A Fat Body is Not Healthy

I have a friend who's fat. More accurately, she has a fat body. She's not fat. She's the soul inside the body. She's the same size as the rest of us--1/10,000th part of the tip of a hair. But her fat material body makes her feel discouraged and embarrassed. She told me that people actually make comments about her body being overweight, and that it hurts her feelings. I feel compassion for her awkward situation, so I wrote her a letter today. I want to share it here, because it contains tips that have helped me and my husband keep our weight stable.

1:32pm Mar 8

Oooohhh, that must be really painful for you, to hear people making comments about your weight. That is so mean. I am sorry that they speak so childishly and make you feel sad. 

May I share some thoughts with you? Even though we are not these bodies, Krsna has given us instructions how to keep these bodies healthy, so we should take advantage of His kind advice. After all, our bodies belong to Krsna and they are meant for His service, so we should keep them healthy. 

We hear from Srila Prabhupada and Srila Bhaktisiddhanta as well as from Ayurveda that it is not good for our health to keep a fat body. This is true for all of us. We all must learn how to control our tongue and belly. But we can only do it with Krsna's help. 

Krsna has given us Ayurveda to help us keep our bodies healthy. Here are some rules that our Ayurvedic doctors in Udupi have shared with us: 

(1) Eat when you are hungry 

(2) Don't eat when you're not hungry 

(3) Drink when you're thirsty 

(4) Don't drink when you're not thirsty 

(5) Exercise every day. If possible, do some vigorous exercise until you perspire. If that's not possible, at least do some walking. Walking is excellent exercise, and should ideally be done in the morning, because morning sun is good for our health.

Another thing I learned long ago from Ayurveda is that if a person wants to lose weight, he should drink water before eating, not during eating or after eating. There are some foods that are good for weight-loss, too, like squashes of all kinds and juicy fruits. 

About twenty-five years ago, my husband and I had great success losing weight with an alkaline diet. We ate mostly fresh spinach salads tossed with lots of other yummy ingredients like lettuce, roasted sunflower seeds, friend paneer tidbits, grated carrot, steamed beet slices, sliced black olives, chopped celery, sliced cucumber, and boiled chickpeas. We would dress the salad with a delicious salad dressing, offer it to Krsna and then honor it to our full satisfaction. For a sweet, we would have fruit and almonds. We also exercised vigorously every day. And the weight melted off our bodies till we were so skinny that his pants wouldn't even stay up around his waist! 

Krsna can help you. You should pray to Krsna to help you lose weight. Don't think that because we're supposed to eventually get off the bodily platform that you should neglect your body. To desire to keep the body healthy just for sense gratification is a material desire. But to desire to keep the body healthy for serving Krsna and His devotees is a spiritual desire. Whether in your mind it is a material desire or a spiritual desire, if Krsna helps you lose weight, it will help you in your service. And all benedictions, both material and spiritual, are bestowed by the Supreme Lord. Srila Prabhupada writes, "If, however, anyone has any material desire to be fulfilled, he had better pray for it to the Supreme Lord (although that is not pure devotion), and he will thus achieve the desired result." (Bg 9.24 Ppt)

We are not these temporary conglomerations of molecules called the material body. Ultimately, we will leave the body at the time of death and the body will disintegrate into the totality of matter. But for now, while we are encaged in these bodies, it's best to remember that our bodies are, as they say in Christianity, "temples of the holy spirit." So we should take good care of them and use them in the service of our Lord.

These suggestions are just that. Suggestions. They are strategies that have worked for me. That's why I am sharing them with you. I hope something that I've shared here will be helpful to you. Praying for your success, Mata Phalini