the bossbabe podcast - 131. Fueling and Nourishing Your Body Through Ayurvedic Practices For Your Best Personal + Professional Self with Radhi Devlukia-Shetty

Episode Date: November 4, 2020

Today we’re joined by a ray of light, Radhi Devlukia-Shetty, who’s dropping key tips to make ayurvedic practices easy and attainable to fuel and nourish your body. After moving far away from her close family in London to New York - Radhi had to spend a lot of time with herself figuring out what she wanted with her life. Through journaling and doing work to understand who she was and how she could help others, Radhi landed on food as nourishment.  Natural healing and how small changes to your ritual can create wellness so you can perform best in personal and professional life. Radhi is giving us amazing ideas for small changes you can make in your diet to help with digestion and energy. (Think certain spices, eating seasonally, etc.)  Growing up with a mix of indian and western foods, Radhi enjoys bringing those together in her recipes and sharing them on her new YouTube Channel. Make sure to check it out below!  Join Online Launch School, our 12-week program designed to take the guesswork out of sold-out launches. https://bossbabe.com/ols Get $50 off your first job posting on LinkedIn Jobs:  Linkedin.com/bossbabe Follow: @bossbabe.inc Danielle Canty, @danielleycanty Radhi Devlukia-Shetty, @radhidevlukia Radhi Devlukia YouTube

When you're nourishing your body, you are nourishing it so that it's able to do all of those things you want to do. Because if your mind's distracted, your body's distracted too. Don't trust in other people to constantly tell you what you should be eating, what you shouldn't be eating, because the trends change all the time. Welcome to the Boss Babe podcast, a place where we share with you the real behind the scenes of building successful businesses, achieving peak performance and learning how to bounce it all. Hey, it's Danielle and your host for today's episode. And I am so excited to have my good friend, Radhi Devlukyashetty on the show and this girl let me tell you is amazing and I'm just gonna say it now she is literally one of my favorite people to

follow on the ground because she really just isn't afraid to being herself and along with sharing so many amazing plant-based recipes to anything to do with Ayurvedic and wellness, Raddy literally shows up just the ray of sunshine that she is and spreads positivity in the world. So my message to you, if you haven't already, you definitely want to follow her. And if you are listening to this podcast, it's likely that like me, you are on a mission to be your best self. That's what most of us boss babes are here to do, right? And rather than talking about business tips in this episode, I actually really got to pick Radhi's brain on Ayurvedic principles. She is trained as a dietician and a nutritionist and then went to take on her Ayurvedic exams. And she really just started, it was something I didn't know much about,

and she started breaking down those principles for me. And we discussed ways during this time, particularly as we're still in this pandemic, we spoke about natural healing and how you can actually make very small changes to your rituals that promote wellness. So this is an amazing podcast. If you are like me on that mission to be your best self, want to learn a little bit more, how to take care of yourself so that ultimately you can perform in your personal life and your professional life better. So without further ado, let's dive in. Okay, I want to quickly interrupt this episode because I've got some really exciting news that I want to share. So if you haven't yet heard, Online Launch School is now open for enrollment. This is one of the most exciting courses we've

ever created and it's been in the works since November 2019. Let me tell you, this course has the ability to significantly impact and supercharge your business and your life. Let me tell you, this course has the ability to significantly impact and supercharge your business and your life. Here at Boss Babe, we know a thing or two about launches and let me give you some insider info. So our last launch was actually our biggest launch yet, and it was actually the least stressful time for me and the entire team. This is such a big reason we decided to create Online Launch School goal we know that we've unlocked such an amazing formula to make our launches really profitable without the stress without the overwhelm and without endless amounts of caffeine because trust me danielle and i have

been there so oles is a 12-week program designed to walk you step by step through a successful launch of your online product or service we want to help you take the guesswork out of sold-out launches so that you can spend more time moving the needle in your business and doing the things that you love. So if you're ready to have the biggest cash injection your business has ever had, head to bosswave.com forward slash OLS and let's dive in. A boss babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise, keep going and fighting on. She is on a mission to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself, confidently stepping outside her comfort zone to create her own vision of success. Welcome to the Boss Babe podcast,

Rani. It's such a pleasure to have you here today. Thank you so much for having me on it. I genuinely feel so grateful and honored that you guys asked me. Well, listen, I feel like everyone needs a little bit more Raddy in their life because I am not joking when I say if I am ever feeling down or a little bit blue, I just hop on your stories because you are just so bright and bubbly and like you never fail to make me smile. you're just such a warm personality so thank you for bringing so much love and joy to so many thank you so much and I genuinely feel the same way every time I send you messages and you voice mail me back I just get a burst of energy and I'm really glad that you feel that way as well other people happy so it's good I love it and what I also love is that we are both Brits

living in LA and so I'm super curious how you ended up here because from what I know about you you were pretty adamant about only living a mile away from your family yet here you are good knows how many miles away so how did you end up in LA, Radhi? Yeah, so me and my husband, we got married in 2016. And that was when I was like to him, look, I really need to live really close to my mom and my sister, who both live three, four minutes away from each other. So we got a house in London. I was ready to like settle in. We had been there three weeks. We just started settling in. And he got a call saying that he basically had an opportunity

that he could not pass up in New York. And so it was so funny because when he first told me and told my whole family, my whole family were crying. Like they didn't even care. They cared that he had got the job and they were so happy. But the fact of me leaving and I'm the baby of the family everyone was like so upset and then probably like a week later everybody came to terms with it and yeah it was like a no-brainer for me as much as I wanted to stay in London his happiness and what he really wanted to do in life it was such a selfless thing that he wanted

to do and in terms of helping other people in a wider way that I really couldn't say no he was you know if you want to stay we can come back every couple of weeks we can come back every like as often as you want but I just knew that it was an action like a step I had to take and I'm just so happy that I took it because it really really helped me grow into a way that I never knew was possible if I stayed in my comfort zone which was in London a couple of minutes away from my mom and my sister who used to be the people that used to tell me how to do everything in life and I rely on them for everything I think I never would have been able to push myself in a way that I had to when I moved to New York and then to LA I love that that you're saying that

because it is for so many so easy to stay in comfort zone and just be like, yeah, this is where I'm happy. This is where I want to be. But sometimes when you step out into that outside of that comfort zone, that's when there's so much beauty and you really learn so much about yourself. So I'm really curious, what were some of the key things that you learn about yourself moving from London to New York? Yeah, so I had to spend a lot of time by myself in New York because Jay was working. My husband was working. So and I couldn't work in New York. And so it was me by myself. I really didn't know anybody in New York. He was working like 95, 96. And it was the first time in my life that I had to sit with myself

constantly day in, day out and figure out what I was going to do because it's so easy to get wrapped up in a job. And actually, when I sat down to think about what I wanted to do, I realized that I was in a job that I didn't love. I was in a job that I wasn't happy in. It just made me realize so much about me in terms of the things that I didn't like about myself, the things that I liked about myself, the things that I felt were that I really needed to change and grow. And I did that by journaling a lot. I started off journaling because I was really unhappy at that time. I was really trying to figure out what do I have to offer to other people? And I found that really difficult because I felt like I was very average at a lot of things in life,

but not great at anything. And then, but I realized that that was a lack of understanding of myself that was making me get to that conclusion. I hadn't spent the time to understand who I was to actually understand what I'm good at. And so if you don't spend time with yourself, like just like if you don't spend time with your partner, how can you fall in love with them? And so if I don't spend time with me, then how can I fall in love with myself and know what I have to love myself about so I can show other people that too. But it was hard. It took like tears. It took a whole lot of tears. It took a lot of understanding all the bad things about myself to understand what was good about myself too. So I feel like it was a good strip down of who I really was and just taking away the ego from it

too and understanding who do I want to be and who am I right now and how do I get to that point from where I am now. I love that you said that like falling in love with yourself I think it's so important and I really relate to what you were saying because I too have previously labeled myself as I would always say like the heptathlete I'm really good at a lot of things but I I don't excel at one thing. And more recently, I've really learned that that's not the case. And it's around, like you say, sitting with yourself, understanding yourself, taking time and putting the effort into one journal about it. I also did, I don't know if you've ever done it, the exercise where you turn your page into like four squares and then you say like what you're good at and you love doing and what you yeah it's such a powerful exercise to really kind of sit with okay well what am I good at and what do I

enjoy doing what might I be good at but I actually hate doing and what am I good at but I don't like doing and all these things and I just think it's really powerful and sometimes people think that you find yourself in a place and you just happen to stumble across something that you love doing but actually it can really take a lot of work and a lot of effort to find that and so I think it's both interesting that we've been through that exactly and I think self-esteem actually we mistake sometimes us saying oh I think I've got really low self-esteem and when I used to meet people even if it was in work environments or having to go to events where there were lots of people who were doing things, and I always felt so nervous

and I always thought it was because of low self-esteem. That's what I used to say. I've got low self-esteem. But then I realized after really spending time with myself and figuring out what I was good at, that actually took away that feeling because I was like, okay, cool. I love food. I love talking about food. I love talking about anything to do with it.

And so if I went to a party where there were even like lots and lots of intellectuals lots and lots of people who had so much knowledge about things I didn't I felt still confident going in and talking to one person about food in some way and that gave me confidence to have that conversation and so I feel really sometimes low self-esteem is what we think it is but it's just because we haven't figured out what we excel at or not even excel at what we love and what we really love sharing with other people and what part of us we adore and then we feel confident going out and sharing that with others and I think that sometimes mistaken is low self-esteem but I don't feel like it's that necessarily no I agree I think this is a beautiful way to kind of

segue into food because now you're building a whole career based around food but I really want to take you back to your childhood in London and we touched on it earlier being family being so important to you and I know they've had a big impact on your studying of food, your relationship with food and what food really means to you. So I want you to start with your childhood and share some of those pieces. Yeah, my family. So I come from an Indian background. My grandparents were born in India, but then my parents were born in Africa. And so I had a really nice, beautiful mix of cuisines as I was growing up. My mom was an incredible cook and it's really beautiful. I grew up vegetarian also. And so I had such a wide range of spices and like cuisines that I

was brought up with. And it was just really special because I felt like I got a really good mix of having been brought up in London. I had a mix of Indian food, but then I also had a mix of Western food and I grew up in that way. And so I really was inspired by Indian food, but then I also had a mix of Western food. And I grew up in that way. And so I really was inspired by Indian food, but I was also, we obviously loved like burgers and stuff that I was given. And so I really enjoyed bringing those two pieces together when I create food now. And I feel like that's really, really molded the type of recipes that I create now. And I actually got into recipe development. I never expected myself to do. This is never where I saw myself being.

But I started studying nutrition and dietetics. And if I'm completely honest, the only reason I ended up going into that field was because I didn't have the grades to become a doctor, which is what I initially wanted to be. I wanted to be a pediatric doctor. I wanted to be a doctor for children. And that was pretty much my dream from when I was very, very young. And I just wasn't academic enough or I didn't put enough effort at that time. And I didn't get the grades to do that. And so the next thing that I heard about to do with the body, my mom actually heard about was

becoming a nutritionist or dietitian. And so I decided to do that with not much knowledge of what I was going into. And once I did that that it kind of gave me the foundations I then worked for the NHS I worked at a hospital in London being a dietitian but I felt like a lot of things I was having to recommend and yeah the things I had to follow they weren't really in line with how I felt about the body I never really used medicine growing up I I really loved being in tune with nature. And so I really felt what nature provided us with has to be enough in our bodies for what we need. And so whenever I was prescribing certain things, I just felt a bit disaligned, like a bit unaligned with what I genuinely felt. And so when I left being a dietitian, I started studying Ayurveda. And Ayurveda is actually the most ancient health science that exists. It originates in India,

but it is incredible. Ayur means life and Veda means knowledge. And so it's essentially the science of life. And what I really love about Ayurveda, as soon as I heard about it, I was like, this is exactly what I want to study. This feels so in tune with who I am. And it was because it talks about how every single body is completely individual. So in Western medicine, and I totally, I have nothing against Western medicine. I really believe that there's a place for it with the, how far we've come with diagnosing and all the incredible medicines that have been created to help disorders and diseases. I totally, totally respect that. But at the same time, it says Western medicine tries to group everybody as one.

If we have a cold, you have the same medicine that goes to each person. If you have the flu, same thing. And it just talks about how the bodies are so different, just like we all have genes, but our genetic makeup is so different in the same way, our composition. So it says that all of our bodies are made up of elements. And so it doesn't make sense for my elemental composition to be the same as yours, because our bodies physically, mentally, emotionally, all so different. And so it really treats each person as an individual. And so how you would eat would be completely different to the way I eat naturally, because our body type is so different. And so I really appreciated that about Ayurveda, how it's all based on an individual rather than

just one medicine fits all or one food. If I eat this, then you should eat this. And that should make you feel healthy. And healthy for Ayurveda is according to you. It doesn't mean that just because that person eats salad and salad is seem to be healthy, that that's going to suit your body. And so I fell in love with Ayurveda and I've been trying to follow it ever since and share information that I've learned. I did a course in it to become an Ayurvedic health counselor and I found that so useful and it really really resonated with me so much that I really enjoyed sharing about it and trying to incorporate Ayurveda into the recipes that I create too just to help people live healthier more nourished lives. Let's take a

quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform Kajabi. You know I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity, which I love. Not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place. So it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business, you know, get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible. I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students so if you're listening

and haven't checked out Kajabi yet now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering Boss Babe listeners a 30-day free trial go to kajabi.com slash boss babe to claim your 30-day free trial that's kajabi.com slash boss babe yes I want to come on to your recipes soon because honestly you make my mouth water watching your stories and reading your blog so with regards to ayurveda so i really understand as well like what you're saying because obviously i was a chiropractor and i completely agree in the sense that no one comes with a little manual right i think it's really interesting let's say when you're turning that computer on or you're building something like an Ikea desk at home,

like it's the same for everybody. It's like the step-by-steps and it's going to have a way to exactly turn out. But what I learned in my years of being a practitioner is that humans are not like this. One thing might work for one person, another thing might work for another. So I really understand with what you're saying about the Ayurvedic principles around that so I'd like you to share you talk about the elements Ayurveda is made up of elements right is there five is that correct yeah so it's earth water fire ether and air every single thing in the world is actually composed of these elements we're all made up of elements air earth ether water and fire but the amounts in our body are just different depending on the person and so how it says it says that we

should relate to the whole world in that way too so for example when we decide what we're eating if we are a body and to find out what your elemental composition is one there are quizzes you can do online but i always recommend going to a doctor because there are so many elements that takes into account, one, your personality, two, your body type from your nails to your skin type to your hair to the shape of your eyes. It's such an intricate process. There's even a diagnostic tool of listening to your pulse, which tells you what constitution you are and all contributes towards it. So I really recommend if anybody listening would want to find out exactly what their constitution is to try and find an Ayurvedic doctor. There are so many in every country, so I'm sure they'll be able to find someone. But for a baseline, you'd be able to find out online for sure. And yeah, it's just every single thing is

related to it. So for example, if I am made up of predominantly fire and air, for example, then we want to eat foods. If you think of the qualities of fire and air, fire is hot, air is light, just two qualities, for example. So then if I feel and I really tune into my body and I feel that I get maybe acid reflux or I have rosacea or I get very heated, I get very hot even in summer, like compared to other people, that may indicate to me that, oh, maybe I've got too much fire in my body. And maybe I should have cooling foods because in Ayurveda, it's like increases like, and so in that case, I would need to be having cooling foods. I'd be need to having, because air is light, I'd need to have earthing foods, foods which are nourishing and heavier than,

for example, salads, which are light and cold. And so it's really, really beautiful when you end up understanding the elements. Essentially, you can end up understanding a lot of the foods that you're having. And on top of that, it talks about how spices are. I mean, Ayurveda talks about spices a lot. Spices are basically seen to be your medicine box. And so spices, each one has so many different incredible qualities that just adding them into foods that are difficult to digest actually ends up making them much easier to digest for your body. And how you combine certain things can actually make a difference in whether you digest it

well or don't. And so the elements are the basics of Ayurveda and really understanding that every single thing around you can be broken down into elements and so however it affects your senses so every single thing that you allow into your five senses has the ability to nourish your elements or help you align or throw you off a little bit too so yeah i hope that made sense no it makes perfect sense and on this podcast i always like to double down and ask a few more questions because i know there's so many people are going to be listening to this. And actually, I've not really heard about this much. And this makes so much sense for me. And actually,

this kind of will be why I don't like eating salads, or I do like eating salads, or how I feel when I eat certain food. And so I want to just ask a few more questions about a couple of these areas. So the first of all is spices so for me spices in western culture are really underutilized and what's the word like we're not as educated on them yeah and so i think like for me i've been learned about the anti-inflammatory properties and turmeric and the stabilization of blood sugar which comes from cinnamon etc i've really tried to incorporate those into my diet so i'm curious as to like if people are thinking about how can i incorporate spices to be better off my diet what are some of the key spices that you're like wow these are ones

you should definitely look at in your diet because they have so many medicinal properties yes so there are heating spices there are cooling cooling spices. And depending on your body type, you would need some more than others. So it's also seasonal because let's say you're in a hot country or wherever you're living, if it's hot or cold, you would then know what spices to have. So if the place that you're in is cold, what you'd be looking for is heating spices. So heating spices are things like mustard seeds, ginger. All of those things will create warmth in the body. And mustard seeds are obviously more of an Indian spice, but you can add them into everything. It's

got such a lovely flavor. And for example, if you're in a warm country, cooling spices would be things like coriander, fennel, what else is cooling? Cumin. And actually those three, coriander, cumin, and fennel in Ayurveda seem to be tridoshic, which means great for all types of bodies. Like every body type will react very well to cumin, coriander, and fennel. And what I usually do is make a spice mix of roasted cumin, roasted fennel, and roasted coriander, and just blend it all up together. And I add that because it seemed to be balancing for all. So I always recommend if you want to try and incorporate spices, start off with coriander, cumin and fennel all together and just add it in. Like sometimes I put it into my tea.

Sometimes I put it into my curries. It's a very neutral spice mix that won't affect anybody negatively and shouldn't. So that's seen as like the queen trio of spices. I love it. And you just touched on them there. You said the word try doshik and you're talking about the doshas, right? And they're what people like you say, when you spoke about earlier being tested for, you end up finding and I literally don't know what I'm talking about here. But my understanding

is you find what dosha you are? Yes. Doshas is the same as constitution. So the English word for is constitution. So elemental constitution is also known in Sanskrit as dosha and what are those ones oh so there's kapha which is a mix of water and earth pitta which is fire and air and vata which is air and ether and depending on what you are made up of not only does it affect I say the foods that you should eat etc but it also does it affect your personality sometimes yeah definitely and just a note there because I know a lot of people come to me and they're like oh I've been told I'm kaffir or I've been told I'm pitta and a lot of the time what people forget is that you actually have all of these doshas in you because you have all the

elements it's just that some show up more and you're born with a certain constitution and then depending on where you are in the world depending on what's affecting you in your life, you can become imbalanced. And so really what we should be focusing on is what's your imbalances right now. That's what I always tell people. It's like, what's your imbalance right now? And that's what we should be treating your original constitution. What you were born with is, yes, ideal, like that's your ideal constitution. But what would be treated is what you were born with is yes ideal like that's your ideal constitution but what would be treated is what you are currently and so sometimes people get a bit confused because

they've usually told their original constitution which is great but it's not telling you right now what your imbalance is for you to treat even if i am a kapha body i could have a pitta imbalance which is fire and so right now because i'm in la where it's a hot country, or if I go to a desert, it's going to be hot, and it's going to be dry. And so at that time, I may have a pitta imbalance, which is fire. And so at that time, I will need to treat my body accordingly and have cooling things and have moist things, cooling things. But that doesn't mean I have a pitta constitution does that make sense yeah it makes complete sense and what I'm really taking away is like how much just consciousness within one's body that we can really have and being able to learn what suits us at different periods of our time and I think for so many people they just don't tap into their body and like we

started off right from the beginning of this podcast talking about the mind, right? And learning about yourself and your personality. And I love that this has naturally gone into learning out about your body and really learning about, okay, well, how am I feeling right now? Yeah, you did that with the mind, didn't you? Sorry, you were asking if it affects your mind.

Yeah, sorry, I didn't address that bit, but I can now. It does definitely affect your mind. And that's what's amazing about Ayurveda. It's mind, body, soul. It's really trying to harmonize all three. And so for example, with like, I talk about pitta imbalance, because that's more predominant in summer, that can affect you. So if you've got too much fire in your body, think about the qualities of fire. When you say someone's fiery, what does that mean? It means they are a bit agitated, or they get snappy quite easily or they're very very determined very sharp that's essentially how I find fiery is described and that's exactly it so some people end up feeling when their pitta is in balance their mood will

change they'll become fiery they'll become agitated they'll become a little bit aggressive because fire is aggressive and in the way, when it comes to digestion, for example, a pitta body, a fiery body has to eat on time. If they don't eat on time, their digestion is so fiery, their digestive fire is so strong that they need to eat on time. If they don't, it will affect their mood, it will affect their mindset, it will affect everything. Whereas for me, for example, I'm a kapha body, which is earth and water predominantly. And so that means I have a lot more stability. And so I could not eat till 12 o'clock and I'm okay. I still feel very stable. I still feel very neutral in my mind because I'm earth and water, which is a lot more stable and stagnant rather than fire, which is moving and rapidly using up

the energy in your body. This is so interesting. I'm going to ask a question. You know, with astrology, and so we have, depending on what star sign you might be, you might be like, say, like a water one or an earth one. Is there a crossover here or not? I definitely think there is a crossover. I haven't really studied astrology in depth.

And so I just know it because I've grown up in an Indian family and astrology is like generally always talked about whether you're picking dates for like a wedding or important things but astrology comes from the Vedic tradition as well and so does Ayurveda and so I'm pretty sure there is if the astrology is done right you'll definitely see a lap crossover between the two yeah it makes complete sense so we spoke earlier about you said the core spices coriander cumin and fennel which you think is like really really great for everybody what are healing foods that would no matter what type you are these are foods that you should really incorporate into your diet well so again like, the spices, if you're including spices,

I would definitely recommend starting with coriander, cumin, and fennel. They are great spices. You can find them pretty much in every store. So the first thing I always recommend is adding in spices into your diet and then just experiment as well with them. There are so many out there that you can try. Even herbs have their place too, but spices have the most potent medicinal qualities. The other foods I would really recommend is in Ayurveda, it talks more about prana. Prana means vitality. And so it says that actually prana is almost like the life force of whatever it is you're eating. So with plants, for example, when you're eating salads, if the salad has been there for three, four days, since it's been picked and brought to

you, the amount of prana is definitely reduced. Whereas basically the fresher you can eat, the better for your body because the vitality is stronger from the moment it's picked from the ground. And obviously we don't all grow our own vegetables at home or like our herbs at home, but the way that we can implement it in our life is microwaving food, reheating food, putting food into the fridge and then eating it. All of those things reduce the prana because you're changing the way that it's supposed to be in the world. Cooked and then put in the fridge and then eaten again. You're changing the way that it's made up. You're changing the way that its constitution is by changing its environment so often. And so actually, the focus

in Ayurveda is to do with high pranic foods, high foods with high vitality. Naturally, that means trying to avoid and I know this is difficult, because unfortunately, fresh food tends to be so much more expensive. And that ends up being a difficult factor too. But then it's like, okay, let's strip back to simplicity. Let's say you're cooking yourself rice and some lentils and some beans or some veggies, just that meal, the combination of all of them would be so nourishing to you versus you having a burger out of the freezer. And so yeah, it's honestly like, it's so much more to do with how you eat rather than what you eat. I used to think in Ayurveda, it was like, oh, when I was younger and I hadn't really studied it, it was like, oh, this food is Ayurvedic. This food is Ayurvedic. And then I realized after studying it, actually every single thing is

Ayurvedic. It's how we use it and it's when we use it. So it's all about tuning into our body. And I love what you said about tuning into our body because it's so true. In Ayurveda, what it says is like, don't trust in other people to constantly tell you what you should be eating, what you shouldn't be eating, because the trends change all the time. First, avocado was like so good for you. And then it's too fatty for you. And then coconut oil was good for you. And then it's like got high saturated fats. And the trends are constantly changing with food. Okay, guys, before we continue, I'd love to give you some info on our sponsor for this week okay so I just want to take a second to tell you about the sponsors of this episode because

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feel warm in my chest when i was eating it like ginger does you can try it out with different spices taste the spice feel it going into your throat feel it going into your stomach what's the post-digestive effect it's having in your body is it causing you to feel energized when you eat pizza for example a lot of people talk about carb coma yes because when you're eating white digestive effect it's having in your body? Is it causing you to feel energized? When you eat pizza, for example, a lot of people talk about carb coma. Yes, because when you're eating white flour, it's been processed, it's been stripped away from its natural fibers. So when it goes into your body, it takes a long time for your body to digest it. So your body becomes sluggish. And so you're listening to your body and you're thinking that didn't really go down well with me. It felt like it took such a long time to digest. Maybe I should have one slice and have a lot more fresh vegetables

with it. And so I feel like it's just so much more about tuning into your body, having foods with a lot of vitality in it. Fresh produce is always going to be so much more nourishing to you than food that you take out of the freezer or food that you've had leftovers for a long period. Also remember when you have leftovers, you're combining so many things together. You've combined them at that time. And at that point in time, they're at its highest value. You then put it in the fridge and they all end up, imagine them in your tummy. You're basically allowing all the acids to mix. You're allowing all of these foods that you don't usually get combined for this long to stay together for so long, and then you eat it again. And so the value of it completely changes

in your body and people have digestive issues so much these days and a lot of the time it's to do with those food combinations and it's to do with the quality of the food that they're eating this is so interesting for me as well so you're talking about quality of food as well let's talk about that because i feel like particularly coming from the UK to the US I understand our food standards are different and let's just talk about like what we should be looking for when it comes to food quality whether that be you know fresh or not sure so I always say obviously fresh is best but like I said it's actually so unfortunate that fresh food ends up being so much more expensive. I do recommend if you are able to then go to a farmer's market or a market of some sort where it's coming.

In LA, we're quite lucky. We have that opportunity to have farmer's market. In London, we don't really have that so much. But trying to go to the farmer's market and picking vegetables. Another thing is eating seasonally. That's something that really ends up throwing people's digestion off. If you think about it, our bodies are so in tune with nature. We have come from nature.

Our elements are from nature. And so we have to live according to where we are. Our bodies are in tune with the season, with the weather changes. All of that is part and parcel of our digestion also. It can all affect it. And so whatever foods are grown in the soil of the place that we are living in, those are going to be most beneficial to us at that time because that's when it's got the when foods are grown out of season they are actually grown in an artificial environment and so if they are being grown

in an artificial environment we are also eating them in an environment that is artificial to when it should be eaten did that make sense yeah completely and i'm also just even thinking about like i love raspberries and back in the uk i used to want raspberries all year round and so part of the year they would literally come from so they would come from spain right and so how they got here and then when you start looking into how food is stored as well on the shipments and now you're sharing about is it called prana you said earlier about now you're sharing about prana i'm like oh wow the nutritional value of those raspberries out of season when they've been

shipped so far must be so low compared to when i go to my grandmother's and pick them and where she's growing them and you know you will be able to taste the difference too i always mangoes for example when mangoes are brought out of season one they're sour a lot sour they're not as sweet as they are when they're in season because obviously naturally like they need the natural sort the best type of okay i'll give you an example like tomatoes tomatoes grown here i have so many i used to have so many patients that used to tell me that they could go to italy and eat the tomatoes that would be grown in the vines there and they would have absolutely no issues with acidity there they wouldn't get any acid reflux. They would be able to eat tomatoes every day for like the 10 days

they were there. But then as soon as they would come back to America or even sometimes come back to England, they would end up having such bad acidity. They cannot eat the tomatoes here. And that's either because they're grown in artificial environments or they have been imported from somewhere else where our tummies are not climatized to the soil that they're growing it in. And so seasonal is so important. And yes, we may have cravings for other foods, and we may want those other foods. And once in a while, it's fine. But the problem is, these days, we're really eating out of season very, very often. And we're not looking at, again, what you said, where our foods have been sourced from. If they're

constantly being sourced from countries that have a very different climate to ours, and our seasons are very different, that's going to affect us. And then when I talk about, obviously, fresh sometimes is not accessible to all people. And so I feel in that case, I always say try and pick boxed over canned. Because canned foods, no matter how hard they try, chemicals seep into especially liquid form so for example if you're buying beans there's liquid when you buy the beans it's so hard to create tins or cans that don't have some chemicals that seep into the beans and also if you think about it those beans have been on the shelf for so long and so they've had to add something in to preserve them

which then ends up almost killing the prana that's in them anyway. And so I always say if you do choose beans that are not fresh, then I would really recommend getting boxed ones because at least they don't have the chemicals, additional chemicals that are coming into them from the cans that usually have them. So pick boxed over canned. I love this. And this podcast is all around helping those listening to be their best selves. And I really, truly believe it. I would say you can only be as successful as you are mentally and physically capable of being. And I just think it's so important to be aware of these things.

And even if you can't act on every single one of them, choosing what is an option for you. Like, oh, actually, do you know what? I'm going to be a bit more intentional about eating seasonally. I'm going to be a bit more intentionally about looking at where my food is coming from or I am going to get some coriander cumin and fennel and incorporate that straight away into my diet and I just think there's so much power in looking at the fuel that you are putting into yourself like it's very easy for us to think about a car like think if you put yeah it's yeah diesel and we call it petrol in the UK it's very easy for us to think about a car like think if you put yeah it's

yeah diesel and we call it petrol in the UK it's just called gas here right yeah and you mix that up and the car doesn't work and it's the same I think for humans going oh I actually really need to think about what I run on best what suits me best and what's going to help me get the best out of my body and nurture my body and food is often seen as like a secondary like i always say people they're eating on the run they're eating as just to make sure your body doesn't give in on you you're eating like doesn't matter what you're eating you're just eating you're not doing it mindfully you're just running around and grabbing whatever you can the problem with that is ayurveda talks so much about mindful

eating conscious eating and it's just a practice to help you also become mindful and conscious in every area of your life. When you're nourishing your body, you are nourishing it so that it's able to do all of those things you want to do. So actually, it's one of the most important, vital practices to get right. Because if you don't nourish your body right, you're not going to be able to work in the most efficient way. You're not going to be able to contribute to your family in the most loving way there are so many factors that fueled from just nourishing your body and so actually eating and a lot of the practices that i made to recommend the things which we all do like no tvs and try and eat without distractions really focus on because if your mind's distracted your body's distracted too so all those the digestion that's supposed to

be happening in your body, it's allow yourself to focus on that. Allow yourself to sit with the food, appreciate. I always say do a prayer of gratitude before you eat. And I love doing this prayer of gratitude before I eat. It's going back to the farmer that's picked the food, to the person that sold it to you in the store, to the person that's cooked it for you, to God, to the universe, to the sunshine, to the rain that's grown it. All of those things, it's becoming more mindful about what you're putting into your body, but also having gratitude for it and having gratitude for your body for accepting it and praying that it does nourish your body in the way that it's supposed to.

I love this because for a long time, I did not consciously eat. And I know your blog now is all around conscious cooking and conscious eating. And I know that so many people listening also probably don't consciously eat. So basically what you're saying is, and we'll talk about consciously eating first, and I want to come back to consciously cooking, but it's about, like you say, before eating, like actually sitting down and looking at your food, thinking of where it's come from. And that process is then allowing your body to be prepared to receive it. Is that right? And what happens when you do that? Yeah. And actually, well, when you do that, so if the first step of digestion, it says, that's why food should be attractive. And it doesn't mean it has to be a gourmet meal,

but you have to engage all your senses in the process of eating. Just like if you want to be present in a certain situation, there's that practice of trying to engage all your senses in the moment to help you get back to your present moment. If your mind gets distracted in the same way, it says, when you start eating, it has to be visually attractive. As soon as your eyes see the food, that's actually when your digestive juices start flowing. So your digestive juices need to be flowing before the food actually enters your stomach. It needs like a second to know that, okay, wait, food's coming. Otherwise it's hard to digest. And so it says that's why food should actually be attractive. And that doesn't mean it has to be like presented as a gourmet meal. What it means is it needs to smell appetizing. It needs

to have like different colors in it. It needs to look exciting and you need to be attracted to the food for your digestion to work, first of all. So that's number one. Number two is one, slow eating, calming down when you're eating, slowly to allow your body to catch up with what you're shoveling down in your mouth. Let it catch up, let it provide the juices and the digestive enzymes that are required to digest it properly. Because what actually ends up happening is, if we end up overeating, what happens is the food is not digested, which then means it stays in our

stomach, which then means it ends up fermenting. And that's what usually causes a lot of post digestive issues after you eat, like flatulence or cramps, or your elimination ends up being off and interesting. Yeah, mindful eating starts from the moment you set eyes on the food, but then it even goes back to when you're cooking. We talk about soul food and we talk about food cooked with love from our moms. And I talk about this a lot just because I've noticed such a difference for me. And conscious cooking is all about infusing energy into the food. And a lot of people feel like it sounds wishy-washy, but's like look there's been so many scientific evidence so many scientific experiments done where water has been played they've had water in two different rooms or three different rooms and they played different music like heavy metal music another

or like music with a lot of negative energy and the other one was played classical music and another one was played like calming music and they saw a change in configuration of the molecules depending on the energy that was going towards depending on what type of song was being played And another one was played like calming music. And they saw a change in configuration of the molecules, depending on the energy that was going towards, depending on what type of song was being played. And so when I read that, I was like, of course, every single molecule is living. Whatever we are eating, there are living cells in that. And so whatever energy we are putting in and infusing into that food,

our mind, whatever our mindset is while we're cooking, that's actually eaten and experienced. And that's what's nourishing that person. And so I always think about that, because I'm like, actually, I have the ability when I'm cooking, to not only nourish someone's body, but to be able to nourish their mind as well. And I think that's so beautiful. I have the ability to put so much love and energy into the food so that when they receive it, that has the opportunity to change their mindset and to change their mood or whatever it is. And there's so much power in that. I love that. And the responsibility of that as well, I think it's just so many people don't even think about. And I think that's just so beautiful. And you're so right with what you're saying around molecules and I think for some

people they're like oh like really that doesn't even make sense that's like mumbo jumbo but actually when you start looking I'm a science girl when you start looking at the science of it you're like wow this is mind-blowing that we don't even talk about this normally this is mind-blowing that actually this seems wild and far-fetched but actually when you look at it and you come down to really understanding what everything is made up of you really see the evidence of that and i think it's really powerful and i think it's sad in many ways that lots of cultures have lost the importance of food and the meaning of food and it's seen as like a survival survival trait something you have to just grab something

whatever's going versus that oh I want to really nourish and give my body the best that it deserves exactly exactly totally I completely agree so I know that lots of people are going to be listening to this podcast there's going to be two types of people there's going to be one who like wow oh my goodness I really want to know more about Ayurveda principles I don't find this overwhelming at all like I want to dive in I want to learn more and there's going to be the other category of people going oh my goodness this seems like a lot it seems very overwhelming I just want to pick up my burger and x y and z and so I really just want you to share a couple of just key things that make it like super bite-sized for everybody because I can pull them out of this but I really just want you to share a couple of just key things that make it like super bite-sized for

everybody because I can pull them out of this but I really feel like just coming from you like saying it doesn't need to be daunting there's a couple of key things that you can do that make a difference I always think like you don't and I felt like that in Ayurveda when I first started learning I was like oh my gosh I need to implant all at the same time and I failed miserably and so I really believe it's okay, maybe one week, you decide to add spices, maybe the next week, you decide to eat seasonally, and you try that out. Like it can be very, very small changes that you make. And that actually will form more of a habit than you're trying to add everything in at once. But when I think about the key tips that I

usually recommend to people, and I feel like these are the most important. So one was to add spices. The second one is, this is a new one, but I feel like it's an easy principle to add in. And you can get these on Amazon. There's something called a tongue scraper. Do you use a tongue scraper? I bought one because you recommended it in Puerto Rico. It's so good. It's a vital ritual. According to Ayurveda, we accumulate so many toxins on our tongues overnight. And actually those toxins are being released for a reason. And so before you drink your coffee, before you drink your lemon water, make sure when you're brushing your teeth, even if you decide not to brush your teeth before you eat all those things, make sure you use your tongue scraper because you don't want to ingest

those toxins that are trying to be released out of your body. And a tongue scraper is a must. The third one I would say is probably drinking warm water. Did I speak to you about this as well? No, but I heard it before. So share. So having ice cold water can really, really dampen your digestion. They say your digestion is like a digestive fire. And so having cold drinks regularly ends up dampening your digestion and making it so much harder. Your body's basically struggling to digest food, especially if you're eating it, drinking it with your food, you're diluting your digestive enzymes, and you're also dampening the fire

that digests. And so what I would say is try and incorporate more warm or hot water into your diet and avoid drinks that have ice in them too much. Like have your frappuccino once in a while, but don't make that a consistent thing in your life. Really trying. And I found one of our mutual friends, she changed to one where she had a lot of digestive issues and she actually changed one thing. This one thing, which was changing from cold water or ice water to having only hot drinks. And she said to me me how incredible like just that one change has

changed her digestion so much she doesn't get stomach cramps in the same way anymore when after she eats like so many things but it's definitely been a proven thing that really helps many people eating seasonally was another one trying to stay in tune with nature and the other thing is trying to have gaps between your meals to allow your food to fully digest. And there's that thing about having, I know in a lot of Western diet recommendations, it says we should be having snacks in between our meals. But the way Ayurveda talks about it is, let's say we've eaten a large meal, and our body starts the process of digesting it. If it's three quarters of the way of digesting it, and then you throw some new stuff in there, it then focuses on the new stuff and forgets to digest the old stuff. And so our body ends up fermenting that food and ends up being toxins in our body. And so what it recommends is having at

least three hours to four hour gap between our meals to allow our body to fully digest, fully absorb the nutrients from the foods before, and then we can start that process again so that's something that I feel like many people aren't aware of but it can also really help with digestion I love them yeah so good and I also want you to share your new blog because on there are so many recipes that people can really utilize to get started with and learn a little bit more because I know I'm signed up to your newsletter and I'm always like oh my goodness like you send things out from like cookies to curries like all the things I'm just I'm here for it all oh thank you yeah my website

is radhidevlukia.co so it's my name and then.co at the end and I also have a YouTube channel hopefully launching next month where I'll be sharing the recipes and cooking them with everybody and showing them how they're made. So I'm really excited about that. I've been trying to film some recently. And so I'm really, really excited to have that out so people can really see how the recipes are created too. But yeah, I share a lot of information on there, a lot of knowledge on my website about Ayurveda too. And really lovely recipes that are hopefully simple, but also include a lot of spices. So, so stuck up on your spice cupboard before you go to my website.

I love this. And thank you, Raleigh, for such an amazing interview. This has been so good. And I just know, like I said, we often focus on the business, but we aren't going to be successful unless we look after ourselves. And this is why doing this interview is so important for me. So thank you for coming in and sharing your knowledge and allowing people really to understand how they can take care of themselves when it comes to food and some simple changes that they can make. I know that there's going to be lots of people going, okay, right. I can do those five tips really easily. So thank you so, so much. Thank you for being so loving with the way you ask questions and I really appreciate it you made me feel so comfortable and it was so lovely having this conversation with you

I'm so glad yay so I just want to finish up by sharing if you have any takeaways that you want to share with myself Radhi or the Boss Babe channel please tag us and share them myself at danielcanty tag at boss share them. Myself at Danielle Kante, tag at bossbabe.inc. And then Radhi, do you want to share yours? Yeah, Radhi Dabluke. I love it. Thank you. If you loved this episode, please subscribe, download a few more, and please leave us a review. I really want to hear what you enjoyed, what your main takeaways were,

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