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Weight Loss Diets for Kapha Body

Weight loss diets are a prime topic for many of us these days. Healthy eating and dieting is front and center especially with age and slower metabolisms that’s common in a natural Kapha body.

This was my Sunday brunch. Recipe on the saffron shrimp white omelet below. 🍤

Let me first start by saying that food is a passionate lifestyle for me where tasty and healthy is a food pairing marriage from heaven.

…I started out as a buttery hotel food catering professional and moved into more healthy olive oil menu event planning in Mediterranean restaurants not too long ago.

Even though I’ve retired from those corporate industries, the experiences live daily in me and is my way of life I live and breathe. And why I’m writing and researching on the topics daily.

…I also do believe you can eat deliciously daily like a healthy foodie and still keep your consistent healthy weight whether you’re a Vata, Pitta, or Kapha.

There are challenges, especially for natural Kapha bodies where a slower metabolism is common.

I have some tips and strategies in this article for changing ways without giving up tastes.

And finding a good sustainable and healthy way of eating is still front and center the best way. That hasn’t changed much.

What has changed is that good weight loss diet plans are constantly changing because research changes that informs us.

The diet meaning here is the little “d” word as in what you eat and not the big “D” diet word of focusing on what not to eat that weight loss diets often focus on.

I like to focus on the positives for healthy change. When you focus on positives, you can more easily move on.

And as we evolve toward the future, we get better researched information that show up as health trends.

So most of what we’ve done in the past is not our fault. We’re fed information we believe that can become obsolete and no longer useful.

People don’t automatically change, but the research changes our behaviors and then that changes our culture and people’s behaviors as a whole.

Then as we evolve, the new information can be contradictory to past examples.

One controversial example today is healthy fats we learn are now good for weight loss diets because they help keep us feeling full.

We know today that it’s not just how many calories in and how many calories out, as all calories are not created equal.

Healthy fats aren’t the lowest calories in the house but healthy fats are healthy macros.

From last week’s blog article, you can listen to  my healthy fat journey I had over the decades compared to today’s healthy fat foods list.

Compared to my catering days, we’ve come a long way!

Oh, and then there are the developing research areas. One evolving research example is that some foods that cause our bodies issues are high glycemic load carbs that spike insulin.

This one I embraced in the Inflammation-Free Diet book that I picked up decades ago. Since then, research in those areas has evolved and happy gut health has exploded.

Those were pre-mind-body balance days.

And so often it’s a mindset change choice we get to make with certain types of foods as we have built relationships with our foods that are hard to shake off.

Changing food mindsets not because of taste changes preferences, but because of wanting to live healthier lives is a good healthy push start.

When I started out as an adult, low fat foods were hailed for weight loss diets and healthy benefits. All fats were considered fats and bad.

So one college summer I ate all low fat foods as what I learned from the research at the time for weight loss Diets (with a big “D”).

I moved to the beach and worked at nearby ocean seafood restaurants.

Being a care-free summer when most of us want to eat lighter anyway in Pitta season, I thought that would be a good opportunity to get super slim.

I was skinny fat in today’s standards. I’m naturally a Vata body, but we all have our relative sizes in our one-and-only-body we get to live in and make decisions for.

My strategy then was avoiding all high fats (including healthy fats that we didn’t know about). I was scanning nutrition facts on labels for fat content.

Pasta was and is one of my fave foods that passed the test.

So, I went on a mostly pasta diet.

I ate pasta and a certain low-fat cookie in a green box that was popular at the time. I don’t see them around today.

It took just a few weeks for me to see that I had gained weight I never had before.

Most of us know those yo-yo diets where you gain all the weight back and then some more. That’s what happened to me.

So using percentages I had gained about 10% when I was trying to lose about 5%.

The principle is the same for anyone in their body so there’s no healthy comparing between people. The healthy way is to choose for your body.

And weight cycling can happen easily when you start to crave all the foods you’ve known to love, but aren’t eating. 🥲

I was a newbie at weight loss plans. So I didn’t have any experience with food willpower.

I just loved all foods and they loved me back without question. It was unconditional love that I didn’t feel in other areas of my life.

…and once I got a taste back into the real world of tastes again, I couldn’t stop.

And that’s how it is for most of us where certain foods are addictive.

These days, we can use low-carb, healthy fats and healthy proteins to point us in the better direction.

I’m following along with this better directed macros plan. And not my former macaroni plan. 🍝

I’ve seen the improved results as compared to decades ago where I learned that calorie counting is hard work.

No More Hardwork Calorie Counting

Calorie counting is hard work and exercising to burn calories is even harder work.

Today we know it doesn’t pay off consistently in the long run like eating healthy regularly that can be very enjoyable.

So saving ourselves the trouble from learning better information is a better weight loss plan.

What helps the most is giving your body what your natural body wants.

Some healthy foods are universally healthy to most bodies and some are unique often told by the story of our individual body’s tastes and preferences.

Ayurvedic food categories for our balances and imbalances are more predictable, where we crave certain tastes (sweet, sour, bitter, or salty) that are found in healthy foods.

We can make the natural switch to following our Ayurvedic preferences.

I compare it to getting off an alarm clock that’s like processed foods. An alarm is not when your body naturally wants to get up or do the activity you’ve set the alarm to.

If you naturally follow your body’s time instincts, you become naturally attuned to time changes and circadian rhythm that’s like the eating healthy balanced way.

Finding your subset healthy food list is a healthy balance. Many of the foods are also anti-inflammatory grocery list foods.

And if weight loss is a goal of yours, also focusing on keeping veggie fiber carbs balanced at the top of the list helps.

If you’re a balanced Kapha body, then also lean into bitter tasting and astringent foods for weight loss diets (again the little “d” diet for what you do eat).

If off-balance, that’s where we can get into trouble until you restore balance. It’s easy to tell if you’re off balance with clues around you and a simple body balance quiz.

Healthy Weight Loss Diets

If you eat mostly healthy foods, you also slowly turn your taste buds to healthier choices.

You desire the healthy foods and crave less of the bad. It’s your lifestyle choice that makes your healthy intentions and changes your tastes.

…Like sugar habits that you can transform starting with plant-based breakfasts (I’m living proof 😊). I’m all about low-sugar baking that pleases the Vata sweet tooth.

Healthy ingredient and food substitution is a good weight loss strategy, that also develops creativity skills as a side benefit.

And when you prep, cook, and make your own goods you have more control over what you put in your body. You’re rewarded for the time and effort you put in. 🎉

…Cooking and baking daily, I’m in better shape today than I was last year, definitely from college years, and anytime in between…

I’m feeling nostalgic today because I wrote this Un-Diet Guide twenty plus years ago that I found.

I wasn’t blogging or writing anything else back then. So coming up with a 73-page manual with recipes was interesting at the very least (…maybe even strangely prophetic for my interests today).

Un-Diet Guide for weight loss diets.

Today my evolved manual would include sustainable healthy living meal prep habits and fasting once a week (but no yo-yo fasting habits). My motivation: living longer optimally (longevity).  And if that’s you… amp up your longevity game with my free intermittent fasting guide.

I appreciate what I eat and drink more, and am more productive.

I also enjoy more healthy foods in my diet that was a gradual change, when I started consistently making and baking in all my meal ingredients.

When you stay consistent and keep your favorite celebrational food and drink habits in moderation, you don’t yo-yo in weight or go overboard one day or season when the stress situation arises or willpower gives in. Been there, done that!

And in not denying, there’s no obsessing and making our binge food dreams happen. I learned that the hard way (and maybe you did too on your food journey).

Overall keeping most meals, snacks, and days as eating healthy real foods gives us our best results. Our healthy changes are gradual.

And when you choose your ingredients for meals and dishes, you do a couple of healthy things:

You become more intentional about what you source and put in your body. Every ingredient and amount you’ve sourced and researched. You know on some level what you’re putting into your body.

You also get to try new foods to bring in more rainbow variety, new flavors, and aromatic spices to your life.

That’s exciting to me (…you too?).

Never being bored with foods is a healthy norm.

You never grow out of loving food because there’s always a healthy substitution to turn to.

We’re not meant to be bored or avoiding eating. Our hunter gatherer forefathers didn’t live that way.

They were inventive and foraged for new tastes and ways.

Finding Your Lose Weight Food Diet

Wherever you are on your journey for trying new foods, it helps to carve out time to be food mindful.

When I first started out baking and cooking daily, I had to adjust to carving out time to think about meals and sniff spices.

My motivation was eating but also creating colorful plates.

I always enjoyed that part of my job in catering where I got to decorate food with food. It’s fun to play with your food.

In the same way, you can think of food as a creative outlet and the cherry on top is you get to eat and share it at the end.

You can’t do that with all other passions, like say making paintings that you either need to find a place to hang or else find a way to pass them onto others.

Embracing food passions can be an easy creative outlet.

I realized early on that I wasn’t the home kitchen maker that wanted to make complicated dishes.

Being easy and creative for me was not following a recipe if I didn’t have to.

So early on I didn’t create recipes at all. But now I embrace them as a way to share easy baking steps and shortcuts.

And I believe there’s always room to change ingredients, amounts, and methods.

Because even if you use the same ingredients and amounts provided in a recipe, so many factors could change your bakes…

Like temperature in the oven, outside temps, and materials used. …and especially how much love you put into your dishes.🧡

If you create when you don’t feel like it or on half-empty energy, your dishes will reflect and not be alive.

The myth that baking relies on recipe precision is a myth. Great baking I’m familiar with is an art and a science that you feel good about.

That’s where I came up with cooking this 15-minute Sunday brunch Saffron Shrimp Egg White Omelet dish that you can tastefully make and is good on a low-carb weight loss plan. 🍳

Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie + Avocado and Coffee

Peanut butter banana smoothie is one good balanced pairing drink. It’s especially good for Vata balancing as both are sweet ingredients.

peanut butter banana smoothie with coffee and avocado.

When you want to kick it up a balancing notch, then add a few more healthy and taste enhancing ingredients.

This one has added avocado and coffee.

Add in an avocado for more balancing power (good for Vata, Pitta and Kaphas) along with coffee for Kapha tired sides.

Vatas are the anxious and worried characteristics in us, plus  the indecisive, inconsistent, or jumpy sides.

We’re complex but our drinks and recipes don’t have to be. 😊

Coffee in a smoothie is a great way to get your anti-inflammatory caffeine in.

Avocado adds healthy fat. When the avocado is ripe, you can add to your smoothie as a fruit and green! 🥑 Either way, it’s a great plant-based way to start your breakfast  day.

The best nut butter to use are the all-natural ones that you stir up that are two ingredients. And nothing beats a ripe banana. Save your green bananas for a snack especially when you don’t want to spike your sugar.

You can keep them green by adding them as a bunch to your crisper drawer and leaving the plastic wrap at the stems. And to ripen quicker for a smoother, pull bananas apart and set out in room temperature. And the ‘ol brown bag works.

Best of all, you’ve primed your gut for proteins so you’re not hungry, help build muscle, and work toward your healthy weight goals.

So here’s the peanut butter banana coffee smoothie. Whatcha waiting for? 😋

peanut butter banana coffee smoothie.
Print

Peanut Butter Banana Coffee Smoothie

These 3 ingredients make a balanced breakfast smoothie.
Course beverage
Cuisine American
Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Ingredients

  • 1 small to medium ripe banana
  • 1 tsp all natural peanut butter
  • coffee
  • 1/2 ripe avocado

Instructions

  • Blend ingredients and enjoy! This is such a refreshing and awakening beverage.
    Bananas are prebiotic and have fiber, and peanut butter is a good protein source. When you add coffee, you add anti-inflammatory polyphenol benefits. What's missing? An avocado healthy fat for your peanut butter protein and future protein meal to come.

Healthy Fat Foods List Over Myths

Healthy fat foods were once an oxymoron. I was working in hotel catering where we had plenty of decadent high fat dishes around.

Food life was easier back then…

All foods with fat were labelled bad back in those pre-extra virgin olive oil days (where these days olive oils aren’t virgins but we look for the label).

Foods were more black and white and good vs bad foods. That wasn’t the healthy nutrition facts and rainbow variety of foods we would evolve into. 🌈

I share the good, bad, and unusual in this article, plus a healthy fat foods list below.

You can make this frozen strawberry smoothie 🍓dreamsicle with ingredient steps below.

Starting with nuts… pre-milennium, nuts were often seen as healthy fat foods in people’s homes on display.

Shelled nuts were sitting on a tray with maybe de-shelled nuts cracked with a nut cracker sitting near by. Cracking nuts in front of a television was an old-fashioned past-time. Oh, that’s nuts! 😊

Then over the years, nuts became the controversial “bad” snacks to be avoided because of the high fat content. It didn’t matter what the fat was. It was and is the healthy kind. But back then, fat was fat.

And you are what you eat was the mantra that was taken literally.

Then the nutty tide gradually turned (thank you research!) yet again where today all nuts are celebrated and valued as one of the healthy fat foods and healthiest snacks available out there.

Nuts are accepted and recommended in a healthy eating regimen. They have high healthy fat and protein content all in the size of a shelled M&M that could be wrapped around a large peanut.

But joking aside, earlier last year I was feeling stuck with my body as I hit a plateau and I couldn’t get my muscle strength back the same way.

I couldn’t do the same strength yoga moves I’d been doing for a decade. As we age, we lose muscle that we can’t gain back. And that’s a fact for both men and women.

We see proof in former male body builders common in American culture who can’t create the same muscle despite their desire and habits to maintain the muscle they had.

And the same effect in an opposite extreme of a lightweight female (myself 😊) who couldn’t do the same.

…So I tweaked up my diet routines.

I started my morning with a little fat and protein along with fiber. This was after I had started a regular fasting habit that you can too. It’s not that hard. If I can do it, you can too!

And I learned one of the best foods to break the fast with is an avocado, that’s a food celebrity loved by most. It’s beloved and celebrated.

It’s also a mild tasting fruit that can taste like a veggie. From an avocado, I could transition into healthy proteins easily that meant a savory breakfast (vs. a sweet one I had to overcome).

A little fat in your system helps to absorb the foods that have fat-soluble vitamins (D,E,A, andK).

So avocado being a neutral food 🥑 is balancing for Ayurvedic Vata, Pitta, and Kapha bodies.

🎉 Btw, there’s a new search feature 🔎 on this blog site so you can easily look up Vata, Pitta, Kapha, and other healthy blog articles.

…And in my tweaks I also added a little healthy fat snack back. I’m guessing you know what that may be. Yup, good ‘ol nuts!

I hadn’t been eating whole nuts as snacks by themselves for years because I thought they made my skin break out due to nut oils, when I believe it was other Pitta reasons now.

It’s funny the myths we tell ourselves.

…Or we go off of one tell-tale experience we had one season.

Plus, with nuts I had to change my mindset from the previous years where nut and fats were deemed as bad. Those were my nut challenges.

And like me, you could ask yourself: what changing mindsets about and around foods would help you reach your goals?

We can constantly be growing our minds to better ways and new lifestyle habits.

And the fact is our bodies are constantly evolving and renewing daily, so you could start a new regimen by testing healthy foods again that you gave up on before or thought you shouldn’t eat because of past sensitivities or reasons.

It’s healthy for us to add as many as possible healthy rainbow foods and variety into our diet if we’re not allergic because each healthy food has a different profile and makeup, even coming from the same family.

In those ways, then you don’t have to worry about whether you are or aren’t getting enough of one nutrient, vitamin, or mineral.

Or wonder if the supplements you’re taking are absorbed or not. You’re covered either which way with the rainbow assortment of foods on your plate. 🍽️

And when I made the healthy changes I did, I noticed a good difference to my thin-frame Vata body where the muscle tone came back and I could attempt to make progress with the strength yoga moves.

Whether your goal is to gain muscle or lose weight, when you eat healthy fats they increase HDL that increases growth hormone which triggers more amino acids that are building blocks for proteins needed for muscle production.

Muscles over flab is fab! 😊

The distinction is healthy fat foods vs. unhealthy fat foods. I provide a helpful healthy variety list below that can be good reminders.

Walnuts is one on the good list for brain health. They’re easy to remember as they’re shaped like our brains.

They have the powerful ingredient that some healthy fats have: Omega 3.

Omega-3 foods are anti-inflammatory. Omega 3 is good because it’s healthy fat that lowers triglycerides  that’s known to be a risk factor for heart disease.

So here is the promised and promising healthy fat foods list (as part of a recipe for a good body and healthy lifestyle):

Avocado – the super food of healthy fats. It’s chameleon versatility is unparalleled to other plant foods. An avocado also has different names like  alligator pear or butter fruit.

You can see why with the leathery skin, pear shape, and silky center texture. It’s unusual and common that blends well with us peeps.

An avocado seed is also one of the easiest seeds to grow as a plant. Like us, they like room temperature without excess humidity.

Seeds – flaxseed, chia seed, sunflower seed, pumpkin,and hemp seed all have different properties so it’s good to mix them in.

Chia seeds are good toward weight loss goals and adding more calcium for stronger bones.

We often forget about sesame and poppy seeds. They look like cute decorations on foods but they are healthy fat foods that can be added to healthy foods like yogurts and salads.

They don’t just decorate a bagel. Transfer them to your healthy adds.

Natural Almond or Peanut Butters – It’s easy to tell if a nut butter is healthy. The fewer the ingredients on the jar, the better. And when you can stir the oil into the nut butter, even better for the better butter. 😊

Nuts – almonds, peanuts, walnuts, pistachios, and pecans are all good common snacking nuts.

Macadamia, Brazilian, cashews, and pine nuts are not as common, but have their own healthy profiles.

Eating a variety for your healthy needs is a good strategy. Each nut is different even though they are healthy fat foods and protein all-in-one. That’s why they’re nutrient-dense.

To salt or not? The unsalted nut versions are better for you because often the salted versions add too much salt. But you could buy a bag of salted and a bag of unsalted and mix the two to your body needs, tastes, and liking.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)– is the good olive oil. The best is usually more bitter.

Finding high-quality, medium-balanced, and a mild extra virgin olive oil for cooking or baking could be your balance.

If you’re going to bake cakes and breads, using an extra virgin olive oil for the monounsaturated fat is a healthy choice over poly or saturated fats.

You can generally tell by the color if it’s light and mild or dark and bold.

The oleic acid oil is one natural healthy profile in EVOO that’s also found in almonds. It’s good for satiating hunger that helps with weight loss.

It also adds Omega-9 food (not as common so you may not have heard of) that can be found in avocados and other foods too that’s good for good cholesterol and lowering bad cholesterol.

Good is good so don’t mess with good.

EVOO also helps reduce the body’s glycemic response reducing blood sugar levels to help protect against known chronic diseases such as diabetes that’s a growing health concern on the globe.

That’s one reason why EVOO is at the heart of Mediterranean diets, foods, and cooking that’s eaten all around the world and in the Mediterranean Diet.

I worked in Spanish, Italian, and Lebanese restaurants in America doing event planning and marketing. These restaurants served authentic dishes where they learned from their countries’ cuisines and cultural cooking techniques.

Olive oil was always at the heart of dishes. Some of my favorite dishes are: paella, watermelon salad, and risotto.

Not being around those types of foods but pining for their tastes, I was inspired from my experiences. I created my own home recipe versions posted in my recipe log that are weekly being added to.

And to keep the party going here and the healthy fat foods list growing… these are a few more healthy fats.

Healthy Dairy – I think this is the new food controversy because of the variety of processes. Also, there are so many vegan and allergy-friendly versions out there these days that taste great.

If you’re not allergic, there are so many benefits to healthy dairy such as protein, probiotic, and vitamins.

One dairy problem is in cheeses because there’s such a wide variety of cheeses to choose from in types and  processes. Some not so healthy.

And some healthy cheeses I worked with in catering party menus were shanklesh, manchego, burrata, halloumi, feta, and pecorino.

We usually knew the cheese sources, whether it was cow, sheep, goat, or buffalo. We just couldn’t point out which goat or sheep it came from.

But when you’re in a store looking at a sea of cheeses to choose from, it’s a guess at mystery cheese. The packaging won’t tell you much… other than thin slices in a package isn’t straight from a farm.

Pasteurized cheeses we identify with thin slices can often have stripped nutrients and other processes that offset the healthy fat profile.

In rural places like Sardinia with a large number of Centenarians, the goats eat wild grasses that have Omega 3 and antioxidants.

So when we don’t have those options or we simply don’t know, the answer again is variety. When you eat variety, you’re more covered. You can switch up your foods and your healthy cheeses.

For a natural Vata body, this is naturally easy because that’s the taste preference.

But if that’s not your natural way or you like what you like today and don’t want to switch, the better alternative is to add more of other foods to what you like. That way you make room and plant seeds.

And as you think about that, you can consider these other common cheeses:

Cottage cheese with reduced milkfat (and remember to read the sodium and sugar content).

Greek yogurt with reduced milkfat (like cottage cheese, read the labels). Sometimes “reduced” has higher sugar. And “no fat” is almost always a gimme for more sugar.

Eggs –  are a complete protein with essential amino acids. Vitamin A, D, choline and most the B vitamins. So that’s why often you can feel a burst of egg-energy especially if you were feeling low sugar or energy before.

If you grew up with the same nuts controversy I did, then you probably got the same downloaded message about eggs and their bad cholesterol.

This could be the mindset you want to overcome. Because with all the egg-cellent healthy benefits, you may find a new way to bring eggs back to your kitchen.

Look for pasture-raised eggs and Omega-3 eggs. Omega-3 eggs can also benefit insulin sensitivity over insulin resistance so that could tip you in eggs favor.

And since we’re talking protein and healthy fat foods, one of the healthiest swimming out there is wild salmon.

Salmon is a fatty fish and wild salmon is one healthy Omega-3 fat fish.
 
From working in Mediterranean restaurant kitchens, I learned some of the most wild caught fishes come from the Mediterranean Sea and the Pacific Ocean in the northwest areas of America. 

Should you eat farm raised salmon? Personally, I wouldn’t on a regular basis for the same reason you wouldn’t order mystery food and put on a plate.

As alternatives or when not available, you can always switch up to another wild white fish as variety. Or bring home cans of smaller fish.

Anchovies are healthy fat foods.
Anchovies from a tin can make great meals like this pesto pizza for one.

Having that backup plan is always calming. In my pantry, I’m prepared with options. And that can be your plan!

As a home baker or cook, you can source practical foods like extra virgin olive oil.

…I also like coconut oil. For controversial oils, it’s a saturated fat but is good in another way as it has a much higher good HDL profile than other oils. It also has a low bad LDL compared to even extra virgin olive oil.

So in moderation, when my tastes change I add a ‘lil oil to my morning coffee and other edibles I can dream up ✨ like dreamy smoothies.

One you may enjoy is this strawberry tropical smoothie that has a little strawberry popsicle and orange dreamsicle blended in one 🍓And a little healthy fat add is up to you! 🎉

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Frozen Strawberry Smoothie Dreamsicle Sunrise

This is a reminder of childhood popsicles.
Course beverage
Cuisine American
Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Ingredients

  • 3 frozen strawberries.
  • almond milk (or milk of choice)
  • basil, mint, or cilantro.
  • orange juice
  • coconut oil (optional)

Instructions

  • Blend the ingredients. When you add the herby flavor, it gives a third dimension. Mint will be mildest, basil is middle of the road, and cilantro will the the most pungent. Save Money Tip: you can freeze your fresh organic strawberries when they are in season.
  • Pour about 3/4 full, leaving a little room for the orange dreamsicle layer.
  • Mix orange juice and milk about half and half.
  • After frozen, pour the orange layer on top.
  • Freeze again or add crushed ice to the top layer
  • Enjoy!

Blueberry Smoothie Cheesecake Dessert

Blueberry smoothie mornings start your day right with a brightening healthy boost. They can also make a great afternoon dessert with low or no added sugar other than natural fruit.

A dessert blueberry smoothie is super easy to put together in minutes. No baking needed and cool enough for hot temperature days.

blueberry smoothie with cheesecake flavors for a dessert smoothie.

And smoothie ingredients in this blueberry cheesecake one are simple and healthy. 🫐 So often we want something sweet in the day.

And instead of going for a high calorie and refined sugar shake or food dessert bite, a blueberry cheesecake smoothie could be the fix for our sweet tooth.

The sugar source is all-natural fruit.

The healthy notes:

Blueberries that have AA goodness in Anthocyanin Antioxidants.

And another great point with blueberries is there is no traces of fruit leftover. So you can enjoy the fruit and not have to think about disposing  a seed or core, or recycling a can.

Blueberries are a super smart food choice for more reasons than one!

And this blueberry treat is combined with cottage cheese that gives a balanced cheese “cake” taste. Plus, you’re getting protein, B-vitamins (B-6, B-9, and b-12), calcium, and more.

Blending in a ripe peach 🍑 is the perfect pair (not pear 🍐).

Peaches have lycopene antioxidants like tomatoes. And for a tad more sweetness and Vitamin C, pineapple juice will do the trick.

Hope you give the blueberry smoothie  a try and instead of being loaded down, enjoy the healthy energy. ✨

And if your body craves more sugar, adding a little maple syrup sweetness is a good balance to tip this over to the happy dessert edge you deserve while staying cool to your body.

You could also pair this with a cooling blueberry cheesecake and other cool summer dessert recipes. For more antioxidant and healthy foods to add to your grocery list 🛒, check out these 200 anti-inflammatory foods.

Print

Blueberry Cheesecake Smoothie

This tastes like a light blueberry cheesecake that you can enjoy with your breakfast.
Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Equipment

  • blender

Ingredients

  • ½ cup frozen blueberries
  • ½ cup cottage cheese (no need to drain)
  • 1/2 cup milk of choice
  • 1 Tbsp pineapple juice
  • ½ peach, diced

Instructions

  • Blend ingredients and enjoy! Optional: zhugh with your peach. Alternatively, you could use oranges or orange slice.

Burnout Prevention

Burnout is more common in the hot months and with modern Western style living.

This is where body heat, daily stress and nerves meet with our screaming mind-body limits. All while our bodies are keeping score.

I’m watching summer tennis scores that’s much more enjoyable. And you too can pause to enjoy a relaxing moment to get away from heated moments.

…I baked this relaxed and low-temperature oven strawberry-guava cheesecake with a ‘lil cafe while catching some tennis points. 🇫🇷

Guava dessert and cup of coffee to enjoy moments and prevent burnout.
Strawberry cheesecake with a guava tropical twist. Recipe below 💕

With summer boiling over to year-round heat these climate change days, this can test us all. We can be more sensitive to our daily situations, and easily rattled with weather changes that affect our day.

Those days can kick up our Pitta and fire burning inside us. ☄️

And while heated moments are part of life, our life’s direction shouldn’t be.

One slow boiling source can be when we know we’re passionlessly working, and not doing our life’s work. This is how it is for most of us at some points.

Often it’s how we start off until we gather enough experience or fire in the belly to do something different that we’re wired for.

If we start to feel in limbo, going through the motions and not living a lifestyle we’re happy with, this eats at us and the stress often shows up in odd symptoms on the body in the the mind-body connection.

I know that’s how I felt when I worked in corporate management jobs in a bustling metro city area like Washington DC  that’s a highly competitive work area. That’s where I grew up.

Being a local or not, finding work-life balance jobs there isn’t easy or in other places that are filled with movers and shakers who will do circles around you.

That’s when I found passion projects I pursued like scrapbooking as an outlet.

Being in a major metro city can often add additional stressful elements like commute time, turnover transitions, and higher costs of living.

The tradeoff is convenience as larger cities have more service-based businesses and infrastructure to make life better and more convenient.

But they can’t completely take away the daily stressors that add to accumulated stress. And that which can lead to burnout.

In burnout, basically your mind-body is telling you: you need to make changes or else your quality of life will dwindle as we carry you.

Burnout is often gradual like a simmering pot that hasn’t boiled over. It starts with symptoms like a common noticeable gray hair, pimple, or weight gain.

And then one day this grows into a health condition needing to be checked out, frustration or a short fuse, daily inner moods, or a panic attack to name a few inconveniences.

Those are all ways that our body’s alarm system gives us a wake-up call. Burnout symptoms are the body’s way of screaming “fire”in Ayurvedic Pitta terms.

In strong Pitta minds, it shows up as symptoms like being overly critical, blaming, and judging others. If we’re not paying attention or ignoring, this can be tolerable and we just keeping doing what we do.

But this can quickly turn into unhealthy ego-pride areas that can take over if allowed. We see this in road rage and people acting out in public who should know better but don’t.

And while that may not be us, we can have a fire inside us. Some people can be better at smoldering the fire from view, keeping it bottled inside in an unhealthy way.

One day there can be a blowup in another way from a fire buildup.

In burnout, that doesn’t often come from one isolated incident or situation.

A primary source can often be work. Sometimes close relationships. There can be a straw that breaks the camel’s back situation that pushes you over the edge.

The feeling can be like “I’m done (with this).” But, the reality can be you can’t leave just yet. And that’s where all sorts of unhealthy manifestations can harbor like resentment or depression.

In those seasons we’re no longer growing as we struggle with ourselves daily.

Burnout symptoms won’t change by themselves. One productive change you’re empowered to make is daily changes in your mind and body just where you are.

So that your cool, calm, and collected self can walk away from the burnout you had down the street.

Your mind and body are tools to help change your burnout symptoms.

I know this well in my journey because I have been there many times. Each time I thought I was doing something wrong: oh no, not again. 😳

Jobs always started off the same way in the honeymoon work period. You know, when you’re excited about going into work in a new promising role you’re impacting and contributing to.

You meet new people, learn new skills, and the new environment feels a little like you’re walking on Cloud 9 in la la land with your  work badge and office space making you feel like you belong and are needed.

And you think: this could be the ONE from the dream of finding an employer who will treat you fairly and you’ll be happy to retire with doing work for them the rest of your working life.

So you start digging into your enjoyable work and proving yourself.

Gradually as the months go by, one day something shifts in the air and you no longer feel new or growing. You feel like you have the weight of performing your job and those around you counting on you as responsibilities now count and add up.

There’s an unseen point system and you’re aware you’re a primary player on the scoreboard. You feel stress above and on your shoulders, and daily neck yoga moves help to release tension.

There’s another point system in your body watching daily, but keeping quiet.

…And as some daily tasks that you didn’t mind before are now seen to you as a waste of time or draining you slowly.

Maybe you don’t have enough hours in the day to achieve what’s expected of you. Or too many work hours where you wonder why you don’t have more responsibilities.🤔

At some point you’re also put to the pinnacle test. There’s always stress involved. For me that was presenting in front of a Board of Directors where I felt my job was on the line each time.

But those type of situations in your career make you resilient and help build character for your next leg of the journey (that’ll be your life dream 💭).

Over the work years, I became more adaptable from a panic-attack-beginning to transforming worry and overcoming fear.

I learned something new about myself in each work experience challenge and problems that arose. Each shift was pointing me closer to my design and passions. And never did I think, I wish I could go back to any one place I was at.

The desires of my heart and maybe yours is to keep growing, live a balanced healthy and happy lifestyle away from the stress-filled work life.

…And to have something worthwhile at the end of the journey.

I didn’t want to accumulate all this time to be used toward the end when age and health typically is not on our side compared to in our 30s, 40s, and 50s.

And maybe that’s how you feel and what you’re looking for as life design.

Looking back, I realized it was a myth I told myself: that there was a good job out there and that would stay that way. And that I just had to keep looking.

Then I realized, that’s not the truth. Nothing stays the same for long and definitely not in a transient area that the world is.

I also realized work opportunities are always out there, but there’s only one me.

And there’s only one you.

And in my last corporate job, I distinctly remember hearing the whisper in my mind: you will not get this time back. This was after work hours when I was the only one in the office I could hear. And from that day on, nothing was the same.

And I know it may sound like I’m saying take more vacations if you’re unhappy or enduring your job.

Vacations can definitely help prevent and soothe early burnout symptoms.

But if the burnout has gone on too long, vacation can be a temporary distraction where you take your overly stressed mind and body condition along with you.

So then you’re not fully present and enjoying your vacation destination. Plus lines, counters, and flight delays can be stressful.

So you could also take a staycation and work on soothing yourself.

Burnout doesn’t care if you’re at home, near home, or on travel. Burnout is a tipping point where you can choose to do a radical change in mind-body lifestyle nursing yourself.

I spent one summer mediating in a quiet indoor pool.

That was needed. And finding work with work-life balance is not a nice-to-have, it’s needed for our bodies daily.

We also all need reminders.

One burnout warning reminder is we should never ignore our symptoms because small symptom warnings can easily turn into inflammation of sorts when not addressed.

And those can turn to chronic inflammation that lead to the disease realities we’ve heard others have.

Ayurveda Daily Restoration in America

Sometimes we catch on, and other times we choose to ignore. In America, we’re not known for longevity records and that has a lot to do with our work lifestyles.

We’re also not taught health prevention anywhere along our journey.

We could have healthy minded parent influences, but their ideas fall by the wayside when our peers seem to be having the time of their lives who are not prioritizing health.

At work, we learn to do more and burn the midnight oil to get ahead and achieve more at all costs. And that goes against the body’s healthy balance desires.

So a goal commitment to ourselves can be to change any out-of-the-ordinary symptoms we notice within a week. We turn to restoration instead, so those symptoms don’t turn into weeks and months. Or grow out of hand.

You can see if you have a Pitta or any imbalances running by taking the body balance quiz.

And for any Pitta out-of-balance starters, a daily cooling activity is one restoring regimen. One easy way is I added guava for variety that has a tart and sweet taste, and very pretty pink color.

It’s fun to find new balancing fruits that have traveled across the tropics. If you’ve never tried, you could always start with a homemade fresh guava juice first.

Have a cool and calm week!

I’ll be back same time, same channel next week. 😀

healthy happy life secrets blog strawberry cheesecake

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Strawberry Guava Layered Cheesecake

Course Breakfast, brunch, Dessert
Cuisine American
Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Equipment

  • 1-2 baking vessels about the same size or diameter. Round spring release pans work great.

Ingredients

  • ricotta, whole fat milk
  • yogurt, whole fat milk
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 1 guava (size of lime will work)
  • 2-3 frozen strawberries
  • black cocoa
  • maple syrup (optional)

Instructions

  • Prepare two deep cake baking pans. Cake release cans work best. Spray sides to prevent sticking.
  • Add a layer of black cocoa on the bottom of one pan. You can alternate with Instant coffee or fine graham cracker crumbs that would also work.
  • Mix ricotta, yogurt, and egg.
  • Divide batter in half if you want to make two separate layers. Pour into each baking vessel.
  • Add guava to one vessel and strawberries to the other vessel. Optional: reserve some of the guava for topping.
  • Bake on 325°F/165°C for over one hour until cake is set. Sides will start to brown and may shrink/pull away from the baking vessel
  • Let cake(s) fully cool. Then remove from pan and assemble the layers.
  • Decorate/top with guava, berry jam, fruit, and or yogurt.
  • Drizzle with maple sugar for sweet.