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.
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 in buttery hotel food catering 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).
Today my evolved manual would include sustainable healthy living meal prep habits and fasting once a week (but no yo-yo fasting habits).
When you stay consistent and keep your favorite celebrational food habit in moderation, you don’t yo-yo or go overboard one day when the stress situation arises or willpower gives in.
Then 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.
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. 🍳
