Monthly Motivation

"IN ORDER TO CHANGE YOUR BODY YOU MUST FIRST CHANGE YOUR MIND."

 Eating For Your Dosha

This month's step is all about starting to understand the importance of listening to your body's signals in terms of personalizing your nutrition. We are NOT all the same therefore the advice that everyone can follow the same nutritional path is simply not true!  Even though most women will find success with following general "healthy" nutritional principles I cannot stress enough the POWER of personalization. Your body has an intuition about what it needs to balance itself and you have to learn to listen--it can't send you an email or text!  

I like to refer to your dosha as the "suit" that your "soul" resides in. This suit has particular preferences and tendencies even when it comes down to what fruits, vegetables, grains and spices you should consume. What this means in real life is that the advice that everyone should get a certain amount of servings of foods or stick within a certain calorie range is really NOT specific to your own body. That is why some people find that when they adopt what some would consider a "healthy lifestyle" that they still struggle because it is not a lifestyle that is based on their specific body type.

The concept of a dosha or "suit" was established in Ayurvedic medicine which is the oldest medical practice in existence---even older than Traditional Chinese Medicine! In this tradition following a diet that is considered "balancing" to your dosha was essential in homeostasis of the body.  During the time this medical tradition was established there weren't any modern antibiotics or surgical techniques--doctors really had to rely on true preventative medicine. This is something we can all stand to learn greatly from today.  

How Do You Know What To Eat For Your Dosha

There are 3 basic doshas however each person is a unique combination of these 3 categories. The 3 doshas are Vata, Pitta, and Kapha. Please use the following link to complete your dosha quiz to find out what are your primary and secondary doshas. When you have finished your quiz we will email you your results within 24-48 hours so that you will know your primary and your secondary dosha. Once you have this information you will be able to know which handouts to review for your doshic specific diet.

Take My Dosha Quiz 

If you are looking to take your nutrition to a truly personalized level I recommend that you consider tailoring your current diet to include and exclude those foods that are balancing to your primary and secondary doshas. It can take quite some time to learn what foods go in each category (don't worry you have all month!) and there will sometimes be contraindications--for example something may be balancing to your primary dosha but aggravating to your secondary dosha.  In that scenerio you typically want to go with the preference for your primary dosha. There is one exception to this and that is if you are carrying extra weight that you want to get rid of. In Ayurveda excess weight is considered to have a "Kapha" action on the body therefore when you are overweight regardless of your primary dosha you may experience better balance if you also incorporate aspects of your diet that are also balancing to the Kapha nature. Once you have gotten rid of some of that excess weight (at least 10%) then I recommend that you switch back to honoring the balancing regimen for your primary and secondary doshas. However if your primary or secondary dosha happens to be Kapha when you get your quiz results then you can also just maintain what you are already doing.

Once you have learned what foods, beverages, spices and fats are balancing to your dosha there is also a secondary component to learn which is the 6 rasas or tastes of food. Think of this as a method of food combining (i.e. how you put your meals together) but more specific to doshic balance. Please keep in mind that when it comes to many of these lists since Ayurvedic medicine is rooted in India that there is a heavy plant based focused and most lists do not contain every single thing that most women consume in the Western world. I always tell people make a determination on the food based on it's primary food ingredients to make their determinations when the picture is not clear.  Also don't forget that we are here for you! If you have questions about a specific food or meal then please make sure to drop us a comment so that we can give you some feedback!

In the next section you will see examples of a nutrition list based on your dosha and what foods are indicated for each dosha. Each document is labeled in it's dosha (for example files for the Vata Dosha are labeled Vata). Please keep in mind that there is also a spice mix that is involved for each dosha that can be used when adding this level of personalization to your program.  We encourage you to take your time with this principle this month and go slowly as it can be a lot to learn! When first starting we suggest trying first to change one meal at a time--for example start eating just one meal a day that is specific to your dosha before trying to expand it to every single meal because that can be a bit overwhelming! For most people all of this information is completely new to them so please take your time with it and be patient with yourself! Remember you have all month to start incorporating these changes. Happy balancing!