Article : Obesity and Naturopathy

by: Dev Sri

Naturopathy points its fingers to two habits as the cause of obesity – eating more than is required and lack of exercise. Sedentary lifestyle coupled with binge eating is recipe for fat accumulation, overweight and obesity. Stress and excess alcohol too can be reasons for obesity.
Obesity can lead to formation of many kinds of diseases. High blood pressure and heart diseases are the main diseases that an obese person needs to be cautious of. Isolation from the society is other serious condition obese persons have to face.
Obesity is classified into three types viz. mild to moderate, moderate to severe and severe based on the intensity of the problem.
The Naturopathic Way of Curing Obesity Cold hip bath two times a day Warm water enema Fasting on liquid food for 3-4 days Underwater massage Friction baths Neutral whirlpool
Steam and sauna bath Warm water immersion Lifestyle Modification
After completing fasting or treatment, the person must be disciplined enough to not to get addicted to over eating again. It is essential to maintain healthy nutrition, intake of large quantities of water, and staying away from high calorie food. Daily minimum walk of 5 km is also indicated. Practicing yoga and aerobic exercises also should be made part of your daily routines. Continue fasting once a week and identify carving for food. Different water therapy measures can be continued till you get desirable results of weight loss. The important thing is to stay away from undesirable habits like excessive smoking and alcohol consumption.

Diabetes and Food Style: Turn Your Food into Your Medicine

by: Dev Sri

Fast paced life of modern world has necessitated us to give only lower priority to nutrition. This is at a time when nutrition awareness of everyone is high. Instead of taking well cooked food items, fruits and juices, people go after carbonated drinks, fast 'junk' food, frozen and preserved food, microwave food. People also don’t take the time to enjoy and appreciate the food they eat. Today most of us just need any food that fills the belly for sometime.
This food habits have given rise to a variety of health problems. Significantly important one among them is diabetes.
Ayurvedic principles tell us food is one important element that keeps a person in a balanced state of body, mind and soul. Taking healthy food translates into healthy body.
Ayurvedic view on diabetes is no different. There are times when diabetes can attack without any warning sign. Ayurvedic food style combined with certain herbal applications helps one effectively manage his or her condition of diabetes.
High sugar level is the most dreaded thing about diabetes. Ayurveda recommends food items that don't release excess sugar into the blood. Food items that are too sweet, ice cream, chocolate, friend food items, white flour, preserved food, fast food, junk food etc are to be avoided. Bad habits like smoking and drinking should be given up.
Ayurveda recommends Ayurvedic herbal tea for diabetic patients. Replace sugar with honey or jaggery (thickened molasses - sarkkara) or better still palm jaggery (thickened palm molasses - karippatti).
The advantages or drinking more than eight glass of water everyday is not easily told in an essay. Drink a minimum of 8-15 glass of water in the day time. After sunset take only minimal quantities of water. Another thing is to drink plenty of water an hour before a meal and an hour after the meals. Drinking water close to meals dilute the digestive fire (in Ayurveda it is called pitta) and makes the process of digestion difficult.
Take fruits like grapes, fig, pomegranate, citrus fruits etc. Bitter melon (bitter gourd, karela) is used as medicine for diabetes.
The point about Ayurvedic management of diabetes is never a hard task. All you will have to do is to incorporate Ayurvedic principles as your daily routine. Having healthy food and exercise regime itself can help one control his or her diabetes to a great extent.
Include turmeric and garlic as spices, bitter gourd as vegetable, triphala as a laxative and drinking lot of water as daily habit. These are not very difficult to follow. You can't eat or drink all the food items you have. But living a sweeter life sometimes means giving up some sweet for tongue food items.