Why Do Some Foods Make You Gain Weight Even Without Overeating?

The Diet That Can Lead to Overweight

Foods that increase Kapha (the dosha or biotype associated with heaviness and lethargy, represented by the elements water and earth) have sweet, salty, and sour tastes. Fatty, cold, and heavy-to-digest foods also increase Kapha. In Ayurveda, we do not primarily consider the number of calories present in foods, but rather the nature of each food, the person who eats it, the method of preparation, the combinations, and the timing.

For example, according to the daily cycles, if a person eats during the periods when Kapha energy predominates in nature — from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. and from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. — these foods tend to be transformed more into reserves than into energy for activity. This can be explained by hormonal cycles and is not unreasonable within modern physiology. Therefore, we should avoid foods with the tastes mentioned above during these periods or reduce them, preferably combining them with warm, spicy, stimulating foods that contain low amounts of sugar.

In general, in our culture, breakfast is very sweet — breads, milk, cheeses, yogurt — and cold — juices, raw and cold cereals — which goes against the needs of those who want to stimulate metabolism for weight loss. Combining meats (including poultry and fish) with dairy products (cheese, cream-based sauces) is inappropriate and may lead to the formation of toxins that inhibit metabolism. Excess raw salads and cold drinks also contribute to reducing Agni (the digestive fire, the enzymes).

Eating without hunger and before the previous meal has been completely digested is, from the Ayurvedic point of view, one of the main causes of toxin and fat formation. Therefore, if you want to follow Ayurvedic principles, forget the doctrine of eating every three hours and obey the natural cycles of your body. Stimulating hunger with spicy foods such as ginger helps reduce weight because it warms the metabolism and improves digestive performance.

ENVIRONMENT

Cold and humid climates should be observed with greater care because they tend to aggravate Kapha. During autumn and winter, people with a predominance of Kapha in their constitution (who are generally more robust) should take special care, performing detoxification and regulating their diet more strictly. Individually, both humidity and cold can cause the same problem.

Likewise, genetic factors are classified as environmental factors, as ancient texts point to them as determinants of the tendency toward overweight. Furthermore, if the human environment favors the appearance of the previously mentioned factors — for example, family or work environments where resentment, melancholy, sedentary behavior, or poor eating habits predominate — this contributes to the development of obesity. Hormonal factors are also classified within this category.

THE PROCESS

When one of these factors, or more commonly an overlap of them, becomes established in a person’s life, there is an accumulation of Kapha energy within the body. This acts as a trigger for an internal “conspiracy” of the organism toward maximum storage, maximum economy, and minimal expenditure, as if the internal intelligence of the body were anticipating a shortage of food — similar to what we did years ago when there was a threat of an electrical blackout. We reduced lighting and turned off appliances. Likewise, bees, anticipating the scarcity of winter, store food in the form of honey.

We do this in the form of fat. However, we do not allow this period of scarcity to occur, and therefore the body accumulates adipose tissue. When we follow very restrictive diets to lose weight, the organism reinforces this “sense” of scarcity, increasing the internal conspiracy and leading to the well-known and frustrating pattern of rapid initial weight loss followed by great difficulty in continuing to lose weight. In this “conspiracy,” our body temperature drops by a few tenths of a degree, which already represents reduced energy expenditure. We feel less willing to engage in physical activity, become more melancholic, and develop a preference for sweet-tasting foods such as pasta and bread.

This accumulation of Kapha and reduction of Agni causes a disturbance of Vata (the biotype of cold, dry, and mobile energy, represented by air), which results in difficulty in the movement of internal fluids, blockages, and obstructions. As a result, nutrients are preferentially directed to fat tissue, while other tissues — especially the more subtle ones, such as bones, nervous tissue, and reproductive tissue — tend to suffer from undernourishment because nutrients do not reach them adequately. This explains many of the problems associated with obesity.

Thus, obesity is considered in Ayurveda to be a Kapha disorder associated with Vata, involving alteration of Agni, formation of Ama (toxins), and blockage of the Srotas (channels). All modern theories about the mechanisms of obesity — such as genetics, alterations in the satiety center of the hypothalamus, the thermostatic theory, the glucostatic theory, psychological theories, and theories involving leptin, neuropeptide Y, and others — are consistent with Ayurvedic concepts.

However, Ayurveda offers a specific therapeutic approach for each individual, based on the physiopathology described. In these programs, the application of Panchakarma, the more intensive detoxification methods properly conducted by physicians who understand these principles, plays a fundamental role.

Slow metabolism is a state — not a destiny. Learn more and reserve your place in the Panchakarma program in Suddha Sabha Yoga Ashram, Brazil with Dr. Ruguê, and experience the difference Ayurveda can make in your life and daily routine.

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Article written by Dr. José Ruguê Ribeiro Jr., a general physician and an authority in Ayurveda, one of the most respected professionals in the field in Brazil and in India, where he received the title of Arya Bhishak (a noble physician endowed with wisdom).

(Prana Yoga Journal Magazine – May 2009)