Foods to support you on your menstrual cycle

Foods to support you on your menstrual cycle:

• Menstruation (Vata Phase): Light, soupy, cooked foods that are easy to digest, and drink warm water to reduce cramping.

• Follicular (Kapha Phase): Enjoy building foods and good fats like ghee, dates, bananas, avocados, to name a few.

• Ovulation (Kapha Phase): Building foods like Fresh fruits, melons, leafy vegetables, and coconut.

• Luteal (Pitta Phase): Cooling & calming foods like cucumbers, leafy greens, zucchini, and drink coconut water

One of the things I most wanted women to understand while writing Everyday Ayurveda for Women’s Health is that the menstrual cycle is not random. The body is shifting through different energetic phases all month long, and food can either support those transitions… or make them much harder.

Ayurveda has always viewed women’s health through the lens of rhythm, nourishment, digestion, rest, and cyclical living. Sometimes the support the body needs is surprisingly simple: warmer foods during bleeding, more building foods after menstruation, cooling foods before the cycle begins again. There are so many simple, accessible tools, friends!

This kind of wisdom changed the way I understood my own body, and it’s one of the reasons I wrote the book in the first place.

The paperback edition of Everyday Ayurveda for Women’s Health will officially be out in the world on September 15th!

Cooking

There’s a real shift that happens when you stop thinking about cooking as “just making food” and start understanding how meals affect digestion, energy, mood, and the way people feel in their bodies. Ayurveda has always understood that food can either support the system… or work against it. And honestly, there’s a growing need for people who know how to cook this way. Retreat centers, wellness spaces, private clients, community programs… people are looking for cooks who understand nourishment on a deeper level.

This is one of the reasons I created the Ayurvedic Culinary & Nutrition Training in India. I wanted to build the kind of training I wish existed when I first started: practical, sensory, deeply rooted in Ayurveda, and connected to real-world opportunities.

If this path speaks to you, comment COOKING and explore what this experience could make possible.

ṚTÚ VIDYA: SEASONAL WISDOM An immersive women’s retreat in Italy

ṚTÚ VIDYA: SEASONAL WISDOM An immersive women’s retreat in Italy with Kate O’Donnell & Nea Ferrier

Join us APRIL 11–18, 2027 in Salento, Puglia, Italy, for an immersion into Ayurvedic lifestyle practices and yogic philosophy to support your journey.

This 7-day immersion will include:
- Daily Ashtanga Yoga practice - one-on-one Mysore-style teaching
- Asana workshops with a woman-centric focus
- Complimentary Yoga Practices: Pranayama, Restorative Yoga & Meditation
- Daily lectures covering Women's Physiology through the Lens of Ayurveda, Ayurvedic Lifestyle
- Practices & Yoga & Ayurvedic Philosophy
- Sanskrit Chanting

This retreat is ideal for yoga teachers, Ayurveda students, longtime practitioners, and women who simply want to deepen their relationship with these teachings in a beautiful and embodied way.

Daily life on this retreat looks something like this:
- Morning Mysore practice. Long brunches with organic food from the farm.
- Afternoon workshops and lectures with Kate and Nea.
- Evening dinners under the Italian sky.
- Time to rest, swim, journal, walk, and breathe a little deeper.

If Italy is calling you… it may be for a reason.

Moon Cycles for those Who No Longer Menstrate

Even after menopause, when the menstrual cycle has completed its work, you will still notice rhythms of energy, creativity, productivity, rest, and reflection moving through your life in connection with the moon. Ayurveda has long observed that our bodies remain in relationship with the cycles of the natural world, including the moon. I find this idea deeply comforting. There are times for doing and times for being, times for gathering energy and times for turning inward. The moon gives us a beautiful reminder that both are necessary.

I write more about women's cyclical nature, lunar wisdom, and living in rhythm with your body in Everyday Ayurveda for Women's Health. And I'm super excited to share that this popular book will be available via paperback on September 15th!

Unhinged workout in 40s

Welcome to the most unhinged corner of my house. I have never filmed here, but in the spirit of unhinged things that are actually really good for you — here we are.

Walking stairs with weights is one of those deceptively simple practices that I have come to take seriously in my 40s. Not because it looks impressive, but because it works. Resistance training in perimenopause is not optional. It is one of the most evidence-supported and Ayurveda-aligned things a woman in this chapter of life can do for her bones, her metabolism, her nervous system, and her mood.

From an Ayurvedic perspective, the Vata years ask us to build and maintain what we have. Bones need loading. Muscles need challenge. The body does not benefit from going lighter as we age. It benefits from going intentional.

You do not need a gym. You do not need a beautiful setup. Apparently you do not even need a finished basement.

You just need to show up and do the thing, consistently, in whatever space you have.

What is your most unhinged place to work out? I have a feeling I'm not alone.

The Ayurvedic Culinary & Nutrition Training

For years, I've watched Ayurveda students, yoga teachers, practitioners, and food lovers ask the same question: "How do I actually learn to cook this way?" Not just recipes, but how to understand digestion, food energetics, seasonal eating, and how to prepare meals that genuinely help people feel better in their bodies.

So I'm creating the training you have been asking me about for years!

The Ayurvedic Culinary & Nutrition Training is a professional immersion designed for people who want to deepen their understanding of food as medicine through the lens of Ayurveda. We'll study digestion, nutrition, therapeutic cooking, menu planning, food energetics, and the practical skills needed to cook for retreats, private clients, wellness programs, and community spaces.

And we'll be doing it in India February 15–24, 2027 with @rasayanamysorekitchen

This is for the Ayurveda professional wanting to expand their offerings. The yoga teacher who knows food is an important part of healing. The future retreat chef. The person who feels called to nourish others and has always felt that the kitchen is one of the most powerful places to practice Ayurveda.

I'm so excited about this one.

The Kapha Girl's Guide to Summer

• Summer is actually a pretty great season for Kapha. Warmth, movement, sunshine, and longer days tend to help the heaviness that settles in winter and early spring. More sun awakens energy that's been waiting quietly to surface. This is your season to shine, Kapha.

• Lean into the joy of movement in the sunshine. Morning walks · Ocean swims · Outdoor yoga · Gardening · Dancing in the kitchen while the dal cooks. Momentum is always medicine for Kapha but summer makes it easier than any other time of year.

• Fill your plate with in-season foods right now. Coooked Arugula or Mustards Greens · Corn · Green Beans · Grilled Peppers, Eggplants · Berries · Spicy chutneys · Lemon

• Start the day with sun salutations, and embrace the sun!

• Summer is a genuinely good time for Kapha to: Try something new · Clear something out · Travel lightly · Say yes to the thing that you've been putting off · Let a habit that isn't serving you go quietly

My Kapha people… this is your season! The sun is out, your energy is coming back online, and suddenly the idea of leaving the house sounds a little less offensive. Summer naturally helps you feel lighter, clearer, and more motivated. Send this to your Kapha friend who’s finally ready to emerge from hibernation

The Pitta Girl's Guide to Summer

• Pitta enters summer as she owns it, and you kinda do! The problem is that "I can do it all" has no natural off switch for Pitta, and summer's energy won't provide one. By August, if you don't weave in intentional slow down, the body will say it instead.

• Summer is a good time to practice being a little gentler with yourself. Less forcing, less overcommitting, less turning every beach volleyball game into the Olympics. Small cooling rituals like applying coconut oil on the feet, slower movement mornings, and more time near water go a long way.

• Spend more time in the moonlight to give you steady engery and balanced producitivity. Moon bathing · Night swims · Late evening walks when the heat has finally released. The coolest, quietest, most Pitta-balancing part of a summer day is after the sun goes down.

• You're the only dosha that can genuinely handle raw and cold foods efficiently. Which means summer is actually your season at the table. Watermelon · Summer salads · Cucumber · Mint · Cilantro · Coconut · Sweet fruits · Zucchini · Lime · Aloe vera juice · Peppermint tea. But go easy on spicy, salty, and sour!

• Start the day with these Yoga poses: a squat, a forward fold, legs up the wall.

My Pitta people… summer can make us feel amazing right up until the moment we suddenly realize we’re overheated, overcommitted, slightly irritated, and somehow treating beach volleyball like a professional sportt! Summer is your reminder that slowing down is productive, too.

Send this to your Pitta friend who needs a little moonlight and coconut oil this season!

The Vata Girl's Guide to Summer

• Summer can actually be surprisingly aggravating for Vata. Travel, irregular meals, overstimulation, too much socializing, late sunsets… By August, you feel exhausted, restless, slightly bloated, and not entirely sure how it happened.

• Beach days are wonderful. Beach days, skipped meals, iced coffee plus 11 pm bedtime are less wonderful for Vata. Find a summer rhythm that allows you to eat at the same time every day and keep your bedtime routine so you can stay rested and regulated.

• Eat cooling foods… but don’t go full raw-food mermaid. Too many smoothies and salads will leave Vata dry, bloated, and spacey by August. So gravitate towards cooked zucchini, asparagus, avocado, lime water, cilantro chutney, coconut, and stewed fruit.

• Start the day with a squatting pose of any kind.

• Get outside in the morning light. Vata needs this more than most. It regulates your circadian rhythm. Which, for Vata, whose nervous system is already running slightly untethered, is less of a wellness tip and more of a daily requirement.
  
  My Vata people… summer can go from “fun and spontaneous” to “why am I anxious, bloated, overtired, and eating tortilla chips at 10:47 pm?” very quickly! A little rhythm goes a long way this time of year.
  
  Send this to your Vata friend who forgot her sunglasses were on her head all along again.

āhāra

Ayurveda reminds us that food is not neutral.

This classical verse teaches that āhāra immediately nourishes the body, builds strength, and sustains life itself, which is why we should treat eating with reverence rather than rush.

What and how we eat has a direct and immediate impact on vitality, resilience, and long-term health. This is your mid-week reminder that when food is chosen and prepared well, it does far more than fill the stomach... it supports the entire system!