In hot months, we are far away from Kapha season, but good to always have Kapha awareness that can hit us anytime of year.
Natural Kapha season is in the coldest months of the year (winter thru early spring) and we normally bundle up and eat more to keep us warm. It’s part of our natural evolution that falls after Vata autumn season… (you can learn about imbalances with Vata anxiety vs nervous feelings in last week’s Part 2 in this Ayurvedic series).
In Kapha awareness season that’s what this week’s article is about, we also naturally gravitate toward warm comfort foods as we know the cool light foods are Pitta Season that can cause pitta mind body inflammation.
And if we’re having a Kapha body heavy season outside of natural Kapha season, that can put us out of balance and add more stress on our body keeping score. We know we’re Kapha imbalanced if we’re overeating or run toward processed or fatty foods more than usual.
In the Western world and especially America where I live, junk food is affordable, convenient food. Unless we’re living in Loma Linda USA and the other Blue Zones, then our societal environments aren’t supporting our longevity. For one, buying healthy foods are more expensive when they’re available so we naturally move toward the less expensive option.
And that adds up to weight gain and an unhealthier body.
But it’s not always just a body issue… it’s a mind and body challenge because the mind is what tell us (the choice makers) what to put in our body.
And it’s not any of our faults as more than 90% of our day is run on the subconscious mind level.
Sometimes this can be coming from a hormone imbalance where we don’t know when to stop eating. And a rule like eating to 80% of feeling full won’t help in those cases.
…But as decision makers for our actions and desires, we can set our own controls in place that don’t require excessive hardwork (like calorie counting or hours of exercise).
And those ways are not smart either because that’s not how our natural minds and bodies most efficiently work.
…If we tell ourselves, we can’t eat something, then our minds have a field day with us and we just want the eye-candy food even more (the “no ___” translates into energy toward the devil food cake or easy-greasy foods).
…And our bodies don’t want depletion of calories, it wants dense-nutrition.
And I can attest to this as I tried to live on pasta and low-fat cookies in my 20s… how did that work? …and what happened on the scale? …and like many of us who tried diets, it ended up like a yo-yo effect
Plus, restricted to changes in no longer being able to eat certain types or quantities of foods for the same quality of life we had is an uphill climb. That means we have to learn new habits if we don’t want to sacrifice our body’s health or how we look.
Finding better habits that work for us is the ticket to success in maintaining a consistent weight you’re happy with. And some may think, DUH, I’ve been trying that but it hasn’t been easy.
Finding a new perspective from your past is one of the ways out. For example, some want to live longer to see their grandkids grow up, and others value feeling or looking better and eating healthy is one of the strategies.
For me, I want to respect my body as the only one I got. And while weight gain isn’t my Vata issue, putting a hard stop on snacking all day and closing the kitchen is.
I can use this analogy… when I started drinking coffee in the morning, I found that my 2 cups habit led to an eventual bottomless mug.
And I’m a home baker who doesn’t naturally measure. But I naturally keep track of time, so I used that easy tracking.
…One day, instead of counting cups I decided to use a coffee clock as a more effective tool.
And anywhere you are in the world, you’re on a world clock. And that clock has a time. So I use 12 noon as my morning quitting time. And allow myself a light latte dessert drink after lunch.
And in that example, I’ve created a habit stack onto my lunch time. And a habit stick that works year-round.
Maybe you have the same dilemma with coffee o’clock around the clock, or its food o’clock all day and all night. I know that too as I would snack from the time I woke up… I mean, I had to put food in my belly so the coffee had a non-acidic soft place to land.
…And then I continued snacking in the late morning until late at night, and sometimes skipping dinner but still snacking. Mind you, my snacks are healthy nuts, popcorn, and nutritional foods 90% of the time. But snacking is snacking.
Eating something and whenever you want is putting your body to work.
And I did this every day 365 times a year, like most of us have been trained to do since we were young.
Until I did this one thing… I quit eating after lunch on 1-2 days a week. And again I used time as a tracker. And I learned that this was healthy.
And not what I was previously told needed to happen which was to snack every 4-5 hours I was awake. And not doing that, gave my body a well-deserved break from digesting
And after I did that for more than 6 months (8 months to date), my body got adjusted to this new way that’s metabolically good for the body and all its running parts.
I ending up eating less food. And I started seeing some tone to my torso. Hmm… not bad. But for me the best part is the simplifying my life part not having to think about eating good foods all the time.
…I started out my career in hotel catering and worked professionally with foods for a decade, so that’s always been HUGE for me. I’m passionate about foods.
But not having to prepare home meals all the time or find a snack substitution is liberating. Food is joy in my book, and taking a break for a day makes me appreciate the foods even more.
And, I use that non-eating time to be productive… and unlike a snack break commercial interrupt, get more things done besides stuffing my face.
And as intermittent fasting is trending, research is demystifying that it’s healthy. Your body loves a good healthy trend. When our bodies carry too much weight it’s a heavy burden that can upset organ functions along our GI tract, heart, and pancreas creating insulin as a helper.
I shared my starting intermittent fasting journey earlier this year that’s part of my weekly routine. No more uncomfortable what is that? stomach feeling. And we know the gut is responsible for over 90% of our happy hormones.
I allow my body to detox longer than through a night of sleep. And you can too if you’re a natural Vata, Pitta, or Kapha body.
And if you’re finding yourself holding onto extra pounds you’d like to shed off and have tried all the diets that brought you back to Square-One (or similar to my weight cycling diet experience, weighing higher months later), then IF is something you want to embrace as your last-stop try.
I’ve put together my free ultimate IF guide, that has all the info. to get started all-in-one-place that you can check out for FREE.
And in free-ing Kapha awareness and celebrating our healthy Kaphas that make us lovely human beings, we can be aware of our Kapha mind imbalances that rob our peaceful moods.
We can get out of balance with our lazy moods that we can’t shake off easily. This can start from anything including overeating, being bored, discouraged, or wanting a more exciting, creative life.
…Or another sign is we act clingy or needy (and we have Kapha awareness on this since close ones have told us nicely to backoff).
…Or we start to accumulate things (opposite of minimalist) and they show up in our lives and we notice when we consciously pay attention in Kapha awareness.
And all these daily actions (or inactions) let us know that we have an opportunity to change our Kapha mind imbalances that affect our daily perspectives and outlook.
And Kapha awareness is the first step to get you out (and Ayurvedic awareness for any of the mind-body imbalances), so you can daily make healthy choices that help to restore your balances.
…Cleanup and prevention positively impacts your upcoming seasons and life, so you want to nip-imbalances-in-the-bud.
If you would like a guide, you can get your personal recipe steps for restoration by taking a simple symptom assessment. This is good for anyone who wants a healthier life this season or is carrying around unwanted moods. And as a double FREEBIE.. for the month of September only, you can get your personalized recipe for FREE and start your season off on good footing.
—
This post was previously published on Healthy Happy Life Secrets Blog.
***
From The Good Men Project on Medium
What Does Being in Love and Loving Someone Really Mean? | My 9-Year-Old Accidentally Explained Why His Mom Divorced Me | The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex | The Internal Struggle Men Battle in Silence |
Join The Good Men Project as a Premium Member today.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.
A $50 annual membership gives you an all access pass. You can be a part of every call, group, class and community.
A $25 annual membership gives you access to one class, one Social Interest group and our online communities.
A $12 annual membership gives you access to our Friday calls with the publisher, our online community.
Register New Account
Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
—
Photo credit: iStock.com