How To Choose Foods Based On Your Body's Constitution

Welcome to the Satiated Podcast, where we explore physical and emotional hunger, satiation and healing your relationship with your food and body. I'm your host, Stephanie Mara Fox, your Somatic Nutritional Counselor.

This year, now more than ever, nutrition needs to be explored from each person's individual body. No more blanket advice given to everyone. Ayurveda, yoga's sister nutritional science, was the first nutrition modality that introduced me to bioindividuality. Through the concepts of doshas, I learned that certain foods, spices, and ways of eating would resonate with each person's body based on their constitution. Ayurveda was never about controlling the body. It was about listening. It was about observing digestion, energy, temperature, appetite, elimination, mood, and sleep. Two people can eat the same exact thing and have completely different experiences. This can be due to that food digests in different ways because of what is happening inside of you and that includes the nervous system state you're eating in, the context and environment, and your perception of the food. The practice of Ayurveda can be an invitation into a relationship with the body to listen to what foods stabilize you through your body's feedback. Bringing Ayurveda into a modern somatic and nervous system lens, rather than looking at it and asking, what would Ayurveda tell me to eat? The new question gets to be, how can the practice of Ayurveda bring me into contact with what my body needs?

And this is exactly what Dr. Shivani Gupta has been doing: bringing Ayurveda into a modern context and when she let me know that she now has a book coming out, I was so excited to bring her back to chat some more. Dr. Shivani Gupta is an Ayurvedic practitioner, expert in fusing Eastern and Western practices that help our bodies achieve equilibrium, and turmeric researcher who helps women reduce inflammation, balance hormones, and boost energy with Elemental Design™, Mental Inflammation™ tools, and gut-forward routines. Her new book, The Inflammation Code (Hay House, February 2026), offers a clear, non-diet plan for cooling chronic inflammation. She completed her Master’s in Ayurvedic Sciences and her PhD on Turmeric. She hosts the Fusionary Health Podcast and created the Emmy-nominated TV show Vibrant Health with Dr. Shivani Gupta. We chat about Ayurveda in a modern context, food as nourishment, understanding your individual dietary needs based on your constitution and doshas, seasonal eating and circadian rhythms, and growing in your awareness of your connection with food.

Before we dive in, as a reminder, ways you can support the podcast, include leave a review anywhere that you listen to podcasts as it helps others find Satiated. You can also check out all of my affiliate links, join Satiated+ and be able to Ask Me Anything each month, or check out working with me 1:1 I do currently have openings in my private practice or in any of my programs. All links are in the show notes. Now, welcome Shivani! I am really excited to have you back. I loved our conversation the last time that you were here, and I feel like Ayurveda was one of the initial things that got me fascinated with food. And so I always love chatting with individuals who focused, like, all of their work on this. And so for individuals who maybe didn't catch our first episode together, I would love to first, like, reintroduce you how you got into this work and just whatever you want to share about your amazingness and what you do in the world.

Dr. Shivani Gupta 04:21

Thank you. Well, I found Ayurveda by chance. I grew up in a family where my parents had just moved to America. They were starting the American dream. Started with nothing, and really tried to raise my sister and I to do great things in the world. And what they did was, which was cool, is they took us to India every year to see our grandparents, our cousins. And unfortunately, I was always the sick kid. So I would go and I'd be car sick, air sick, sea sick, eat a food sick. And so I had a whole life of trying to understand, why do I have an immune system that doesn't work? And while I was growing up, I was seeing my grandparents age and all suffering from diabetes, heart disease, stroke and all those kinds of things. And so my father taught me from a young age, you control your health, and you do that through food and supplements and vitamins. And so I actually developed a pretty weird relationship with food growing up, and I was really restrictive with food in high school, and I underestimated what all of that behavior with food would mean to my metabolism, to my health and to my immune system. And so fast forward, in my 20s, I was so sick, and I remember going to the doctor, and the doctor said, here's a prescription, and it's like 13 medications. First one is a crazy strong antibiotic, and the rest were for symptoms. And I looked at him and I said, you know what, no, we're not doing this anymore. And that's when I went and said to my parents, you know what? We're in India. This is actually the land of Yoga and Ayurveda. I think there's something here for me, and I need to go find what it is, because the system we're in right now is not working. What I'm eating, what I'm doing, something is really wrong here. And so when I went and studied Ayurveda in India, and I went to these beautiful Ayurveda centers, and sat at the feet of these gurus, I realized this is an ancient wisdom. It's 5000 years old. It has so much truth to it. It's been tried and tested on billions of people over millennia, and Ayurveda is saying you can nourish yourself. You have complete autonomy and sovereignty over your health. And it all comes down to how you build a lifestyle that is self nourishing. And so fast forward, I've been working in and teaching Ayurveda for two decades now, and it's ever evolving. I'm still always learning. I'm always playing with the wisdom and trying to decipher how am I going to teach it in a way that we can apply it in our modern day life and utilize it, because we're living in a complex modern world, and we're seeking things, but we may not be getting that wholeness and nourishment that we crave. And so Ayurveda has a lot of wisdom around how we can get that.

Stephanie Mara 06:53

I love that. What I really hear you is trying to take this centuries year old approach to our body and to food and to nourishment and to movement, and putting it into the context of our life today, because a lot of these systems were created at a time when I'm going to make a guess we were probably more in tune with the world and nature and living in rhythms and cycles, and we are so far removed at this point that, yeah, some of these things, it's like the wisdom is still there, but how do we apply it to present day context of the world?

Dr. Shivani Gupta 07:34

Yeah, true. We live in a society that's so different than the past and and I find in this moment we because of social media, because of the news, because of all these things, we're pulled in so many directions. So it's almost like we're mentally pulled in 100 directions. Physically we only have one body, and yet we're so disconnected between mind and body that we're unable to really reconcile it. And Ayurveda always taught the goal is body, mind and spirit in alignment. And that doesn't just mean like body and mind. It actually means that the more I show you how to live the Ayurveda lifestyle, and be grounded and feel whole in the body, and the more we address that mental inflammation, as I call it, my new book, that mental stress, mental overload us being in our sympathetic nervous system all the time. More we balance that, then we have our spiritual access. Then we can be a spirit first, or we can be in those joyful, higher vibrations, however you look at God, universe and those topics. So really, the goal is that that level of like living a life that's so satisfying, because you're evolving in your spiritual journey as well.

Stephanie Mara 08:45

Yeah, it's really cool that your work has taken that lens to all of this. Because sometimes I find like, just sitting with the question of, like, why have like, quote, unquote, a better relationship with food? Like, what is the point of being in interaction with food? Beyond that we need it to be alive. And what I hear you naming is also that it's like, yeah, when we are coming into contact with food, we are coming into contact with, like, everything that made that food come into existence to begin with. And like the energy of that of like the sun and the water and the earth and the seed, and like all the things that had to happen to make that food possible, that food is never just, oh, I need to eat to be alive.

Dr. Shivani Gupta 09:36

No, no. Ayurveda really looks at food as nourishment and prana. Prana is life force. So if you want to have life force energy which is required for us to live, then you have to understand the properties of food, the aspects of food, how to eat, when to eat. You have to understand the circadian clock, which is a key piece from Ayurveda. Ayurveda came up with the circadian clock that we talk a lot about, and we obsess about it when it comes to like, rise with the sun and sleep with the sun. We talk about that nowadays, not that we necessarily apply it enough to our lives. But when it comes to food, it's like, if you are not understanding that food is nourishment, you might be eating food in ways that are numbing, is an example, or we're too busy, like, we have a lot of thoughts around food. I know I go through seasons where I'm like, you know what? Food is fuel. You better just eat on the plan. And I get really militant with myself. And I'll say, you know what, you're creeping into, prediabetes, again, it's because you're sitting too much, you're not exercising enough. So you better, and I get real restrictive with food. And I talked to a doctor of mine the other day, and you know what I think I'm going back towards, like an orthorexia mindset, because I get so controlling with food, I think of it as fuel. And then I won't allow any give, but not allowing give only does one thing in my world. It leads to binge eating. I'll find myself on the couch with potato chips. I'm like, what are you doing? What is happening? And I'll catch it, and I'll say, oh, that's stress eating. I know what that is. That's you not being satisfied because you didn't even eat enough in your day yet. So this gap of time, your body's saying, please give me calories. You're not doing your day right. And so I'll catch it, and I'll say, oh, okay. And what's interesting is, in Ayurveda, we also teach an interesting fact, which is, if you're reaching for sweet food, it's because you're trying to cool down anxiety and stress in the system. And so if I'm ever in my evenings, and I actually have them by my desk, which I should not have them right here, but dark chocolate almonds is like one of my favorite treats. Came out of one of my travel bags, I'll travel with those, I'll automatically know, okay, I know why you're reaching for this. You are still hungry, you're not satisfied, you're anxious and stressed about what's happening in your day, and you haven't figured out a different tool to reach for than that. And we call that like a pitta or a vata imbalance, these different constitutions that are at play, these elemental designs that are at play. And so I'm a big fan of showing people, look food if we can just open our minds to all the different aspects of what food is giving us, then we can start to play with it more and realize, okay, well, yes, food is fuel. Yeah, it is in a very basic sense. It's fuel your body needs it to make every cell and it's in your body that you're going to then use for different things. Sure, we can look at it in that very practical narrow sense. What else is food? Food is also energy. Food is pranic energy. We're going to eat all dead food that's processed and made in factories and has no life to it then, of course, we're going to have cravings for more and more and more because we aren't even giving our body the basics. Then, are we using food as comfort? Are we using it as a lot of other emotional things that we're needing? And how do we meet those emotional needs? Maybe differently. Maybe it's not always food. Ayurveda would say, go for a circadian walk. Move in nature. I'm here to heal you, but you're sitting on your couch reaching for food. Can I show you a different way? And so Ayurveda just shares a lot of lifestyle tips on like, look, we'll show you the entire spectrum of being healthy and well, and whole, and food is a big piece of it, for sure, it's important, but don't like skip over the lifestyle pieces that round out what you're trying to get from food.

Stephanie Mara 13:22

Yeah, thanks for naming that point of how quickly something that starts as an intention for self care can really go so fast into, like you mentioned, an orthorexia mindset, of like, everything's now so rigid and so regimented. What you're also kind of naming is it becomes solely focused about the food like that, food is the only thing that's going to lead to health and wellness when really actually in like the social determinants of health, I believe that food and our physical movement, actually is only about 30% of what makes up, what contributes to our health and wellness as an individual, and so it's like, you're pointing to it we can't forget that. It's like also community and connecting with people and nature and the world and moving our body in nourishing ways. And like, the way we think you're pointing to that as well. Like, there's all these other things that go along with what contributes to feeling vibrant in our body that isn't just about what we're eating.

Dr. Shivani Gupta 14:27

True. And sometimes we try to really narrow it down and make it finite. And that's where we get really controlling, because in the current trends and culture, people are saying, well, you know, weight loss happens in the kitchen. It doesn't happen in the gym. Trends are saying, you know, it's all about what you're doing in the kitchen. So I think it's turning us into a population that's really controlling and really narrowing on diet. Everyone's like, oh my gosh, my job is to shovel protein in my mouth all day. I hate it, which I totally agree with. I'm like, how can protein be the only job? And according to Ayurveda, how could we ever think that being so imbalanced into one macro piece of the diet even makes any sense at all. Ayurveda taught us about total nourishment and being so balanced. And I was thinking today. I was like, you know, modern medicine and modern wellness and functional medicine, and a lot of the health and wellness world is moving towards so much diagnostics, test yourself, know your numbers, and then fix those numbers, but that too is almost like a very big narrowing of the understanding of self. Like, yes, I actually do all that testing, so I know all the things I need to take in, supplement form and food form. But then where did we leave room for joy, or a circadian lifestyle, or what makes us happy? And Ayurveda taught us we have our own elemental design, what is also called the doshas. I called it elemental design in my new book because I really wanted to highlight we have our own elemental forces dictating who and how we are. So those three forces are called vata, pitta, and kapha, and here in the West, we pronounce them vata, pitta and kapha. And so it's so cool once you understand your elemental design, because you can then navigate your entire life knowing that what is your primary and what is your secondary. So one example, I am a fire, and I have a voracious appetite, and I get hangry if I have not eaten enough. And so I really have to think and plan for all food. I can't go past lunchtime and have skipped the meal. I certainly can't cross dinner. So I am thinking about food probably a chunk of my day, up to a quarter of my day is like, what am I eating? When do I get to eat it? How am I going to eat it? Oh, but you're trying to cut dairy. Oh, so how are you going to get healthy fat? But then it's not going to be satisfying. So there's a lot of thought going into that. But I also know at the very base, doesn't matter what my modern mind is thinking about food, I'm a bit that, and the meal has to go in, and it better be satisfying, because if it's not, I assure you that four o'clock, five o'clock, I hit my witching hour, and whatever is around will start going in. I've known that since I was a teenager. I saw that pattern, and was like, why are you uncontrollably eating? Oh, you have a massive appetite, and under any stress or duress, that's what you're going to reach for. And so what I love to teach women is, know thyself. Are you vata and you can go through your whole day without eating, then it's causing the anxiety that you're under and feeling like a tornado and feeling dysregulated. So for vata people, I teach them I'd like you to eat your three square meals a day on a rhythm, on a schedule. I'd like you to eat more healthy fat and grounding foods. We need to really nourish you and ground you down. For the pittas, I teach we can overdo it with our food, and we love everything, spicy, hot, fried, oily, all those things. And so we need to be aware of what is it we're seeking through food. And instead of just like pounding meals in, which is very easy to do as a pitta, be conscious. Are we bringing in cooling foods, raw foods, green foods, like, let's not only reach for what we want, but let's reach for what the body also needs for total nourishment. And then kapha is a whole different person that's someone who is usually bigger boned, stronger, a little bit more of a sluggish digestion. And so I support kapha by saying, eat more cooked foods, even though our modern day mind is like raw, fresh, that's where you get all the nourishment. That is a lot of truth. But also understand what your digestive system needs for you to be successful and process that food and gain the nourishment from it. So in Ayurveda, we teach a little bit more subtlety of understanding thyself and then eating from that place, not always what the modern, trendy people are teaching us, like we're living in a moment of carnivore, or are you vegan? All extremes, and it's like, actually we, pretty much all of us, live somewhere in the middle, and anytime we try to live on those extremes, that's where our body, all of a sudden, is like, gonna reject it, and that's why we're finding so much failure in this current diet culture.

Stephanie Mara 18:51

I loved all of that, and I remember now why I resonate with you so much of I'm also pitta and everything you're describing I'm like, yeah, yeah. I get that. I get that. Yep, I do that too. I feel like there have been periods where I go into, like, all I want is hot, spicy food, and I'm like, aware I'm like, I'm making my constitution worse. Like, I have to like stop myself and be like, need to bring in some other flavors and cool things down a little bit. The one thing that I also appreciate you naming in this is how individualized this is, and I felt so much compassion in my body as you were describing this of you just get to know your body rather than judging of like, why do I have such a strong appetite and kind of setting judgment aside and saying, you know what, I'm a person who forgets to eat all day, or I'm a person who has a really strong appetite, or I'm a person who, you know all this talk about, like, revving your metabolism, and getting your metabolism all revved up and working as hard as it can. It's like, you know what? I'm a person that just, like, just as people walk differently, some people walk faster, some people walk slower. It's like, hey, I'm just a slower walker. Like, not that that's like a worse thing to be in the world. Like, my metabolism just moves in the pace that it moves. And so I just feel like a lot of grounding as you're describing this of rather than trying to change your physiology, which is like all this biohacking and all these things of like, how do we, like, tinker with the system? How do we get to know how your system is? And I hear it can be a little bit through this elemental design of getting to know your doshas and that then you get to work with what you got, instead of always feeling like what you got is broken and you need to fix it.

Dr. Shivani Gupta 20:47

True. You know, we live in this world of self improvement, right? Self help, self development. We could all be better. We could all do more. And I watched so many people who teach online who are like, buy that next business, hustle and grind, work after hours. And I'm like, yeah, you're actually only talking to a third of the population, but somehow your voices are the loudest, and everyone equally thinks we can listen to you and we cannot, but the person needs to ground. They need the time to ground themselves because of how fast their energy runs. They're made up of wind and ether. They're just gonna run like tornadoes at the pace you're talking about. Us pittas are actually built for what you're talking about, but you're forgetting that we burn out and we literally leave our family as collateral damage when I go too hard. There's only one person who I'm gonna express all that anger and frustration to, and they live in my home, not gonna take that much farther outside of that. And then you have kapha, who's like, what are you even talking about? Once I sit down on my couch after work, I cannot get off the couch. It's like, I'm glued to it. So let's not even talk about side hustle, extra work, extra things. Let's talk about instead how does the kapha person, who that is their template, is they're torturing themselves instead says, you know what? I had a beautiful day. I am such a beautiful soul. I love on and take care of everyone, and that's what makes me happy. And when I'm done, I'm done, and no one should ask me to get up like I should be so nourishing of self and understanding of self that I get that this is who I am, and I love that about myself. And so that's where I find the elemental designs to be so powerful, because then we start to understand as a pitta I fully am aware the minute I'm hitting burnout, because my tell is usually food. I have certain foods I'll reach for, and I'm like, oh, I see. So can we choose coconut water instead? Are we dehydrated? Can we go put our feet in nature? Like, I'll start going down my checklist, and a lot of times when you're a pitta that you'll just burn right out, you'll just have a headache, and you'll start eating and eating, you're like, okay, cross the line. How do I do better tomorrow? And with vata, you'll see it all the time. They just won't eat. They'll forget. And it's like, no one's wrong here. We're born with our nature. Let's just understand what that nature is and how to really nourish that nature and understand the kind of guardrails of it, because then we can understand at a minimum, when you're feeling your lowest, how to rise up, and if you're feeling like you're overdone, how do you balance that back to homeostasis as well.

Stephanie Mara 23:14

Yeah, and I also love that you're bringing in that we have to sometimes, like you said, there's an internal list you've created for yourself. And I often suggest that people, whether it's an internal list or something you put on your notes app or something like that, we do need to remind ourselves of what our choices are. Otherwise, we will just go towards the quickest, most readily available resource for ourselves. If we're trying to shift what is happening in our body, and sometimes that is food. And so I'm curious, there's something that you talk about in your book around the circadian plate, and just talking about rhythms that you know, that's what we're kind of pointing to, of like, sometimes this list is created because we're not living in a rhythm that works for ourselves, but we also have to get to know the rhythm that works for ourselves. And I'm curious if you could speak more to that.

Dr. Shivani Gupta 24:06

Sure. So in Ayurveda, we teach that the whole job we have is to be in rhythm with nature. And what that means is nature has its own clock and its own rhythms. We have the moon going around the planet. We have the sun that we go around. We have our seasons, we have our times of day. So even if you just think about it as the sun rises and the sun sets, so we're meant to rise with the sun and set with the sun. That's the basics. And usually we're breaking that. Usually we're sleeping in, we're sleeping too late. We're not willing to even rise and do great things or set and actually wind down at the end of the day. That's the basic framework. Then we talk about, okay, in any given month, we have cycles, at least as women, we have cycles half the time. We're not living according to those cycles at all. We're trying to live on a mono plan of I do the same thing and I lift the same 30 days a month, and so Ayurveda says even have the awareness that in women's cycles, we need to adjust and shift. Men don't have that same cycle issue, but we are women. That is part of us. Then you look at the seasons of the year, and that's where circadian gets interesting, because the circadian clock shows us we're gonna have based on where we live, you know, winter, spring, summer and fall, and it might be like, I'm in South Florida, so we don't have much of a fall, winter at all, but we do have one, and understanding that, okay, fall season, you're actually meant to change your diet. You're meant to eat what's grown in the fall season. That's why you see the pumpkins and the squash and the gourds and the beets and the sweet potatoes. Why? Because it's actually a windy season, right? The Fall leaves fall, and it's windy and colder and winter is coming. Well, as that happens, guess what? The body feels. The body feels that wind energy. We call it vata energy. So anyone who's vata is going to tend to get really imbalanced in that season. And those vata balancing foods of the fall season are the most beautiful foods for a vata person to bring in to feel more grounded and nourished. Same with pitta that can get imbalanced in that season. We need those grounding warming foods. Kapha can get support from it as well. And so a circadian plate is really the understanding that you can pause every season and bring awareness into what's local and what's seasonal for that season, and bring in those foods every few days, maybe every other day, if you can swing it, and that's going to nourish you in a way that you may have never even felt before. I know for me, I'm in my fall season, and I am going too fast in life. And I went the other day to a farmer's market, and I saw this, like, huge display of pumpkins, and my whole body was like, please, please. Could you buy any of the pumpkins? I don't even know how to cook pumpkin, but I thought, gosh, I am gonna go to my sprouts or my whole foods or my farmers market again, and I'm gonna buy those and find a way to bake it and make it yummy. And I just know my body is yearning for it. What do we typically do? I know in my life I love Instacart. I'm like, yes, that's what's coming from Costco. Yep, that's what's coming from Sprouts. But if you don't go to the store, you're not actually going to see the display. Like, I love it in summer, when it's peaches and nectarines and watermelons and all the cooling foods. And it's a powerful reminder of this is what the planet this is what Mother Earth wants you to eat right now. Those have the properties you need for the season you're in. And so that's a big message from Ayurveda, is we're not meant to eat mono diets. We're not meant to eat one thing every day forever. Sometimes we we are too forceful in those arenas. And if we would open it up, all the colors of the rainbow, all the foods of eating given season that brings in the variety, the nutrient density, that nourishment our body needs and wants that we may not be giving ourselves, because it's just easier in modern life to be mono on that plan.

Stephanie Mara 27:56

Absolutely, you know, it makes me so much reflect on how disconnected we are from like, even just as you're describing, of like, you just go into Instacart and like, you just order your food, and then someone else packs it for you, and then suddenly there's just food at your door, and there's like, no or very little interaction with the food, of touching it, looking at it, smelling it, even knowing like, is this something that's actually being grown right now? Or has this actually been frozen for months at a time for me to be able to even, like, have this food at this time of year right now, or being grown in a way that's like, not natural to that food, because this isn't a time of year that it like, naturally grows very easily, or being shipped for miles, miles, miles from somewhere else, so that it can be grown in that area. Again, like, everyone's doing the best that they can. Even sometimes I'm like, hey, like, as we were just talking about earlier, like, eat food that is most important, regardless of what it is and what it is, as long as you are, like, nourishing your body and getting in the food that you need, fantastic. And we're getting into the nitty gritty here on our relationship with food, of like, also, I think it can be really such a powerfully connecting experience, and also connecting, not just with yourself, but also your environment, of eating something that you know is being grown right now. Like my mother in law has a garden, and I can go to her garden, because I live close to her currently, and pick zucchinis in the summer out of her garden. And I will say it is a very different experience being like I can see how this was grown, what it looks like when it's ready to be picked, how it tastes or feels different when it's not. And then being able to take that home and taste the difference between something that like literally came from a garden around the corner from me, as compared to getting something at the grocery store that's maybe been sitting there for a long time, and it is this like, oh, wow. Like this appreciation for what went into this food coming into existence. And it does, like your naming, bring you more into the rhythm and the cycles of what's happening. And I know also being pitta as well, I can definitely burn myself out and do way too much in my day. And so I think when we're coming into this fall season, like we are right now, and into the winter, that it is a reminder when you're eating these different root vegetables that are growing in the ground to, like, slow down and ground yourself.

Dr. Shivani Gupta 30:36

Absolutely. And if it's hard, because sometimes I find it hard, I don't even know how to make a squash or whatever like, I just don't know how it's not even part of my Indian diet. So I'm like, I don't know. You know what I do? I find a restaurant that I know will serve a seasonal menu, and I'll go eat it there, and I'll choose not to eat my favorite dish, because I have every farmer's table down here, farmers kitchen, these different restaurants I have my favorite dish. I'm like, no, you're not allowed to order your favorite dish because I need you to eat something seasonal in the season. And sometimes that's like butternut squash pizza or whatever it is. But I think it's so important to be a little playful with it. I think we get so strict with food, and we get so, like I said, mono diet, like what's easier, and in any given season, it might be a really busy season. So how do we buy what's cut up and ready and just bake it and saute it? How do we make things a little faster and easier so that we can achieve the seasonality until it becomes second nature and it's easier.

Stephanie Mara 31:32

Yeah, I appreciate that reminder of like you have to find ways to make this work for you, and I know, getting into the kitchen and making something when maybe it wasn't part of your upbringing, or you have never interacted with that food before, can feel like, really anxiety provoking. I just really want to normalize that, that you know, if it wasn't something that was a part of your environment growing up, getting into the kitchen and being like, what do I do here? And also, like, fear of like, burning your food and wanting to make a good dinner, and like, what if it turns out horrible and not knowing what to do, and it all feels really new can move your body, like, as you were saying before, like, more into that sympathetic response that you're like, nah, I'm just gonna go order my favorite meal and, like, not deal with this exactly.

Dr. Shivani Gupta 32:15

Yeah. Ayurveda also highlights that piece of it too. You know, in my book, I talk a lot about inflammation, because, to me, inflammation is this root cause issue. We underestimate how inflamed we are. We underestimate how much food stress, environmental toxins and so many factors are causing inflammation. And this chronic, low grade, persistent inflammation is such a big problem. And yet, when we are talking about food, what is easiest. What's easiest is buying a box of pasta and a bottle of sauce and a bag of cheese, and you put them together and they're done. And I totally do that with my kids. I'm like, oh, you want pasta? Here we go. So I'll try to order better cleaner pasta. Better cleaner pesto, better cleaner parmesan cheese, those elements. But it is hard sometimes to make all this room for cooking and cooking fresh. And sometimes when we do it, we do fail. I have bought cookbooks, and I was like, okay, I'm gonna bring in all new dishes into the rotation, and then everyone hates it. I'm like, well, I can't eat 18 pounds of new mexican dishes. And these things, there's a financial investment, there's a time investment, there's an ego investment, and it's not easy. I want to highlight that, you know, as simply as we can move into it, I think the better. And in my book, I brought up a new topic. I had to find a way to explain to ourselves that we can eat really well. We can try to be, you know, really careful and really thoughtful all those things around food. But if we have something called mental inflammation, where we are stressed all the time, and that chronic mental stress exists, if we're always in the sympathetic, we're never dropping into our parasympathetic, then we're always going to be inflamed anyways, and so part of the equation is really finding a way to really come to peace around these topics, and that's where I appreciate what you teach. You're really bringing up topics that are are pretty personal. They're pretty intimate, like binge eating. I was, I was researching you on Instagram, and I was like, wow, okay, like, talk about the most personal topics to bring up that no one wants to admit or talk about and really bringing light to them. Because, yes, oftentimes it is our being in our sympathetic and so stressed and and do we feel safe. As you brought it up, which I didn't even think about, like, what do you mean do I feel safe? But then I was like, well, what are some of those factors as to why we behave, the way we behave, and food is one arena. Some people, if you're a vata, you're gonna pull it into movement. Pandemic happened, and every vata know went for 14 mile bike rides, and were marathon runners. And I looked at them like, what are you talking about? The rest of us are baking bread and eating it and baking food and eating it. It's called comfort food. Us kaphas know how to do that. Us pittas know how to comfort ourselves with food, like we all had a plan and you went left. That's interesting. But again, we all have some level of mental inflammation this modern day mind that's just go, go, go being pulled into social media, pulled into the news, pulled into whatever it is we're dealing with in our lives, and we're forgetting to use each piece of our lifestyle toolkit to support ourselves. So that's where I teach about super spices and herbs. I know adaptogens can calm and soothe the mind. I teach about eating for your constitution and for your season, because that also can nourish and calm the system. Because the system feels like, okay, I have everything I need, so at least physically, I'm not in fight or flight. Then let's talk about sleep. We know sleep clears inflammation. We know sleep is when we rest digest and it's when we're going to rejuvenate and regenerate and heal the body. Super important. I love teaching about sleep. Then I teach about gut health. Let's focus on gut health as a priority. Let's not forget that it is important for our immune system, our brain, the gut, brain axis all those things. And then I love to teach the self care rituals of Ayurveda, because they are very detoxing. They are very purifying, while also being nourishing to the system. And then finally, when I was writing the book, I thought, you know, what if I forget and I skip this piece of mental inflammation and I'm not doing service to us, because that awareness really helps inform even this topic that is your key topic around food. If you understood how often our mental inflammation is causing the behaviors we have around food, it would make it easier to really address food as like, where am I being controlling, or where am I being too open or where can I bring in happiness and joy around food again, instead of some of the things we do to ourselves.

Stephanie Mara 36:51

Yeah, so beautifully said. And what I really hear in that also is that, like this mental inflammation, or, as you reference, like living more in a sympathetic nervous system, fight or flight response is also really connected to everything you just listed, like it's hard to get quality sleep when we are in more of a fight or flight response, it is difficult for our beneficial, good microbiome to kind of take over and do its job when our digestion is constantly shut down, being in a fight or flight response, like all these other things that you listed, like, it's hard to even imagine what a nourishing, resonating meal would be when we're like, I gotta just keep going and where we either under nourish ourselves or over nutrition our body, because we're just trying to go, go, go. So I really hear that kind of this mental inflammation also affects everything around all of our other self care things that we can do. I'm curious what you've maybe referenced in the book a little bit around how to work with mental inflammation, because I'm sure of what you're describing of that go, go, go, constantly, like thinking about all the things that need to be done or what's wrong or what you need to fix. I bet a lot of people here really resonate with that experience.

Dr. Shivani Gupta 38:06

I myself, do. I cause a lot of mental inflammation in my own life. You know, I talked about it as sympathetic and parasympathetic, because that's an easy framework. We're talking a lot nowadays about vagus nerve, vagus nerve toning and these things. So from the Ayurvedic perspective, we do feel like we're the kings and queens of how to manage the vagus nerve, because we teach things like chanting, breathwork, yoga, all of those are the sister sciences to Ayurveda. And so that is one piece. But as I've been teaching mental inflammation for these last few months leading up to the book, part of what I realized was I wanted to bring up this concept called Ojas. Ojas means the vitality or the nectar that we have that is a byproduct and gift of great nourishment to the system. So for example, when I'm having a great season, or I'm eating well and nourishing myself doing all the good things, the byproduct is I'm glowy and I'm vibrant and I'm on point. And people like, gosh, I love your energy. But it's easy to knock out ojas. You can knock out ojas with a surgery. If you get a surgery, body is like, in a gonna get shut shut down, and have to come back online, and you're gonna kind of restart from scratch, building your gut health, post antibiotics and all those things. Or, for example, I'm in my 2025, year of mold. There's mold in my house in different parts, and all we keep doing is finding them and then ripping them out and then making sure the air is clean enough for all of us. So that can be very depleting. But that's okay. If you understand what's happening, you can say, okay, well, I need to kind of 2x or 3x the self love I bring, in terms of foods that are so nourishing that I'm rebuilding ojas. One understanding I've come to is part of why we're so mentally inflamed is we keep knocking out the foundation of total nourishment from the system, and we're forgetting these opportunities and these the importance of rebuilding. And so rebuilding, oh, just comes from pausing life, doing self care. And maybe we can't pause life, but taking snippets of time on the weekends and in our evenings and really focusing on self care, focusing on foods that are nourishing and grounding, focusing on that circadian diet, doing the Ayurvedic self care tools that are detoxing, like simple things, like a tongue scraper and kind of bringing the whole plan together so that we can soothe that mental inflammation and come back to our most peaceful, aligned, attuned self. And so that's where I'm thinking about it more is not just the homework of vagus nerve toning, which is easy to go that way. You should hum, and you should chant, and you should whatever breathwork in your car and all those things. I do believe we should make space for all that. But let's come back to the root cause. The root cause of a lot of our issues is a intersection of inflammation, toxin, burden and then this lack of vitality, because we're giving our energy away, as opposed to harnessing our energy and collecting our energy, collecting our peace. So that's a central asset that we own. It's a piece of us from which we can experience the world.

Stephanie Mara 41:13

I so appreciate this reminder. You know, what it makes me think of is I've been talking a lot of how I feel, like in the somatic psychology world, a lot of the times on social media, we see these blanket suggestions of somatic practices to do, like shaking or containment, weighted blankets, all sorts of things. But I find that, like, what you're pointing to is, yeah, you can give all of these suggestions for vagus nerve toning, but if it's not in alignment with how it makes you feel like just as this energy, like this vitality, like you feel that moving through you of I'm excited to be alive, and I feel purposeful, and I feel that light and that energy inside of me, being in my world, that if you are doing practices somatic or vagus nerve toning, or whatever it is, mental, de inflammation, practices that it's like, if it doesn't produce that for you, it's not a practice that is actually resonating with your body, because all of this work is about paying attention to how your unique body responds to different movements, to different sounds, to different ways of speaking around different people. And so, yeah, you could do breath work, but if it actually makes you feel less grounded, more activated, and not feel like, oh, I feel reconnected, I feel energized, I feel grounded, I feel like alive again. I want to be here. I feel more clear headed, that we have to pay attention to that just as much. And it's not that the practice then failed you, or that you're doing the practice wrong, but it might just be in that moment that practice doesn't resonate with your body, with what it needs in that second.

Dr. Shivani Gupta 43:01

It's so true. And you know, online, when we see social media videos, I see a lot of them around health, because that's my obsessed topic. And I see them about mold, because Instagram knows I'm obsessed with the topic. So I'll see a lot on lymphatic and it'll be people on vibration plates. It'll be people doing the shaking. It'll be people doing different things. And sometimes I watch them, and I can tell it's like, the last thing my body wants to do. My body doesn't want me to shake. It really doesn't. Every time I watch it. I watch it with fascination, and my body says no, hard no's a lot of the time. And then I try to force the issue. Like Shivani, obviously you should get a vibration for everyone has one. Obviously, that's the way. And my whole body is like, don't do it. Don't do it. I almost half the time get to the point of purchase. I'm like, okay, I'm asking my biohacking friends what's the best one? And each time, my body says, no, and it's so funny, because finally, I'll be like, you know you teach intuitive lifestyle and intuitive eating, and you know you could listen dear intuition, which is screaming, don't you dare do the thing. Where do I like to detox my lymphatic system? Well, I'm a good infrared sauna person. I'm a pitta I can take the heat I have to balance when I overheat. But I love sauna. I love sweating. I love working out. I love walking like I can move my lymphatic in a lot of ways, but there are certain ways my body is screaming at me not to do, and I think oftentimes it's whoever's videos get the most views. Are the things we're going to see, and we're going to be convincing ourselves that that's the habit we need to do, when, in fact, if we just did the gut check with our intuition, our intuition is already telling us very clearly which way to go, which road to follow, which path is the next best path for us? And really, that's the practice, that's the gold, that's the priceless thing that we need to seek is our next step for us, and then building a lifestyle like you said, that's very purpose driven. Ayurveda, all of us want is for you to live by your dharma and your life purpose. Yes, and so I know very clearly in my life when I'm on that track and when I'm not. And so can we bring that same understanding into our teas, into our lifestyle, into our daily life, so that we can feel that wholeness, groundedness and alignment.

Stephanie Mara 45:14

Yeah, I feel like that's such a great place to move towards wrapping up here, of like this all has to come together with what we're talking about, of food and mental inflammation and living in rhythms and cycles that it's like really listening to your body and its feedback and what it tells you is going to work for it, like there's all these suggestions. But then also, how do we bring it back to, how does this make me feel, and how do I receive this body feedback? So I'm curious for listeners, I always like to wrap up with, like, a baby step that individuals can play with and with everything that you've been exploring in this new book that you're coming out with. I want you to share more about that, just so people know about it, like if there was a baby step on their elemental design, or a circadian plate, or all these things that we're talking about today. What do you feel like is a baby step that people could play with?

Dr. Shivani Gupta 45:38

You know, I encourage everyone to take the elemental design quiz. It's on my website, at drshivani.com because once you take it, you start the journey of understanding yourself better. Now that I understand, and I have understood for 20 years now, what pitta that I am. I have so many tools in my toolkit in any given moment, and my whole teaching around elemental design is moment by moment you can calibrate to yourself. I can understand, oh my gosh. I can feel the hunger rising. That's the fire rising. I have a couple choices, but if I ignore them, I know what's going to happen right after with food, it's going to be me and three dinners at once. So it's like you get to this level of self understanding that's so powerful and I love that for people, once they understand their constitution.

Stephanie Mara 46:54

Yeah, it's such a great place to start of what I hear in that is like, built first, building awareness. We can't change or work with what we're not aware of. So we first have to build the awareness of like in your work, what is your elemental design and then we can go from there in knowing, okay, this is like kapha, pitta, vata, this is what I'm working with. And then how do I eat and move and create rhythms for myself in a way that honors and respects what I now know about my body.

Dr. Shivani Gupta 47:24

Exactly.

Stephanie Mara 47:25

Awesome. Well, I love chatting with you, and I would love for you to share how individuals can keep in touch with you in the work that you're doing.

Dr. Shivani Gupta 47:34

For sure. So my website is drshivani.com so S, H, I V, A, N, I D, R in front of it. My website for the book is theinflammationcode.com and then my supplement company called fusionary formulas, is on my website at Dr Shivani, and we have a special code for your audience. Satiated podcast will give them 15% off.

Stephanie Mara 47:57

Awesome. I will put all of those links in the show notes, and I just so appreciate you and all that you are doing to kind of bring this as we're talking about centuries old wisdom of being in relationship with our bodies, into the context of the world today. And it's so important. And just thank you so much for being here.

Dr. Shivani Gupta 48:15

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Stephanie Mara 48:17

Absolutely. Well to everyone listening, if you have any questions from this episode, email me at support@stephanie mara.com anytime, and I hope you all have a satiating and safety producing rest of the day. Bye!.

Keep in touch with Dr. Shivani:

Website: www.shivanigupta.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheShivaniGupta

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.shivanigupta/

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Anti-Inflammatory E-Cookbook: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ItNJ1DV3XsOn5MwBbSpeTFH8o3KFu2qk/view?usp=sharing
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Book: The Inflammation Code: https://amzn.to/4sTPjkp