‘Arre, I am a fruitarian. When I first went on the diet for 2 months I had nothing but fruits. Tabhi to weight lose hua. Wajan to hatana padta hai madam, aap ko to pata hoga? After that, last month se mere naturopath/nutritionist (he swore by her) ne ek jowar roti chalu kiya. Very high in iron, aap ko to pata hoga.’
‘Nahi yeh sab mujhe nahi malum,’ I told him.
‘Joking na?’ he said, surprised.
‘No, serious. Yeh majak nahi hai Kedar. Iron, kya iron? Iron absorb karne ke liye aur usko haemoglobin mein banane ke liye body ke paas kuch chaiye ke nahi?’
‘Haan isliye to 1 kilo fruit madam.’
Kedar’s story was not new to me. Nor was his enthusiasm to follow what he believed was a ‘natural diet’. He was 20 kilos overweight before his diet.
Now with no protein in the diet, the weight had crashed. His self esteem should have soared (he is totally the bindaas types), instead he started feeling ‘Something is not right’. He met me because he couldn’t figure it out. Why it was that people asked him ‘Bimaar ho gaye the kya?’ instead of
‘Wah, kya Aamir/Shahrukh jaise lag rahe ho.’
‘But my favourite, madam, is Saif in Race. Sachi, aap ko aisa lagega ke aap ka client hai isliye, lekin usne jo Race mein style mara hai… [eyes lighting up with mix of admiration and respect] Wah! Nawab style ekdum.
Anil Kapoor ko to kha dala. Matlab maine to Bipasha ko bhi nahi dekha, sachi.’
‘Aap bolo abhi mere diet se achha aur kuch ho sakta hai? Fruit, sabzi—
no oil, and soup. Perfect. Phir bhi yeh problem. Aisa ki, mota tha—to no problem. Now weight lose—but cholesterol problem. Kya kare aadmi bolo?’
You know what I am getting at. No protein but only carbs, that too in restricted amounts. And yes, some fibre. But protein and fat being completely avoided. Instead nimbu shots to ‘cleanse’ the liver, kidney, etc. I guess the only thing it cleanses completely is the brain. So let’s not bore you with what all could have possibly gone wrong, which led to Kedar’s ageing (from looking like 30 he started to look 38), his cholesterol going up and haemoglobin levels going down (which led to the entry of ‘iron rich’
only-one-jowar roti at lunchtime).
Kedar’s diet is not only restricted in fat but also in protein. When we are deprived of a nutrient like protein, weight loss occurs only because the body breaks down its muscle to make up for the resultant lack of amino acids.
Your lipid profile, your cholesterol and triglyceride levels, can go up because in the absence of a primary nutrient like protein, the body experiences stress. Also, haemoglobin is not just iron but iron (heam) +
protein (globin). In a protein and calorie deprived state, to think that jowar
will lead to iron absorption and normal haemoglobin levels, is foolish to put it mildly; in a calorie deprived state, the body has no nutrients to make any haemoglobins.
When I explained all this to Kedar, he looked like a shattered man.
‘Matlab yeh sab mehnat karke mein to chutiya ban gaya! Sorry madam.’
‘Its ok, Kedar. I can understand how you feel.’
‘Par sab rishi muni to yahi khate the na?’ he said, referring to his fruit only diet. ‘Yes Kedar, par tum rishi muni ho kya? Tum share bazaar mein paisa lagate ho. Tum jungle mein rehke, dhyan dharana to nahi kar rahe?
You lifestyle is different, right?’
‘Haan, woh to hai. Sirf Lakhsmi ji ki karta hun, subeh nikalne se pehle.
You should also have madam, Lakshmiji, sitting posture not standing. Nahi to kya, chanchal hai na, nikal jaati hai.’
Ok, so I now planned Kedar’s diet for him. Again the same issue, ‘Itna khaunga to patla kaise rahunga?’
‘Kedar, nahi khaoge to rahoge kya, pehle socho? Cholesterol badha hai, triglyceride bhi badh sakta hai. [It was already border line.] Woh badha to diabetes bhi ho sakta hai. Ek ke baad ek. Tumko kya karne ka hai bolo?
Young dikhne ka hai? Baal sar pe chaaiye? To pehla body ko kuch karo.
Usme thoda investment karo. Nutrition daalna padega. Asli grahasthapak ke tarah khao, rishi-muni ke tarah nahi.’
‘Haan, yeh sahi baat hai madam. After all I am a family man.’
In my opinion, lots of preconceived notions about dieting—that it will leave dark circles under your eyes, give you chipped nails, hair loss, frustration and anger—are linked to protein deficiency. Amino acids are necessary for normal hair growth and lustre, strong nails and smooth skin. Without them not just how you look, but how much fat you burn, will be affected.
Sadly when it comes to eating correct, there are no shortcuts. High protein or low protein, both diets fail to improve health and body composition (reduction in fat and increase in lean body weight). Improving health and increasing our sense of well being is the basic premise of ‘going on’ a diet. The safest thing to do with protein is to tread the middle ground.
That is, consume an adequate protein diet and eat a diet with balanced amounts of carbohydrate and fat so that protein is free to perform its
primary functions. Our protein requirement stands roughly at 1 gram per kilo of body weight. So if you are a 60 kilo individual you will need 60
grams of protein a day. Most of us don’t get our quota of protein, and a professional dietician is the only person who can really assess if we’re getting enough.
Protein requirement varies at different stages in your life. Young and adolescent children, pregnant and nursing women, aging and/or stressed individuals actually need more than this stipulated 1 gram per kilo of body weight. Regular exercise, frequent travel, etc also increases the protein requirement of the body. The body wastes about 40% protein in just few days of experiencing mental stress, surgery, prolonged sickness and starvation. During these times not just protein but even the total calories consumed need to go up.When your protein intake is adequate you will feel strong, sleep well and look great.
If you do follow the four principles, and increase your nutrient to calorie ratio, you should be okay. However if you’re working out and travelling a lot, I would recommend you go on a protein supplement.
‘Your butt has become like lollipop’
As I went into shirsasana, I trembled and felt unsteady. ‘Your butt has become like lollipop,’
said my yoga guru, Kobad. I collapsed on the floor after hearing that! ‘What have you been doing?’ asked Kobad sir. I had just got back from trekking in Sikkim, where I walked about 16
kilometres a day. Are you eating correctly? There is just so much muscle loss in your body.
Your hips have lost the strength that they need to hold you in the headstand. Get back to eating correctly and improve the protein content of your diet.’
Apart from Kobad sir, everybody else had commented very positively on the weight I had lost on the trek. 3 kilos to be precise, and all of it in 7 days. ‘It’s just like falling sick,’ said Kobad sir. ‘Weight gaya, strength bhi gaya. Kya fayda?’ For once I was at the receiving end.
From walking less than 1.6 kilometres a day to walking 16 kilometres a day, I had put my body through a lot. Also, I had been walking up and down all the time, and had climbed to an altitude of almost 3800 metres. But had I increased protein levels to make up for all the wear and tear? No, I had slipped. (Hey, I slip too.) No wonder I had slipped in the headstand.
Increasing activity without increasing protein only leads to muscle wasting—and now I had totally experienced the reality of this.
Protein is found in all meat, fish, egg, legumes, milk and milk products and soy. It is also found in minute quantities in all your other food. Whey protein, a powdered milk product (see box in following pages), has the best biological value and can be used to meet your daily requirement of protein; or to supplement protein in your diet. Importantly, legumes like dal, rajma, chole are not just a good source of protein but they also provide essential carbs and fibre.
Though non-vegetarian sources tend to contain higher amounts of protein (in terms of both quantity and quality, because they have both the IAA and DAA), they are also usually high in fat (especially saturated or bad fats) and lack fibre. It is for this reason that I ask my clients to avoid red meat (too much of saturated fats) or at least restrict it to no more than once a week. And while eating red meat we must take care to choose the leanest of cuts, with all the skin and fat removed.
All other forms of protein can be eaten daily. Fish and eggs are better than chicken; fish scores the highest marks because it’s a rich source of omega -3 fatty acids. But remember: all the non-vegetarian protein options are tough on your body and hard to digest. Soy is great. But because it can increase estrogen levels (the female hormone in your body) it should not be overdone. If you like your soy, eat one soy product a day but not more.
Some vegetarians depend almost entirely on soy for their protein intake.
Not a very good idea. It is always a good idea to eat from a variety of sources of protein, because of each source’s different kinds of amino acid content. Vegetarians should always eat food combinations because most vegetarian sources have limited amino acids. So the amino acid that your roti lacks is provided by dal, or the one that your rice lacks is provided by kadhi (made out of curd), or the ones that certain vegetables lack is provided by seeds like jeera and til that we use in our Indian cooking. As I mentioned earlier, what is important in protein is the amino acid content, especially the IAA content. There are eight IAAs and we should have all of these IAAs in our main meals. This is easier for non-vegetarians. However, choosing a variety of foods throughout the day will ensure that we don’t fall
short of IAAs. So vegetarians too can get all their IAAs, if they ensure that they eat a variety of foods throughout the day.
Whey protein
Whey protein has got more bad press than whisky, gin, rum, wine, beer, and even grass. Whey protein is a powder made from milk which you mix with water to turn into a drink. It has the best biological value of protein; which means that almost every gram of whey you consume gets used for its intended purpose and is absorbed by the body. Whey isolate, made from whey protein is a boon for lactose intolerant vegetarians like me as it doesn’t irritate the stomach or the intestines.
Whey protein has been accused of affecting the kidney, liver and heart but this isn’t true.
Although superstars, cricketers and doctors advertise for the so called ‘Protein drinks’, (especially for children, easy targets perhaps, not to mention their parents’ obsession with their height), the reality is that these drinks are so loaded in sugar and have such miniscule amounts of protein (not to mention poor biological value too) that they really do much more harm than any good. And a nutrient is never specifically beneficial for a particular age group. Whey protein on the other hand is easy on the system, has zero sugar, and is easy to digest. If you weight train regularly or run long distances, whey protein will become a necessity. (It also comes in all flavours: chocolate, vanilla, strawberry and many more.) Word of caution: whey protein is a supplement. It is not supposed to be used as an alternative to eating correctly. Consuming adequate protein, carbs and fat by means of a well-balanced diet is a must. Only then can whey protein be of any help. Like with everything else, if you overdo it or depend on it alone to provide you with protein, you stand to lose out on its considerable benefits.
How to eat your proteins
How much of the protein we eat is actually reaching the sites it is meant to and how much of it is being used for its intended purpose is determined by:
• Total calorie value of your meal: if you are short of your quota of calories, the protein you consume will be used to create energy and will not do its repair work.
• Method of cooking: most proteins need to be cooked well as it makes it easier on your stomach. This applies to all meats, egg and pulses. Only fish and dairy products can be eaten raw. Undercooked protein is a disaster. Protein needs a certain amount of processing. Ever eaten undercooked chicken breast, rajma or chawal? I rest my case.
• And most importantly your state of mind. So even if Sonu and Monu eat the same grams of protein of the exact same amino acid profile, how well their body utilises this protein (whether its chicken breast or rajma chawal) will vary. Sonu exercises regularly (expect his organs especially intestines to be strong and healthy), doesn’t watch TV or chat on phone while eating, has his meal well cooked and is in the company of his girlfriend while eating, doing some romantic gup-shup. Monu doesn’t believe in exercise (weak stomach and digestion capacity) and is having a fight over the phone while eating his half there-half not there meal. Who will absorb protein better? Sonu! Full marks to you. Of course this rule applies to all food, but particularly to protein as it’s the toughest nutrient to digest.
Veg vs non-veg
I can’t talk about proteins without touching upon the veg versus non-veg debate. This eternal debate is about much more than complete and incomplete proteins, but it does deserve special attention with regards to protein.
So which is better, veg or non-veg? A lot of people take immense pride in being vegetarians. The idea behind vegetarianism is that of ahimsa, non violence or compassion towards all. So when you order your veggie Mac with Coke, veggie delight pizza with Pepsi, puri, bhaji, shrikhand, chole batura, dal bhatti, jalebi, churma, rasgulla, etc is there no himsa there? You are killing your own stomach. Too much food is a form of cruelty too; you are being cruel to your own stomach.
Maybe you cringe at the sight of chickens packed in stuffy carriers and goats on altars, and can’t generally stand the idea of a chicken or non-veg dish on the same table as yours; or despise people who eat non-veg. But are you being truly compassionate? Or is your compassion reserved only for animals? (No offence Ms Maneka Gandhi.) There is enough evidence to show that the human digestive system is better suited for vegetarian food. Moreover, vegetarian eating is said to reduce world food problems. (And even global warming. Livestock CO2 emissions are rapidly adding to the global warming phenomenon.) But what we need to understand is that veg or non-veg, what we eat is a matter of personal choice.
Vegetarians (including me, I am one by birth and by choice) need to understand that being a vegetarian is about practising non violence and compassion towards all, including yourself.
Ahimsa is a much deeper philosophy (it made MK Gandhi into a mahatma, and caught the entire nation’s imagination), and not as superficial as ordering eggless pastry, or disallowing non-veg restaurants in your neighbourhood or forcing all restaurants in the neighbourhood to serve only veg food. And like everything else this ahimsa has to start with being kind or compassionate towards yourself. If we continue to load our stomachs then all benefits of vegetarianism are lost. A stuffed stomach is in a much more pitiful condition than the chicken in the stuffy carriers going over speed breakers.
On the other hand there are non-vegetarians who can’t stop pitying the poor ghas-phoos eating vegetarians. They argue that vegetarians are deprived of meat which is so rich in proteins and great in taste. But tell me how much of protein can your body assimilate when you stuff chicken biryani like there is no tomorrow or eat mutton and chicken in every form, size and shape at 3 am in the morning at Bade-miyaan after getting sloshed in the night with all the clubbing.
Again, our body’s ability to digest and absorb proteins depends on our state of mind, time of the day and most importantly on how full we are feeling. So if you have dabaoed on your favourite chicken dish thinking its all protein so it won’t convert to fat, you are just being hopelessly optimistic.
Veg or non-veg, whatever you choose to eat, be kind to yourself and your stomach and eat only a little at one time. Remember the golden rule, just fill half your stomach at one time.
With this you will be practising ahimsa even while consuming non-veg food.
The reality is that proteins can be assimilated by vegetarians and by non-vegetarians only if they eat with all their senses, follow the 5 basic rules of improving nutrient intake and never overload their stomachs.
Proteins you should never eat…(these are high on saturated fats) And how to cheat on them 1. Sausages
Eat them as your first meal
2. Cold cuts and processed meats
or after your post-workout
3. Beef
meal. Eat them once a week
4. Lamb
provided you follow the four
5. Pork
principles and exercise three
hours a week.
Proteins to eat through the day, that ensures optimum fat burning Proteins to be consumed and sustained release of blood sugar
after exercise or any
stressful activity
Eggs, chicken, fish, all milk products (paneer, cheese, yoghurt, milk), Protein powder (providing at soy milk, tofu, sprouts, lentils, nuts
least 20 grams of good
quality protein per serving
or 4-5 egg whites and this is
a must)
How to eat them
How to eat them
With vegetables, carbs or by themslves. Eggs, lentils, dairy products, Eat them within ten minutes soy and fish can be eaten at any time. Chicken should be eaten at the of your workout.
end of your working day as it’s relatively tougher to digest and can slow your body down during your working hours. The hours between 6 and 8 pm are a good time to eat fish and chicken as the body needs these nutrients then to repair itself.
All about fats
‘Look at me, from everywhere I am perfect. I just need to lose this’, she said picking up flab from just above her low waist jeans and then pointing to the ‘saddle bags’ which bulged from under her butt, just at the top of her thighs. ‘So many of us can empathise with what Radhika is saying,’
Mahesh her husband said. ‘My only problem is this,’ pointing to his pot belly. ‘I am also perfect, otherwise’.
See we all are perfect just the way we are. But we are too occupied doing too many imperfect things. Just one of them is banning fats from our diet.
Fat plays a big role in our body. Most importantly, it helps us survive during periods of prolonged mental and physical stresses, sickness, and prolonged starvation. Fat is stored as adipose tissue in the body from where energy can be used in these extreme cases. It’s due to this ability that the human species has evolved and survived. So fat is our body’s answer for bad times. It is the only nutrient that can help us survive through the toughest phases of our life. Thus your so-called lean times will actually make you fat. Corollary: fat or good times will make you lean. So eat fat to lose fat.
Fat is energy dense substance providing us with 9 calories per gram.
Carbs and proteins provide only 4 calories per gram. Other than survival, fat also performs the following functions in our body.
1. Transports vitamin A, E, K, D, which are also known as fat soluble vitamins
2. Protects vital organs like heart, kidney, liver, lungs, etc 3. Acts as an insulator and prevents loss of body heat 4. Is a part of the protective sheath covering the nerves and helps in nerve transmission
5. Stimulates flow of bile and emptying of gall bladder 6. Required for milk production and the normal growth of a foetus in pregnant women
7. Makes up much of the brain (more than 60% of the brain is composed of fat), and helps it function smoothly
8. Lubricates joints
In short fat is required not just for optimum health but for the sustenance of life itself.
Now, there are many types of fat, each one having a specific role to play in the body. These fats can be roughly divided into the following categories: Saturated fats
These are solid at room temperature: butter, animal fats (especially red meat), milk and milk products, coconut and palm oil. Long chain fatty acids are found in animal fats. These damage cardiovascular health and are hard to digest. Ghee (which is basically clarified butter obtained after milk is taken through a process of curdling and heating, or clarifying) has short chain fatty acids. These are easy to digest and promote good health. As a general rule, the fats in animal fats are tough on the body, while the ones found in dairy products are easily absorbed.
Anti-ageing
To keep the face and body from ageing, work at keeping body weight to optimum. Don’t get complacent and tell yourself that if you were 65 kilos at 25, you can be 80 kilos at 40 years.
No, not if you want a ‘young’ face. To have a young face, you have to reduce the gravitational force which is acting upon it; which simply means that you must not allow your body weight to go up from its optimum (and this is usually the one that you maintain in the prime of youth, at 18 to 25 years of age).
The second thing that you must do is include healthy fats in your diet, like nuts (including peanuts), cheese, ghee, paneer and fish. Including fats not just provides your facial skin with the moisture and raw material that it needs to keep from wrinkling, but also helps you to burn fat effectively there, by not allowing your body fat levels (body weight) to go up. Nothing keeps age off your face like fat (the right amount of it of course; the amount which keeps your body weight at optimum). The appearance of wrinkles and loss of suppleness actually has to do with loss of fat from the face.
Unsaturated fats
These are fats which are liquid at room temperature; so all oils except for coconut oil. Just like proteins have essential amino acids or IAA, which cannot be synthesised by the body and need to be provided by our diet, fat too has EFA or essential fatty acids. It’s important to get them through our
diet to maintain optimum health. Unsaturated fats are further divided into three groups.
Mono Unsaturated Fatty Acids (MUFA)
These are found in peanuts, olives, avocados, almonds. They are considered very crucial in maintaining the health of the heart. The popularity of olive oil has grown tremendously in the last few years, as has people’s sense of how healthy it is. Indians, especially in cities, are switching to olive oil (extra virgin mind you) because it is being hailed as the saviour (our love for everything phoren). So, you’re wondering as you’re reading this, is it bad? No. But closer to home, peanut oil (it’s always been around) and that new entrant, rice bran oil, have a strong content of MUFA. Their fatty acid content is similar to olive oil, and they have a flavour which is much better suited to Indian cooking than olive oil. Oleic acid (a component of MUFA) is great for moisturising skin, and to keep it glowing; some hair growth vitamins are made with it.
Poly Unsaturated Fatty Acids (PUFA)
These come in two types: omega 3 and omega 6. Omega 6 is found in sunflower, safflower (kardi) and soy bean oils (most vegetable oils are predominantly PUFA). Omega 3 is found in flax seed, walnuts and the oils in fish. Polyunsaturated fats have heart protecting values too. We should have equal amounts of omega 3 and omega 6. But in diets today, the ratio of Omega 6 to Omega 3 has grown as skewed as 20:1, which can lead to the hardening of arteries and an increase in cardiovascular diseases.
Trans fats
This is the new kind of fat which was created to preserve food and give it texture. It is made by converting unsaturated fats into saturated fats, by a process called hydrogenation. Trans fats are commonly used by restaurants, fast food chains and companies that produce food on a large scale and for commercial purposes, as it is cheaper. Most processed foods, store-bought cakes, biscuits and fast food such as pizzas, burgers and fries, etc have this kind of fat. It is rightly called bad fat as it increases the levels of low density lipo-protein or bad cholesterol in our body. This is the kind of fat that is best avoided.
Whichever fad diet you went ‘on’ you got ‘off’ it as quickly. Our poor body suffered, a silent victim of this abuse and all that it could do was endlessly yo–yo down from one weight and up to another. Like Radhika, all we ended up doing is get obssessed even more about the flab on our body.
Hit it, wiggle it, abuse it (‘yeh, yeh mera problem area hai’. Just look at us calling the part which has taken the maximum abuse a problem area!) and hide it, of course. Almost everything other than actually providing it with love and nourishment: the only long term and effective solution to your
‘problem area’. When you go on a crash diet or don’t provide your body essential fatty acids through your diet, the system perceives stress and responds by storing more fat for you. And you can’t blame your body. It is only activating its survival mechanisms and protecting you from any harm that may come with stress; preventing fat burning to try to improve your chances of survival, and lowering your metabolic rate.
Of course there are some smart marketing professionals who have gotten fat bank accounts on this ‘kabhi on kabhi off’ relationship. Enter low fat biscuits, low fat butters (height of hypocrisy and stupidity), low fat chocolates, low fat chips, low fat chaklis, low fat cheese, low fat ice cream, low fat everything. And how people flocked to buy them. ‘I don’t eat wafers, just these baked or low fat chips.’ ‘Not the normal ice cream but the low fat variety.’ A lot of so called ‘low fat’ is a waste of money. You spend ridiculously high amounts to buy low fat cheese and butter which only has about 1 or max 2 grams of fat less than the regular ‘full fat’ variety. Low fat ice creams are loaded with sugar or sweeteners. Low fat chips are high in salt, and instead of being fried they are baked, as they proudly proclaim; which, however, requires just as much or only marginally less fat, as compared to deep frying. Above all, this is not the worst of it. Sadly, it is these low fat and baked varieties (everything that is processed) that contain the worst fat: trans fat. Trans fats are responsible for the hardening of arteries, increasing body fat, and causing many other health problems (obesity related conditions like insulin insensitivity, heart trouble, BP, joint aches, etc).
Real life example: Visible and invisible fat
‘I am very careful about what I eat. I don’t know why I am getting fat. I married into a Marwari family so you know how they are. [Referring to Marwari-in-laws in general.] They want desi ghee in everything. They can drink ghee. [True, I have seen this.] But because we stay on our own, I have good control over the kitchen. I have never given Mahesh any ghee on his rotis, dals or anything. He likes farsan for snacks in the evening but we only eat all low fat biscuits, baked chaklis, low fat chips, etc. Yet both of us are fat. What to do?’
Radhika was a very adventurous and compulsive dieter. She had gone on a ‘21 days-21 Marie biscuits a day diet’ just months after her delivery. She had achieved ‘terrific results’: 7 kilos lost in 21 days! This time round, she said she lacked the required will power. ‘Thank God you don’t have the
“will power”,’ I exclaimed.
Radhika, like a lot of us, had bought into the marketing gimmick of ‘low fat’, what is technically called ‘invisible fat’. Which means that when you pick up the chakli, biscuit or chips, you don’t see the fat in them so you are led to believe that they will not get converted to fat. In the homemade deep-fried chakli or pakora, or in the ghee on roti, you can see the oil in the kadhai and on the food item: this is called visible fat. So we think, ‘I am eating fat, it will get converted to fat.’ The truth is, however, that foods with invisible fat are full of the bad fat, trans fat, which is responsible for causing heart attacks, insulin insensitivity, etc. When fat is invisible you also end up eating bigger sizes, increasing the glycemic load and therefore your chances of getting fat.
How to eat fat
For a lean, toned body, healthy heart, supple skin and lustrous hair, make fat a part of every meal—or at least of three main meals. It’s not just enough to eat food cooked in oil. Include nuts, cheese, or any other dairy product in your diet. Consuming healthy fats in healthy (read adequate) amounts will actually ensure proper functioning of the body and optimum fat burning.
Fats, when eaten in combination with carbs and protein, work at reducing the glycemic index (refer to the section on carbs, earlier in this chapter) of food. So they actually work at slowly releasing sugar in the blood. This
leads to effective fat burning, stable blood sugar, minimised hunger, a good mood and a glowing complexion.
So of course use oil as a cooking medium for vegetables and dal, as most Indians do; don’t try to cut it out. Preferably different kinds of oil. So if you cooked lunch in peanut oil, try soy or safflower oil for dinner.
Include peanuts and cheese in your diet. They can often make up a mini meal by themselves.
Including fats in our diet is also known to reduce mood swings and depression. Children who don’t get enough omega-3 can develop learning disorders. Is your girlfriend giving you grief when she PMSes? Just buy her a flax seed supplement or gift her a monthly supply of nuts.
Deep-frying
Limit deep-fried stuff but don’t avoid it completely. Eat hot, homemade pakoras, bhajiyas, puris, etc. Deep-fried but homemade food is good for you. The oil is not reused (reusing oil oxidises the fat and makes it toxic), and the soda and excess salt is missing (both lead to bloating and gas trouble). Just make sure that you eat immediately upon frying. And don’t remove the oil on these snacks using tissue paper or napkins, as many do. As long as you eat only 7 to 8 pakoras or 3 to 4 puris and this only once a month, it’s really ok. Your body can take it. But the reverse is not true; that you can eat deep-fried goods frequently and in greater amounts (more than 7 to 8 pakoras or 3 to 4 puris), so you need to remove excess oil. No, you will get fat no matter how much oil you ‘remove’. So just take the excess frying episode out.
Fry, but only once a month.
Italians and olive oil
Olive oil is replacing good old shingdana oil, ghee and other traditionally used fats or oils in the Indian household. We now have Italian marble on the floor, their slick modular kitchens and yeah their olive oil as well.
That we are experimenting with all kinds of cuisine is great. But let’s not forget that in embracing all this diversity, we shouldn’t try to be exactly like the Italians or anybody else for that matter; although studies show that olive oil has amazing heart-protecting properties, let’s not be quick to jump on the bandwagon. Look at the picture in totality.
The Padmanabham temple in Kerala has a sleeping Vishnu. No matter where in the temple you stand, you can never see the Vishnu (representing reality) completely. You only see him in parts. So in this world where Maya is at play we only see a part of reality and never the complete truth. First, let’s remember that the above mentioned studies were based on Italian subjects. The health of the Italian heart is not just due to olive oil, but also due to many other
factors. Their diets are also rich in fruit and greens (high in fibre), and they are accustomed to regular homemade meals (mothers dominate their children and rule over the communal family dinner table). Of course, there is also their wonderful, easygoing attitude, and generally more relaxed way of life. As I have always said, you need a good, relaxed state of mind for the heart to actually work well, and to enjoy good health.
In India we start at 9 am and work till 8 or 9 pm. We get little or no exercise, don’t walk around our crowded neighbourhoods much, live in polluted cities, eat loads of processed foods, etc, but hey if we eat olive oil shouldn’t it protect us? No, it won’t. Our way of life is quite different. If you must emulate the Italians then you must emulate in totality, not just pick up a part of their lifestyle that is convenient. (Actually we do have some things in common: we both have mama’s boys and possessive or pain in the neck mothers-in-law, but these are anything but good for the heart.)
Fat as an integral part of diet
Have you heard of Spiti? For the uninitiated, yes, it’s in India. Spiti is a cold, scenic trans-Himalayan region in Himachal Pradesh which lies between Ladakh and Tibet. Going there is like going back hundred years in time. The area is totally Buddhist and thankfully untouched by the
‘development’ of the outside world. But don’t get me wrong, they have good road networks, schools, electricity in every village. So what if the smallest villages have only a couple of houses?
The people of Spiti have a diet rich in what they call joun (barley), which is full of fibre, low GI carbs, protein and essential vitamins and minerals like iron and calcium. In addition to this staple, their diet is dominated by ghee, milk and cheese, mostly made from cattle that every family owns.
The cattle are like part of the family; they stay in the same house and keep the family warm during the harsh, -35 degree celsius winter. Cattle that are brought up with so much love and attention, grazing freely (from the best quality grass), are known to be healthier and therefore produce better milk.
Cheese and ghee that you get from this milk is nutrient rich and potent.
Ghee is a part of almost every local dish in Spiti, and it even finds its way to the top of your glass: decorated around the rim, like salt on a margarita glass. Ghee for these people, exposed to harsh weather and a rough life, works as an antiseptic, digestive, immunity enhancer, cartilage and joint lubricator, while protecting the heart and the body in general from sun damage.
Ghee is even offered to the gods and is known to bring the spiritual side of a person to the fore. It blesses the Marwari (traditionally from the hot, dry, arid climate of Rajasthan) with sharp business acumen, and the Spitian (from their cold, dry, harsh weather) with a strong, well networked cardiopulmonary system. (Most of Spiti is at a height of 4000 metres and above.)
Make sure you have at least 1 teaspoon of homemade ghee a day, and have it guilt free. Ghee shall bless thou too.
Marwaris
More than 60% of our brain is made of fat. So that derogatory term ‘fathead’ could actually be taken to refer to intelligence! Including omega-3 fatty acids in our diet such as flax seeds, beans, dairy products including ghee, vegetables, nuts and of course fish, improve our native intelligence. Marwaris are known to have sharp brains, especially a business acumen that everybody envies. You will find them at the top of their fields almost everywhere, at IITs and IIMs, as directors, scientists, accountants and obviously industrialists. Look at what they eat: ghee rich meals. Now, is there a link between the sharp acumen and the fat they consume?
Our brain is made up of fatty acid and Marwaris have always traditionally consumed the highest amount of ghee of all Indian communities. (It’s another thing that most of them are also fat. But this is usually because of the lack of activity rather than the fat in their diet.) So don’t move that fat out of your diet. Instead start getting the fat in your body moving and working!
Cooking ware and utensils
Phek do yeh kadhai, yeh frying pan? No! Please keep them in your kitchen. Using iron tavas and kadhais is a great way to improve the iron content of your food, and it’s also a safe metal to use. So is stainless steel and glass. Using aluminium cookware is dangerous as the Al leaches from the pot or pan, makes its way into your food, and finally into your body. Once inside the body, aluminium will neutralise digestive enzymes, increase risk of ulcers and if present in excessive amounts, even lead to Alzheimer’s disease. So get that iron pot, pan or tava back on your kitchen rack. (Using oil or ghee while making dosa, paratha, roti, sabzi or dal, etc improves the nutritional value of your food and also leads to a favourable GI of food.
So don’t obsess over going oil or ghee free.)
Another note on this. The size of your cooking ware should be decided according to the number of people you are cooking for. Just like an oversize dress is a misfit (irrespective of brand and style), so are oversized pots, pans or vessels. This helps you save energy (yes, just switching to CFL is not enough) and prevents loss of nutrients due to overheating.
Fats you
And how to cheat on them
should
never
eat.
(these are
trans
fats)
1. Fats
Eat them as your first meal or after your post-workout meal. Eat these once a week, you get
provided you follow the four key principles (see next chapter) and exercise 3 hours a from red week. Never combine a bad fat with a high GI food; say rice and meat, or biryani. All and
biryani lovers, save your feast for Eid!
processed
meat
2. Fat in Eat first thing in the morning. Halve your first meal and have it along with this.
deep-fried Otherwise have as a meal by itself in the later afternoon, but restrict to only one. Do not food
eat a mithai with your snack! You can enjoy one of these, once a week, but only if you’re (pakoras, eating correctly all six days and working out at least three hours a week. Don’t reuse the samosas, oil once you have deep-fried with it. Tip: avoid deep-fried food at large parties, because bhujia,
they are usually deep-fried twice.
etc)
3. Mithai, Eat as a meal by itself. Have it an hour and a half after your lunch. You could also have it especially first thing in the morning. But don’t mix it with your regular food.
those
made of
nuts
4.
Eat them when you’ve done a very long, strenuous physical activity like trekking, 2 or Biscuits
more hours of shopping. In regular life, restrict to once a week!
5. Cakes If you can’t bear to give up your favourite chocolate pastry, you’re in for good news.
and
Have it first thing in the morning. Don’t replace your nutritious meal with your pastry, pastries
but have it in addition to it. Croissant lovers go ahead. But don’t indulge yourself more than once or twice a month.
6. Pizza
1 slice (we’re talking fast food pizza) and as a meal by itself. Perfect for after a long boring meeting.
Fats to eat through the day, which ensure optimum fat burning Fats to be consumed after
and sustained release of blood sugar
exercise or any stressful
activity
Nuts, avocados, olives, milk and all milk products (cheese, paneer, If you have issues losing ghee, yoghurt), oils used in cooking, coconut, flax seeds, fish body fat or a cholesterol
problem, then make sure
you have a fatty acid like
supplement.
How to eat them
How to eat them
Oils to prepare food, ghee as seasoning and the rest as meals by Eat them within 10 minutes themselves. Make sure your quantities are right and that you eat 2 or 3 of your workout.
of these each day as part of your daily diet. If you feel dull after a main meal and are craving either sugar or coffee, have a fatty acid supplement, such as the omega-3 rich supplements, fish oil or flax seed, after it.
All about vitamins and minerals
All vitamins and minerals play an extremely important role in our body as catalysts, co-enzymes (these help enzymes), and co-factors (these support chemical or metabolic reactions) of our metabolic reactions. Vitamins and minerals don’t provide our body with any energy or calories but they are important so that we can use our energy or calories well.
A high intake of processed food, stress and other lifestyle factors like smoking, late nights and inactivity are increasing our need for vitamins and minerals, and reducing our ability to absorb them well. None of these nutrients can work in isolation. For calcium to do its work in the body it needs 24 other nutrients to be present, in the right amount and at the right time; while iron requires adequate amounts of protein as well as vitamins B
and C to be at hand, to form haemoglobin. You will need a well-rounded diet, regular exercise and to be in a relaxed state, to improve the efficiency of vitamins and minerals.
Laloo Prasad Yadav, India’s most hated and loved politician, said at the Hindustan Times Summit recently: ‘Coalition ka zamana hai.’ He could well be describing the way nutrients work in our body. Gone are the days when only one party or one vitamin, mineral or macro nutrient like carbs, proteins or fat ruled. Just like India has realised that the bigger parties need the help of smaller, unknown parties to create a central government, so should we realise that for fat loss and a lean body, the answer doesn’t lie in majority or single party government (ie high protein, low carb or low fat diets) but instead in coalition raj. Vitamins, minerals, protein, carbs and fat all need to get adequate representation in our diet so that each one of them
can carry out their specific functions to the best of their abilities; only then can we enjoy optimum health (just like that ideal stable government at the centre).
Vitamin A
Found in whole and low fat milk, dark leafy vegetables, all the orange, yellow vegetables and in the liver and kidney. Forms of vitamin A found in plant sources are called carotenes.
We need it because it supports our immune functions, helps improve eyesight, is crucial for the growth and development of our body, and is a potent antioxidant which protects cells against free radicals.
Take it when you’re stressed, or travelling. One of the reasons why you get ill immediately after crash dieting or too much exercise or a period of stress is because of the deficiency of vitamin A. So if you have a stressed out lifestyle, you are going to need some extra vitamin A—and the best way to do this is to increase your carotene content. So get more green, yellow and red in your plate. The best time to take a supplement of vitamin A is after the most stressful period of the day, after a big workout or a long flight. Carotenes are also a good way of combating acne, and help prevent cancer, maintain a healthy reproductive system and reduce vaginal infections.
Vitamin D
Found in our body, which produces vitamin D upon exposure to sunlight. It is the sunlight vitamin. To get this vitamin, get your daily dose of sunlight.
The best time to do this is around sunrise (the sun is not harsh or harmful for the skin at this time). People of north India have a favourite activity in the winters. It’s called dhup sekna, or sun bath. It’s a great way to get that daily dose of vitamin D, and of course to warm yourself up during the winters. Apart from this, we can also get vitamin D from fish and egg yolks.
Plants are not such a good source of this particular vitamin, but green leafy vegetables are your best bet.
We need it because it aids calcium absorption. Bowing of legs, curving of spine, loss of bone density, joint pain and discomfort have to do with vitamin D deficiency. The elderly, especially those in nursing homes, are usually deficient in this vitamin because of their lack of sun exposure. It also has anti-carcinogenic properties, especially when it comes to breast and colon cancer. These forms of cancer are most common in places which don’t get enough sunlight.
Vitamin E
Found in polyunsaturated vegetable oils like corn, soy, sunflower, safflower oil and seeds, nuts, whole grains. Processing and overcooking foods drastically reduce vitamin E content. So when you make maida out of wholewheat or pulp your vegetables like you do in pav bhaji, there is almost no vitamin E left in them. Asparagus, green leafy vegetables, berries and tomatoes are good sources of this one.
We need it because it protects the heart, keeps the skin young, prevents nerve and muscular weakness and is a poweful oxidant.
Take it when you’ve eaten a lot of fried food, bakery products and consumed high amounts of fat. Fat gets broken down and damaged in our body by a process called oxidation; vitamin E prevents fat from turning toxic in our body. So if you ever consume bhujiya or pakoras, don’t forget your E. Working out, sun exposure, viral infections and diabetes all increase the need for vitamin E consumption.
Vitamin K
Found in green leafy vegetables, green peas, green tea, oats, whole grain.
It’s the most neglected vitamin because vitamin K deficiencies are very rare.
We need it because it plays a major role in blood clotting, which is why it’s a life saving vitamin. Recent studies have also shown that it is important in preventing and treating osteoporosis, and for building healthy bones. So, an important vitamin for women, who are more vulnerable to this disease.
Take it if you are suffering from excessive menstrual bleeding: excessive bleeding is often a sign of low vitamin K levels. Any vitamin supplement should give you more than your quota.
Vitamin C
Found in most fruits and vegetables. Most animals can make their own vitamin C: the human body however cannot. But the good news is that there is plenty of vitamin C in most of the food we eat. Vitamin B and C are water soluble (and hence they are also depleted as our body loses water), so our body needs a fresh supply daily. Vitamin C can be easily lost by something as simple as cutting fruits and vegetables. We lose it more when we keep them covered in a refrigerator. So anything that increases exposure of fruits and vegetables can lead to almost 90% loss of vitamin C.
We need it because it is critical to our immunity, helps manufacture hormones, collagen, maintains our respiratory system and lung function and is a powerful antioxidant. Vitamin C also plays a role in protecting us against heart disease, has a supporting function of vitamin E in the body, and protects sperms from damage.
Take it as a regular supplement. It’s vital if you’re a smoker (both active and passive), have a hectic social life and are dealing with a lot of stress.
Vitamin B
These are many vitamins clubbed together: thiamin (B1), riboflavin (B2), niacin (B3), pantothenic acid (B5), pyridoxine (B6), biotin (B7), folic acid (B9) and cobalamin (B12), all make up what we call vitamin B or B
complex.
Found in fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, eggs, fish and cheese. Of these, B12 is found mostly in non-veg sources, so vegetarians have to take extra care to include this vitamin in their diet. Curd and cheese have good levels of B12, created through a fermentation process from milk (this fermentation increases B12 amounts).
We need it because it takes part in metabolic reactions, helps metabolise carbohydrates, aids digestion, improves nerve function and prevents depression.
Take it as a supplement at the start of your day with your breakfast so that you can utilise nutrients better throughout the day. PMS and bad moods can be prevented with a good supply of vitamin B just before your periods.
Vitamin B counteracts Chinese restaurant syndrome (symptoms are mild headaches, bloating and sometimes nausea) which we get by eating MSG, found increasingly in processed foods. For lustrous hair and pink nails look to B for help.
Fibre
This is the one nutrient in your food which is essential not just to prevent constipation or regularise digestion, but also to prevent you from overeating. It is truly zero on calories, and just adds bulk to what you are eating.
Foods with fibre take longer to chew and thus our eating time increases. (The brain registers that it is full only after 20 minutes). This gives the body a chance to know that the stomach is full, and reduces our chances of overeating. As the fibre moves in our intestine it picks up wastes (almost like a jhadoo) and adds bulk to your stool (and not just your food). So, it makes going to the toilet a pleasurable experience too. And here, it will reduce the time spent in downloading!
It’s clear that fibre has many benefits for all of us who want clear stomachs, glowing complexions, lean bodies and a good fitness level.
But don’t be stupid and buy fibre added foods or add fibre to your atta, sabzi, buttermilk, etc. This mindless addition of fibre will come in the way of the absorbing of vital minerals like calcium and iron. Instead, focus on eating unprocessed wholesome foods which are naturally rich in fibre like brown rice, wholewheat, barley, raagi, jawar, bajra, chole, legumes, nuts. And cut down on the biscuits, white bread, burger, pizza or maida. And importantly: avoid overcooking sabzis and killing fruits and vegetables in the juicer.
Minerals
Calcium
Found in dairy products, tofu, green leafy vegetables, nuts, seeds and in fact almost all wholesome food. It is the most abundant mineral in the body.
We need it because it maintains the health of bones, joints and teeth, is responsible for all muscular contraction, for clotting of blood and to
Take it as a supplement daily. Bone is a dynamic living tissue in the body, being broken down and rebuilt daily, even in adults. Thus, calcium is essential in maintaining good bone health on a daily basis. A diet that is high in processed foods, caffeine, alcohol, sugar and sodium reduces calcium absorption. So does regular intake of antacids and laxatives. Thus, here is one mineral we all must supplement in our diet. If you are using a calcium supplement, check what compound it uses. A calcium citrate or lactate (soluble in form) compound is absorbed much better by the human body than the popular calcium carbonate or phosphate supplements. Use a supplement of 1000 milligrams a day for optimum health.
Iron
Found in meat, fish and eggs (all non-veg sources). Veg sources are garden cress seeds (traditionally used to make laddoos for pregnant and nursing women), bajra, jowar, other whole grains, fresh vegetables and fruits. For iron to be absorbed effectively, we need adequate amounts of vitamin C and B (specifically B12) in our body.
We need it because it is a part of haemoglobin which transports oxygen from lungs to different tissues of the body and carbon dioxide from different tissues to the lungs.
Don’t take iron supplements. Just like in case of calcium, processed foods, caffeine, anti depressants, sodium, sugar (including desserts, mithai and chocolates that we eat because of PMS) reduce absorption of iron in the body. The best strategy to improve iron intake is not to take iron supplements, but instead to create an environment in the body which will encourage iron absorption. Reduce your intake of sweets and caffeine, and increase vitamins C and B, in addition to drinking adequate amounts of water. Deficiency of iron is common especially in women. During menstrual periods women lose blood (good blood and not impurities, unlike what we believed earlier), and with it we lose important minerals like iron, copper, magnesium, etc.
Selenium, zinc, chromium, magnesium, manganese, copper
Found in fish, egg, whole grains, fresh veggies.
These minerals are gaining importance, not just because they are essential to preventing diseases but also because they are antioxidants, and promote fat burning in our body. Insulin insensitivity is a common reason for gaining fat and is rampant in urban India and in the west, and these minerals have proved to be efficient in improving insulin sensitivity.
Zinc and chromium are of paramount importance for good skin and hair growth, and to prevent acne and wrinkles. Zinc also plays a role in normal testosterone function and aiding muscle growth. For protection against free radicals, selenium is vital. Additionally, copper is required for optimum iron absorption; while manganese is responsible for thyroid function and blood sugar control. Magnesium helps lower blood pressure, eases PMS
symptoms and lowers LDL levels.
These are just the main vitamins and minerals; there are many like boron, molybdenum, iodine, potassium and inositol choline that I don’t really mention in this book. But does that mean that they are less important than the ones I have mentioned? Not at all. Nor are the many vitamins and minerals that are still undiscovered.
Supplements
In an ideal world, we wouldn’t need any supplements; our food would supply us with all the vitamins and minerals we need. But we don’t live in an ideal world, do we? Our soil is contaminated; our fruits are covered with pesticides and injected with glucose, polished with wax. And what’s worse, our crop is transported in trucks for long distances, where it loses the little nutrients it has while waiting for 3 days for octroi clearance to cross to another state. Then, of course, the way that we store our grains, fruits and vegetables at our big malls is disgusting. (Good only on the display, but not in the warehouse which have poor storing conditions, not to mention pests, etc.) Even once the food is in our kitchen, when we cook it, how we store it, our state of mind or our cook’s state of mind while cooking, the number of
sauces, seasonings and other preservatives we add while cooking, and of course our state of mind while eating; all of this has made using supplements a necessity.
In an ideal world, you shouldn’t be vying for a bigger house, bigger car, trophy husband or wife, and should be content with all that you have.
Greed, anger, lust, hatred, jealousy shouldn’t even touch you. You should be growing your own food, milking your own cow, waking up with the sunrise, sleeping just after sunset. If your life is like this, you won’t need any supplements.
But it’s more likely that this is what your life is like: thick curtains in the bedroom keep the sunlight away, air conditioning keeps you perfectly cool, a car and maybe driver takes care of transport; you eat takeaway for lunch, have little or no exercise, go clubbing at least once a week, engage in passive or active smoking regularly, do drinks at least once or twice every week and in addition to all this, have numerous worries—you want to shift to a bigger house, would like to make much more money than what you are making currently, etc. This is far from an ideal life, and what it means is that your body just isn’t absorbing all the nutrients it needs. If you think that taking supplements is being unnatural, living like this, you are just being a hollow idiot.
What takes me by surprise is how people who regularly do joints (now that’s herbal right?), are active only after 11 pm, have no clue of where their vegetables, fruits, grains, atta, etc is coming from, and are happy to pop a painkiller daily are so paranoid about the side effects of vitamin and mineral supplements. The lifestyle that they are leading is already bringing hordes of side effects upon them (some of which last a short time: headache, stomach ache, lethargy, irritability, and some which will last forever: heart attacks, insulin insensitivity, clogged arteries, depression, obesity, etc).
Sometimes I suspect that they don’t want the benefits of food supplements to wash away these side effects that they have spent a lifetime earning.
I know that vitamin and mineral supplements are no replacement to healthy eating, regular exercise and a positive attitude. But when you have a base line diet in place, workout regularly and are compassionate towards yourself and the world, food supplements will help make them work at their best.
Doctors don’t recommend supplements—because they have little or no knowledge about them outside of what the marketing representative of a pharma company is willing to share (including kickbacks, nothing wrong with that of course). But any doctor worth his or her salt will admit that they have limited knowledge about supplements, mainly because they only studied nutrition briefly. Most of them may have done one paper on the subject in their first year of medicine. After which it’s goodbye to the science of nutrition. (Unless a doctor develops an interest in the subject and signs up for a course on nutrition science).
Look for information in the right place. With all due respect, doctors know as much about supplements as CAs, engineers, editors, etc; basically any other well-educated professional. Chances are your trainer, yoga teacher or massage therapist will know much more than them (because they are required to read up and update themselves in the field of nutrition).
Doctors are sometimes asked, ‘So, what’s your opinion on this protein shake?’ And an honest ‘I don’t know much about it’ is taken as something against the protein shake. This is also because our mind already has a negative image about it. Even if the doctor had said something like ‘Excuse me, I think I am getting a call’, this would be taken as a negative verdict for the protein shake.
The field of nutraceuticals1 is growing as a science. The supplements that we need on a regular basis are vitamins like A, E, B and C, and minerals like selenium, zinc, chromium and calcium. I really don’t understand the logic behind taking a daily vitamin E after a heart attack or a daily calcium tablet after a fracture. They should be taken as preventive strategies. If they are good for recovery, they are even better before the damage, to maintain good health.
The stress that we experience is a major reason for nutrient depletion in our diet, and so is urban living. By 2050, much of India will be urban, say many news reports.
In 2003, I visited Ukimath, a small hamlet just off the Rishikesh-Kedarnath highway. The GMVN guesthouse there has only two huts (a representation of the tourist flow) and it has some magnificent views of the Kedarnath and Kedar dome peaks. It’s on the way to Chopta (India’s most beautiful ridge), which used to be an old pilgrimage route from Badri to
Kedar and is full of medicinal plants. The fields next to the guesthouse belonged to a family who grew potatoes and other seasonal vegetables.
They also worked on paddy fields. Ukimath doesn’t even get one car a day in terms of traffic, so pollution is close to zero. The people are content and the place has such amazing vibrations that it can lift the spirits of the most depressed and sadelu person on earth. So if you live there and eat jeera alu and roti and some more jeera alu and roti and don’t eat supplements, you will not have nutrient deficiencies. Because everything you eat is locally grown and your state of mind is calm, peaceful, content.
My host at a homestay in Sikkim boasted, ‘Other than oil and salt, everything on your plate I grow.’ He had served me palak soup, radish and squash sabzis, aachar and rice. Himalayan locals eat so much more fibre than we do. Fibre is high in unprocessed foods and thus retains most of its nutrients. In fact all people who live close to nature eat in that way. We don’t. And that’s why we need supplements. The processed food we eat and the pace of our life is taking all the nutrients away from our food.
To reiterate, there are only two kinds of people who can afford to live without supplements: those who live in a super salubrious place and can trace the origin of their vegetables, fruits, grains (the lucky few who own farms and nurse a passion for growing their own food) and those who have no intention of keeping good health.
Water
Water is the most important nutrient in your body (for survival) without which this chapter is a pure waste of time and paper. Water is the primary transporter of nutrients in the body. Without water you can’t use the nutrients that come from carbs, protein and fat. About 70% of the human body is water. We can survive upto 5 weeks without food but less than 5
days without water. (People who were stuck inside the Taj hotel during the recent terrorist attack resorted to drinking water from the AC duct).
Our lifestyle is dehydrating, really. We consume too much of processed food, drink too many teas, coffees and wines. Not to mention the aerated and the non aerated sugary drinks. Even a small drop in the water content of the body lowers our blood volume (enough to get the kidneys and heart
over worked). This increases the sodium content in our blood which triggers the thirst response. Sadly, most of us drink only enough to quench our thirst or to wet a dry throat. Not enough to meet our body’s water requirement. What’s worse? Increase in age, inactivity and stress dulls our thirst mechanism and also lowers the water reserve in our body. All this together leaves us dehydrated most of the time (also a major cause of bloating, by the way).
Water and weight loss
Crash dieting takes the biggest toll on the water reserves in our body. Loss of water is one of the biggest issues that I have against crash dieting and its associated ‘guaranteed weight loss’.
Crash dieting which restricts nutrient and water intake (don’t let anybody fool you that 3 fruits and 6 juices give you your daily fill) leads to rapid water loss from the body. This on the weighing scale will show itself as weight loss (and on some of the body composition measurement machines as increase in metabolic rate).
This drop in body weight is not reduction of body fat but loss of all important water. Loss of water impairs circulation (now you know why stretch marks are associated with crash dieting), reduces muscle tone, joint and bone health and obviously overworks the kidney, heart and lungs. Oh, yes, it will also lead to body odour because composition of sweat changes.
Losing weight is no big deal, if you lose body water. Body builders and wrestlers routinely adopt this practice. They bring their weight down by as much as 4 kilos on the day prior to a competition. This allows them to compete in a lower weight group and improves their chances of winning. This practice can even lead to death. But body builders and wrestlers have a chance of winning medals. What will you win with rapid weight loss? Stretch marks or chronic fatigue?
A dehydrated condition means that our kidneys have a hard time metabolising our wastes (we can poison ourselves with the wastes that we produce, water is the agent through which we throw these wastes out of the body). Enzymes, digestion, circulation even fat loss are slaves to adequate levels of hydration in our body. Muscles will not contract (commonly felt as cramps or dull aches), joints will hurt and skin will look dull without water (ever seen a stressed out person’s skin?). Oh what am I forgetting? Lungs and heart obviously can’t breathe or beat without adequate water.
In our bijli, sadak, pani driven democracy—water, without doubt is the clincher. Life without bijli (not Yana Gupta guys) and sadak can be easily coped up with. (In fact some of us city people actually look forward to
going to places without bijli and sadak for holiday). But can you live (much less holiday) without water? NO.
FYI—Treks, which are essentially places without sadak and bijli, need to have adequate pani. Places that don’t have fresh water streams or good quality water do not become popular trekking routes. All camps en route a trek are by a water source.
Hot water reduces body fat and cold water increases obesity are some of the silliest arguments ever. Water for heavens sake does much more than fat loss.
How much water should you drink? Drink enough so that your urine is always crystal clear, not light yellow, dark yellow or reddish. There are many ways in which water escapes from the body—urine, excretion, sweat, breathing. The only way to hydrate ourselves is by sipping water all the time and by eating wholesome unprocessed food.
So, don’t wan’t muscle aches, joint problems, bloating, obesity or dull skin? Reach out for water. And drink beyond quenching your thirst. In fact drink water all the time, sip by sip, swirl it in your mouth like a good wine and let it move down your throat into your stomach. Relish every sip of it.
Water is life. Blessed are thou who have good quality water flowing through your taps. The next time you feel sorry for yourself (for whatever reason) remind yourself of the biggest blessing that you are enjoying in this life: 24 hour (or most of the time) good quality water in your taps. It nourishes your being and makes life itself possible.
Honey lime water/apple vinegar cider
The 2 magical drinks which help people melt fat and get them thin. Really? How come most of our aam junta is still FAT? Get off it people, there is really NO magic drink, pill, potion, etc which will burn fat for you.
Honey, if sourced from the right place, has medicinal properties. But if you are taking it without supervision, it can do you more harm than good. Honey, being high in fructose, is not good for those who are insulin insensitive or have high triglyceride or LDL levels. So, do check before you start to have it regularly; it’s not right for everyone.
Nimbu can actually work against you. For certain body compositions it can increase headaches, acidity and can create digestion problems. (And it’s not the richest source of vitamin C. A guava has much more vitamin C than a lemon or an orange.) Apple cider: great for cleaning stains and toilets but can cause burning in your throat, irritability and nervousness.
The fact that you are supposed to take these magic potions on an empty stomach, first thing in the morning, exposes you to the hazards all the more.
Otherwise, honey, nimbu and cider when used in diluted forms and as a part of a recipe can enhance flavour and taste. So I am not against these foods per se, just against the mentality that is turning them into what they are not!
1 Extracts of foods claimed to have a medicinal effect on human health, usually made available in capsule, tablet or powder form.
The 4 principles of eating right
Standing in front of the mirror every morning, first thing on rising, Kavita notices a small pimple in her T zone. Hmm, just PMS, she assures herself.
Her eyes now start wandering and observing beyond her face. The chin is slightly double. She changes the angle that she is standing at and now faces the mirror again. ‘My chin looks double from the side not from the front,’
she tells herself. She faces the mirror again. My boobs sag. My stomach is ok though. She takes a deep breath in and sucks the stomach in; it looks dramatically better. Kavita half smiles and pinches her stomach. She can feel the flesh in her palms. Not wanting to look down, she still does and says, ‘Yucks, it’s easily more than 3 inches of fat.’ She now looks at her lower abs: ‘This looks like a ring around my stomach.’ And now the hips: chalo, stand at an angle again. Squeezing her hips she thinks: ‘This is how they should look even normally.’ Lets go of her hips: the fleshy part falls towards the sides and down. ‘Not like this.’ She touches her hips, with her shocking pink nails, ‘I wish I had no stretchmarks.’ Goes down to the thighs, the outside are ok, the inside is just so… just so jiggly wiggly. ‘Oh no I am so depressed!’
The physical body, what we can see in the mirror is called ananmaya kosha according to yoga or yogic philosophy (roughly translated as food body). It’s a straight reflection of ‘anna’ or the food we eat and what time we eat it.
To bring about a difference in the way we look in the mirror, we have to change what and when we eat. Endless scrutiny and criticism of this physical body will always lead us to move away from reality. To look leaner, toned and healthy we just have to follow the 4 most basic principles of eating right.
Principle 1
Never wake up to tea or coffee.
Instead eat real food within 10 to 15 minutes of waking up.
Real life example: ‘Look, I can do whatever you want me to do, but I can’t give up chai,’ pleaded Elvis. ‘I just can’t. I will die. You know I am in a state of coma every morning, and the only way I get going is through a hot cup of chai. Do you understand?’ Elvis, was getting desperate. ‘Why don’t you wear a white sari and get a halo around your head? Cutting down drinking is fine. But not having chai in the morning is not done ya. I will die. And mine is not the Indian chai which is boiled endlessly with tons of sugar. It’s very light, with one, no adha, chamach milk. And I am using a sugar substitute but I can give that up too. And I will cut down to half a cup.
Look without tea, I can’t even go to the loo. You can’t do this… Do you understand? Say something.’
‘Ok, give me a chance to talk then,’ I said.
‘Ok, talk, and say yes to tea baby. Stop being difficult.’
All that I had suggested was no tea first thing in the morning. It scared the shit out of Elvis. Well, it is a scary proposition for most of us. Tea in the morning has a special meaning in each of our lives. Most of us are ready to do ‘anything that it takes’ to lose weight. But the fact that chai or coffee could be coming in the way of our fat loss doesn’t even cross our mind.
I always think of a painting by MF Hussain each time I have the morning cup conversation with a client. It is of a sari-clad lady flying (almost like a super woman), carrying a hot cup of chai against the backdrop of the snowy peaks of the Himalaya. The painting hung in the study of actress Tanvi Azmi (easily amongst the prettiest and bubbliest women in this world) and I couldn’t take my eyes off it. It covered almost half her wall and I thought it was beautiful, although I couldn’t understand it. Intrigued (it was also the first Hussain painting that I was seeing in flesh and blood; all I knew about him was that his paintings cost the earth, and when you see them you can’t make out anything immediately), I asked Tanvi, ‘What is this? Why the cup in the woman’s hand?’
‘Oh, that is my mother-in-law,’ said Tanvi smiling.
‘I love this painting. But what does it mean?’
Tanvi explained. ‘My father-in-law and my mother-in-law both lead very busy lives. They may not see much of each other throughout the day but
they have a morning ritual. They always have the morning cup of tea together.’ So on one of their anniversaries, Tanvi’s father-in-law, the great poet Kaifi Azmi, had written a poem for his wife which went something like this: ‘The love that we share over our hot cup of tea every morning, it melts the snows of the mighty Himalaya.’ And as he was reading out this poem to his wife, Hussain painted this.
‘Wow, how romantic,’ I thought. Kaifi Azmi is no more and Hussain is out of the country but the painting remains vivid in my memory.
I know that it takes a lot to give up on that morning chai, but it’s worth all the trouble. And the good news is that you don’t have to give up on it totally. You can still enjoy the romance, ‘me time’ or whatever the morning cup means to you. Just make sure that you eat something before that. Why such a fuss? Let me explain.
When you sleep, your blood sugar levels drop in the night. (Babies always wake up in the night, crying, asking to be fed, right? They wake up when their blood sugar drops.) In the morning our liver stores are almost empty. So our blood sugar is low and it’s our responsibility to bring this up to an optimum level. Low blood sugar is also a reason why we feel ‘low’ in the morning. The body sometime takes to wasting or breaking our muscle down to keep our sugar from dropping to abnormally low levels. Not a very good thing if you want to lose weight. To be able to burn fat effectively, you have to train your body to preserve lean tissue (muscle); not waste it by breaking it down into glucose to keep your blood sugar up. What happens in the night is out of our control because we are sleeping, but when we wake up everything is in our control. So, to keep our body’s fat burning tissue (muscle) alive—we must eat. Eat real food. Something that will lead to a slow, steady increase in our blood sugar levels. This kicks in the action of insulin, which is secreted by the body as a response to an increase in blood sugar levels, which facilitates our hungry cells to get the nutrients that it is craving for.
Tea or coffee doesn’t fit the bill for many reasons. Any stimulant like tea or coffee, which has caffeine (in all varieties; with milk or without, with sugar or without, oolong, white, green, purple, blue) and cigarettes jolt the system out of slumber. It increases the blood pressure, heart rate, breathing rate and makes the body feel stressed or ‘kicked’. Sadly we mistake this for
feeling awake. In reality, the body experiences stress because of the increase in its heart and breathing rate and will respond by hampering fat burning. It’s important to remember at all times (while fighting with your spouse, getting frustrated by traffic, overworking, etc) that stress is the biggest enemy of an efficient digestive system and of the fat burning processes of the body. In the morning, the heart and breathing rates are at its lowest as this is the reflection of a relaxed state of mind and body. To keep the system relaxed, we need to give it real food, which is easy on the heart, lungs and stomach too.
The stimulants provided through tea and coffee increase blood sugar levels but provide zero nutrition to the cells that have been starving for the last 9 to 10 hours or more, post dinner. Moreover, the cuppa can mask your hunger, so you go hungry for a long time without realising it. Going hungry in the morning is a disaster for anybody who dreams of a sexy body. All it does is create a huge calorie deficit in the morning and then the body has no other option but to overeat later to make up for the deficit. All of us who just ‘don’t feel like eating anything in the morning’ are victims of a slow metabolic rate and of a digestive system which is not functioning effectively. Numerous studies have shown how a hearty, healthy breakfast can increase our metabolic rate. Some of the herbal infusions won’t give you the caffeine kick but it will prolong the time between waking up and eating, which is why I prefer you stick with this rule even if you are a herbal tea drinker.
Tea and antioxidants
Now isn’t your cup of green tea rich in antioxidants? Actually let’s understand this whole antioxidants business. Antioxidants are nothing but compounds (mostly vitamins and minerals) which prevent damage from free radicals in the body. (Free radicals are by-products of normal metabolic reactions and are carcinogenic in nature.) Now, the antioxidants can only work in the presence of carbs, proteins and fats. So if that cuppa is going to delay your meal (rich in these macro nutrients), the antioxidants, my dahlings, will be rendered useless!
So like the Vishnu in the Padmanabham temple conveys, look at the picture in totality.
Without first eating your meal (which also by the way has vitamins/minerals—source of our beloved antioxidants) your antioxidant rich chai is well, shall I break your heart, useless. By the way, for you to really benefit from the ‘antioxidants’ you need a large enough amount of them. So it means that you will have to drink many teas, which will only cause acidity, heart burn, bloating, mask your hunger and make you over eat at a later time.
One more heart breaker, when you eat antioxidant rich chocolates (yeah even the dark chocolate variety) the excess sugar or sweetener in it renders the antioxidants in it useless.
With sunrise, the metabolism peaks and the cells demand nutrition. This is the time to eat and to eat big. If you are not used to eating anything in the morning, start with a fruit. After that, within an hour, have your paratha, muesli, dosa, idli, upma, poha, roti and sabzi. Anything that is healthy and fibre rich. Once your cells receive nutrition through food and the blood sugar comes to an optimum level, feel free to have your tea or coffee. The breathing rate, heart rate, etc will still increase, but now your first meal or breakfast will act as a buffer.
So the foundation to a great body is laid by what you eat and drink (or not) within the first 10 to 15 minutes of waking up. Eating right is about getting in touch with your body and sharpening your awareness of it. Eating immediately on rising puts us in touch with our body’s hunger signals.
Instead of going through an afternoon slump we will start feeling hungry more often in the day. Which leads us to the second principle.
But before that what about going to the loo? When you follow all the four principles, you will actually want to go to the loo first thing in the morning even before you eat or drink anything. ‘Prabhate mal darshanam’: witness, or see, your shit every morning. I will explain how and why this happens at the end of this chapter. In the rare case that you can’t go, you will feel like doing so after eating your first meal because it will increase the peristalsis, or the movement of your intestines, signalling you to go.
The Asian pot
Hey, I am talking about the one you have in the toilet. After we have sat on our pot, read our paper, bent forward to put ‘pressure’ on our eliminatory organs (actually a way to imitate or recreate a more natural position), we get up (not so satisfied, feeling like ‘something is still in there’) and wash our hands using a ‘natural’ hand wash which has not been tested on animals and uses natural herbs. On one hand, we want everything ayurvedic, herbal, natural (green tea, herbal infusions, spas, even ayurvedic clothes) and on the other hand we use the most unnatural posture for defecation. But if we care so much for natural, how about adopting the most natural (and comfortable) squatting posture when we answer ‘nature’s call’?
The seated posture on the western toilet actually closes and constricts your eliminatory organs. Under pressure or stress, it’s almost impossible to feel ‘open to let go’. This then leads to the vicious cycle of laxatives, which further weakens your digestive system and washes off
all the B vitamins from the large intestine. So all that you do is ‘create’ problems for yourself.
Western toilets and the discomfort they bring to the body have been identified as a contributor to constipation, colon cancers, and irritable bowel syndrome.
The traditional Indian shitting posture (actually this is exactly what everybody used before the advent of the commode, including Westerners), helps you relax the organs and encourages you to let go. This posture will also help you get rid of bloating. A clear stomach and a digestive system which works at its optimal health are the foundation of losing fat and getting healthier.
Of course, to get comfortable in the Indian sitting posture you will need to workout regularly to keep those hips and legs strong and flexible and the joints lubricated. (It’s sad how inactivity has made this most natural posture impossible for us.) Come on, its not enough to assert that we are all Indians only after a terror attack or during an India-Pak match, we need to do it daily, in our own private space, the bathroom. So say yes to sitting the Indian way. Oh, I can almost see you nodding the Indian way!
As for aesthetics, if your designer is good, the bathroom will look great either way!
Summary
Eating first thing in the morning will lead to an
• Increase in blood sugar and energy levels, which will lead to an…
• Increase in metabolic rate and fat burning, and a…
• Decrease in acidity and bloating, and will…
• Reduce chances of overeating later in the day, and…
• Stabilise blood sugar levels throughout the day, which means…
• Less chances of getting fat.
Principle 2
Eat every 2 hours.
First things first. You will be able to follow principle 2 only if you follow principle 1. Without step 1 you will not be in a position to reach step 2.
Eating first thing in the morning lays the foundation for us to efficiently receive hunger signals from our body. It teaches us to be fearless about eating. Too many of us fear eating. ‘If I eat, I will become fat,’ we think.
Now, how have we come to this conclusion? Most of us can identify with this pattern: ‘I don’t really feel hungry in the morning, even lunch I barely
have, but after 5 pm I don’t know what happens. That’s the time I call for biscuits, pizza, sev puri, golgappa, vada pav, samosa, burger, etc. Basically anything that I can lay my hands on. So till that time I am eating healthy and watching my diet, after that I don’t know. It’s almost like split personality. One way of eating (not eating) from 10 am to 5 pm and a diametrically opposite way of eating (overeating) from 5 pm to 10 pm.’
Even if you remotely belong to this category, the thought of eating every 2 hrs will make you feel restless. ‘Boss, I can never eat so much.’
But what you are completely overlooking is that you eat a lot at one time.
Now the question is, can we show the smartness to eat multiple times in a day instead of 2 to 3 times?
‘Hey, I barely have time for breakfast, and I skip lunch most of the time or have it by 3.30 or 4 pm, so I don’t have the time to eat so many times in the day.’ The problem here is that our stomach doesn’t understand that we have meetings, conferences, deadlines, presentations, fixed lunch hours, etc.
And it is on a mission to remain true to its dharma. So it keeps secreting hydrochloric acid and keeps asking you to eat. But we are smarter than the stomach; the minute it sends us the signal to eat we either give it a tea, coffee, cigarette, mint, pan masala or chewing gum, etc (depending on our taste) and almost always choose not to eat, trying to stave off those hunger pangs as long as possible. The stomach may feel like a neglected child, but we have better things to do than feeding it. When the hunger signal becomes unbearable we finally suffocate the stomach with so much food that we progressively work at weakening it; and therefore the hunger signals that it can send to our brain. Eating frequent meals every 2 hours is not just better for our digestive system, but it keeps us from overeating.
Amrita Arora never believed in dieting. Then she saw her best friend Kareena eat every 2 hours and looking better and leaner than ever before.
‘Bebo’s like clockwork, man. She takes this super quick 5 minute break even while she is in the shot, eats and gets back to delivering a stunning performance. While we were shooting together, she would go like “Accha chalo, 5 mins to 4 pm, it’s my peanut time.” I am just so impressed with her discipline, ya. She is eating all the time and looking like a million bucks.’
Amu had to shoot for a magazine cover and she needed a flat stomach for it. ‘Listen, I don’t know if I can be like Bebo, she is too good ya, I don’t
know if I can eat every do-do ghanta’.
‘Look, if you want to have a flat stomach, you will have to eat every 2 to max 2 ½ hours. For a flat stomach like Bebo’s, you need her discipline much more than her dietician.’
‘Point noted,’ said Amu.
So what else does eating often do for you? First of all, every time you eat your body has to work at breaking the food down, digesting it and absorbing it. This process is called DIT or Diet Induced Thermogenesis. In simple English, it means more calorie burning. Now you thought only gymming, running, cycling burns calories. Surprise, surprise, eating helps you burn calories too. The more often you eat, the more you can utilise DIT.
Which means that every 2 hours, you can increase your calorie burning just by eating.
The idea of eating every 2 hours may sound ridiculous, but only if you are imagining the size of your meals right now and thinking ‘My god, if I eat like this 6 to 7 times in the day, I will look like an elephant.’ But when you adopt the idea of eating frequently, often what drops first is the size of the meal. You will then find it impossible to eat that pizza by yourself. One piece and you will feel full; 2 chapatis for lunch at 2 pm when you just had something at noon is difficult too. So you may land up eating just 1 chapati at 2 pm and the next one at 4 pm.
When you eat every 2 hours a day, it’s a given that you will eat small. So the number of calories you consume at one time will be very small. When our body gets a regular dose of a small number of calories often, through the day, it feels reassured and loved. Eating is a way of loving our body and providing it with nourishment. Not eating for long hours (more than 3) or starving is an act of punishment, like being angry at ourselves. When our body gets fewer calories at a time, they are utilised better and not stored as fat. Also, because the body is feeling reassured with a regular intake of calories and nutrients, it sees no reason to store body fat. The body loses fear of death due to starvation (which is instilled by a combination of prolonged gaps between meals and eating a lot at one time), and feels encouraged to let go of its fat stores (which it has been holding on to as its means of survival).
So in short, eating after every 2 hours will lead to
• A conducive environment in the body to burn fat
• Fewer calories converted to fat
• Less dependence on stimulants
• Smarter thinking, because the brain gets a regular flow of sugar
• Flatter stomach, no need to hold on to fat stores And what happened to Amu? She shot for the magazine cover looking super hot. And she was pleasantly shocked that her stomach looked so flat.
‘I am very happy with you, Rujuta,’ said Amu’s mother, who was earlier sceptical about the whole ‘diet business’ (typical mom). ‘She is eating at regular intervals and most importantly her coffee has reduced from 6 cups a day to barely 2. That is the best thing about this diet.’
‘Now Mom, you go on a diet with Rujuta,’ said Amu. (Typical daughter.) Now, how does this work? It’s actually not as complicated as it sounds.
All we’re doing is taking our 3 main meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner), cutting the portions, and then adding some in between meals to these core meals. Let’s say that you start with fruit for meal 1. And you can have any traditional healthy meal for breakfast: upma, idli, dosa, puri bhaaji, aloo paratha. After that eat no more than 3 things for lunch: for example, roti +
sabzi + dal OR rice + curd + sabzi, or any other combination you like (avoid meat if you’re working as this will slow you down) and reduce one thing from dinner. So keep dinner as just roti + sabzi OR dal + sabzi (here you can have your meat, your non-veg).
For all the in between meals, eat only one thing at a time: peanuts, cheese, nuts, milk, yogurt, soy milk or whey protein shakes. These foods are wholesome and are higher in protein content, which we are always in danger of being deficient in. They stabilise blood sugar, help you think faster and support sedentary activities without getting converted to fat, importantly. When I consult, I recommend particular things to particular clients, but what I have outlined works as a general guideline.
Ok, how do you find time to eat? Well, when you eat 6 to 7 times in the day, it really doesn’t take too much time. Just a couple of minutes. The kind
of small meal I am asking you to eat is a handful of peanuts, a bowl of yoghurt, a slice or wedge of cheese. These are all foods you can keep in the office fridge, or in your desk. The 5:30 to 7 pm main meal is something you need to plan for, however, just as you plan your lunch. In the last chapter, I give you a variety of options which will make it easier for you but eating every 2 hours means you do need to plan ahead.
And this is my theory: we work to feed our stomachs. We educate ourselves, put all our effort into making good money so that we and our loved ones can lead a secure and fulfilling life. The irony is that our stomach is left feeling insecure. It’s clueless about where, when and how its next meal will come. We may get driven in or drive big cars, have huge houses, designer clothes, LV bags and Jimmy Choo shoes, but we don’t pay the same attention to our stomach, which is collecting fat for survival and always stressed about its next meal. So make time and connect with your stomach. Food is the way to do it.
Real life example:
Only busy people make time for everything.
Samir Bhatia of Barclays Bank leads a very busy life. He’s been running for a long time and it’s his passion, and he came to me because he wanted to run better and faster. Samir has deadlines, presentations, travels overseas, etc more than anybody else I know. Once, he travelled from the east coast to the west coast of America, and then went on to London, Hongkong and Mauritius, all in 20 days! He still stuck to the diet just as planned. I am blessed with sincere and devoted clients like him.
He told me the strategy he uses to stick to eating every 2 hours. The meals, of course, were planned in consideration of his place, schedule, everything; but how much he would land up following, especially through presentations and seminars, I really doubted. But Samir is brilliant. He would carry his meals in the pocket of his designer suit. ‘When it was my time to eat, I would excuse myself, saying that I had to go to the loo. And on my way to the restroom, I would eat my channa, cheese, etc.’
Wow, I was so touched. I can almost see Samir walking through a 5 star lobby towards the restroom, munching his food.
All my clients report that they start working much better and faster once they eat often. I am not surprised, are you?
Principle 3
Eat more when you are more active and less when you are less active Always fine-tune your eating to your activity. But remember, principle 3
cannot be followed without principle 2. Only when you eat all the time can you actually decrease meal size when less active and increase it when more active.
Once you follow principles 1 and 2, principle 3 will just naturally follow.
Principles 1 and 2 put you in touch with your hunger signals and train you to listen and follow them. Just like when you drive your car more, you need more petrol, but when it’s parked it just needs enough to start (without any trouble) and to last till your next destination or the closest petrol pump.
When you are in touch with your system, it will want more food when it is more active, and less food when it is not so active.
With the sunrise in the morning, the body’s metabolic rate picks up.
Which means that sitting and reading in the morning is a bigger calorie burner than sitting and reading in the evenings. The metabolic rate is higher in the morning than it is post sunset. So even the act of sitting will burn more calories. It goes without saying that you should eat more in the morning. And your stomach will feel free to communicate that with you once you encourage an open dialogue with it, through principles 1 and 2.
We get fat only because we don’t give a damn about what the stomach needs, and load or unload it according to our convenience. If deprivation of food is punishment then overeating is a crime. You will see in the next chapter of diet recall (Chapter 5, ‘Inculcating awareness’), how most of us get fat only because we eat at the wrong time and do not eat at the right time. If we don’t eat food when the body needs it, all this does is create a huge calorie and nutrient deficit. Later, when the time is wrong, that is the metabolic processes are slowing down, your body and mind will demand a lot of food to make up for the deficit.
Time is very important. Time once lost will never come back. The popular serial Mahabharat had samay or time as its sutradhar. ‘Time, time
ki baat hai jhonny,’ sang Helen very philosophically. Lives can be saved by a few seconds, relationships can be mended if things are done on time, wounds are healed with time. Time is indeed precious and divine. Goddess Kali, one of the most important goddesses of India, is the representation of time. And body rhythms are supposed to be the work of Kali. Thus a way to respect time, is to respect body rhythms.
Time of the day and activity affect our calorie burning. Each one of us has a pattern to our day that we must make a wholehearted attempt to understand, if we wish to stay lean and fit for life. Mornings lead to higher calorie burning in the body because nature designed us that way. It’s nature’s way of getting us ready. Time even affects what we do outside the body, outside of our immediate selves. Now, 9 am in the morning could be workout time for some, conference time, reporting time, school time, etc for others; 5.30 pm could be tuition time, meeting time, break or head back home time for some. But with the BPO boom in India some of us are actually leaving for work at 10.30 pm and heading back home at 7 am.
Alternately, homemakers find time for themselves after husband, father-in-law and children are packed off to work and school respectively. Once we understand the pattern of our day, we can plan what to eat and how much.
A lot of foods have a tarnished reputation only because they have been routinely eaten at the wrong times. Laddoos, especially the homemade ones (though Gita Bhavan of Rishikesh gives tough competition to the homemade variety), with fibre rich grain, ghee, dry fruits and the most important ingredient, ma ka pyar, if eaten as a meal in the morning can put any cereal and milk, toast and beans, omelette, etc to shame. But we either carry them to office and share it with the gang post lunch or save them in the fridge and eat them as dessert post dinner. At both these times they are eaten post meal instead of as a meal in itself. And because laddoos are dense in calories, if they are eaten with a meal or late at night, no prizes for guessing: they are converted to fats, and all the nutrients are wasted. The body cannot absorb nutrients on an overloaded stomach (post meal) or when it is slowing down (post sunset).
Cheese, pasta, paratha, peanuts, paneer, banana, mango, potato, rice, etc are misunderstood only because you have experienced them at the wrong time in your day. None of these foods are fattening. They are just dense in
energy (calories) or fat (which as you read, you will understand is healthy and crucial for life itself). In fact, I will go to the extent of saying that no food is fattening. You have to just be smart enough to choose the right time to eat it.
High activity could mean both physical and mental activity; for example, going to the gym or any kind of physical exercise, cooking, doing intensive thinking, attending important meetings, organising weddings, shifting houses. In short, any activity where you are very actively involved and that demands a lot of energy from you. Times of stress, travelling, and illness would also be high demand periods. And not just for you. If you’re ill, then your family or near ones will go through a time where they expend energy.
Low activity means any time you are passive, or relatively inactive, not using your mental energies; watching a movie or TV, surfing the net, making small talk on the phone, checking emails, doing low intensive admin work (such as paying bills and signing checks), being driven around, going out to a party (unless you are dancing quite a bit), napping, delegating work; in short any routine work. We need to up our eating during high demand periods and cut down when relaxing.
Not just this, the cells of our body become less sensitive to nutrition and calories if they have not been active. So when you are just chilling, the cells become dull, they don’t want anything (they’re in no mood to absorb nutrients and see no reason to make energy demands); so if you load your stomach at this time, it just gets converted to fat. But post activity (mental or physical) the cells are energy and nutrient deprived. This increases their sensitivity, which means that whatever you eat will get used up to replenish those hungry cells and not get converted to fat.
If you lack enthusiasm or energy it’s just because you are eating more when you are less active and vice versa. Can you identify with any one of these situations: a) You really want to watch this movie. Your friend books the tickets on the internet. You have had a normal day at work or home, nothing exceptional, but instead of feeling enthusiastic about going to the theatre you think, ok, can I go on Saturday afternoon, or maybe catch it later when it’s released on TV? b) You have to go for dinner at a cousin’s place. You are really looking forward to spending some time with your
cousin, but on the evening of the dinner you think, ‘It’s too far off. Maybe I can do it on another day?’
It’s not that you are lazy (only your mom, dad, and spouse think so), sick or psycho (only you think that you are) it’s just that sometimes you are not
‘up to’ things. You really want to get out of home but when it actually comes to the crunch, your enthu or motivation is low.
Look at your eating and activity pattern. If there is a disconnect or disproportion between your meal size and level of activity, you will be affected by the ‘not being up to it’ syndrome. It’s also called a sub clinical deficiency (well documented condition again), which means that you are not sick but lack optimal health. A simple way to get rid of this ‘don’t know what’s happening to me ya’ feeling is to eat more when your cells are more sensitive (which is when activity is higher, in the earlier part of the day) and eat less when less active. In the ideal world we should have finished having our 2 main meals by 11 am, especially if we have a weight issue.
Real life example:
Suman, a homemaker, started working with her husband when his business hit on bad times. She had moved 3 cities and delivered 2 babies by the time she shifted to Mumbai. She didn’t know how, but in 8 years she went up from 80 kilos to 125 kilos. She was careful about what she ate and ate very little. Woke up at 6 am and had a chai. Worked out at 8 am after packing off kids, and had another chai. Then at 10 am, she would have poha, upma or khakra. Then, depending on when she would get free at work, between 2 to 4 pm, she would have her lunch, which was 1 or 2 rotis, sabzi, dal. And then sukha bhel sometimes, or 2 biscuits by 6 to 7 pm, and then dinner just like lunch: 2 rotis, sabzi, dal and of course a little rice if very hungry.
If you look at her food, she is not doing anyting so drastically wrong that she should have become 125 kilos, but the timings are all off. Suman doesn’t see herself as important, and prioritises everything before herself.
Look at what she’s doing: she doesn’t put a thing in her stomach until 10
am, but she’s been up since 6 am and in fact very active: she’s cooked and worked out. Her lunch timings are uneven, and she is having it pretty late.
Her snacks are utterly non-nutritious and most importantly, she is doing
most of her eating from late afternoon, when her body isn’t in a position to utilise this food. Moreover, because she hasn’t fed her body in the morning, her metabolism has slowed down. In fact, because she hasn’t eaten during the high activity times of her day, her body has gone on conservation mode; ie, thinking that it’s starving, the body lowers the metabolic rate and starts to conserve all the fat.
To summarise
• Eating more food when you’re more active will make your body an efficient calorie burner…
• Which will increase the metabolic rate of your body…
• Which will help you stay energetic through the day…
• And will help you lose fat more effectively.
Principle 4
Finish your last meal at least 2 hours prior to sleeping.
Simply an extension of principle 3. We need to start eating less post sunset and as our activities wind down.
What are you doing just before sleeping? Generally unwinding and watching TV, reading, chatting, etc. Basically your activity is lower than what it was in the morning, so is your metabolism, and the digestion capacity of your stomach.
One of the most dangerous habits that we have developed is not eating dinner unless it’s really late. People come back home after work and for some strange reason don’t feel like eating dinner. Everybody wants to have nashta (preferably fried: farsan and chips, biscuits, or anything else which is salty) and then have dinner while watching their favourite serial. (Prime time is 9 to 9.30 pm.) This obviously loads your stomach. The best thing to do is to eat a healthier or fuller meal by 6 to 6.30 pm in the evening, and then eat really light by 8 to 8.30 pm.
Remember, digesting food is a calorie burner and work for the body. In the night, cells are naturally not very sensitive to energy or nutrients as they don’t really need much so if you overload your stomach most of it will get
wasted or converted to fat. You may eat the healthiest of food but the body has to be in a mood to digest and absorb nutrients from it.
The worst thing is of course eating a lot and then sleeping immediately.
Just like khali pet pe neend nahi aati, overloaded stomach pe disturbed sleep aati hai.
A good quality, restful and peaceful sleep is the backbone to losing fat.
While we sleep, our body repairs cells (the same reason why you invest in expensive night creams), balances the hormones, rejuvenates the cells of our body, repairs the damage that we have put our cells through during the day, and gets ready for the next day. Without peaceful sleep, your hormones or your lean tissue will not be able to support fat burning. Stress or disturbed sleep throw the hormones off balance, and depletes us of lean tissue (muscle breakdown and bones thinning), both of which hamper fat burning.
In the night, when we sleep, our system or the body’s intelligence should feel free to do what it is supposed to do: repair wear and tear and rejuvenate. If at this time the stomach is overloaded, the body is torn between two things. Our body’s recovery system takes a beating and the food doesn’t get broken down, digested and absorbed properly. End result: you wake up feeling not just tired and weary (recovery process hampered), but also with a bloated stomach, swollen face, acidity, burping (digestion hampered); generally feeling heavy and dull, instead of fresh and light.
My diet plans usually get me two immediate reactions: 1) How can I eat so much in the day? 2) How can I eat so little in the night?
Which is followed by the inevitable question, ‘What if I feel hungry after the last meal? Give me options to eat.’
To which my standard response is: ‘Call me if you feel hungry.’
‘Even if its midnight or 3 am?’
‘Ya, whatever time, my phone is on all the time.’
I am yet to get any call from a client. I usually get smses which typically read something like: ‘Can I skip dinner?’; ‘Too full’; ‘Losing interest in the last meal’; ‘Never dreamt that I would want to not have heavy dinner’.
Workout late evenings
Some people I know workout late evening, but because they want to eat light for dinner, eat nothing post workout. Well this is the deal: a pre workout and post workout meal is a necessity irrespective of the time of the day you workout at. So even if its a 8 pm or 10 pm workout, make sure you have your high GI carbs and protein shake within 10 minutes of working out.
Yup, even if it’s 11 pm.
Coffee post dinner
Dessert post dinner is bad. Granted. What about coffee? Because caffeine is a fat burner, it will also burn the calories from dinner. Phut. Time to burst the bubble. Well coffee, for one, will come in the way of your sleep, you know that. Ok, next one. It will interfere with the digestion, specifically in the absorption of minerals like iron and calcium. And on low levels of calcium and iron, fat burning suffers (oh no!). Wait, one more, coffee makes your stomach acidic so you wake up bloated and constipated.
And now for the proof. When you wake up in the morning, brush your teeth, stand in front of a mirror, put your tongue out and look at its colour. It will have a thick deposit (colour may vary from light yellow to dark brown). These are the toxins settled on your tongue after your night’s sleep. Still want that coffee?
If you look at your current lifestyle, reducing the size of dinner and having it early may (and rightly so) sound like an impossible proposition. Eating the last meal 2 hours before bedtime is crucial for long term health, change in body composition (increase in muscle and bone weight, decrease in fat weight), that glowing complexion (Acne free. Ever visited a skin doctor?
The first thing they want to know is if your stomach is clear.) and a restful sleep. But it requires serious and permanent change in lifestyle. Without principles 1, 2 and 3, principle 4 cannot be employed, and in fact will fall flat.
When you sleep just right (the ideal time to sleep is between 10 and 10:30 pm to 5 am and you should stick as close to this as you can), it will show on your body, face and health. Some people suffer from stretchmarks (women on their thighs, hips, stomach, and men on the chest and arms) post weight loss. When weight loss comes without healthy changes in lifestyle, stretchmarks are just one of the signs of abuse that you have put your body
through. If you want no stretchmarks or want to reduce the ones you already have, eat 2 hours before bedtime.
TV out of the bedroom
Gul and Naveen led hectic schedules and had made a policy decision of not having cable TV
at home, to safeguard the kids from all that nonsense. But after they put the kids off to sleep, around 10 pm they watched DVDs (of series like Seinfeld, Lost, Friends, or movies) for a good hour or 2. Naveen never really slept too well; he always had a disturbed sleep. Gul struggled to get out of bed every morning, and was always tired in the morning. Is it rocket science? Not really.
Watching TV is not relaxing, but rather a taxing activity for the body, especially the eyes and the brain. Let’s refresh what we learnt in school. We should always look at things on which the light is getting reflected; reading by the window and not staring at the source of light. Now your TV (and laptop) are emitting harsh rays. So your eyes and brain are still stressed, sweetie. And you know what stress does to fat burning. So switch off that TV
(including what you watch on DVD) and laptop at least an hour before bedtime. Yes, a book is alright. Just get the lighting right.
When you eat too late (immediately before bedtime) or do the TV and bed dinner, the food remains undigested in your intestines. The area of the small intestine is pretty large, almost the size of 3 tennis courts (next to each other), so there is plenty of scope for your body to absorb nutrients as they make their long journey through it. But if you have eaten more than what is in your capacity to digest (according to yogic philosophy one of the signs of an ignorant man), the undigested food remains in the tract and bacteria act upon it. This can turn the healthiest of meals into toxins.
These toxins (aam, in ayurveda) lead to acidity, bloating, constipation (short term), gain in body fat levels and appearance of stretch marks (long term). The chances of nightmares or scary dreams are high after a big, late dinner, and actually increase after consumption of dessert at night. Dreams are a way for our mind to digest and make sense of all the impressions and information that it has collected in the day. A full stomach interferes with this process too. In short, if you eat like a dog in the night you will behave like a bitch in the day (don’t take offence with the gender please).
Now, this principle of eating early will make it easy for us to employ principle 1; which is to eat immediately on rising. If the stomach is heavy, bloated and constipated in the morning, the last thing on your mind is food.
A dull, lethargic and tired mind will need a caffeine kick to start the day off.
So phut goes your diet plan and with it the permanent fat loss, with that glowing skin, lustrous hair and flat stomach (stretch mark free) that you so yearn for. But once you follow principle 4, you will wake up without the need of an alarm, and your stomach will give you the signal to download.
When you enter the bathroom you will be able to defecate without straining and you will walk out of your bathroom feeling light, hungry and happy (not heavy, gassy and irritated).
What about sex?
What about sex, asked my editor. Doesn’t that help you digest your meal after dinner? Surely you can eat late and then work it off. Hmmm. Big no. It’s the same with taking a walk straight after dinner. When we finish our food, our stomach immediately starts to digest it and needs all its resources to break it down, absorb and assimilate the nutrients. At this time, it needs all the blood supply (in fact, vajrasana, which is a recommended posture post dinner, aids digestion because it directs all the blood flow to the stomach) while during sex, the blood supply goes to your genitals; during your walk, it moves towards your legs and arms. So you think you’re working off your food when actually you’re obstructing its digestion. My advice to my editor was maximise calorie burning and have sex before dinner!
Why will you feel like going to the loo, first thing in morning? It’s because eating light and 2 hours prior to bedtime allows the body plenty of time to digest, absorb and metabolise food correctly. The process of shitting will be so quick that you will not need a book or newspaper to distract or relax. (The parasympathetic nervous system which is responsible for relaxing the entire body allows the sphincters to open and allows for the faeces to move towards the anus.) A light stomach ensures restful and peaceful sleep, so the state of mind is relaxed too.
Prabhate mal darshanam, which I’ve referred to earlier in this chapter, is a sign of good health and an efficient digestive system. Only a relaxed mind and light (healthy) body has the privilege of the darshan of mal every morning.
At this point I would like to add a little note. Most people like to read (some people have dedicated places for books, magazines and newspapers
in the bathroom) while shitting. Don’t! Just like for good digestion you don’t read, play games on mobile, answer calls, or watch TV while eating, refrain doing all that while shitting too. Stay connected with how and what your body throws out; this is the clue to what to eat and what to avoid.
Don’t miss out on this crucial lesson.
Get out of the vicious cycle of caffeine and nicotine kicks in the morning, straining on the toilet seat, skipping lunch, not feeling hungry till evening, overeating in the night, getting disturbed sleep at night, and waking up dull and tired in the morning.
The day you wake up feeling hungry and with an urge to clear the stomach, know that you have started on the path of permanent ‘results’.
Hunger is a sign of youth, health, happiness and peace.
To summarise
To eat 2 hours before bedtime will lead to
• Most of your food being digested before you go to bed…
• Which will lead to sound sleep…
• Which will leave your body free to do its repair work…
• Which will make your body more effective in burning fat.
Bad breath
This is clearly a bigger dampener than a pot belly. Why does it feature in a diet book? Because it’s got to do with your food intake and the health of your digestive system. When food is not getting digested properly, it can leave a bad smell in your mouth (falling sick does that too).
Lack of digestive enzymes and overeating are big culprits when it comes to making your mouth stink.
Cut the size of your meal down. Follow the principles of increasing nutrient intake, and exercise regularly to keep the digestive system healthy. Increase the amount of water, because dehydration can be smelled from a conversation distance (words smell of ‘I need water’).
Most of us experience this every morning or after a long flight (not drinking water in the night and pressure controlled conditions of flight increase our chances of dehydration).
A vitamin C supplement will also help. And last but not the least, visit your dentist regularly (once in 6 months) to check for cavities or other issues in your mouth which can alter the way you chew and therefore the way you digest food and experience enzymatic actions.
And yeah, do the Indian thing: gargle after every meal. Water will not just hydrate your mouth, but will also act as an cleansing agent in your mouth.
Inculcating awareness
As you wait for your turn to pay at your local food mall you might have noticed a huge guy with tons of aerated drinks, jams, butter, biscuits, chips, etc loaded in his cart. While he waits for his turn, he also picks up chewing gums and chocolates which are laid out to tempt buyers exactly in his situation. And you wonder, doesn’t he understand that this is wrong? That he can’t be eating so much junk?
I come from a typical Konkanastha Brahmin family, where 90% of the people are engineers and the remaining 10% doctors, CAs, bankers and teachers. Earlier at my family functions, what I do for a living used to be a major topic of discussion. Now, the kind of people who seek my advice are a topic of discussion. There is an almost unanimous agreement that people who consult me must be seriously lacking IQ. My family just can’t understand how people can get so fat in the first place. And then instead of just cutting down on what they are eating why do they need to seek out
‘professional advice’. (We are blessed with a high metabolic rate. My grandfather and his 6 brothers were forced to migrate to Bombay because they were starving in the Konkan. Extreme poverty ensured that genetically we would carry less fat cells. NOW you know why those doctors ask for genetic or family history!)
‘You make a living by telling people what to eat?’ one of my mamas joked. ‘The people who come to you must be crazy. Why should they come and pay you? So that you can tell them to stop eating fried food and sweets.
Don’t they already know that?’ (Now this is typical Kobra—Konkanastha Brahmin—behaviour. It’s a community afflicted with a know it all attitude like no other.) So obviously my entire family ‘knows’ that other than telling them not to eat fried food and sweets, there is nothing more that I do with my clients. At the most I must be telling them to stop eating rice. For this I get paid? Ridiculous.
Information without awareness is useless Yes it’s a fact: everybody knows that they should be avoiding sweets and fried stuff. Everybody. Even your gulli ka kutta. Then how come so many people are still eating them? It’s simple: they lack complete awareness about what they are stuffing their mouths with. Information without awareness is like riding a bike with the helmet on the handle. You have the right equipment but it’s not in the right place. Useless. Just like the information that eating pizza, chips, chocolates, pastries will make you fat is not enough. What you need is awareness. To develop awareness, you need to start observing what you are doing.
Awareness comes when the mind is in a meditative state. Hmm… now how many times in the day do we catch ourselves in this meditative state?
Almost never. A state of meditation is reached (ok for most of us reaching the meditative state in this life is almost impossible), or we can get closer to a meditative state, when we experience a certain amount of calmness in our mind. Many of us lead a life where we had to finish almost everything yesterday, where we are at every moment torn in between 2 or more things or people, where we just don’t have the time to do or pursue anything that we evenly remotely love, and where stress is an inevitable part of our existence.
How then can we go about cultivating awareness? Or is there no hope for us? No, there is hope. And it is called ‘Diet recall’ in the field of nutrition.
A standardised (used world over) 24 hour diet recall requires you to write down everything that you eat and drink from the time you wake up till the time you sleep, along with time, quantity and a brief description of food. A 24 hour diet recall gives you and the nutritionist you are working with a good idea of what you eat at what time, your food likes and dislikes, your calorie and nutrient intake, etc.
I have further modified the standard 24 hour diet recall to suit my clients’
needs and lifestyle. I get them to write a 3 day diet and activity recall.
Two of these days are working days and 1 a chutti day, depending on which day of the week is ‘off’ or ‘day out’ for you. Typically, most of my clients note down Saturday or Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Along with the diet recall I also get them to jot down their activity recall. Which means that
they also put down everything that they have done in the day along with what time they did it. So, everything from brushing teeth, driving, meetings; all the gory details. But it doesn’t stop here. After diet and activity, they have to put down workout details (if any): weight training, yoga, cardio or whatever.
Why do we need such a lamba-chauda process? To bring ourselves an inch closer towards awareness. If your home loan company promises you a deal or exchange, will a verbal assurance do or do you want that in writing?
Writing has that effect on us. You have to think using your mind, your hands write and your eyes see what is written. It creates a much deeper understanding of what we are doing and why we are doing it. (Remember your mother always asked you to write answers in a notebook and not just read them from the text.) When my clients (after initial resistance) agree to write their 3 day diet and activity recall, they are aghast at what they read at the end of three days. About 90% of them swear that these 3 days were unusual, and that on all other days they eat very differently. They don’t have as much coffee, eat dinners earlier, don’t eat sweets, and workout regularly, blah blah blah…
In my initial years as a nutritionist, I had a hard time getting my clients to write the recall. I have actually lost clients because I have insisted on seeing the diet and activity recall which they were so averse to writing. But today clients are coming to me because I am willing to listen to everything that they do and eat in the day; because I don’t pack them off with standardised printouts of diets and pocket an amount for it.
That’s not the point though. The point is that food is one of the 4
primitive fountains of life, together with sex, sleep and the instinct for self preservation. Food is instinctive. Food is a means through which we can start on this beautiful journey towards our real spiritual self. ‘Anna he purnabramha’: this means that food is bramha, a vedantic concept that means completeness or oneness. Food is something through which we can become one with God or with our inner self. And no, this is not a Vedantic or Hindu concept alone. Whatever religion you believe in or were born into, no matter how old or new age the religion is, it will place special emphasis on food.
One of my writer friends has an interesting take on the diet and activity recall: ‘Your method is going to force people to move inwards. Only the fearless will opt for your diet plan.’ Most people are threatened at the very thought of moving inwards; 99% of my clients offer to verbally tell me what their diet is, or just quickly put down a typical day for me on paper, at the most. This is followed by reassurances, mother promises, etc that their day is exactly like this. (My funniest moment was when a director of a pharma company pulled her throat and said, ‘Dekh jooth nahi bolti, itna kheecha hai.’; referring to the skin that she had pulled from the throat.) They have never eaten out of this pattern, they can’t, as they are bogged down by working hours, pressures, etc; why I want to waste time with one; why don’t I just tell them what to do; they have spent so long being fat, and now they are raring to go and shed the weight; they will do everything as I say; why don’t I just tell them what to do. (Most of these people have been through multiple diets where they were just told what to do. They followed them religiously, lost weight, and obviously gained double of it in no time.
But have they learnt anything?)
When I insist that to ensure we all save time they come back with their diet recall, they give in reluctantly. Now what I do to keep my client’s heart is save the ‘typical day’ diet recall paper anyway. When they come back with the actual diet recall and we compare them with the typical day, they are as similar as chalk and cheese.
The typical day or what they want to tell me verbally is usually how they would like to see themselves eating, not how they are actually eating. But it is also what they seriously think they are eating. Brings us back to awareness. They are simply unaware that they are eating way different from what they would actually want themselves to be eating. That’s exactly why some people believe that they are doing nothing wrong, eat very little, and yet seem to gain weight. It just means that they are unaware of what’s wrong. Now, when they have proof in black and white that what they actually ate (reality) is different from their perception, they are shocked, to say the least.
This process, though tedious and difficult (seemingly), is a powerful tool.
You will instantly know why you are gaining weight. Just one look at the 3
day diet and activity recall will help you know yourself better. It’s a complete, no holds barred revelation. And an amazing one at that.
Although you may not have the skills to read a diet recall like an experienced dietician and use it in the same way, it will be a fun exercise to do. And it’s the best way to see if you’re lying to yourself. Awareness is the first step towards health and weight loss. (I’ve given you diet and activity recall forms to fill out for yourself also, in Appendix 3.) Here are some sample diet and activity recall forms of some of my clients. I have tried to choose diet recalls so as to have a good representation of different professions. I then go on to dissect these recalls to identify patterns which are harmful and are obviously coming in the way of fat loss. Based on the diet recalls, I recommend some changes in their eating pattern, which will help them towards their goal. It might amuse you to see how other people really eat!
Sample diet and activity recalls for specific
profiles
Note: All the below diets are only indicative and not actual diets. These are changes that we can bring about in our life without the ‘interference’ of a nutritionist. Breaking down our diet based on the 4 common sense principles is not an alternative to going to an expert in nutrition science, but it provides for a strong foundation from where professional help can take off.
Profile 1: Rohini, freelance journalist, early 40s Day 1
Food/Drink
Quantity
Activity Recall
Workout
9.30 am: wake up
6-7 pm Cardio:
treadmill 30 minutes
Breakfast: 10
Lemon tea with Splenda: 4 10-11.45 am: read papers,
Cross-trainer: 15
am
cups
check email, etc.
minutes
Sliced papaya: 1 bowl
12 noon: shower and leave
Fixed weights: 15
house
minutes
5 almonds soaked overnight 1.30 pm: lunch at
neighbourhood café
Lunch: 1.30 pm Grilled chicken salad with
2.20-3.30 pm: meeting at
roasted almonds
work
Cappucino
4-5.30 pm: Italian class
Diet Coke
Coffee at the café at the
centre
Tea: 5.30 pm
Black coffee with 2 biscotti 6-7 pm: workout at the gym 7.30-8 pm: On my home
computer working
8.30-9 pm: fix dinner
Dinner: 9 pm
Cold meat platter, roasted
9-10 pm: have dinner, watch
peppers, lentils
TV
2 slices of wholewheat toast 10-11 pm: read up on work Late night
Popcorn: 1 bowl. Jasmine
11-12 pm : watch TV, have
snack: 12 am
tea
snack
1 am: to bed with a book
Day 2
Breakfast: 10 Lemon tea with Splenda
9.30 am: wake up
Workout:
am
6-7 pm
Sliced papaya
10-11.30 am: read papers, check
mail, etc
5 almonds soaked overnight 12 noon: shower and get dressed Cross-trainer: 30
mins
Snack: 12.30 Brazil nuts: 10-12 pieces
12.15-1.30 pm: work on column
Cycle: 10 mins
pm
Cold coffee: 1 1 Barista cold coffee with
1.45-3.15 pm: meeting at work
Pilates: 20 mins
pm
sugar free
Lunch: 3.30
Crostini with tomato
3.30 pm: lunch at Italian café
pm
