Ayurvedic remedies to gain weight

To gain weight every day massage your body, exercise and eat nutritious food. Those with poor appetite should take appetiser medicines. If efforts are made at all levels then the body will be supple. Details of this are given further.

1. Oil massage

Massage the whole body with one of the following oils 15 minutes before exercise.

A. Coconut oil

B. Sesame oil

C. Groundnut oil

D. Bengal gram oil

Soak a bowl of Bengal grain in a little water overnight. in the morning add two glasses of water to it and boil till it is reduced to one glass. Then add a litre of sesame oil to it and boil till all the water evaporates. Filter through an iron or steel strainer when still hot and when cool fill in a bottle. Use it for massage before a bath. Also take 1 or 2 teaspoons in hot water on an empty stomach. This makes the muscles supple and strong.

2. Exercise – Suryanamaskar

After praying to the Sun Deity perform Suryanamaskar. Increase the namaskar by 1 every day till you are able to do 24 namaskars daily.

3. Medicines

Nutritious food is important to gain weight but if the digestive system is weak or if you have disorders of digestion then the nutritious food consumed is not digested and results in harm instead of benefit. To prevent this those with poor appetite or digestive problems should take one of the medicines given further and only after the appetite improves should start eating nutritive food.

A. In the morning on an empty stomach eat 4 washed leaves of tulsi (Holy basil) and then gargle the mouth with water.

B. Half an hour before a meal chew an ½ inch piece of ginger rolled in salt.

4. Nutritious diet

A. Food should include all six flavours – sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter and acrid with a predominance of sweet foods. A list of nutritious foods is given further. Depending on your liking choose 1 or 2 of those as eating the same food every day is boring. Change them as per the list. Eat any nutritious food only when you are hungry as eating when not hungry ruins health.

B. Eat a fistful of black or white sesame seeds after chewing well.

C. Soak a fistful of white sesame seeds and make a paste. Add a cup of water to it. Mix to make milky. Add a arecanut sized jaggery ball to it and drink every morning.

D. Soak 3 teaspoons of black gram with shell or lentil in lukewarm water. After 3 hours add a bowl of grated coconut to it and make a paste in the mixer. Extract juice, filter add jaggery and drink.

E.Add 1/10 th of black gram flour when making bhakri in the dough. Consume with ghee, buttermilk or brinjal bhaji.

F. Twice a week for lunch eat chapatis made from a mixture of black gram and amarind seed flour with usal(curry) of black gram.

G.Eat a vegetable made from sprouts of val (beans) cooked with a little gravy.

H. Eat a mixture of bananas, dates or figs with a teaspoon of honey depending on your hunger. Those with recurrent cold should have only honey and dates, no banana or figs.

I. Eat curd with breakfast.

J. Eat a mixture of cream from milk and cubed sugar (khadisakhar) depending on your hunger.

K. For a month every day eat 2 teaspoons (10 grams) of coagulated milk (khava) and follow it with a glass of milk.

L. Every day with breakfast eat 2 teaspoons of grated cheese, 1 tablespoon of honey with 1 clove.

M. Eat paneer regularly.

4A. Nutritive foods to be consumed
predominantly when underweight with other disorders

4A 1. For poor appetite, sleep problems, irritability and as a liver and heart tonic 

In the mango season every day eat 1 mango and drink a glass of milk after it. Continue for three consecutive months. Do not eat any fruit other than mango with milk.

4A 2. Burning in the stomach

Either eat chavli usal or drink chavli soup with chopped coriander leaves.

4A 3. Hard stools and passing less urine

Eat a mixture of half a bowl of partially fermented curd with an arecanut sized ball of jaggery when eating food for a week. Then stop for a week. Continue for 3 weeks. The fat content of the body increases causing weight gain.

4A 4. Loose stools

drink chawli soup with fresh chopped coriander leaves.

4A 5.Dysentry (when stools are loose at times and hard and sticky otherwise)

Consume yellowish red pumpkin with hard seeds. Removing its skin grate it and sauté in ghee. Add cubed sugar, cumin seed powder, pepper powder and rock salt to taste. This fortifies the body.

4A 6. Urinary and skin problems

Soak a fistful of gram in water overnight and eat after half an hour of exercise. This makes the skin healthy.

4A 7. Low sperm count

Seeds of jackfruit enhance growth of muscle, fat and sperms.

-Vaidya Megraj Madhav Paradkar, Maharshi Adhyatma Vishwavidyalay, Goa. (20.5.2016)
(Reference : Sanatan’s Series of Holy texts on adverse times –life saving in adverse times- Ayurveda)