If you’re new to Ayurveda, you could be excused to think it’s just another band wagon someone wants you to jump onto and spend all your money while you’re there. And while there’s certainly an industry building around Ayurveda (isn’t everyone taking Ashvaghanda these days?!), the roots of Ayurveda have little to do with any of the stuff you can buy in health stores. Plus – spoiler alert – Ashvaghanda is not great for everyone at all!
In a world of ever-changing diet trends, Ayurveda stands out as a timeless, personalised approach to well-being, focusing on balance rather than restriction. While diet fads often promise quick results and rely on one-size-fits-all methods, Ayurveda recognises that each person has a unique constitution (Prakriti) and requires tailored nutrition to support long-term health.
Sustainability vs. Short-Term Results
- Diet fads often focus on rapid weight loss or specific macronutrient restrictions, such as keto, intermittent fasting, or detoxes, which may provide temporary results for some people, but can disrupt metabolism and cause more harm than good for most of us in the long run.
- Ayurveda encourages observation of your own body and how it reacts to certain foods and lifestyle choices. Our aim is to maintain balance through seasonal eating, mindful food combinations, and optimising digestive health rather than through torturing ourselves with endless calorie cuts and food choices that make us miserable.
Personalisation vs. Trend-Based Approaches
- Diet fads apply generalised rules to everyone, ignoring differences in constitution, circumstances, digestive strength, metabolism, environmental factors and lifestyle.
- Ayurveda considers individual doshas (Vata, Pitta, Kapha) to determine the best foods, herbs, and meal timings based on a person’s constitution and imbalances. When I work with clients, we also take into account their personal circumstances and preferences to come up with a plan that’s sustainable.
Healing vs. Restriction
- Diet fads often create nutrient deficiencies by cutting entire food groups, leading to cravings, energy crashes, and imbalanced gut health.
- Ayurveda focuses on digestive strength (Agni) and encourages wholesome, nourishing foods that enhance absorption and maintain vitality. We do cut down certain foods and favour others, but restrictions should only ever be temporary. Once we achieve balance, we will be able to eat intuitively – i.e. whatever the heck we like!
Holistic Health vs. Weight-Centric Thinking
- Diet fads typically centre around goals such as weight loss or building muscle, ignoring emotional and mental health, as well as any other relevant factors.
- Ayurveda views food as medicine, promoting mental clarity, emotional stability, and spiritual well-being alongside physical health. Mind and body are two sides of the same coin, basically. Ever noticed that when you feel bad, you make poor food choices, which only make you feel worse, but when you feel great you pay much more attention to your diet, instinctively trying to maintain that state? See, it’s all connected!
Ayurvedic Wisdom for Sustainable Nutrition
Instead of following fleeting diet trends, Ayurveda honours natural rhythms by recommending:
- Eating seasonally appropriate foods to align with nature’s cycles.
- Supporting Agni (digestive fire) with warm, fresh meals.
- Avoiding overly processed or incompatible food combinations.
- Nourishing the mind-body connection through sattvic eating.
While diet fads come and go, Ayurveda has stood the test of time, offering a gentle yet powerful approach to achieving optimal health. Instead of chasing extreme diet plans, Ayurveda teaches balance, awareness, and nourishment. I genuinely could talk about this all day long!
Contact me to discuss how Ayurveda can help you find your balance. I’d love to connect via a free 15 minute discovery call.
