Kapha Diet to Fix Your Kapha Imbalance: the Easy Kapha Type Ayurvedic Weight Loss Diet

(Discover specific foods to avoid for your Kapha dosha)

Ayurveda Kapha diet helps you boost your metabolism, as you naturally have a sluggish one and tend to always be 5-10 pounds overweight.

With a Kapha type, forget about being skinny!

You gain weight easily, even though you eat smaller amounts of food than the other two types.

How frustrating is this??

You should know that this is caused by a slow metabolism due to a lack of the digestive fire that converts the denser elements from food into energy.

When the right amount of fire energy (Pitta energy) is missing, the water and earth elements dominate, creating inertia and sluggishness throughout your whole body.

What’s the easiest way to correct this?

First, use this Kapha balancing diet.
Second, add the missing heating quality of the fire element to the water you drink: boil it for 5 min. and sip it throughout the day, especially during winter… As a result, you’ll feel an increased warmth and energy throughout your body, which is a clear sign that your metabolism is higher, burning more body fat.

So let’s get down to it.

Dosha Kapha Diet for Weight Loss

The most important adjustment you can make in your diet is to have lunch (your heaviest meal) at noon, when your digestive power peaks. If you’re not hungry at that time, stimulate your appetite with some bitter taste (tonic water, grapefruit, bean soup, or an endive appetizer).

What to Favor: according to Ayurveda’s Kapha diet you should use dry cooking (baking, grilling and roasting instead of boiling, sautéing and steaming) and a minimum amount of healthy cooking oils.

Favor coconut oil for weight loss – over any other fats – as it particularly balances your Kapha dosha, helping you to lose weight with much less effort.

Limit as much as you can all other 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 because they improve your digestion, help you burn 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 and 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 could 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 Kapha diet. In fact, you are better off with just a hot ginger tea or hot water with fresh lemon juice and honey – these will keep you going till noon.
If you really need to have breakfast some days, try a fruit stew (compote) made of apples, pears, peaches, berries or prunes.
Alternatively (if carbs aren’t an issue for you), have a buckwheat muffin with just a touch of honey and a hot, spiced cider.

Lunch: this should be the heaviest meal of the day and is best to include:

• 50% non-starchy vegetables (cabbage, broccoli, bok choy, spinach, kale, asparagus, endives, lettuce, mushrooms, peas);
• 30% rye crackers and cooked whole grains (favor basmati rice, buckwheat, barley and quinoa over wheat and brown rice), and
• 20% proteins (chicken, turkey, tuna, shrimps, boiled eggs, beans).
  Quinoa is especially good for you, as it’s “heating” (has the the energy of fire, or Pitta energy). Believe it or not, quinoa helps you lose weight, as it has a high content of zinc, a weight loss booster mineral.

Late afternoon snack: have some dried fruits like 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.
Then, 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 too sweet, juicy or sour, like bananas, dates, grapes, melons, pineapple, oranges, tomatoes, potatoes (contain too much starch).

Also, avoid or reduce as much as you can fatty red meat, cold cuts, soy products, fermented & aged cheese, yogurt, and all regular fat dairy in general.

The worst foods your can eat according to Kapha diet?

• Butter, rich milk shakes, cream, and fermented cheese – as these foods aggravate your dosha immediately, slowing down even more your naturally sluggish digestion
  
• Chocolate, sugary pastries and heavy, rich cold desserts like ice cream and cheesecake; these foods 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)

Here’s how these supplements help you to lose weight easier:

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 you increase the ratio of lean muscle mass over body fat.

As you can see, the Kapha dosha diet gives you specific tips and tools to balance your Kapha imbalance easily.

Would you like to get a 28-day Ayurveda Kapha step-by-step plan PLUS 1 full year of delicious menus and Kapha-balanced meal plans? Then take a look at this Ayurvedic Balance 1-year program >>

Think you are not a “pure” Kapha type? You may be 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 – take a look also at Pitta Dosha Diet. Or, you may want to see the Vata Diet.