Classical Ayurveda

Perfect Balance: Ayurvedic Nutrition for Mind, Body and Soul
by Atreya

Many of us who struggle with one-size-fits-all fad diets are realizing that the only program that can promise lasting benefits is a comprehensive yet individualized approach to nutrition and weight loss. This is the very attitude espoused by Ayurvedic medicine, the 5,000-year-old holistic system that incorporates diet, exercise, breathing, meditation, visualization, and other therapies into its practice. Perfect Balance illustrates how the principles of Ayurvedic medicine can be used by anyone, no matter what their present health needs may be.

Beginning with a self-test to determine an individual's specific metabolic and psychological profile, the book emphasizes the importance of balance among all levels of the healing process-mind, body, and spirit. The three dominant groups that emerge are based on metabolic type (skin, hair, digestion, sleep patterns, etc.) and psychological characteristics (emotional tendencies, learning patterns, goals, and relationship needs). It then presents clear guidelines for selecting foods and making lifestyle choices to support a natural, healthy state and avoiding those practices that disrupt natural metabolic balance.

Perfect Balance offers a profile-specific, flexible "21-Day Plan" to integrate dietary and lifestyle changes sensibly. It explains the importance of timing and food combinations and outlines nutritional prescriptions for particular conditions caused by stress and other lifestyle issues. Most important, the Ayurvedic approach takes into account the many factors often ignored by other programs, which ultimately determine an optimal state of harmony and health for each individual.

Chapter 1

Ayurveda is based on a vision of wholeness, not one of fragmentation. This is why we use the word holistic when speaking about the system, because it looks at the whole person, not just one element of health. Any serious researcher will readily admit that we, as scientists, do not fully understand the complex functioning of the body. For this reason, more than any other, nutritional requirements must be assessed individually for each person in every case.

Perfect Balance offers an alternative vision of understanding nutrition and the body as part of an organic whole. The program outlined in this book is not the latest fad diet or nutritional gimmick. I have been using this system in my professional practice for the last six years and have been achieving excellent results.

This program is based on common sense. It includes a diet comprised of whole foods and basic lifestyle information for the three dominant individual profiles. The work of innovative doctors like Dean Ornish demonstrates that good nutrition consists of a multitude of factors apart from food itself. But with the personalized approach of Ayurveda, we incorporate lifestyle and nutrition and take it a step further by examining metabolic function.

Classical Ayurveda is a system based on the interrelationship of macrocosm and microcosm-in other words, if you can observe a force in nature or in your environment, you should also be able to observe that force within your own body. For example, when it is very hot outside, your body temperature also rises. In winter, when the temperature drops below freezing, your body temperature also responds by falling. Food can have the same effect-just eat a hot chili pepper and you'll know what I mean!

Because macrocosm influences microcosm, in Ayurveda we pay close attention to the fundamental elements of the world around us. (This is an important difference between modern science and ancient Ayurveda.) Everything is composed of matter, and Ayurveda divides all matter into five basic categories. The first state of matter is space, and the four remaining elements exist within space. They are air (movement), fire (transformation), water (liquid), and earth (solid). These five elements combine to create our environment (the macrocosm) and, in turn, our health (the microcosm). According to classical Ayurveda, we are each born with a slightly different combination of the elements, and it is this that makes us unique.

The Tridosha Theory

Nutrition, then, is nothing more than the interrelationship of three things: your individual nature, your environment, and the food you consume. If we understand these three elements and how they relate, we can avoid conflict and maintain health. Health is actually a dynamic state that continues to increase, provided the five elements do not conflict in their functioning. This system is called the tridosha theory in Aryurveda. This Sanskrit word roughly translates to "three biological humors," and in this book I refer to them as types A, B, and C.

In classical Ayurveda, these three biological principles control the five elements and determine our individuality or "constitution." Your body, mind, and soul are not separate, but are three aspects that comprise the whole human being. Hence, our constitution determines our metabolic functioning and, to a great extent, our psychological profile as well.

Additionally, Ayurveda's understanding of each person's psychological uniqueness and tendencies is a dimension ahead of any existing system. How our mental and emotional states influence our eating habits, digestion, and assimilation of nutrients is barely even addressed by modern systems, yet Ayurveda has made a special study of psychology over thousands of years.

I had been working as a natural health-care practitioner for six years when I became quite ill. Up until that time I was using the Western symptomatic approach to natural health that we are all familiar with-using herbs only after symptoms appear rather than taking preventive measures.

So when I developed an ulcer the size of a quarter in my duodenum I was, needless to say, very surprised. What happened? How could I be living a "natural, healthy life" and fall sick? I asked myself this question over and over until I put together the picture of how an ulcer formed, bled internally for three months, sapped me of my red blood cells, and caused me to faint one day in my friend's kitchen. It took me another six weeks of using "natural" products before I began to realize I was not getting better. My immunity was so low I ended up with a viral intestinal infection, which landed me in the local hospital for a week.

My problems stemmed from the fact that I was not approaching health in a constitutional, or individual, way. Rather, I would learn that product X was good for Y and take "natural" products in this vary naïve, symptomatic way. In fact, I discovered that much of my natural, healthy diet was creating a good environment for an ulcer. But I only realized this when I began to apply the Ayurvedic system and found out that I had a typical type B profile.

What happened to me can be understood as follows: (1) I had just recently moved to a foreign country from India, where I had been staying for most of the previous seven years; I did not know the culture or the language, and it was stressful learning to adapt; (2) I was starting a new health-care practice that was going well, but, nevertheless, establishing a new business was difficult, and money was a constant concern; (3) my marriage of ten years was breaking apart as my partner and I moved in opposite directions, and there was constant tension at home; (4) I had no concept of my own individual metabolism, or constitution and so, instead of balancing out these situations, I inadvertently aggravated them further with poor diet and lifestyle choices; and (5) I have a degenerative condition in my spine, which was exacerbated by all the other stressful conditions. I began to take over-the-counter medication for pain on a daily basis so I could continue to function. The combination of all these factors created an ulcer, which I ignored until I collapsed.

I don't think my case is unique. On the contrary, I believe that many people have at least three or four major stress factors in their lives, the combination of which causes disease. My doctors told me I would have to eliminate very acidic substances such as aspirin, lemons, grapefruit, vitamin C, and very hot spices. They proposed surgery as a means to close the ulcer and a meat-based diet to build back my red blood cell count. The stay in the hospital did me a world of good in that it gave me time to think and be away from home and the stress that had continued to increase there with my ill health. After recovering my strength in the hospital, I decided to forego surgery and use Ayurveda to cure myself. I had known about Ayurveda for years, but had used the herbs only when symptoms appeared as I had used other natural products.

After six weeks of an Ayurvedic diet and taking several herbs, I was strong enough to return to India to study the Ayurvedic system in depth. Within a month I was cured, had full energy, and could, if I wanted, eat the problematic foods that my doctors told me I would have to avoid for life. I had to look deeply at why I became so disturbed emotionally and physically that illness became inevitable. Within the year that followed, I changed my life completely and moved back to the West again after a year of intensive study of Ayurveda. My studies continue to this day more than ten years later, but, thanks to Ayurveda, I have learned how to balance my individual nature. I have learned how to prevent disease by avoiding certain foods and activities. I had to end a tremulous marriage that resulted in a very happy, positive new relationship, and I have been happily remarried for seven years.

When I use the words type, profile, or constitution in this book, I refer to the traditional Ayurvedic system and not the popular blood type nutritional program outlined in Dr. Peter J. D'Adamo's book Eat Right 4 Your Type. While this book has done a tremendous service to modern society by making a large group of the population aware that not everyone can eat-or needs-the same diet, the use of blood types may be too general a field on which to base nutritional needs. From the Ayurvedic point of view it is more accurate to base your nutritional program on the function of your metabolism.

Copyright © 2001, Avery Books, a division of Penguin Putnam, Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Atreya is the founder and director of the European Institute of Vedic Studies. An internationally recognized teacher of Ayurvedic medicine, he is a practicing herbalist and the author of four books on Ayurveda, including Ayurvedic Healing for Women and Secrets of Ayurvedic Massage. He lives in the south of France.