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Master Personalized Wellness with these Diet, Lifestyle & Herbs Certification Courses
In Ayurveda, excess weight is considered a symptom of something deeper. You might feel physically heavy, puffy, or sluggish; perhaps there is a feeling of discomfort in overly tight clothing or a shame about the number on the scale that makes you believe you are overweight. External measures like the Body Mass Index (BMI) can cause us to doubt the healthfulness of our weight, yet the validity of these measures are questionable. Many athletes are diagnosed as "obese" because their muscle mass artificially contributes to a high BMI. In 1998 doctors lowered the BMI threshold for overweight a whole five points. Suddenly, people who felt healthy the year before started to believe they were overweight. Accordingly, Ayurveda rejects these external standards and instead asks us to dig deeper to discover a healthy weight.
Why weight?
You might be tempted to view weight loss as a kind of universal panacea for your problems. Weight gain is often the scapegoat when you feel anxiety over loss of control, hopelessness, and failure. For these reasons, it is important to get clear about why you want to lose weight. Is your diet program a way of healing and loving your overweight body, or punishing it? What would having a slimmer body symbolize for you...improved energy, better health, more fulfilling relationships? Clarifying these goals at the outset can help you also identify other imbalances contributing to weight gain.
"Big-boned" versus Overweight
There is no optimum weight in Ayurveda. Instead, Ayurveda considers factors beyond weight to determine the state of your health. A person with a hearty constitution (kapha) may carry around more weight than a delicate one (vata), but these are not necessarily indications of ill-health. Instead, Ayurveda recommends assessing your health by reflecting on how you feel: what is your energy level like? Do you wake up feeling light and energized, or groggy, puffy, and heavy? Is your lymphatic system congested? Are your emotions stable?
It is more important to feel good in your body than to see a low number on the scale. Poor energy, sluggish metabolism, low thyroid, and an inability to exercise are more relevant than weight when it comes to health in Ayurveda. You might also consider the size of your ancestors and parents: is your family naturally heavier and more "big-boned" than others? Taking the dosha quiz helps you clarify your body type and set more realistic, and healthy weight loss goals.
Discipline?
Ayurveda shows you why discipline is not the answer. Instead, Ayurveda's unique approach to weight loss helps you interpret and make sense of your food cravings, so that you can satisfy cravings and make good choices. Understanding your body is key to bridging the gap between unruly cravings and discipline.
Improve Your Circulation
Fat tissue blocks circulation. Blood that is rich in sugars, fats and proteins is thicker and also harder to circulate. As your circulation becomes more and more sluggish, so does your metabolism. Ayurveda often treats weight gain and food cravings as a complication of congestion in the circulatory system, a Kapha imbalance. Taking a brisk 15 to 30 minute walk in the morning is a good way to get your blood moving. Drinking warm, spiced drinks like ginger or the weight-reducing tea (link to lemon, cayenne, honey recipe) is also effective.
Develop a Strong Routine
A good eating and sleeping routine is an important step to taking control of your diet. It is impossible to make great food choices when you're late for work and starving, or exhausted from a long day with no food in the pantry. The more erratic your meal schedule, the more likely you likely you are to snack between meals and struggle with strong, unruly food cravings.
Build a Better Relationship with Food
To lose weight, you'll have to cultivate a great relationship with food. Start paying attention to how food makes you feel. How does it taste and what are its qualities? Notice the difference between how you feel after a light meal like kale salad as opposed to a heavy meal like pasta. Start noticing your hunger and food cravings. What do these say about the body? Are you reaching for food out of physical hunger in the stomach or an emotional hunger in the mind? Ayurveda teaches you how to understand your hunger and cravings by discovering a deeper relationship with your body. Through Ayurveda, you can learn to truly enjoy food and discover its unique effects on your body and your weight.
Food is medicine, and well-designed recipes function as gentle herbal formulas.
The recipes below highlight biocharacteristics and ingredients that may support Feel overweight
from a Classical Metabolic Theory perspective*.
Because every person is unique, certain recipes may support your body more effectively than others.
Choose according to your constitution.
Suggestions are not strict, reflecting the real world need for variety and balance in diet.
As always, please consult your medical doctor before making any changes to your diet or wellness plan.
Augment your diet with these specially chosen ingredients below which may be useful for 'Feel overweight'.
Individual results vary depending on the cause of your imbalance and by constitution.
Please research the ingredients below to find which are most helpful for you, and check with your doctor before making any changes to your health and wellness routine.
Scrapes fats / cleanses blood vessels by 1) purging bile, 2) strengthening the liver's ability to metabolize fats, 3) by increasing uptake of cholesterol in the liver, and 4) by inhibiting fat cells.
Prana is the Sanskrit word for vital life energy (Qi in Chinese Medicine, pneuma in Greek). Many herbs stimulate your energy, or improve the flow of prana through your body. Generally, prana needs to be increased in spring after a sleepy winter.
Cholagogues stimulate the production & release of bile from the liver & gallbladder. This refreshes and cleanses these organs, as well as increases bile in the small intestines.
Strengthens and tones the heart (heart-tonic). Cardiac tonics are used to treat a wide range of heart issues from arrhythmia, to cardiac insufficiency.
The term "bland taste" refers, in Chinese medicine, to food containing few macronutrients, such as cabbage, radish or bok choy. These may be compared to negative calorie foods.
Herbs or spices with volatile essential oils that present strong aromas. Aromatic oils shock, refresh and numb tissue, with the end result of relaxing, opening and clearing stagnant fluids in tissues.
Scrapes fats / cleanses blood vessels by 1) purging bile, 2) strengthening the liver's ability to metabolize fats, 3) by increasing uptake of cholesterol in the liver, and 4) by inhibiting fat cells.
Prana is the Sanskrit word for vital life energy (Qi in Chinese Medicine, pneuma in Greek). Many herbs stimulate your energy, or improve the flow of prana through your body. Generally, prana needs to be increased in spring after a sleepy winter.
Cholagogues stimulate the production & release of bile from the liver & gallbladder. This refreshes and cleanses these organs, as well as increases bile in the small intestines.
Strengthens and tones the heart (heart-tonic). Cardiac tonics are used to treat a wide range of heart issues from arrhythmia, to cardiac insufficiency.
Herbs or spices with volatile essential oils that present strong aromas. Aromatic oils shock, refresh and numb tissue, with the end result of relaxing, opening and clearing stagnant fluids in tissues.
DISCLAIMER: The pathogenesis of each person's condition is unique, and so the diet must be fit to the individual and the unique root causes of the condition in your body.
The information on this page is for educational purposes only and should not be used to treat a medical condition. It is not a substitute for medical care.
Please check with your doctor before making any changes to your health and wellness routine.
Balance Your Body with Diet, Herbs, & Lifestyles Having These Virtues (Biocharacteristics)
Everything you eat has an effect on your body, which Personalized Medicine Systems (Ayurveda & Greek Medicine)
categorize in a simple and easy way, using biocharacteristics.
Biocharacteristics are vital qualities (like cold and hot) that describe the metabolic effect a food or herb has on your body.
Cooling foods like cucumber, decrease metabolism.
Heating foods like chili pepper, stimulate your body and increase metabolism.
For 'Feel overweight', consider foods with the following biocharacteristics.
Individual results will vary, based on your body type and the root cause of your imbalance.
BIOCHARACTERISTIC
FOODS TO FAVOR
MATCH WITH YOUR WELLNESS PROFILE
CLEAR
ABOUT CLEAR BIOCHARACTERISTIC
Clear refers to anything that cleanses or flushes out wastes, or that digests ama.
Prana is the Sanskrit word for vital life energy (Qi in Chinese Medicine, pneuma in Greek). Many herbs stimulate your energy, or improve the flow of prana through your body. Generally, prana needs to be increased in spring after a sleepy winter.
Strengthens and tones the heart (heart-tonic). Cardiac tonics are used to treat a wide range of heart issues from arrhythmia, to cardiac insufficiency.
Cholagogues stimulate the production & release of bile from the liver & gallbladder. This refreshes and cleanses these organs, as well as increases bile in the small intestines.
Scrapes fats / cleanses blood vessels by 1) purging bile, 2) strengthening the liver's ability to metabolize fats, 3) by increasing uptake of cholesterol in the liver, and 4) by inhibiting fat cells.
Herbs or spices with volatile essential oils that present strong aromas. Aromatic oils shock, refresh and numb tissue, with the end result of relaxing, opening and clearing stagnant fluids in tissues.
FEEL OVERWEIGHT IS IN STAGE OF DISEASE #3 - ATTACKING TISSUE
If you have symptoms in this category it means that your imbalances are becoming stronger and weakening your body's resistance.
Most people have a weakness in one or more organs.
These areas of weakness are the 'weak link in the chain.'
They are first to succumb when an imbalance reaches a tipping point.
Repairing imbalances in this category often represent your last opportunity to prevent disease.
At any moment, these imbalances could overwhelm weakened tissue and develop into a disease.
You may feel pain or discomfort in the weakened area.
At this stage you will need to support the weakened tissue with specialized foods and herbs for the weakened tissue.
(See all disease stages on JB)
AVOID DIETS, LIFESTYLES & HERBS THAT AGGRAVATE THESE BIOCHARACTERISTICS
According to Personalized Medicine Systems (Ayurveda and Greek medicine), aggravation of any of these
body types
and biocharacteristics may lead to 'Feel overweight'.
Reduce the foods and lifestyle habits that aggravate these qualities (when dystempered).
Click on the biocharacteristic to learn what foods and
lifestyle habits should be reduced.
Symptoms Tell A Story
The first step to healing is learning patterns from your symptoms.
Symptoms are clues that reveal underlying imbalances.
Symptoms show you where your body is weakened.
Ultimately, all disease has a root in tissues too weak to defend itself.
Ayurveda describes these patterns of weakness using doshas & biocharacteristics.
If you notice a biocharacteristic or dosha appears next to many of your symptoms,
it helps you establish a pattern that may be systemic.
SOME (NOT ALL) HEAVY FOODS MAY AGGRAVATE FEEL OVERWEIGHT
FIND OUT
Status Unknown
Take these quizzes
to find out if you have an imbalance of 'Heavy' guna.
OILY
ABOUT OILY BIOCHARACTERISTIC
In Ayurveda, oily refers to anything moistening. More specifically, oily refers to building substances that increases fat, or are themselves fatty. For example, sugar is Oily.
The following symptoms & habits may be related to 'Feel overweight'.
See your quiz results for a computerized assessment of your body type.
Please click on the symptoms below to learn more about them.
Risk Factor: 30% more often Complication: +1.3 times as often
Please login or create a free account to see statistics filtered on Feel overweight and Diabetes (Adult Onset Type II).
Biocharacteristics of 25,362 People Reporting Feel overweight
On average the biocharacteristics
of people reporting Feel overweight were less aggravated than 85% of other symptoms.
From the 25,362 people who reported Feel overweight
average deviation in biocharacteristic levels were the following:
Please login or create a free account to see statistics filtered on Feel overweight and Vata.
3.8% avg client level
21.1% (5,362) of cases
11,554 have Vata constitution
Risk Factors of Feel overweight
Below you will see general risk factors as well as the greatest risk factors, i.e. those who were also more likely to report Feel overweight.
Overall, 57.96% of people surveyed reported Feel overweight.
Please login or create a free account to see statistics filtered on Feel overweight and Unable to exercise due to Injury, disease, breathlessness, etc.
Please login or create a free account to see statistics filtered on Feel overweight and Unable to exercise due to Injury, disease, breathlessness, etc.
Please login or create a free account to see statistics filtered on Feel overweight and Poor, spends frivolously.
8369 cases with both
+1.1 times more likely
33% of cases
29.13% (21,285 cases)
DISCOVER YOUR BODY WITH YOUR FREE INDIVIDUALIZED BODY MAP
Find ideal foods, herbs and lifestyle tips.
See your imbalances, and locate intervention points.
Your body map contains a complete analysis of your Ayurvedic imbalances, organ by organ.
Give your chart to your functional medical doctor or any alternative health practitioner.
Ayurveda strengthens the body while opposing disorders. It takes a holistic,
systemic approach that looks at the whole body. Ayurveda
shows how to interpret signs and symptoms of imbalance, and how to address them
using diet, lifestyle adjustments, and herbs. It shows a person how to optimize their health on a continual basis. You can't
take the doctor home with you, but you can take Ayurveda home with you.
Ayurveda is the most advanced and easy to use home system for self healing.
HOW DOES AYURVEDA WORK?
Ayurveda starts by identifying your body type,
which identifies certain tendencies in your body to get sick (as well as identifying your strengths).
It uses body type to determine the likely root causes of your disorders.
Next, Ayurveda analyzes the nature of your disorder.
It fits all your signs and symptoms into a pattern, expressed as a combination of biocharacteristics (gunas).
For example, you may have a heat disorder, a cold disorder, or an oily disorder, etc.
This simple categorical approach shows you how to correct systemic imbalances and strengthen your body as a whole.
On Joyful Belly, we've created an extensive categorization of food so you can easily match food to your imbalanced biocharacteristics.
By eating an optimal diet that balances your biocharacteristics, your whole body is strengthened
and the conditions that created the disorder are removed. Once the root causes of the disease
are removed, the disease lessens in strength or disappears altogether. Additional remedies -
such as herbs and lifestyle practices - focused on the specific disorder, can greatly enhance
your healing.
GET STARTED
To get started on your Ayurvedic journey, we first recommend that your find your body
type by taking our free quiz. In Ayurveda, every solution is based on your unique body type, so
by taking this quiz, you’ll get the best results.
5 WAYS TO HEAL YOUR BODY WITH AYURVEDA - FREE REPORT!
New to Ayurveda? Not sure how Ayurveda can help you?
This free report shows you 5 simple ways you can heal your body with Ayurveda.
It shows you simple, practical ways manage your health.
John Immel, the founder of Joyful Belly, offers
professional clinical training
in personalized diet, lifestyle and herbs through Classical Metabolic Theory (Ayurveda & Greek Medicine).
His approach is clinical, yet exudes an ease which many find enjoyable and insightful.
John's hobbies & specialties include advanced digestive disorders,
classical Christian philosophy for mental wellness, languages (French, Arabic, Bengali), cooking & botany.
He holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Harvard University.
John, his wife Natalie, and their 8 kids live in Asheville, NC.
Founder of Joyful Belly Ayurveda, John Immel, answers the question ‘What is Ayurveda?’
Comments & Questions
How does 'feel overweight' affect your quality of life?
What aggravates it? What has helped you? Is there something else you'd like to know about 'feel overweight'?
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* These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
The information and products on this website are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any
disease.
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Ayurvedic Perspective on Feel Overweight
Related Symptoms
Stage of Imbalance (Samprapti)
Live Report: Biocharacteristics
Diet Remedies by Dosha, Biocharacteristics, Action, etc.
Live Report: Risk Factors
Herb Remedies by Dosha, Guna, Action, etc.
Live Report: Complications
Biocharacteristics & Herb Actions to Favor
Comments and reviews
Biocharacteristics to Avoid
Example 1: 
- https://www.joyfulbelly.com/Ayurveda/products/7-Step-Plan-for-Food-Cravings/102
- https://www.joyfulbelly.com/Ayurveda/products/Introduction-to-Kapha-Dosha/293
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