Sattvic diet is rich in vegetables (C) Living Sattva, 2020
My friend, who has been eating sattvic and vegetarian food for one week on a trial basis, had a question for me, “ I noticed that I am eating a lot more food when I tried the recipes posted by living sattva. Will I gain weight?”
The underlying question is it possible to manage weight on a sattvic diet. My friend used to eat meat and some three years ago transitioned into #vegetarian diet. For my friend, this was the first time she tried eating sattvic #meals exclusively. For one week, she prepared sattvic #lunch and ate it for #dinner too. During this time, she noted the following changes in her eating pattern-since the food was tasty. She ate slightly more than her usual portion sizes. And the food she ate digested well, leading her to feel #hunger pangs for the first time in several years. Her #appetite was right, she could eat a homemade snack every day.
Throughout the week, she had not noticed any significant weight gain. She was not bloated, and she noted a significant decrease in her #cravings for sugar. However, she was concerned about the long-term weight gain due to the sattvic diet.
In a modern era, where people extremely weight-conscious with sensitivity to fit a particular body image, overweight is a cause for concern. Maintaining an ideal body weight that appeals to a socially acceptable body image makes life easier for many people. In general, people are taught to think that there is a trade-off. Consume fewer calories, exercise more, a diet with calorie restriction are some of the standard methods to maintain weight loss. People follow these intensely for a brief time, usually with a social goal to support the acceptable body image. Socially, people diet before their wedding or attending a wedding or social event such as family reunion. All these social pressures create some dissonance in people. About 20 million women and 10 million men in the United States experience eating disorders at some point.
Many people become sick with #food associated #disorders such as Anorexia nervosa, Bulimia nervosa, or Binge eating disorder. Although western #medicine considers #Pica, eating ice, dirt, soil, chalk, etc., as an eating disorder, eastern and traditional medicines think this as an acceptable form of #nourishment in some contexts.
Given all this history and background for many people, it is hard to believe that eating well-cooked, balanced, delicious meals can be healthy and support long term #Weightloss. A deeper understanding of why and how of sattvic diet for weight management is also required.
The staple #spices such as #turmeric, #ginger, and #cumin seeds added during the preparation of sattvic food play a lead role in constant detoxification. They also scavenge the free radicals produced by stress and keep our liver functioning at optimum levels. Read more about the role of spices in sattvic food in this blog post. Here is another post that explains safe detox routines available while following sattvic food.
Sattvic diet includes several components calibration, eating in moderation, and fasting from food. Our consumption of food for the day must be consciously and carefully calibrated to meet the energy requirements of the day, and even when we eat solid food, it must be in moderation. We follow this by resting our entire digestive system through fasting and fine-tuning with nirahara samyama. Chanting and other routines help us to remain in constant high mental frequency. The chance of us overeating is limited. Thus, the change of anyone gaining weight on sattvic food is scarce.
A sattvic diet promotes constant self-inquiry and turning our attention from the outer world to the inner world. When our vision turns inwards, we experience many breakthroughs in our psychological and mental state, capitulating us to the higher consciousness. This blog post discusses the benefits of sattvic food. It is possible for everyone to transition into life positive sattvic diet. If you want to transition to a sattvic diet, please feel free to contact us at livingsatva@gmail.com for support, coaching, strategies, and recipes.
