Why is an Ayurvedic Diet Important for Weight Loss with Yoga? 3 Key Points

You can make your weight loss journey more effective with the right ayurvedic meal specifically designed for your body constitution

A sweaty workout session may flash before your eyes when you think about losing weight. For some, even a hectic gym routine may not lead to expected fat loss.

Why? Because they sometimes overlook the most important factor – diet.

Do you know that you can also lose a significant amount of weight with the right combination of yoga practice and a suitable ayurvedic diet?

Let’s understand why a natural ayurvedic diet is so important to get a slimmer and fitter body.

Why does diet matter in weight loss?

Every food item that you eat has some nutritional value that affects your body’s energy and weight.

People who have a higher than normal body weight are calorie surplus – they store more calories as fat compared to the calories burned.

To achieve a lower BMI you have to carefully design your diet plan and the right physical activities in order to burn fat faster and naturally.

Weight loss yoga benefits

The popularity of Yoga has immense physical and emotional health benefits. Yoga provides techniques to calm your mind and nourish and strengthen your body.

When paired with a healthy dosha-specific diet, it can even help you shed extra weight and various other health problems can also be reduced with yoga, confirm studies.

Yoga practice helps you cut fat efficiently as it –  

Improves metabolism

You burn more calories during a yoga session. After regular yoga practice, your body becomes more active as your metabolism increases.

This makes you calorie deficit – you burn excess calories that could otherwise be stored as fat in your body.

Reduces stress

Excessive levels of the stress hormone cortisol are responsible for weight gain. Yoga helps in relaxing your body and calming your senses which prevents you from bulking up.

Does that mean that you can eat whatever you want and will take care of your weight concerns? No. There are many things that affect your weight loss journey and yoga is just one of them.

Importance of ayurvedic diet for weight loss

Food affects our mood, body weight, size and health. Therefore, the right diet is the key to a healthy mind and body.

Here’s how an ayurvedic diet helps you lose weight along with your dedicated yoga routine and why it is necessary to follow a healthy diet plan to get a slimmer and healthier body. 

Obesity indicates other health problems

When you are overweight for a long time, it is not considered normal. Though the weight may not be interfering with your current way of life increasing weight may indicate underlying health disorders.

Health problems closely associated with rapid weight gain are-

• Hypothyroidism
• PCOS
• Hypertension
• Sleep problems
• Prediabetes

So, even though exercise is the best and proven way to get rid of unwanted fat, it is best advised to go through dietary interventions and regular physical activity to cautiously manage weight along with any underlying health conditions that you may have.

Therefore, an effective weight management approach with be the holistic prevention of unwanted weight gain from excess body fat, claim studies published by NIH.

Prakriti-specific foods over calorie counting

As per Ayurveda, the overall health and prakriti (physio-psychological personality) of any individual play an important role in deciding for him the right type of – 

• Ahara (food)
• Vihar (lifestyle)
• Achara (conduct of life), and
• Parihara (following this leads to healthy life)

So, for losing weight and treating obesity-related health disorders you must consume eat a balanced diet along with regular exercise.

In Ayurveda, a balanced diet is that which helps in pacifying your aggravated tridosha by eating a dosha-compatible diet.

Some people aren’t aware of their prakriti and end up disturbing their dosha balance which leads to health disorders and weight gain.

You could be doing yoga and fitness exercises but may not be losing weight as you expected due to your dosha-incompatible dietary habits.

More about the effects of various ayurvedic foods and balancing dosha tips, here.

Diet is important for hormonal balancing

The nutrient-rich healthy foods in ayurveda, the science of life, aim at restoring health improve your vitality. Every food item is divided based on its various properties like 

1. Taste (rasa) –  sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter, and astringent
2. Primary and secondary qualities (guna)

Gunas are further divided into two 3 properties – 

1. potency (virya)
2. post-digestive effect (vipaka)
3. therapeutic action (karma)

In this way, the food that we eat is not merely there to satisfy out hunger but, in Ayurveda, the right food combination is equivalent to medicine.

A study that involved 200 overweight subjects shows that Ayurvedic constitution-based diets verify the claims made in the ayurvedic scriptures and reveals that obese people can greatly benefit from such ayurvedic diet. It helped these people with weight loss over a period of 3 months.

The knowledge about one’s prakriti and eating the dosha-compatible food promote wellness. They are also crucial for eliminating problems like excess body weight due to hormonal imbalances or poor diet choices.

Key Takeaways

Evidently, there is a very close connection between diet and weight loss. Therefore, yoga along with the right ayurvedic diet can help you lose weight in a more healthy way.

It is advised to get your dosha assessed by an experienced ayurvedic doctor to get the best health results and have an effective weight loss along with regular yoga.

FAQs

It has been found in a study that women who did regular yoga practice for at least 3 months had a significant decrease in their testosterone levels which helped in managing insulin resistance and reducing the waist to hip ratio.

Try these yoga poses for weight loss in the belly region.

There are no healthy shortcuts to weight loss. Yet you feel like not doing anything and still expect to lose weight you should try limiting your carb intake and only eat foods that are low in fat. You can also walk for longer periods of time if you do not wish to do exercise.

This may help to some extent but a proper diet with regular yoga practice can help you lose weight without doing anything herculean.

• Virabhadrasana – Warrior Pose
• Trikonasana – Triangle pose
• Adho Mukha Svanasana – Downward Dog pose
• Sarvangasana – Shoulder Stand Pose
• Sethu Bandha Sarvangasana – Bridge pose
• Parivrtta Utkatasana – Twisted Chair pose
• Dhanurasana – Bow Pose