Healthy Eating
The Vata Diaries
By Annie Glass
One woman, 21 days, and hot water with lemon—a radical ayurvedic odyssey
“What do you know about the doshas?”
The innocent-seeming
YogaLife editor was looking for a test subject to put on an ayurvedic diet. My proclivity for putting massive amounts of pepper on everything and other unspecified behaviors gave my publishing colleagues the idea that I might be in need of re-balancing.
Whatever these doshas turned out to be, I wasn’t worried. My health and diet are downright pristine, I thought: I don’t smoke, I get at least 30 minutes of aerobic exercise every day, and I haven’t eaten anything with eyeballs for a few decades. Okay, so breakfast consists entirely of coffee laden with milk and sugar and dinner means cheese and crackers, with a glass of wine or two. Or more. I can still breeze right through this thing.
Day 1
The editor hooks me up with the Dosha Doc, Dr. Nancy Lonsdorf. She quizzes me, and suddenly I don’t feel quite so healthy. Dry skin? Check. Stuffy nose, check. Tendonitis in my tennis paddle-wielding arm, check. Insane frenetic lifestyle, check. Feeling heavy, bloated, swollen: check, check, double check. Little did I know how unbalanced I truly was…
Dr. Dosha lays down the velvet hammer. It seems that my primary dosha is pitta but my vata is on the rampage. “Ama’’ is the enemy; I must get this globby, vile-sounding substance out of my body. To rebalance, I should stay warm and eat only warm, uncomplicated foods. Nothing cold, nothing curdled, nothing hard and crunchy, like broccoli—one of my veggie faves--and no microwave. Microwaving is very bad vata. It makes the molecules crazy, and next thing you know, they gang up on you and form an unsightly and impervious Ama Union right on your butt. So net, net, lots of good home cooking in my future. Cooked by whom, I’m not quite sure. Maybe Mavi will provide—that’s the name I made up for a goddess I imagine, the Maharishi Ayurveda, who’s looking down on this whole bizarre saga. In any case, I’m in, all the way.
Directly after our consult, I drop down to our local feeding trough. Apparently the chef there has not heard of “mung bean soup.’’ I settle for a small half lentil, half black bean. I have to stop myself from ripping open my usual four pepper packets and four packets of crackers. I’m not supposed to do anything but eat when I eat so I can absorb the goodness, or something like that, but I can’t believe Mavi would truly want to deny me of my daily lunchtime Gawker fix...
Day 2 No caffeine—a life change! I stop in at my favorite vendor before the 6:30 a.m. train. Proprietress Maggie gapes in horror as I breeze by the coffee and grab a cup of hot water, throw a chunk of lemon in it, toss a buck in the tip jar, and waltz out the door. I’m to drink this from a Thermos all day. However, I am immediately cheered by a hot cup of oatmeal with cinnamon, the first true workday breakfast I’ve had in half a decade. Life doesn’t seem so bad.
Day 3 Over bananas and Cheerios, I start re-reading Dosha Doc’s plan… oops… bananas are no good on a vata-balancing diet. Root vegetables– verboten! Yikes, this is not so good; hailing as I do from intransigent Gaelic stock, potatoes are holy food. And it turns out that “curdled” means cheese. So in one fell swoop, all my favorite food groups are nixed.
My run, usually the highlight of my crazed Saturday routine, is an utter disaster. No legs, no energy. Having discovered a whole new level of cranky, I think to my self, “Wasn’t life expectancy only 25 years in India about 5,000 years ago?” Decide Ayur must be the name of Darth’s older, meaner brother.
Day 4 My best friend since 7th grade Latin class, Tashi, comes up from NYC to visit. She arrives laden with gifts, and plunks down four bottles of incredibly lush Chardonnay on the counter. Oh no, bad vata for sure. Bravely, I stash them away (for when my vata is thirsty). Skip the usual salad, bread, and appetizers, and opt for a nice warm pasta primavera.
