Listen in this order
- Ayurveda Series 1 – What Is Your Body Type?
- Ayurveda Series 1 – Vata/Ectomorph Body Type
- This episode
Episode Resources
- Listen to ‘The One’
- Watch the epic ‘The One’ music video
- Beginners Guide To Ayurveda on The Melissa Ambrosini Show
(Correction… I said that I am a PUFA which means my body prefers Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid for fuel when I meant to say I am a MUFA which is Mono-Unsaturated Fatty Acids)
Pitta Appearance
- Can have refined features (Melissa has classic Pitta features)
- Can have green eyes, sometimes blue
- Broader shoulders and a strong full chest
- Good calves and strong legs
- Strong neck and square jawline
- Medium height (ectomorph is taller generally)
- Pitta/Mesomorph look is the classic cover model. Lean, strong, developed and refined
- Can have red hair (I have bits of ginger in my beard from my Nana on my mother’s side)
- Baldness and thinning is common
Pitta Weight
- Find it much easier to put on muscle than the ectomorph
- Strong, muscular bodies and can often see their veins
- If you are mainly Pitta, then your weight should stay pretty balanced
- You can still lose weight if you are mesomorph/ectomorph and can easily gain weight if you are mesomorph/endomorph
Pitta Nervous System
- Like their body, their nervous system is strong and more resilient than the ectomorph
- In a balanced state, their body is less prone to inflammation, but Pitta is the fire, passion, and drive means they can push too hard, which then leads to a more inflamed body
- Their natural confidence and ambition needs to be kept balanced to avoid operating in that ‘go, go, go mindset’ all the time and eventually burning out
- Often uncomfortable in hot weather
- Strong sex drive
Pitta Diet
- Generally can eat more protein because they are so good at breaking down protein and using it for good, like healing, in the body
- Strong Agni or digestive fire, does well with animal protein
- Do very well with moderate carb intake and moderate fat intake
- Watch hot spices like chili and cayenne, which can lead to imbalance
- Think ‘cool and sweet’ to balance out the Pitta fire
Pitta Exercise
- A lot of great CrossFit athletes are mesomorphs
- Can push pretty hard because their nervous system can take it
- Classic 5 x 5 weight lifting or heavy one rep max and high volume training like 10 x 10 is possible, but be careful not to push too hard and end up imbalanced
- Can handle cardio well and are great with full body workouts with weights like resistance and strength training
- Usually great sprinters and amazing bodybuilders
Definitely listen to this series in order. This is my Ayurveda Series 1. The first episode was episode 21, which is, “What Is Your Body Type?” The second episode was episode 22, in which I spoke about the Vata and the ectomorph body type in detail.
It’s funny, Melissa and I are in entirely different states right now, and I haven’t been keeping track of what she’s working on with her podcast, and just today an interview comes out, which is about Ayurveda; the beginner’s guide to Ayurveda, so we are definitely tuned into each other because here I am doing a full series on all the body types from an Ayurvedic perspective.
Today we’re going to focus on the Pitta, also known as the mesomorph body type. To avoid repeating myself with lots of different things, please do go back and listen to the other episodes first.
Pitta is the term used for one of the main doshas in the Ayurvedic system of medicine, and mesomorph is the modern scientifically proven equivalent of Pitta. Many, many, many thousands of years ago those pesky little Indians knew exactly what they were talking about because they knew already what the mesomorph was. In a nutshell, the Pitta dosha controls digestion, metabolism, and energy production, which is super important, right? The primary function of Pitta is transformation.
Those with the predominance of the Pitta principle have a fiery nature that manifests in both mind and body, and I can tell you right now that my Vata Pitta constitution is a blessing and a curse. Whenever I’m imbalanced, I become super fiery. Here’s the thing; yesterday I became fiery. What didn’t I do? I didn’t stick to the code; my personal code.
I didn’t have a good sleep the night before; I’d eaten something before bed so I didn’t sleep very well. I got up and didn’t have time to do my usual meditation, my yoga, my day just got off to a pretty average start, and then it was just downhill from there. I got aggressive on Voxer, which is an app, with Melissa, I just totally, unnecessarily got quite aggressive, and I was out of balance; that was my Pitta totally out of balance. I’m glad I’m talking about this today. When I look back at 2017, and I spoke about this in a previous episode, I was drinking bulletproof coffee, I was doing coffee enemas as part of a gut healing protocol, and I was eating a pretty Pitta aggravating diet. I got more and more addicted to chili. Would you believe I never liked chili in my life?
All of the sudden, I couldn’t make it hot enough. Here I am at home literally fermenting my own hot chili sriracha. I’ve never been interested in this stuff before and just slathered it on everything. The weird thing is, the more tolerant that I became of chili, the more of a nasty person I became. I became angrier, my Pitta was really imbalanced, and I knew all this stuff, but I just ignored it. Remember, if you ignore your intuition with anything, there’s always a price to pay, and boy, do I forget that sometimes.
Slowly I’m learning, but isn’t that the human state? We remember, we forget, we’re asleep, we’re awake, and that’s why we’re here; to make that journey every single day to remembering and awakening.
Again, we’re going to look at the Pitta dosha today, or the mesomorph body type, from the perspective of appearance, nervous system, weight, diet, and exercise. As I said before, I am a Vata/Pitta constitution, but predominantly Vata, and you can read more about that in an earlier episode at iamnickbroadhurst.com/22.
Pitta Appearance
The mesomorph can have beautiful, refined features. If I look at Melissa, for example, she’s got classic Pitta features. Probably more Kapha eyes, but she’s just got this stunning, almost chiseled look. The Pitta is very much almost that aspirational cover model type of look.
Often they can have green eyes, sometimes blue, and they have broader shoulders, a strong chest, usually really good calves, strong legs, a strong neck, square jawline, generally medium height, they’re not super tall. The tallness tends to come with the ectomorph body type. If you look at those qualities, you can see that that is what we’re talking about here with the refined looks, the medium height, the muscular build, the well-developed features, well-developed body parts. You’re starting to look at a very classic, aspirational body type.
Sometimes they can have red hair. I don’t know if you can see it on Instagram live, but I have tiny bits of ginger in my beard, which comes from my Nana on my mother’s side who had red hair. Red hair comes from the Pitta constitution. Often they can go bald early, and thinning of the hair is very common with Pitta as well. That’s a general look at the appearance.
Pitta Weight
Generally, Pitta, the mesomorph, find it much easier to put on muscle. I do have a bit of Pitta in me, so I can put muscle on, but generally at the expense of my nervous system. Their bodies are generally more muscular, they look a bit veinier, and you can see veins in the skin. As I said, I can put on muscle, but I have to push really hard to do it. I’ll never, ever be massive. That’s probably a good thing; it’s just my natural state.
The Pitta is generally more muscular. You might see people in the gym and you think, “Man, how did they get so muscular?” Or, “How does that girl have such good arms or legs?” Generally, it’s probably because they’re Pitta.
If you are mainly Pitta, your weight should stay pretty balanced, but you can still lose weight if you’re an ectomorph/mesomorph, like me, and you can easily gain weight as well if you are a mesomorph/endomorph, which we’ll speak about in a later episode. Melissa is the mesomorph/endomorph, which is the Pitta/Kapha, and she knows how to balance that. She can stay in a perfect weight range for her and really manage that very effectively.
Pitta Nervous System
Like their body, their nervous system is strong and it’s much more resilient than the ectomorph. In a balanced state, the body is less prone to inflammation, which is really important, but because Pitta represents fire, passion, and drive, this means the Pitta can sometimes push way too hard, which leads to a more inflamed body. It’s a double-edged sword, right?
Pitta is generally confident and ambitious, so you’ve got to be really careful of keeping that in check. You don’t want to be operating in that “go, go, go, go,” mindset all the time. Like with my Vata/Pitta, I generally want to go, go, go, go, that type A personality. But that go, go, go, without the resilience of the mesomorph means that I burn out easily, which is why today I have a bit of a sore throat; because I have been go, go, go the past few days. Often Pitta can be a bit uncomfortable in hot weather because naturally, their body type is already warm, and they can generally have a strong sex drive, lucky you!
Pitta Diet
You would have noticed in the Vata ectomorph episode that I didn’t go into a specific diet, and I received a lot of questions on social media about diet recommendations for people. Number one: I’m not a practitioner, so I’m not going to give that advice. I’m just a very passionate human who wants to share.
I want you to use this as a catalyst to go and do your own investigations, but number two: we’re all so damn different! We’re so different. You can go and read online about a Vata pacifying diet or a Pitta pacifying diet. For example, coconut oil is Vata pacifying. Great, I need a Vata pacifying diet, but I can’t break down coconut oil. If you look at my genetics, I’m a PUFA, so I am a Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid guy, so I need to be careful about the fats that I consume. That means you can’t eat the same as me. If I give you recommendations, that’s not going to work for you.
These diet recommendations are very general requirements of the body type, and the main goal is just to empower you to own your body type with confidence, and then dive deeper if you want to.
Generally, the Pitta mesomorph can eat more protein because they’re very good at breaking down protein and metabolizing it as energy and using it for good, for healing in the body. They have a strong digestive fire, or Agni, which is known in Ayurveda. Lucky, lucky you; I wish I had stronger digestive fire and do very well with animal protein.
Melissa can take down a cow; I can take down 100 grams of a whitefish. It’s like a totally different sort of digestion that she’s got in comparison to me. If you eat animal protein, of course, that’s totally up to you; spiritual, environmental beliefs, absolutely. I’m not going to make comment on that, but generally, they do very well with animal protein, with moderate carb intake, and with a moderately normal fat intake. It just all balances for the Pitta, but they have to watch hot spices like chili and cayenne, which can lead to imbalance very quickly. Generally, with diet, think of cool and sweet to balance out the Pitta fire.
Pitta Exercise
A lot of great CrossFit athletes are Pitta, mesomorphs, and generally because of that nervous system resilience, you can push pretty hard, which is pretty cool. If you’ve got that, lucky you. That five by five strong list weight lifting sort of training, the heavy sort of one rep maxes, the high volume training ten by ten, everything I say which is bad for the ectomorph is generally pretty good for the mesomorph.
They can handle cardio really well, and do really well with full body workouts, with weights, resistance, and strength training. They usually make amazing sprinters. This is the classic sort of beautiful sprinter body which you can see at the Olympics. They make amazing bodybuilders.
When Pitta is out of balance, here’s the thing; it can be seen in bloodshot eyes. I had bloodshot eyes up until about a month ago. For about twelve months, I was so out of balance from some of the things that I did to myself last year. I thought I was doing the right thing, but I ignored my intuition, so I paid the price, trust me. It can lead to poor vision, skin rashes, acne; just think anything that’s red or inflamed like on the skin is a clear sign that Pitta is imbalanced. When it’s balanced, you have healthy, radiant skin.
If you’re out of balance as a mesomorph, Pitta, you can be very demanding, a total perfectionist. That’s not me…no way! And a total workaholic as well, I’ve learned to balance the workaholic stuff out, big time. It can also lead to acid reflux and, as I said before, you can get early greying in the hair, and you can get a bit angry, and you can get thinner hair and balding. There are a few signs of a Pitta imbalance.
Remember, this is a catalyst, an ignition point, I guess, to inspire you to go deeper into your body type. If you’re a Pitta, wow, you’ve got some really beautiful qualities there physically, but you’ve got to be so careful. You’ve got to remember that every body type comes with its negatives and its positives.
Here is the negative: If you push, push, push too hard, you will burn out; you will become inflamed. So just remember that all the time; balance, balance, balance. When you do your own research, look for those signs of imbalance within you, and start to look from an Ayurvedic perspective on how to rebalance those.
From a Vata perspective, I needed to get off that keto diet. I needed to get into a higher carb diet. I just had to do it. Man, it’s made all the difference because I’ve been living a much more Vata pacifying life. I also need to pacify Pitta as well, because that can easily become imbalanced when you are running multiple businesses and doing podcasts and all these things.
I hope you enjoyed that. I’ve started to end my posts with a simple saying, and that is, “Look up, life is fricking amazing.” I want to say it again; look up, take a look around you today, look at the world we live in, look at the opportunity we have.
We are so blessed, so incredibly blessed that we get to read this on an iPhone from someone sitting in his studio in Bondi Beach, Australia, sharing what I’ve learned with you, and then I get to hear from you on social media. I mean this is a beautiful, beautiful world we live in. We have so much to be grateful for, so what can you be grateful for today?
Melissa and I always start the day with three things we’re grateful for. I woke up this morning, turned on my phone, and went straight to my Voxer app, and there she was, in her beautiful sweet voice telling me three things she’s grateful for, and I told her three things that I’m grateful for. If she happens to be in the same bed as me, then we roll over, and we say it to each other. So, look up, life is beautiful.
Once again, as always, have a beautiful day, and I love you heaps. Ciao.
I would love to hear from you, so please tag me @IAmNickBroadhurst on social media, and use the hashtag #TheNickBroadhurstShow, or leave me a comment below (I read every single one!). And if you could take a minute to leave me a 5 star review on iTunes I would be very grateful.
P.S. Always listen to your intuition (and your doctor or practitioner) before trying any new health practice