Without even changing your diet, it’s possible to spark spontaneous weight loss. How is this possible? The secret lies not in a mad scientist’s lab or covert pharmaceutical lair but in the ancient Indian medical system of Ayurveda. The centuries-old system is aimed at bringing a balance between mind, body, and your environment, all of which directly impact everything about your health, including your weight.
We spoke with Dr. Kulreet Chaudhary, author of The Prime: Prepare and Repair your Body for Spontaneous Weight Loss, who has combined her work as an integrative neurologist and Ayurvedic practitioner to offer a program that helps undermine the biochemical imbalances that can prevent people from losing weight. She helped us identify three key points holding you back from dropping the pounds and how to address them to spark spontaneous weight loss.
What’s Holding Back Your Weight?
- A loss of digestive health
- An accumulation of ama, the Ayurvedic term encompassing both physical and psychological toxins that clog up the body
- Dosha imbalances, which are a consequence of the first two points
What Can Help You Lose Weight?
1. Strengthen Your Agni And Heal The Gut
In Ayurveda, agni refers to your digestive fire, which provides the energy to fuel digestion, burn food for energy, burn off toxins, and process waste. Your weight is not going anywhere until you fire up this agni and strengthen your gut.
Ayurvedic herbs like turmeric, ginger, cumin, coriander, and fennel are all particularly powerful in removing toxins, healing gut inflammation, and revving up agni.
Make a tea with equal measures of cumin seeds, coriander seeds, and fennel seeds and sip throughout the day. Also try sipping on a bone broth, which is rich in minerals and amino acids like glutamine that are extremely effective in soothing and healing the gut.
2. Start A Slow, Gentle Detox
Some people can be in such a toxic state that they don’t realize how much their weight is linked to other issues they may have. In fact, weight typically piles up after any underlying problem has already developed. A detox will help reduce the burden of the liver, release toxins built up in the gastrointestinal tract and locked up in the fat cells (a big reason why your body may be holding on to extra weight), help get your lymphatic system moving (ridding of excess weight and fuel as well), reduce cravings, and prime your body to rely on its own natural detox systems.
Ayurvedic herbs like triphala, ashwagandha, brahmi, and guggul are particularly powerful in removing toxins, flushing out the lymphatic system, reducing stress, and curbing cravings.
3. Change Your Habits Based On Your Dosha
Once your gut is healed, you can start fine-tuning your health even further by tweaking your diet and lifestyle to align with your dosha type. Your dosha type can dictate how quickly you may drop the weight as well. For example, vatas and pittas can typically lose weight faster than kaphas. To figure out your dosha, you can take up Dr. Chaudhary’s Dosha Quiz. Of course, it’s best to see an Ayurveda practitioner for a more accurate reading.
At this point, you can start using your kitchen like a pharmacy. Dr. Chaudhary recommends a few cookbooks to get you started, including Ayurvedic Cooking for Westerners (great for beginner cooks) and Eat-Taste-Heal: An Ayurvedic Cookbook for Modern Living.
With every step here, you will progressively change how you interact with food and your environment, your cravings will naturally subside, you’ll start to identify what is helpful and harmful to your body, and you’ll spontaneously see the pounds melt away.
To know more about Dr. Kulreet Chaudhary and her Ayurvedic treatments, visit her web site.
