In This Article
Natural Summer Weight Gain
Surprisingly, we all have a slower and weaker digestive system during the summer months. I know this sounds hard to believe, but have you noticed yourself:
- Gaining weight?
- Having sluggish bowel movements?
- Carrying extra weight or bloat around your tummy?
All this even though you didn’t really eat bad or pig out. You may be experiencing a very natural phenomenon that is easily fixed!
- Our body’s digestive acid reduces in the summer which helps to avoid the risk of overheating, thus also reducing our ability to digest heavier foods.3 simple tips for summer eating:
- Eat largest meal at mid-day.
- Eat larger portions of salads, fruits, and veggies.
- Follow our Summer Grocery List.
- Tone, cleanse, and stimulate the digestive tract with Triphala, a famous Ayurvedic formula made up of three fruits.
- Engage in some kind of detox this fall.
Summer Digestion
One of the keys to human survival throughout the millennia has been linked to our ability to tolerate heat. We have, unlike most animals, very sophisticated mechanisms for removing heat from our bodies. These include sweating, breathing and standing, which can reduce solar exposure by 60%, just to name a few.
Our body’s digestive acid reduces in the summer which helps to avoid the risk of overheating. In the same way, we cool our house with an air-conditioner, we automatically adjust for hot summer with a cooler digestive fire. Luckily, the foods that are harvested in the summer are very easy to digest and don’t require a big furnace to be properly cooked and therefore, digested.
In the winter, we experience the opposite. The cold temperatures require us to hold onto heat and thus our digestive fire and strength are much greater. We naturally turn on the digestive furnace in the winter and not in the summer. Again, nature cooperates with a heavy, dense and harder-to-digest harvest that requires more digestive heat.
Eating for the Seasons
If we exclusively lived off the land, we would be forced to eat more meat, fish, dense root veggies and nuts in the winter. These foods are more insulating but are also harder to digest so they require a strong digestive fire. Easy-to-digest summer fruits and veggies from the garden are in such abundance that it is challenging to eat them fast enough.
Unfortunately, most of us don’t only eat foods as they come in season as I discuss in my book, The 3-Season Diet. I think most of us naturally crave more salads and fruit in the summer and heavier soups and stews in the winter but we don’t necessarily restrict ourselves to eating only these foods.
This results in eating heavy, hard to digest foods in a season when the digestive fire just can’t muster up enough oomph to cook, digest, assimilate and eliminate those popular summer foods, such as: burgers, fried chicken, barbequed wings, french fries, chips, pizza, ice cream, and well, I think you get the picture.
If your digestion is slowing down as summer forges on, consider some of these simple tips:
It’s as easy as one, two, three!
- If you are going to indulge in these harder to digest foods, enjoy them as a larger mid day meal when digestion is stronger rather than in the evening or late at night when the digestive fire is less efficient.
- Yes, it is OK to eat some of these harder to digest foods in the summer. Just do your best do eat smaller portions of the barbecue and much larger portions of the salad, fruits and veggies.
- Look at our Summer Grocery List, which offers suggestions on how to limit heat-increasing foods (or pitta) and increase heat-reducing foods. Circle the foods you like and simply make a point to eat more of them. Think: What can I eat more of?:rather than what can’t I eat!
Three Digestive Boosting Fruits
In Ayurveda, there is a famous herbal formula that can rejuvenate the intestinal tract. It is called Triphala (literally translated as three fruits) and is made up of these fruits that come from India:
- Amalaki – (Emblica officinalis) – supports the health of the intestinal mucus membranes
- Bibhitaki – (Beleric myrobalan) – helps remove mucus from the gut
- Haritaki – (Chebulic myrobalan) – tones the muscles of the gut
These three fruits help to tone, cleanse and stimulate the digestive tract. This is a perfect solution to the digestive sluggishness that takes place each summer. During the summer months, as little as one capsule before bed can boost digestive efficiency.
Case Study
Not too long ago, a woman came into to my office and told me she was so grateful for the advice I had given her a few years previously. I had told her to take Triphala after each meal as an intestinal sweep to help make her digestion more efficient. She told me that she has been doing that ever since our consult and lost 50 pounds. She said she didn’t change her diet at all and just added the Triphala.
I can tell you from many years of experience that this herbal formula is not a weight loss pill may not have this dramatic of an effect. Triphala is a tonic for the intestinal tract that supports digestive efficiency and elimination.
According to the text, Ayurvedic Medicine by Sebastion Pole, the three fruits in triphala are described as follows:
Haritaki:
Haritaki’s (pronounced har-ee-ta-kee) active ingredients are tannins, which support loose bowel function, and sennosides, which support better elimination, which make haritaki a true tonic for the bowel. It supports irritated mucus membranes in the gut which may protect against excessive intestinal permeability or leaky gut syndrome. It increases digestive fire and clears undigested food (which is called ama). Haritaki’s role in triphala is mostly to tone the muscles of the gut.
Bibhitaki:
Bibhitaki (pronounced bib-ee-ta-kee) literally means fearless of all diseases. It has astringent and strengthening properties for the mucus membranes throughout the body. It is mostly used to clear mucus from the lungs, intestines and urinary tract. In the intestines, excess mucus can compromise the absorption of nutrients and detoxification. Bibhitaki’s main role in Triphala is to pull excess, unhealthy mucus off the gut wall.
Amalaki:
Amalaki (pronounced ah-ma-la-kee) is most well-known for its Vitamin C content, which is about 20 times that of an orange (23mg of vitamin C per 1 gram of the dried Amalaki fruit). It is traditionally used for irritation of the intestinal tract. Its role in triphala is to support the repair of the intestinal mucus membranes.
Conclusion
At the end of summer, every living creature is making a life-changing transition to prepare for winter. This is the time of the year the body prepares to detoxify. Helping to take the stress off the digestive system, as I described in this newsletter, is a part of this natural process. Follow nature’s lead this fall and engage in some type of detox.
