Ayurveda and diet

[flofrog]

hello friends,

I am posting this because in another forum Patrick was giving an example about weightloss and how real knowledge of right diets is incredibly difficult due to contrary views as you look at it over a lapse of time. The other thread was about knowledge and how to find real knowledge.

So, because I have the example of a close one who, after many years of overweight, found balance and a healthier body, I am just posting this below.  Again it is simply another point of view, but somewhat interesting.


Before posting Ayurveda points of view, which are in fact ancient as Ayurveda is one of the oldest medicine ways known on Earth,  there was in france the interesting story of a dietician MD, named Dr. Zermati. 

He first in the late 70s counseled his patients to adopt a low calorie/low fat diet. It would initially work then his patients would lapse and return with a heavier problem. Then he would turn them  to the low carbohydrate diet with, after a while,  the same issue of failure and imbalance.
Dr. Zermati was very dedicated to his patients and felt their anguish, so he took a sabbatical and during three years decided to study in depth the people who had no problem staying lean. 

He very soon noticed that they would eat a whole range of things but never would eat when they were not hungry, so if not hungry they would just skip a meal. In other words, Dr. Zermati found out that satiety was key, a mechasnim that can be seen in children who stop eating when they have enough. Whence attention to what we eat is primordial, what specific thing we wish to eat, how we feel when we eat it, and how important it is to stop even after only two mouthfuls if we do not find pleasure in it anymore.  So how important each mouthful is essential. Quite epicurean...


This is a key point also  in Ayurveda. But what is interesting in Ayurveda is the view of categorizing the entity in a specific way, by the Doshas. 
Each one of us is more or less governed by our Doshas which number three,  Vata, Pitta, Kapha.  
Through answering questionnaires, you determine which Dosha you most belong to, while the two other Doshas still have an impact on you, but less. 

Along how these Doshas govern us, food impact will be  different.  For example, I am very Vata,  dosha governed by air. I am thin and lose weight easily.  If through stress,  too spicy food,  too much wind outside,  I become more Vata, then I lose more sleep,  lose more weigh and become anxious.

What is so interesting in Ayurveda is that it takes into account not just the physical,  but also the mental and emotional.

If you want to read more about this,  Deepak Chopra, originally from India,  has in fact, long ago,  published a small thin  book, titled Perfect Weight, which in a simple way allows you to find how are the Doshas for you, and through simple advice for food,  how to balance those doshas.

A close one to me was very Kapha. Signs of Kapha are, you are slow in the way you walk, you hate to walk fast, you gain weight easily,  you tend to sleep too much, you have a placid and calm disposition, you don't learn quickly but you have excellent retention and memory, and losing weight is a problem.  As you see, the questionnaires and doshas cover different aspect of your personality.

If anyone would like to have access to the three Doshas questionnaires, without getting the little book, just PM me and I shall send them to you.

Just another perspective here,

[IndigoSalvia]

For example, I am very Vata,  dosha governed by air. I am thin and lose weight easily.  If through stress,  too spicy food,  too much wind outside,  I become more Vata, then I lose more sleep,  lose more weigh and become anxious.

What is so interesting in Ayurveda is that it takes into account not just the physical,  but also the mental and emotional.

I am also very Vata. I am very dry, constantly seeking oil in my diet and on my skin. I can literally not get enough oil and moisture. I can not be in a dry climate for very long; I feel like I am desiccating: withering in energy, losing all moisture. Cold and windy are the worst conditions for me. My ideal location is the tropical greenhouses at botanical gardens. I could sit for hours and hours in those. 

I have only begun to scratch the surface of Ayurveda, but it has been quite helpful for me. I love that it's all about balance. 

I also use the concepts of Ama and Agni. I use them more broadly: I visualize my chakra system as having Ama = blockages, and Agni = free-flowing energy.

[flofrog]

lol IndigoSalvia, we are so alike..
and I love strong windy days, it's really hard for me not to go out and feel the wind, lol.

I made a mistake in posting initially this in Health as it should be in the sub-forum 'Health and Diet,' so I am going to try to do the transfer, or I shall appeal for help to my other CSC friends.... lol

[Margan]

lol IndigoSalvia, we are  so alike..
and I love strong windy days, it's really hard for me not to go out and feel the wind, lol.

I made a mistake in posting initially this in Health as it should be in the sub-forum 'Health and Diet,'  so I am going to try to do the transfer, or I shall appeal for help to my other CSC friends....  lol

"there are no mistakes only surprises " 
I love windy days too! and when the clouds race in the sky
When I did tests years ago it said pitta vata but more pitta . Lol I once went to an ayurvedic store to get some stuff and the owner comes up to me, a very chatty one she was and first thing she said to me "you are soooo pitta, like the textbook pitta" lol
Edit : wow Indigo, the tropical greenhouses are sort of like my personal hell realm lol... I cannot stand that humid heat at all - although as I get older I get more "freezing " too and less overheated....
The thing about anxiety is interesting Flo - when I lost a lot of weight couple years ago I did not feel good at all and I also had panic attacks / probably some kind of Vata that was imbalanced then

[flofrog]

Lol… it is so true that heat and humidity are like hell for Pitta… lol, lol
I have a girlfriend here who is very pitta and she hates heat and loves cold and winter, I like winter but I get cold so I prefer wind and rain , but I laugh because to me orange and orange juice are like my sustainables, and they really stabilize Vata, while as a Pitta my friend can’t stand oranges, probably has not eaten one in thirty years and the mere idea of orange juice in the morning makes her noxious, it’s so funny…

[Margan]

same here! soo not orange juice for me....
my stomach already hurts when I see people in a hotel have coffee and oj in the morning
grapefruits are ok though. And lemons
Edit: although no - that is not really true. I found out that if I squeeze a biologically grown orange and drink the juice i am ok with that. it is quite refreshing actually. Ask your friend whether she can tolerate that too? When I came down with the flu years ago I craved them. But they are not normally on my shopping list

[flofrog]

I have really been struck by the love dedicated by Dr. Zermati to his patients so I think, since his books are not translated in english, I shall do a small thread about his work as a nutritionist, because he was an incredibly kind person and because his advice is quite aligned with buddhism and the LOO about awareness and food...

[flofrog]

So this is a post about this french nutritionist, whose work was not translated in english, or rather is out of print now.
I met him at book signing a friend took me to wehen I was in france in the eighties. I was struck by how involved he was with helping his patients in the small talk he did before the book signing. It struck me at the time too how his view of approaching food and taking food was close to the buddhist way of paying attention to the subject of eating.

So here goes, please skip it if you find it boring, and apologies as it may be a little long.


Notes summarizing the method of Dr. Zermati .


Dr. Zermati thus began his career : after training as an MD, he took a specialization in nutrition in 1989,
putting his patients on the recommended diet of that time :

low calories, three balanced meals per day, do not skip meals, limit fat , comply with menus.

Early in his book, he takes the example, at that time, of a young, slightly overweighted teenager, to whom he simply prescribes
to follow the said low calorie diet, three balanced meals without snacking .

The teenager loses the desired weight, but after a while, obsessed with forbidden food, skips the diet,
gradually gains weight again, and stops coming to see him.

About ten years go by, observing the results on his patients, Dr. Zermati realizes that this diet system does not work on long term.

Most of his patients do well at first, but then after some time elapses, not only do they revert to original overweight
but often too, seem to add more.

He often finds them facing depression, feeling hopelessness.

Zermati, who is a dedicated practitioner, and loves his patients, is quite moved, and concludes that these diets may not work at all
correctly, on long term.

He takes three years, on the side, to instead analyze and carefully study behaviors, habits, genetics of thin people ,
people who have never experienced weight problems.


He comes to a completely revised idea that diets do not work,
and overweight is not , contrary to what one might think, in most cases, due to a genetic fact at all.


He realizes , after extensive research , that the key to normal weight is not the calculation of protein,
carbohydrates, fat, incidence of glycemic index, etc...
but to another very simple mechanism.

He observes, that the people who, as a child innately does, always listen to their hunger and satiety
will all remain thin, whether these persons have parents, grandparents , brothers and sisters
thin or fat.

Similarly , once this conclusion is made, he discovers that if he gets people who have a weight problem,
to make this their goal : to listen to, and respect the signal their bodies sends of satiety,
then, they naturally lose their extra weight, and return to their own natural ideal weight.

Not only that, but they show a taste for life, an energy and pleasure in food that were completely lost
during the process of their path to overweight.

The key, he says, is to get back your own system to regulate hunger and satiety .

The only thing that matters , he says , is the system on which we were depending when we
were a child

1 . On the principle:
"But you have to eat three balanced day for vitamins, protein meals etc. …"

he answers :

“ To ingest all the vitamins, proteins, mineral salts apparently necessary, you would have to eat such a quantity
of food per day that would have more than 4,000 calories, and we all would become elephant like in a few months."

The result of his studies is that , after a week, listening to the desires of food instinct, the body has absolutely ingested
all vitamins, mineral salts, and nutrients necessary for its renewal in the best way, in that given period.

From his point of view, the key point is :

relax, and know that what the body needs,

it will find it .

Unless you live in a specific area where there is famine and no access to food.

And the body will find those in the course of one week.

Hence the extreme importance given to the feeling of " under the tongue " that tells what the body wants.

For example, if the taste you want to get is the one of an orange : an orange has a lot of B6, a vitamin that regulates
the quota of water inside the body, chance is that you need to balance that quota inside your body.

He insists that if the body can not find a huge pleasure in swallowing a morsel more of a certain food,
this means that the ratio of vitamins, mineral salts necessary to the body from that food has been reached from that dish.

If the body had its need of calories, vitamins, mineral salts, of the moment, met, then hunger disappears,
and you just leave the table .

Hunger returns in search of other nutrients, and the need to listen again to what we want to
have " under the tongue " comes back.

So his first principle is, in the case of weight loss, that the patient will get to it through a natural calorie reduction,
but not by a cognitive action (the diet plan) because the cognitive action imposes forbidden foods,
which sooner or later will become obsessive to the person seeking to lose weight.

This calorie reduction will normally be brought through the sensations of hunger, and the object of hunger.

So any overweight person must immediately stop 2 things:

Start to eat without hunger
Continue eating beyond hunger

Once you start to live it differently, the body begins to naturally lose excessive weight
until it reaches the natural weight it should have.

To find the notion of hunger, and the satiety concept , that often has been totally forgotten by abusive diets,
notions of regimes, "forbidden" foods or " mandatory " dishes, Zermati offers then the first exercise below,
and adds two more.


First exercise :

The first exercise is an exercise in attitude to have for people who have lost all listening .

This attitude is simply
the state of mind to have at first, which will become natural as the process goes.

So when you decide to have a meal, here is the exercise :

1 . Am I hungry ?
IF You 're hungry, then sit a the table. Use small forks and spoons,
put them down on the table every three mouthfuls. This is very important.

Enjoy to the max the first bite , do not read , do not watch TV.

If you are sitting at a family dinner, decide that even if you participate in the family talk,
your first awareness, your primary focus will be, primarily, on the joy of tasting what has been put on your plate.

2 . Is that good under my tongue ?

Observe the pleasure of the first mouthful , revel in it.

Then watch the pleasure you have with the second mouthful , and then with the third .

It will be decreasing . Observe, deeply, how fast it is in fact decreasing. The first time you will focus on this,
how fast it decreases will astound you.

When the pleasure disappears, your body is telling you: I got enough of this nutrient, my needs have been met.

If you helped yourself very little of it, and the desire of this dish is still there , go back for seconds ,
but still, watch how fast is the loss of pleasure, and once there, immediately stop eating that dish.

Stop immediately when the pleasure has disappeared.

You must eat slowly and enjoy each bite separately to be able to enjoy and test your pleasure.

3 . Have I eaten enough ?

If hunger is still there , go to another dish that really attracts you .
Do not take yogurt if you have no desire for it,
under the pretense that this should be the next course.

There are NO mandatory and forbidden food.

Feel what the body is telling you , a little cheese , a little pasta, a small vegetable, half a pear, 4 squares of chocolate, etc. …

Do not worry, the answer will seem to rise from your body. LISTEN. This is so important, this is your body telling you what it needs.

You will have the desire to have something under your tongue.

If nothing is appealing, it is a bet that the hunger is gone and ... it will return later for another delicious meal that you will taste
again, with great joy, a meal that you will really want, that your body will really need ...


The listening to hunger is essential.

[flofrog]

And last about Zermati, this is an example he gives in his book,

He thus takes this example of a person whom he calls the restricted eater:

The person must have @ 4 pm a snack, which is : a yogurt and 4 grapes .

This person actually wants 2 squares of chocolate. But chocolate is prohibited .
So she takes : 1 yogurt and 4 grapes . But she still wants, under her tongue, 2 squares of
chocolate .

After 20 minutes of resisting, she takes the 2 squares of chocolate she so desires, and it is so good.
After 10 minutes, she has another square, and then, she cannot resist any more, since after all her diet
has now been wrecked by the forbidden food,
and she now eats the whole bar of chocolate.

So in the end, the restricted eater had one yogurt , 4 grapes and 1 whole bar of
chocolate, when all she really wanted initially was .. 2 squares of chocolate.

But she ate the entire bar, because tomorrow it will be back to diet, and tomorrow chocolate
will be totally prohibited. Her thinking is : There are " forbidden foods ," and they will not be there tomorrow,
so I have to eat them today , and eat a lot of them .

Zermati explains that

the naturally regulated eater eats 2 squares of chocolate, which is what she/he wants,
and stops, because he knows that tomorrow he will have access to it again ....
no food is forbidden, when and if she/he is hungry for it….

This is true, he says, for any form of " addiction" for " forbidden foods " such as
cheese , pastry, and even, to a certain degree, alcohol.


He sees in his office, 15 years later, the young woman who had come to see him as the teenager
mentioned at the beginning of these notes.

She is now in a state of such overweight that her life has become miserable. She is on a diet with no carbohydrates ,
suffers greatly, is tired, depressed, but if she breaks that diet, she seems to immediately put on more weight.
Addicted to zero calories sodas, she is desperate.
She no longer sees solutions to her issue, and burst into tears during the consultation.


He says :

Let's start at the beginning.
What do you want to eat now?

She looks at him and blushes.
What do I want, or what should I have ?

He says :
What do you want now ?

She laughs and replies :
Oh, Well, I dream of chocolate eclairs . I have not eaten one for 2 years ...

So Dr. Zermati says :

Well before returning home tonight , buy two chocolate eclairs .

Tonight dine exactly as prescribed by your
diet . [ The restricted eater ]
Tomorrow morning , weigh yourself, after you wake up.

Then take for your breakfast 2 chocolate eclairs .

Then go to the office but before you get there, enter a bakery, buy 5 chocolate eclairs,
eat three for lunch , keep for example 2 for an afternoon snack, and eat those only following your hunger for them.
If at snack time you are hungry, eat what is left of the eclairs, but when your hunger is gone, if there is any left,
throw them away.

Then buy before you go home whatever you really feel like for your dinner
The next morning, weigh yourself again, and then call me.


She does exactly what he prescribed he to do.
She buys 2 eclairs in the evening, dines following her no carb diet, spends the night , gets up, weighs herself,
then showers, and dresses, and then sits for breakfast.

And eats with absolute delight the 2 eclairs for breakfast.

She goes to her office , buys 5 eclairs , eats 3 at lunch under the eyes of her stunned
colleagues , and at four pm, take less than half of an eclair, and throws away what is left.

In the evening, the only thing she wants is to have two fresh tomatoes with herbs, oil and and balsamic vinegar.

The next morning , she weighs herself before calling Zermati and … she is in tears as she calls him,
for she has lost 1 pound in 24 hours eating chocolate eclairs !

When she called Dr. Zermati, he said that the result is normal , he asked her what she wanted for breakfast ,
she thinks about it and says an orange and 2 toasts, he then wants her to follow this,
and for lunch and dinner take only what she wants,
eating slowly, enjoying it to the max, but stopping as soon as the food stops pleasing her.

He insists as well that from this day forward, the concept of hunger and satiety must be respected , absolutely.

A little over a month later she calls and bursts into tears of joy on the phone :
She lost without effort, without dieting , 16 pounds in 5 weeks.

Sometimes she skipped a meal when she was not hungry , taking a snack later before the next meal .
It is only following the advice of her body, her feelings of hunger , happiness, food , and satiety .
She completely erased the concept of forbidden foods .
------


I think that what moved me the most about this nutritionist was how he got into the despair of his patients and how he looked for a solution which was outside the given boundaries of his specialty. And it is interesting how he advised living in the exact moment of the present.

I find his attitude curiously aligned with Ra when Ra speaks about the intelligence of our cells in our body...

[IndigoSalvia]

lol IndigoSalvia, we are  so alike..
and I love strong windy days, it's really hard for me not to go out and feel the wind, lol.

I made a mistake in posting initially this in Health as it should be in the sub-forum 'Health and Diet,'  so I am going to try to do the transfer, or I shall appeal for help to my other CSC friends....  lol

I'm curious as to this difference between us here, since we are both Vata. When in strong winds, I feel utterly blown about, I can not keep my balance. My ears start to ache in cold wind instantly. I want to withdraw into stillness, warmth and moisture - where everything in me calms. I went to Tahoe and I had 3-4 layers on (while some people were comfortable in jeans!) and was still cold, all of muscles tense and shaking. 

Yet, I find it interesting that you love strong, windy days. Can you share what strong winds are like for you? Do you feel like jumping on a current of wind and soaring upward on it? I've had this sensation, but alas succumb to my 3D body that doesn't seem to leave the ground on its own. 

[flofrog]

lol, yes it s exactly how I feel when there is a strong wind outside, I just want to be there and get totally taken by it. The energy of the wind just ravishes me. I think it's also because then, I feel so close to Gaia, I feel like she embraces me with her energy, I just love it. If it s really wet I feel the cold but if it's dry I love the cold, which is not in fact very Vata, lol.

Does that answer your question ? I even love listening to the wind, I find its voice totally capturing, I can sit there and just listen.

I am a dork

[Margan]

Yes moi aussi! that feeling of being taken away and almost breathless when there are strong winds
Hey since it is us girls (Indigo you are girl too?) from main street talking about the subject, here is a link with Dr Zermati by the Girls from mainstreet website :
https://girlsfrommainstreet.com/intervie...ting-39248
Actually those are mostly very easy suggestions, like eat when hungry and dont eat and do other things like TV etc. but so often we tend to forget (I know I do) so I was grateful for the gentle reminder by Mme Flofrog

[Spaced]

Very interesting stuff! I would be interested in finding out my dosha type.

[IndigoSalvia]

You can go to many websites and fill out some questionnaires, and they'll give you a primary and possibly secondary Dosha. Perhaps flofrog has a favorite. I did a few just for a validity check. You can also just read descriptions of the Doshas and see which describes you.

[flofrog]

Here are the questionnaires since this is an ayurveda thread, it's not out of subject... lol

------




So lets take a sheet of paper to note the answers:


Each question may have 0 to 5 points

0  not at all
1  barely
2  sometimes
3  rather often
4 most of the time
5  absolutely all the time


Add the sum at the end and keep it for each questionnaire

Vata Questionnaire


1.   I do everything rapidly
2.   I am enthusiastic and vivacious by nature
3.   I learn very easily to do things
4.   My natural gait is light and fast
5.   I tend to have difficulty making decisions
6.    I tend to have air in my stomach and be somewhat blotted
7.   I have  a lean physique and do not put on weight easily
8.        I become easily worried
9.   I do not suffer cold as easily as others
10.   I speak fast and my friends find me very talkative
11.   My mood often changes and may go up and down
12.   I often have difficulty falling asleep
13.   My skin tends to be dry and more in winter
14.   I have a very active mind somewhat ebullient
15.      My movements are fast and energy comes in waves
16.   I get easily excited
17.   If living alone I tend to forget it’s time to eat and I skip a meal
18.      I often find difficult to have a really good night sleep
19.      I sometimes have difficulty to make a choice
20.   I learn really fast but may forget fast too



Pitta questionnaire

1. I consider myself s very efficient
2. In my activities I tend to be precise and organized
3.    I tend to have a strong mind and am not afraid to get myself heard
4.    I am uneasy with heat and tend to be more so than the other people
5.    I tend to sweat easily
6.    Even if it cant be seen I tend to be angry inside
7.    One or more of these traits characterize my hair :
        White, Yellow, Thin, Sparse, Blond, Red, ou Sand color
8.    Strong appetite, I can swallow a lot of food
9.    Many find me stubborn
10.  I am not constipated and have regular soft bowels
11.    If I skip a meal I am uncomfortable
12.    I easily become impatient
13.    I am perfectionist on details
14.    I can become angry , show anger but forget it easily
15.    I love cool food like ice cream, ice cubes in drinks and such as cold soups
16.    I easily find a room too warm than too cold
17.    I do not tolerate well spicy food
18.    I do not really like opinions different than mine
19.    I love challenges, and when I find one, I do everything to make it work
20.    I tend to criticize others as well as myself



Kapha questionnaire

1.  My natural tendency is to do things in a slow and relaxed way
2.  I gain weight more easily than others and tend to have more difficulty than others to lose it
3.  I have a peaceful nature and do not get worried easily
4.  I can skip several meals without discomfort
5.  I tend Mohave a little mucus, sinusitis, phlegm, asthma...
6.  I need at least 8 hours of sleep or I dont feel well
7.  I have a deep sleep
8.  I am calm naturally and do not get angry easily
9.    I learn more slowly than others but have an excellent retention and long memory
10.  I tend to be a little plump
11.  Humid and cold weather bother me a lot
12.  I have rather thick, wavy, dark hair
13.  I have a soft and moist skin
14.  I have a rather solid and large body
15.    The following words describe me well :  calm, soft, affectionate, easily forgiving
16.    I have a slow digestion and easily feel heavy after a meal
17.    I have good stamina and my energy flows evenly for a long time
18.    I usually walk slowly and in a  measured way
19.    I tend to sleep too much and wake up groggy and start the day day slowly
20.    I eat slowly and am someone who is slow and organized


Once you have the sum for each three questionnaire you can realize which dosha you are by seeing the highest sum.
If you have two highest sum, then you are aligned with two dosha.  Having three very close sums is rare but happens.

if you find you are one dosha really high, it is interesting to see which food will balance that dosha as often it can become imbalanced.

For example
food containing fire are balancing the very watery kapha dosha,  Fire foods are for example : Basil, spices, coffee,  lamb.

food containing air may aggravate Vatta : beans will accentuate Vatta,

Pitta is Fire so any spices, basil, coffee will  aggravate Pitta

[IndigoSalvia]

Kitcharee soup, by the way, is tri-doshic. So, it's good for all of us. When I was pregnant, I ate a lot of kitcharee.

As a Vata, what is your favorite Vata-balancing meal?

I slather oils on everything I eat. Though I have read that coconut is harder to digest, I crave it: raw coconut, coconut water, coconut oil, and canned coconut milk are staples in my pantry.

I mix my own body oils: sesame, peanut oils mixed with essential oils like lavender, bergamot or even eucalyptus.

[Margan]

I love coconut too! all kinds of I recently discovered those small bars of milk chocolate with real coconut inside and it was so yummy ....
btw when reading the questionaire I actually find myself agreeing on vata more than pitta now lol
Maybe I switched from pitta vata to vata pitta?
I sometimes just use sunflower oil on the face and body since I heard it contains vit e. It is very agreable
Lavender oil is supposedly helping for massaging scar tissue.

[flofrog]

lol I mostly eat what my little body tells me to, I am not sure it balances Vata all time, in fact impulsive eating is very Vata as well as skipping meals. If I start painting in the morning I easily forget lunch and when I realize it around  3 pm I usually shrug and keep working, that' s very Vata and silly for balancing... Dairy helps slow down Vata, and oppositely is not good for Kapha type.  Stressed Vata will stop eating which is exactly what used to happen to me. I love beans which is not the best for Vata, lol.

This is what it says for balancing Vata :

Unbalanced Vata will metabolize calories so fast that nothing gets stored, fate envied by overweight persons but not a healthy state of affair for Vatas.  Trying to have a regular schedule helps balance, and a variety of food, avoiding cold foods and drinks which immediately unbalance more. Heavy hearty food such as vegetarian or at times light meat stews, breads, warm desserts. Everything should be throughly cooked. Raw fruits and vegetables being only a small part for Vata balancing. Beans are aggravating.

This is what is balancing Pitta :

Unlike Vata, Pitta benefits from cold drinks. They need to eat in quiet environment, and gifted with robust digestion have to learn to eat in moderate amounts to not get heartburn or intestinal pain. Spicy or very hot food affects them. Pitta are well suited to vegetarian cooling and unprocessed food. Alcohol abuse and anorexia are frequently seen if Pitta anger turns inward in form of guilt. Pitta thrives on exercise and personal goals.

This is what balances Kapha :

Of the three Doshas, Kapha is the one who mostly should never eat without hunger. Kapha types can easily fast.  Ice-cream, butter, rich desserts slow down even more Kapha. Many Kapha struggle with their weight all their life and this results in a sense of hopelessness and diminished self-esteem. Once stabilized by eating more light fruits, such as apples and pears, raw honey as only sweetener, all beans, light grains as barley, millet, rye, but no wheat, all spices except salt, all vegetables, then Kapha will get back to a  natural weight.  Balancing foods are spicy, bitter and astringent.

[Margan]

How do my fellow Vatans feel about salty foods? I just checked and it seems to decrease Vata and increase the other two. And for the last years I found myself craving salty more and more..... yum salty almonds and nuts! so delicious
Although I gained a bit weight I identify least with the description of Kapha. Can ageing Vatans fatten up also, despite them always described as skinny ?

[IndigoSalvia]

I do crave salty more than other flavors. And, as far as gaining weight, I find that when I am more thoughtful about what I eat, I gain some weight. When I don't pay attention to eating and diet - which I am inclined to do - I lose weight, maybe because I forget to eat. And what brings it to my attention is shakiness (and irritability  ). I sometimes don't get to eating until the afternoon. I don't feel hungry. Compared to those I've talked with, I don't seem to have as loudly-calling hunger as others describe. I feel heavy (not weight, just a heaviness) when I eat, and it's mildly uncomfortable. If I eat too much, it's really uncomfortable. 

Other Vatas? 

p.s. nuts provide healthy oils, which are great for Vata, or rather I find them great.

[flofrog]

Lol I crave salt too.. we are like goats !! I think salt definitely pacify Vatas. Macadamias with a few grains of grey salt, paradise ! lol lol lol

[Margan]

Lol its true, if I only ate when hungry I would hardly eat at all

Sometimes it is to pass the time, or because it is noon and good citizens are supposed to eat lunch

I was so fascinated when i heard about those prana people who stop eating and only survive on "prana".... there might be the subconscious desire to live without a body and its needs and just float around in space - how totally liberating that would be

Haha FLo, I used to eat those salty macadamias too - and then one day they were out of stock - seems like I was not the only one addicted to them