwagandha (reduces physical & mental stress)
Arjuna (reduces emotional stress)
bee pollen & royal jelly
spirulina & blue-green algae,
vitamins: A, B, B12, C, D, & E
minerals: calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, zinc
If you're like most people, you're a combination of two doshas - a predominant Vata dosha and a secondary one - either Pitta or less likely, Kapha. Whichever your secondary dosha is, it influences you, depending on its percentage in the mix.
Both your predominant and secondary doshas can be out of balance. If that's the case, both need to be "pacified" for your optimum physical and emotional equilibrium, so you may want to check as well Pitta dosha diet.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you for putting together such a wonderful site! Eye-opening info on the different body types... it really helped me understand how to adjust my meals to lose weight without craving sweets and being hungry all day... or crushing after lunch. I've already lost 12 pounds in the last three weeks and I'm thrilled!! Never ever thought it would be so easy!"