Believe in yourself and believe in your goals
• Chalk out a specific strategy.
• Do not expect overnight results.
• Be patient in your approach.
• Mere wishing never helps but effort has to be put in to reduce weight.
Human body is not designed for sedentary lifestyle.
• Work hard physically to burn off the extra calories.
• Take in only the amount of food that is required by the body.
‘Eat to live’ and not ‘live to eat’.
• Do not bring extra food on the table. This reduces the tendency to over-eat.
• Do not over stuff yourself.
• While eating 3/4th of the stomach should be filled while 1/4th should remain empty.
• Leave the dining-table when ‘satisfied’ not when ‘stuffed’.
• No fast no feast is the best approach.
Family’s dietary habits affect the weight.
• Use grilled preparations instead of fried food.
• Do not crash-diet yourself.
• Small frequent meals decrease the habit of snacking on heavy stuff.
Some causes of overweight are under our own control
• Overeating
• Oversleeping
• Sedentary lifestyle
Do not torture your body.
• Every individual has a distinct and basic body-frame which cannot be changed. So be comfortable with your own body-frame.
• Try to be practical and not too rigid with your expectations.
• Check with your doctor for the ideal body weight that is healthy and comfortable for you before starting with any regime.
Overweight is ‘kapha-dosha’ predominance as per Ayurveda.
• ‘Kapha’ dosha accumulates in the body and makes it lethargic.
• Such persons have a dislike for changing their routine and thus need some motivation to exercise and lose weight systematically.
• Get your ‘Body-constitution analysis’ done by an Ayurveda doctor and move as per directed.
Exercise is most important tool for reducing weight.
• Warm water with one squeezed lemon in it helps in cleansing off the toxins and excess ‘kapha dosha’ from the system.
• Choose meal that balances the body constitution as per the time.
• Dinner should be early and light.
• Have sufficient amount of water.
• Limit food with a predominant taste of sweet, sour or salty.
• Have food with tastes of bitter, pungent and astringent.
• Dates are good to satisfy a sweet tooth.
• Raw unheated honey is the best sweetener to balance kapha and to gently scrape fat.
• Use of warming spices such as black pepper, cinnamon, ginger and cardamom while cooking help stimulate agni(metabolism) and aid digestion.
• Ayurvedic herbs such as Punarnava( Boerhoavia diffusa), Chitraka( plumbago zeylanica), Vidanga( embelica ribes), Guggulu(commiferra mukul) are good for proper metabolism and elimination of excess kapha.
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