Ayurvedic Fitness:

 

Consider What Your Body Needs

Cynthia Copple

 

18

Enlightenment Journal | Spring 2012

HEALTHY LIVING

W

e have all known 

someone who is on a 

strict fitness and diet 

regimen and still can’t lose 

weight. Then there’s the 

friend who never exercises 

and eats constantly and yet 

stays healthy and maintains 

a balanced weight. What 

works for one person 

doesn’t seem to work for 

another.  What is the magic 

to fitness? Is it just working out more 

and eating less? That doesn’t seem to 

work for many people.  

The answer, according to Ayurveda, 

the ancient science of life and health 

from the Vedas in India, is that we 

each have a unique body/mind nature.  

According to this inherited nature, 

different foods will nourish us, and 

different fitness regimens will keep us 

healthy. Instead of one program to suit 

everybody, the Ayurvedic approach 

helps us design a unique individual 

diet and fitness program regimen to 

get the results we want.  The ideal 

results are to restore our original 

nature—return to our best weight, 

energy, strength, immune strength, 

personal power, passion and balanced 

moods.  

What is your nature? Our inherited 

constitution or “nature” determines 

what we look like, how 

we react emotionally, our 

interests and even our 

health tendencies and 

risk factors for diseases. 

Ayurveda describes our 

nature as the interplay 

of three main processes, 

called doshas. We are 

each a combination of all 

three, often with one or 

two doshas having more 

influence.  

The three main constitutional 

natures are vata, pitta, and kapha.

VATA moves everything in the body. 

People with Vata nature are always 

moving, use a lot of energy and tend to 

be lean. They may be tall or short, are 

usually creative, quick to start and stop 

projects, and make friends quickly. 

They are more impulsive and may 

prefer irregular eating and sleeping 

times. When stressed, they tend to 

experience anxiety and fear. When out 

of balance, they may have a hard time 

sleeping and may be prone to arthritis, 

pain, dryness, asthma or accidents.  

PITTA creates heat and energy in 

the body. A person with Pitta nature 

may have a higher body temperature, 

may have reddish skin or hair, hair 

turning grey early or balding. They 

have strong will power and a good