Whatever you eat has a profound influence on your body. It’s essential to eat a nutritious and well-balanced diet regularly to maintain excellent health.
However, together with nutrition, the timing of your meal is also crucial to ensure your body stays fit and functions appropriately.
Typically, there are three significant meals that most of us consume in a day, i.e., breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and each of these has its importance.
Breakfast is frequently known as the king of meals, and numerous dieticians back it to be the most important meal of the day. Breakfast provides you energy to start your day on a high. Studies have concluded that people who skip breakfast tend to have problems with concentration, alertness, performance at work or school, etc.
Also, people who skip breakfast are prone to overeating during the day and, as most of us at either at work or school during the daytime where a well-balanced diet is sparsely available, most of the intake relates to junk food – therefore, various studies have found that individuals who skip their breakfast regularly tend to be obese.
Lunch is equally essential and helps regulate your blood sugar levels that help you stay alert and focused for the latter half of the day. Just like people who skip breakfast, studies have revealed that people who skip lunch tend to overeat during the dinnertime to compensate for the missed lunch and, therefore, are prone to obesity.
Dinner is the last meal of the day and is extremely important. Dinner provides essential nutrients, minerals, and vitamins to help the body grow, relax, and repair damages if any. Also, it enhances your metabolism to help the body stay fit and healthy.
Healthy Dinner with Ayurveda
About Ayurveda
Ayurveda is an ancient system of natural healing that has been practiced in different parts of the world for more than 5,000 years. Ayurveda has its origin in the ancient Indian Vedic Culture.
Traditional Chinese Medicine, as well as Tibetan Medicine both, have a close association with Ayurveda.
More than a revolutionary system to treat a wide range of diseases, Ayurveda is an institution and science of life (as the name suggests: Ayur = life, Veda = knowledge or science).
It provides an institution of wisdom developed to help us stay vital along with realizing our full potential. Offering practical and proven guidelines on typical seasonal and daily behavior, diet, routines, and the appropriate use of the human senses, Ayurveda works well to remind us that our health is a dynamic and balanced integration of our, body, mind, spirit, and the environment.
Ayurveda’s Guidelines on Food Habits
Ayurveda provides specific eating guidelines to ensure the food you eat is safe and beneficial for you, and do not cause any toxic interactions or adverse side effects that can be harmful to you.
Did You Know!
|
For dinnertime, there are certain food items you should avoid at night as they tend to imbalance the Kapha dosha, as per Ayurveda.
Junk food, nonvegetarian items, oily food, heavy-to-digest food, frozen food, ice cream, or curd are a few foods you must avoid during dinnertime. Eating these foods at dinner may lead to:
- Weight gain
- Cough and cold
- Allergies
- Vomiting sensation
- Excessive salivation
- A runny nose
- Indigestion
Ultimately, wrong eating habits lead to the formation of toxic substances in your body, which can lead to different health complications.
In case you are suffering from one of the issues listed above, you should start taking good care of yourself. More often than not, a minor adjustment in the diet pattern may well improve, cure, or prevent the majority of these conditions.
How Dinner Plays a Significant Role in Overall Health?
Dinner is an important meal of the day and serves a wide range of benefits. Consuming a well-balanced dinner regularly helps lead a well-balanced life.
A wholesome and healthy dinner promotes improved metabolic functions that support your weight-loss goals. Skipping dinner is not the ideal way to lose weight. Various studies have proved that people who skip their dinner often tend to be more prone to obesity along with being mild to moderately deficient in various essential nutrients.
Most of us have light breakfasts, with some cereals, milk, or juice. Therefore, having a good dinner becomes even more important to compensate for the less nutritious intake during breakfast, filling the gap with all essential nutritional requirements.
It is a known fact that our body burns a lot of calories during sleep to repair the damages (if any), grow muscles, bones, and different structures, and process various other functions. Therefore, a scrumptious dinner is a must to maintain the right daily calorie intake as per your weight goals.
Healthier Dinner Options According to Ayurveda
Now that you’ve well understood the importance of having a well-balanced dinner daily, you must be thinking of what are the healthiest foods to consume at night.
Isn’t it? Well, here it is. Let’s have a look at the foods that are most beneficial to eat during dinner:
- You must consider eating food that can be digested easily at night. Also, it makes sense to eat a low-carb and healthy diet that gets digested quickly.
- In case you are habitual of having curd at dinner, consider replacing it with buttermilk.
- Consider replacing rice with chapatis as they are quicker and easier to digest.
- Avoid overeating.
- Add more of green leafy vegetables, dal, and curry leaves.
- Consider adding a small quantity of ginger to your meal.
- As salt increases water retention in your body, it is advised to cut down on salt intake.
- Spices tend to increase the warmth in your body; thus consider adding some spices in your dinner.
- Cut down your sugar intake and prefer honey since it aids in decreasing the mucus.
- In case you prefer drinking milk before going to bed, consider drinking low-fat milk. Also, you must always boil the milk well ahead of drinking it as it gets easier to digest. You may add a small amount of cardamom or ginger to the milk ahead of boiling it since these ingredients help in decreasing the mucus-producing properties.
- Don’t drink cold milk. Remember to drink it while it’s still warm.
As a thumb rule for having dinner, ensure that whatever you consume, you shouldn’t feel heaviness in your stomach. Instead, your stomach should feel relatively light as it will help you enjoy a good night’s sleep.
Nurturing healthy eating habits come handy in maintaining a healthy mind and body. Each of the three major meals in a day, i.e., breakfast, lunch, and dinner, are extremely important and you are advised not to miss any of the three.
The ancient Indian Ayurveda has several effective principles relating to healthy eating habits. Ayurveda believes in maintaining the right balance of all bodily systems through natural herbs, yogic practices, and a well-balanced diet.
Dinner is one of the most important meals of the day and offers a wide range of health benefits. It enhances the metabolism of our body, supplies all essential nutrients and minerals required by our body for properly carrying out various important functions, and helps users enjoy a sound sleep.
Also, you must not skip dinner since various studies have suggested that people who skip dinner regularly not just miss out on an appropriate intake of essential nutrients but are more likely to overeat the next morning, which may lead to unwanted weight gain.
The Ayurveda-based guidelines discussed in this post about the do’s and don’ts of healthy dinner habits will help you eat the right things, in the right way, before going to bed to ensure you sleep well and stay healthy.
Also, if you need any further assistance or more information to modify your eating habits for getting the best health benefits as per the ancient Ayurvedic principals, consider consulting a registered Ayurvedic medicine practitioner. Dine well!
