Salad with cheese
4-5.30 pm: Italian class at centre
Snack: 7.30
Diet Coke and roasted nuts: 1 6-7 pm: workout at gym
pm
bowl
Dinner: 10.30 Bean and pasta soup: 1 bowl 7.30-8.30 pm: working on pm
computer
Steak, vegetables and fries
9 pm: dinner with friends
(10)
Champagne: 2 glasses
9.20-10.20 pm: drinks
Red wine: 2 glasses
10.30 pm: dinner
Tea: 12 am
Jasmine tea: 4 cups
12 am: back home, jasmine tea
and TV
12.30 am: read book in bed
1 am: to bed
Day 3
Tea: 8 am 1 cup tea, 2 Good Day biscuits
8-9 am: read
No
newspapers in bed.
workout
Breakfast: 2 rotis (1 lightly buttered), glass of milk with coffee and 9.30 am: Got ready 9 am
no sugar
for work
10.30 am: Went to
Connaught Place to
buy gifts, went to
office, worked till
1.30 pm.
Lunch:
Cold coffee with sugar, ½ bowl of green vegetable salad Went out for lunch 1.30-2.30 with feta, half of a thin-crust, 6-inch vegetarian pizza.
with friends to Khan
pm
Market.
Tea: 5 pm ½ cup with no sugar
Reached home,
worked for 2 hours on
a story.
Dinner: 7 2 plain rotis, 1 piece chicken
pm
8.30-
1 large vodka with soda and lime juice, 1½ shammi
Went out to meet
10.30 pm kababs, 5 pieces of roasted potatoes, cucumber, paneer some friends
and tomatoes in a veg chaat, 3 pieces of egg on toast (each piece 1/4th of a slice, fried, with scrambled egg on top).
12.00-
Read in bed.
12.30 pm
Smoked 10-15
Subject
This is the type of profile that I feel most sorry for. The recall belongs to what I call a ‘thinker’ (someone whose job involves a lot of intellectual work) with a sedentary lifestyle, who is making serious (and repeated) attempts to eat correctly and to commit to a regular exercise routine (sugar is out, sweetener is in). Rohini has been to every dietician you can name and has been on the ‘lose and gain much more’ cycle forever. Though she is very intellectual, what she is missing here is a basic awareness about what her body needs and at what times during the day.
Evaluation of the recall
The current diet is a cocktail of many diets that Rohini has tried, tested and given up. What she has retained (other than body fat and stretch marks) is various things from various diets that suited her palette and lifestyle. Except for one meal there is hardly anything fried or sweet.
Before we go on, I want to remind you again of the 4 basic principles that you need to employ to remain healthy and lean.
1. Always eat the minute you wake up: never start your day with tea or coffee.
2. Eat every 2 to 3 hours during the day.
3. Eating (quantity of food) should be directly proportionate to your activity levels.
4. There should be a minimum gap of 2 hours between the last meal and bedtime.
Now look at the recall. None of our principles are being followed. You can expect Rohini to look bloated and have a stomach which doesn’t function too well. How can it? Dinner is usually big and late. She drinks too much chai in the morning. So what if it’s jasmine, or decaf?
The most harmful things Rohini is doing:
• Not 1 or 2 but 4 cups of tea in the morning
• Starving till late afternoon and binging in the night. Rohini is a classic case of ‘I can eat almost nothing till lunch and after that I am ravenous’—which applies to all those who refuse to feed themselves well in the day, either because they want to become diet divas, or have forgotten, or are too busy to eat.
• Rohini may not be eating much till evening, yet a lot of her activities like Italian class, meetings, checking emails, etc, get done by 6 to 7pm.
• To make things worse, she goes for a workout on an already ill-fed body and then eats nothing after workouts. Just look at what she is drinking pre exercise—Diet Coke! Come on ya.
• This can also lead to injuries. Your doc will deduce that working out at the gym injured you. It’s like your mechanic saying, ‘Gaadi road pe chalaya isliye kharab hua!’ Use your common sense, if you drive your car without petrol, wo band pad jayegi!
My take
Rohini will look and feel dramatically different if she just changes the timings and how much she eats at one time. She can modify her diet as: Meal 1 (9.30 am): bowl of papaya
Meal 2 (10.30 am): muesli, milk and nuts
Meal 3 (12.30-1 pm): grilled chicken with 2 pieces of wholewheat toast Meal 4 (2.30-3 pm): slice of cheese
Meal 5 (5-5.30 pm): Brazil nuts
Meal 6 (7-7.30 pm): bean and pasta soup (post workout) Meal 7 (9 pm): roasted peppers and other veggies, plus grilled fish if she wants to
Profile 2: Lubna, 28 years old, banker
Day 1 Holiday
Quantity
Activity Recall
Workout
12:30 pm: went out for shopping
Lunch: 3
1 plate of rice with chicken curry, fish and 2-3 pm: watched TV
pm
salad and pickle
3 pm: had lunch
Tea: 5.30
Tea with bread and butter and kheer
3.30-5 pm: nap
pm
5.30 pm: had tea
Dinner: 9.30 1 plate of chicken biryani and ice cream 6-10 pm: went out to cousin’s
pm
place for dinner
11 pm: had shower
12 pm: went to sleep
Day 2
6.20 am: woke up and got ready
Nothing
Breakfast: 7.15- 1 bowl of cornflakes and 1 cup 7.30 am: left for work 7.25 am
of tea
Work timings: 7.45 am-4 pm
4.45 pm: Reach home
Lunch: 12 pm
1 sandwich, salad and mutton
07.30-10 pm: was in church for mass
curry
Snack: 2 pm
Fruits (I only eat this when I
10.30 pm: reached home and watched
have the time)
cricket match
Tea: 4.45 pm
Tea with biscuits and cake
11.00 pm: showered
11.30 pm: dinner with family
Dinner: 11.30 pm 1 plate of rice with fried fish,
12.00 am: bedtime
salad
Day 3
Breakfast:
1 bowl of porridge and 1 cup of tea
6.20 am: woke up and
Nothing
7.15-7.25 am
got ready
7.30 am: left for work
Work timings: 7.45 am-4
pm
At work
I have at least 2 to 3 glasses of water when I have 4.45 pm: reached home time in the office.
Lunch: 12.00 1 chapati with beef roast
5.30-7 pm: watched TV
noon
and talked with family
Snack: 2.00 1 mango
7-10.30 pm: went out
pm
with family to the mall
½ cup aloo sabzi
11pm: had shower
4.45 pm
1 plate of rice with curry fish, beef roast and plain 11.30 pm: had dinner raw mango
with family
Tea: 6.00 pm Had tea with icing cake
12.30 pm: bedtime
Dinner:
1 plate of foul medammes (Lebanese dish of
11.30 pm
beans) with bread and fish curry. Later 1 banana.
Subject
Lubna is from (where else, but) Kerala and currently living in the Middle East. A young girl of 28, she holds a good job with a bank (sorry, not as a nurse). She lives with her extended family but misses her immediate family.
When in Kerala, Lubna ate much more than she eats now. But she never gained any weight. She had lustrous hair, glowing skin and regular periods.
Three years away from home and she had gained 28 kilos! She never realised she was gaining weight, she was too busy managing her life and living alone in a new country. The lustre from her hair, the glow from her face, her confidence and the regularity of her periods had gone.
Evaluation of the recall
Now, this girl believes she’s unnecessarily gaining weight. She thinks her diet is rich in lean proteins like fish and chicken and that she rarely has sweets. This is totally untrue if you look at her recall, she eats ice cream and kheer on day 1 and cakes on the remaining days! But of course she is gaining weight because she is just so unaware of what she is doing. She has tried exercising and given up because ‘It doesn’t work anyways.’
The most harmful things she is doing:
• Not exercising. First things first, she needs to commit to some kind of exercise at least 3 to 4 days a week.
• Lubna mostly eats chicken and fish, which is alright, but if it comes so late in the day then it just gets converted to fat because the body is really in no mood to digest and assimilate chicken and ice cream or fish and banana!
• She does follow our principle of not waking up to tea or coffee but then doing anything in isolation is never enough. Here is the reason why she went on a diet with me.
Dear Ms Rujuta Diwekar,
Hi, my name is Lubna. I live in Dubai and am a big fan of Kareena Kapoor. I simply love her.
And in Jab We Met she is sooo cute.
I want to thank you for two things:
For making Kareena Kapoor so thin and sexy and also for helping me lose weight.
While researching on the internet I found out that Kareena is following your diet and doesn’t have tea or coffee as the first thing in the morning. I idolise her and want to look like her so I stopped having bed tea. The result— I lost 5 kilos in 2 months. But now my weight is stuck.
Can you help me please?
As with Rohini, Lubna doesn’t follow the 2nd, 3rd or the 4th principle.
While she is at work she barely eats. After coming back home she hogs. Yet she believes that she is eating right.
Now if you are wondering why she lost weight after quitting her chai as the wake up drink, here is the simple reason: it put her in touch with her hunger. So she started having breakfast, which helped to improve her metabolic rate.
My take
Now look at why she is gaining weight. This girl simply eats too much. But why? When she comes back from work she has nothing creative or interesting to do. She hasn’t bothered cultivating any hobby or working out.
So she is eating sweets for entertainment. (All girls do that and that makes them put on weight.) Interestingly, on the day that she goes to church there
is no dessert in the night. Prayers are comforting. When you are already feeling happy with yourself you can do away with ‘comfort food’.
Eating food for entertainment is a sure shot way of getting fat. It’s a much better idea to take part in some activity that is comforting. Praying, exercising, painting, singing, anything that suits your temperament. It doesn’t just help you burn calories, it keeps you away from ingesting too many calories. Food is not for entertainment or to deal with boredom. Look at Lubna’s diet recall. The girl consumes huge amounts of food at a time.
One way of getting over boredom is to eat till your senses go numb. So along with changing her eating habits and exercising 3 times a week, Lubna will also need to cultivate hobbies so that she can utilise her spare time better. She can modify her diet as:
Meal 1 (6.30 am): Mango
Meal 2 (7.30 am): Porridge
Meal 3 (9.30 am): 1 chapati with omelette (roll and wrap in aluminium foil) Meal 4 (11.30 am): yogurt
Meal 5 (1.30 pm): 1 chapati and bhaji
Meal 6 (3.30 pm): a handful of nuts
Meal 7 (5 pm): 1 chapati and sabzi (after getting back from work) Get some exercise or join some class—do something productive by 6-6.30
pm.
Meal 8 (7.30 pm): brown rice, dal and fish (steamed or as curry) Bedtime should be earlier by 10 to 10.30 pm, as Lubna gets up by 6 to 6.30 am. Good rest ensures that the body functions at its best and prevents frequent illnesses. (Lubna used to fall sick frequently, nothing serious but backaches, flus, coughs, colds, etc. Basically, poor immunity.) Profile 3: Aditi, working mom, early 30s
Day 1
Food/drink
Quantity
Activity recall
Workout
Yoga for
an hour
8 oz glass of warm water with ½ lemon
7 am: woke up and
started preparing
lunch for my son.
Breakfast: 8 oz glass of whole milk with elaichi powder and some 7.25-8 am: got my 8.35-8.50
kesar (no sugar).
son and myself
am
ready and a glass of
milk.
8-8.30 am: left to
work and dropped
my son to school by
car.
10.30 am
20 oz of Diet Pepsi.
8.45 am: reached
office and started
working.
8 oz of low fat yogurt.
11.15 am-
Yoga class
12.15 pm
Lunch:
Small veggie sandwich from Quiznos. Sandwich was
12.30 pm
on wheat sub bread with lettuce, 2 slices of cheese, 2
slices of tomato, couple of black olives, onions and
mushrooms.
1- 4.30 pm
Got back to work on
computer (Business
software analyst).
4.30-5 pm
Picked up my son
and drove towards
home.
5.20 pm
Reached home.
Started cooking
dinner .
Dinner:
2 plain rotis (no butter or ghee), 2 bowls of french bean Had dinner 6.30 pm
subji with eggplant.
6.30-7.30
Fed my son.
pm
Cleaned the dishes
and kitchen.
7.30-9.30
Relaxed with my
pm
son and watched
some TV.
Went to bed. Woke
up couple of times a
night as son was
sick.
Day 2
8 oz glass of warm
7 am: woke up
water with lemon.
7-7.30 am
Prepared lunch and packed for my son.
7.30-8 am
Got myself and son ready.
8-8.45 am
Dropped son to school and reached
work.
Breakfast: 3 egg omlette with
Had breakfast
9 am
vegetables and 2 slices
of cheese in the
downstairs deli.
11 am
20 oz of Diet Coke
11.30-1
Had a hair cut appointment. Skipped
pm
lunch grabbed some fresh fruit on the
way.
Lunch: 1- Watermelon, pineapple, Had fruits in the meeting. Meeting 2.30 pm
strawberry and some
lasted till 2.30 pm.
grapes.
2.30-3.15
Went for a walk with a colleague in
Stroll with a friend.
pm
the office campus.
3.15-5.30
Worked on computers again.
pm
5.30-6 pm
Picked up son and went to a restaurant
close by as was starving.
Dinner:
Had 1 dish of dahi puri Had dinner and spend some quality 6-7.30 pm (5 puris) and 1 plate of family time.
pav bhaji
8 pm
Reached home.
8-8.30 pm
Freshen up, helped son to fresh up.
8.30-9.30
Exercise
Walked on treadmill for
pm
an hour at the speed of
incline.
9.30-10
Storytime for my son.
pm
10.30 pm
Went to sleep. Woke up couple of
times at night as son still has
congetion and wakes up middle of the
night for water.
Day 3
Morning
6.30 am: woke up.
6.30-7.30
Prepared lunch snacks
am
for son and packed for
school.
7.30-8 am
Got son ready and all 3
of us left for work and
school.
8-8.30 am
Reached work after
dropping son.
Breakfast: 8 oz of yogurt.
9 am
9-11.15
Worked on computers;
am
drank 20 oz of water
bottle.
11.15-
Pilates class
12.15 pm
Lunch:
Plain rawa dosa with sambhar and coconut chutney
Lunch at a south Indian
12.30-1
restaurant
pm
1-5 pm
Worked on computers
again; drank another
20 oz of water.
5-5.30 pm
Picked up Aditya from
school.
6.00 pm
Reached home and
started cooking.
Dinner:
Potato-brinjal mix vegetable with 2 parathas (I try to do my Had dinner.
parathas as thin as possible so I feel I am eating 2 parathas although I am eating the equivalent of 1)
7-7.30 pm
Fed dinner to Aditya.
7.30-8.30
Played toys with him.
pm
8.30-10
Storytime for him;
pm
drank another 30 oz of
water.
10 pm
Went to sleep.
Subject
Aditi is a sharp girl from India who first went to study to America on scholarship and later worked, married and had her bundle of joy, Aditya, there. So what goes without saying is that other than parents and in-laws being around for the customary 6-9 months post delivery, she has had little or no help around the house. Indians abroad, especially women, get a really raw deal. No family around, worse no maids! And when you have a mind that’s conditioned the Indian way, you are almost always feeling that no matter how well you do at work your self worth depends on how well you do as a mother, wife, homemaker, sister, daughter, daughter-in-law, friend, etc (though not necessarily in that order). Actually all of us women world over, caste, creed, nationality, IQ, and financial security aside feel like that.
(Wah, what a leveller!) Women, after bearing children and especially a son, happily give up themselves and their identities for the second time. (They give it up the first time when they become somebody’s Mrs.) From Mrs Aggarwal she becomes Bunty ki mummy. Oh what a transformation. Once upon a time women were not expected to be computer savvy, professional working women. They were supposed to make chapatis, cook, clean, etc. Today they are expected to look hot, care for their children, cook, clean, make presentations, crack deals… the list is endless. In short, to make money and chapatis with equal ease. This expectation comes from the women themselves.
Evaluation of the recall
Look at this diet recall. What does Aditi do for herself? Nothing at all. Does she even exist? Not really. She wakes up for her son, cooks for him, and looks good so that she is ‘presentable in office’. She has never lost the weight she gained during pregnancy (sounds familiar na?). She doesn’t seem to think of herself from the moment she wakes up till the time she goes to bed, and even after she goes to bed. So she wakes up at 7 am but doesn’t eat a thing for the next 1 to 2 hours. She prepares lunch but doesn’t even have the time to grab a fruit or coffee (though I disapprove of coffee).
She understands that eating is important, and that’s exactly why she cooks a healthy meal for her son every day even if she has had a disturbed sleep the night before. Now all that she needs to do is extend this understanding towards herself.
If you look at her activity, she does quite a bit, cooks, drives, works, works out, but she doesn’t really love herself enough so she barely feeds herself. Makes a real effort to eat light; Diet Pepsi, light wheat sandwich, fruits, etc. But in the process of eating light she is almost starving herself.
Now when we eat too little and when the gap between our meals are big, like Aditi’s, our body learns to store fat.
My take
Aditi is frustrated and you can see this in the fact that she isn’t up to exercise, or anything else for that matter. She is a great mom to Aditya but all her energies are getting consumed with routine activities at home and work. She tries hard to eat right but there are no ‘results’. When she does freak out on food, like the day she ate pav bhaji and pani puri, she punishes herself by excercising; in this case walking for an hour on the treadmill.
Exercise is not meant as punishment for the body. Not for getting fat or overeating or anything else. Exercise is a way to improve fitness, blood circulation, and to love the body. If it’s used for anything else, or if it’s abused, it stops working.
The good part about Aditi’s diet recall is that she follows principle 4 and has an early dinner. But on days that she places more demands on her body and mind, like staying up if her son is sick, or exercises, she needs to up her daily intake of food.
Aditi can make the following changes to her diet based on what we have learned in the book:
Meal 1 (7 am): 1 Banana (easy to eat and won’t take time away from cooking for the son)
Meal 2 (8-8.30 am): 2 egg white omelette with 2 slices of wholewheat bread (can be eaten at home or carried to work in case she’s short on time) Meal 3 (10-10.30 am): a handful of peanuts (can be stored in office) Meal 4 (12.30-1 pm): veggie sandwich or idli/dosa or carry snack that has been cooked for son
Meal 5 (3-3.30 pm): bowl of curd or fruit yogurt (can be stored at work) Meal 6 (5-5.30 pm): soy milk or skim milk
Meal 7 (7 pm): 2 chapatis or parathas and sabzi (the way Aditi makes them
—thin)
Meal 8: glass of skim milk with elaichi (if up till late or active) Profile 4: Atul Naik, businessman, late 40s
Day
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Time
6 am
Wake up
Wake up
1 banana
7 am
1 cup tea and 2 biscuits
1 cup tea and 2 biscuits (Nice)
(Parle Glucose)
8 am
1 cup tea and 5 Nice
biscuits
9 am
2 slices bread with butter 1 fried egg
Bhurji
10 am Leave for work
Leave for work
Leave for work
11 am
12 pm
Lunch: 4 chapatis, rice, dal,
4 chapatis, rice, dal,
Noodles, chowmein, American
1 pm
vegetable and 1 vati dahi. vegetable and 1 vati dahi. chopsuey, honey with noodles 2 pm
Snack: 1 apple
1 apple
Pint of beer
4 pm
5 pm
6 pm
7 pm
50 grams fried namkeens 50 grams fried namkeens
8 pm
Dinner: 4 chapatis, rice, dal,
6 chapatis with brinjal and Instant noodles—made by Ahana 9 pm
vegetables
potato bhaji
Time
Activity
06.00 Wake up
07.00 Bathroom
Newspapers
08.00 Calls, etc
09.00
10.00 Leave for work
11.00 At it. On phone, email, etc
12.00 All sedentary work
14.00 Meeting or some boring
conference
15.00
16.00 Back to serious work
17.00
18.00 Leave from work
19.00 Reach home and watch TV
20.00 TV, email and spend time with the girls
21.00 Dinner
Subject
The profile belongs to a successful entrepreneur who is an IIT graduate with an MBA from America. It’s a typical profile of a highly successful, intelligent and easygoing personality. Atul Naik, blessed with a high metabolic rate, ate everything he could lay his hands on while he lived on the IIT campus in Mumbai. The story was similar when he lived a student’s life in America for a couple of years, and then worked, as a bachelor.
As an IIT student, he, along with his batchmates had cycled from Mumbai to Kanyakumari (which to date is his favourite memory) and he has gone on many a youth hostel trek in the Himalaya. His love and passion for exercise continued in the US, and he took part in the Boston Marathon, skiing in Chicago, etc. Back in Mumbai, his love for exercise prevailed but there were no avenues for outdoor training in Aamchi Mumbai. So several years passed, and Atul married and had 2 gorgeous daughters. Though he now ran his own company, with over 400 employees, he continued to lead a student’s life at least as far as diet is concerned.
Exercise disappeared from the daily menu. But on every holiday there would be a sporadic period of activity or day of snorkelling, rappelling, trekking, etc. And he was always amongst the best. He never failed to show how ‘fit’ he was to his daughters, but then one day his daughters told him that his prowess didn’t mean a thing if he still retained his paunch. ‘Look at Shah Rukh Khan in “Dard-e-Disco”! So sexy… so lean and mean,’ they said, ‘Dad, at least when we hug you our fingers should touch each other.’
Atul was up for the bet. He was jealous that his girls thought the world of Shah Rukh Khan just because of his ‘stupid dard-e-disco dance’.
Evaluating the recall
Look at his recall. Breakfast is chai with biscuits. Lunch and dinner is very big. Also, he is one of those rare species in Mumbai which gets home by 6.30 to 7 pm. But instead of heading straight for dinner, he prefers eating junk (that’s also the time he is hungry the most) and then eats dinner at 9 to 9.30 pm while watching his favourite TV show. Today, our student-at-heart is over 40 years old. And at one of his executive checkups, he was surprised to see he was borderline everything: diabetes, cholesterol, triglycerides, BP, etc. With a diet that had remained unchanged for years (after 10th standard),
he wondered why he was a borderline case now. But though the diet had stayed pretty much the same, activity had dramatically changed and come down to almost zero. From taking a bus everywhere and walking the remaining distance (if short of money) and 15 to 20 days of trekking or cycling once every year; to being driven to the doorstep of his home and office every day and holidaying abroad twice every year (where other than one day of activity, the rest was beer and chilling, sightseeing at best), Atul had come a long way. So had his waist.
He joined the Marathon Programme I run: it was finally an outdoor activity in Mumbai, and IITians love the structured training that I offer.
However, Atul thought he could eat whatever he wanted now that he was exercising, and results would follow. With no change in diet the ‘results’
didn’t come but he got better and better at running, felt stronger and much more flexible than before. Atul’s sense of wellbeing improved but the size of his waist didn’t decrease (marginally yes, but compared to how fit he felt, it was nothing). Now that’s the best thing about exercise. Our body is blessed with ‘muscle memory’. So if you have a high amount of accumulated fitness time or if you have been regularly exercising 20 to 30
years ago, you will quickly recover your fitness levels to what they used to be before you quit working out. (That’s exactly why I tell my clients that not even a minute you spend exercising is wasted. Our body carries that samskara or impression forever. So if you can exercise only once a month, go ahead and even do that to start with; you’ll help your body accumulate fitness memory.)
My take
Now, for people like Atul Naik, who are high on ability and low on discipline and motivation, following a diet is the biggest challenge (they are also a nutritionist’s worst nightmare). This category has already made excuses for not following a diet: too many client meetings, too many work commitments, too much travel, no support from wife, etc. But the best part is that if they watch their diet, they get results the fastest. Atul Naik can modify his diet like this:
Meal 1 (6 am): banana
Meal 2 (8 am): 2 chapatis and 2 to 3 egg white bhurji or omelette Meal 3 (10 am): a slice of cheese (stored in office or car) Meal 4 (noon): 3 chapatis, dal and sabzi
Meal 5 (2-3 pm): rice and dahi
Meal 6 (5-5.30 pm): idli, dosa or sandwich from office canteen Meal 7 (7.30 pm): 2 chapatis; fish, chicken or sabzi
Profile 5: On a break to lose weight1
Sunday Note: I am on leave till June end, hence do not have much office work these days but attending lot of meetings
Early morning
Ate 1 banana before going to
5.45 am woke up and fresh
Went to
Walkeshwar with 1 spoon
up/brush
Walkeshwar
chawanprash
with
Ruchita,
run entire
hill
of Hanging
Garden
(approx 4.6
kilometres)
Ate 1 banana after the run
Breakfast: 9.05- 8.30 am had 1 glass of
8.00 am return and read
9.15 am
watermelon juice. 9 am had 1 cup newspapers, relax till 9.00 am tea with 1 khakhra (roasted
chapati)
Had some namkeen also
10.00 am went to temple
11.00 am, went to VT to bring
mango juice and some ice cream
as we were expecting many guests
at our house for lunch.
12.30 pm
1 glass of watermelon juice
Drinks and some 2 pegs of Irish baileys with some Met all the guests and had chit namkeen before cashewnuts and wafers and some chats
lunch: 1.30 pm
salads
Lunch: 2.30 pm 2 katori dal, 3 roti, 2 bowl of
Entertained guests at our house for
mango juice, 2 bowl of boondi
lunch, chit chat and general
raita, 1 katori gattanu sak
discussion till 7.00 pm
(vegetable), 4 pieces of dhokala
1 cup tea
7.30 pm, went to pick-up Ishita
from her classes
Dinner: 8.30 pm 2 pav with 1 katori ‘bhaji’, some 9 pm read e-mails sweets
2 bowls of mango Juice
9.30-11.00 pm watched cricket
match on TV
11.30 pm slept
Monday Note : Every Thursday and Saturday, I fast, which means I take either lunch or dinner and liquid and friuts, dry fruits
Ate 1 banana before going
Got up at 6.30, went to
to gym with 1 spoon
drop Ishita for her
chawanprash
volleyball classes
7.30 am went to gym
30 minutes of cycling
and some gym activity,
200 times skipping
Breakfast: 8.45-
1 cup tea and 2 khakhara
8.30 am return and read
9.15 am
and 1 plate watermelon
newspapers relax till 9.00
am
Some namkeen
9.00 am breakfast
Drop daughter to classes at
10.30 am; picked her up at
12.30 am
Ate 2 angir at 12 noon at
11-11.30 am attended a
sister’s house
meeting. Then went to
sister’s house till 12.15 pm
Picked up the younger one
from class
Lunch: 1.30 pm
2 bowls rice and 1 glass of
buttermilk, 1 glass mango
juice and 1 plate thokala
2-4.30 am slept, watched
CNBC, read books
4.30 pm went to drop elder
one to class.
Tea: 5.00 pm
1 cup tea
5-6 am spoke to some
friends over phone
6 pm went to meet
Ruchita/Tejal
8 am had a lot of
watermelon before dinner
Dinner: 9.00 pm
1 plate panipuri, 1 burger, 1 Went out with friends for frankie and 2 pieces of
dinner at 9 pm
grilled sandwiches
9.30-11 pm watched
cricket match on TV
12.00 pm slept
Tuesday
Ate 1 banana before going to gym
Got up at 6.30, went
with 1 spoon chawanprash
to drop Ishita for her
volleyball classes
7.30 am went to gym 45 minutes ST
training under Ali
at Ruia College
Gym
Breakfast: 8.45
1 plate idli/vada/sambhar and 1 tea at 9.30 return home am
Manish’s restaurant
with Ishita
10.30 went to drop
younger one to
classes
11 am till 1 pm
attended meetings
Lunch: 1.30 pm
3 chapati/1 bowl of vegetable/1
Again heavy lunch
mango/2 bowls of kadhi and some
rice and papads and 2 pieces of
sweets
3.30 to 6.00 slept,
watched CNBC
Tea: 6.00 pm
1 cup tea with some namkeen
6.00-7.30 read books
1 mango at 7.30
7.30-8 pm pranayam
pm
yoga
Dinner: 9.30 pm 1 plate dhokala and 2 chapatis with Watched cricket
mango
match till 11.30 pm
slept at 11.30
midnight
Subject
Jayesh is taking a break in between jobs. His earlier job was extremely high profile. The next one is going to be even bigger. But he has taken the break of 1 month in between because he felt he was losing out on who he was as a person. He wanted to be much more in contact with his children, know where and what time they went for their various activities, attend their PTA meetings, get to know their friends, meet up with his own friends and family, and of course start exercising. His big aim was to lose weight while he was off work. Work involved a lot of travelling, and he had happily assumed that if you were travelling to a different continent every fortnight you couldn’t lose weight.
Evaluating the recall
Our man Jayesh is a true Gujju bhai. He loves his mangoes and loves variety for dinner. (Craving variety for dinner is a condition that grips the Gujurati, Jain and Kacchi community. They believe that eating anything other than rice, roti, vegetable, dal or kadhi for dinner is variety. Basically variety means eating all the junk in the world. It wins brownie points with in-laws and children demand it like their birthright. The women in these communities are always fooling themselves by saying things like: ‘Pizza banaya but wholewheat base tha, panipuri mein moong sprouts dala, pav bhaji ka bread brown tha, dhokla ke vagaar mein sirf 2 teaspoon oil dala, wo bhi olive.’)
All that this ‘variety’ does is increases the size of women’s hips and men’s waists. Jayesh, a level headed banker, was really disturbed when I told him that he couldn’t be eating panipuri (our beloved Mumbai version of the golgappa).
‘Why?’ he asked, ‘It’s so healthy its just water and sprouts.’
‘Yes, but it’s all in a deep-fried puri,’ I said. But he just ignored me.
Now, if you look at his profile you notice that he is not waking up to tea or coffee, which is great. But the gaps in his meals are big, especially between lunch and dinner. We need to inculcate the habit of eating frequently into his schedule. We have long gaps in meals when we travel and we have them when we are at home too. So it’s not about how accessible food is to you. It’s about whether you have learnt to get in touch with your hunger signals and learnt to feed your body.
When Jayesh travelled and cracked deals, his reason to not eat anything were: I’m in transit, in meeting, in conference, nothing vegetarian available, etc. But what’s the reason for big gaps when at home? Nothing, other than no training to eat frequently. So, he is not following our eat every 2 to 3
hours principle.
Nor is he following our principle 3, that eating is directly proportionate to activity. His meals in the morning when he is exercising are small, and the size and calories of the meals go up as the day progresses, while his activities start going down. (So, an inverse ratio!)
He does have a gap of 2 hours between dinner and bedtime, but his dinners are big and full of variety so they don’t provide any nourishment, only calories. Apart from this, Jayesh is bang on with his plan. Dropping off and picking up his children, taking his wife out to breakfast places, exercising in the morning and chilling out in the afternoon and evenings.
My take
What he now needs to do is eat better in the mornings because he is exercising in the morning, reduce the size of his lunch and dinners, and eat much more frequently. Also, he needs to treat mango like the fruit it is. The way an orange, apple or pineapple is treated. Which means that it can’t be a part of his meals. It will have to be consumed solo, like any other fruit.
Mangoes and potatoes are 2 food items with an unnecessarily tainted reputation. But it’s what we do with mangoes and potatoes that makes them fattening. Consuming deep-fried potatoes will surely make us fat. But deep frying anything, even oranges, will make us fat.
Mangoes are eaten as if they are a sweet dish, instead of a fruit. Mango juice is eaten with puris and chapatis. And because we all love the way chapati and aamras tastes, we have an extra chapati. It’s this eating pattern which makes us fat, not the fruit. And anyways, it’s always a better idea to eat the whole fruit instead of its juice. Would you ever have puri with watermelon juice? No. Then stop having it with mango juice.
Some simple things are going to help Jayesh:
Meal 1 (6.30 am): banana and chawanprash
Meal 2 (8.30 am): mango
Meal 3 (10 am): idli, dosa or upma
Meal 4 (Noon): 2 to 3 rotis or brown rice, sabzi and dal Meal 5 (2.30-3 pm): dahi and salad
Meal 6 (5-6 pm): dhokla/khakra
Meal 7 (8 pm): 1-2 rotis, kadhi and sabzi
When I work with people on their diets, firstly I encourage them to make changes based on what they understand about their diet and activity recall, and on the 4 common sense diet principles. It’s only after they follow a basic healthy diet for a while that I start tweaking and fine-tuning it. I see my role more as an educator than as a crutch. Basic understanding of your own life pattern, activity and hunger signals is imperative. No nutritionist or the fees they charge can substitute for this. The only way to stay lean and healthy for life is to develop a strong understanding about your nutrient needs, and to stay connected with your gut at all times. In fact ‘gut feeling’
is what I wanted to call my book. But my editor (smart girl) wanted to connect with the audience hence those words: lose weight. This grabs eyeballs.
Most of my clients go through a slow, progressive change. What changes is something deep within. This change is brought about by developing awareness about how, what and when we eat or don’t eat, can affect the way we think and look. So the ice cream, kaju katri, alcohol, etc is still there but your response to it changes.
This is also a reason why I am a non believer in before and after pictures.
What changes after developing awareness cannot be photographed and is
not visible to the physical eye. It can only be experienced.
Now, here’s a little excerpt from the diet diary of one of my clients Shabnam. If I were to give her profile a name I would call it: ‘finding myself after marriage’. (Early marriage and 8 kilos gained within 2 years of being married.)
So,
I can’t believe it, almost 3 weeks are up and yes there is a change.
Visible changes in inches:
Chest: Previous: 39.8 Now: 39.3
Hips: Previous: 45.5 Now: 44.4
Tummy: has also gone in… but I don’t remember my previous measurement… so not comparing it.
Overall: again, very happy… No bloating… water intake is still between 3 to 4 litres (was wondering if so much water washes minerals away?) Major change: I have developed a sense of very good self control. I can say no… and feel happy about my decision and actually not desire the particular food…, in fact be quite repulsed by it… I want to eat only what I want to eat (ie what you give me to eat)… I go out of my way, even if it looks absurd… cook every day, grocery shop every day, work around my meals so carefully, that I can’t give myself an excuse that, ‘Oh you know I did not have time, and the cook forgot to buy the particular thing so I just ate something else’.
I plan my diet every day in advance, and I spend so much of my time to ensure that I am eating and drinking water. And even if I have to go out, I consciously order what I need to eat, and not more and not less. And I do not even sneak a bite here and there.
Even when people around me are forcing to just take one lick of their ice cream, I do a tiny fake lick, and say I don’t like it AND I ACTUALLY
DON’T (which is the best part). So I am more confident of myself that even when I have to eat out, I don’t go crazy and binge. I look for the BEST
alternative to my meal plan… and am happy and satisfied eating that.
Wow… this is a major change!
Also, as discussed over phone, my metabolic rate seems to be on the move. I am full after breakfast (thanks to the yummy hearty one), find myself getting full easily at lunch… and starving within 2 hours… just before my fruit/yogurt time.
The cheese snack, after fruit, doesn’t satisfy me, and I feel like having nariyal pani… or coffee… or something else to fill me.
But post that, and right after workout, not hungry any more… and when I am eating dinner, I am not starving at dinner time… I am eating because I know I need to eat…
So I guess its a good sign that I am most hungry till 4.30-5 pm… and then my hunger reduces as the sun sets… ! You are like some magician, eh?
Alright, attached is my diary… and going to continue my zig zag diet…
Next week is going to be a tough week…
My dad is flying in from Dubai. He and my mom are the only two people who know that I am doing this diet with you and are super happy and proud of me. (I am convincing my mom to join you as well. ) He is coming on Tuesday and leaving on Friday evening. I said we can only do one meal out, I will use that as my bi-weekly cheat meal (that again is on your approval).
And I have to go on a dinner on Monday, at family friends. It is my soup and stir fry day… so I guess I will do soup at home… and nibble on some home cooked veggies there… and salad… it is the same people who I went for dinner with on Wednesday, and faked a tummy ache…
So I will just continue on the streak… I am being light at night nowadays…
Talk to you soon
Luv
Shabbo
Crossing the bridge: from knowing to doing
Ok, now that we have collected all the gyan, we need to put it together to make it of some real use for us. Without it, this book too will become like everything else we already know about diet and exercise: impotent information that will never bear the fruit of health, well-being, and peace.
Just knowing or talking about things like eating right and exercising regularly has never helped anybody. ‘Just talking is not enough,’ said the people of Mumbai to its politicians after the terror attacks on CST, Taj, Oberoi, Leopold and Nariman House. Our government has been talking for way too long, and doing precious little. No wonder then that our country continues to remain a soft target for the terrorists. They come and attack us almost like making a style statement to the world: ‘Hey we are alive and kicking and can strike at will.’
Isn’t this situation similar to what we do to our bodies. Talk and yak-yak-yak (just like a Ladakhi souvenir T-shirt) about dieting, exercise and do absolutely nothing about it. No wonder then that our stomach continues to be a soft target. And at the same time we want our stomachs to have the
‘resilient spirit of Mumbai’, which means that it should continue to function just as well. ‘Chalta hai’ is the beej mantra here. Do your work well, my dear stomach. So what if I stuff so much food inside you that you feel like an overcrowded Virar local?
Are we going to do the same thing to our digestive system that we hate our politicians for? Enough of taking our bodies for granted. Let’s not push our stomachs to revolt against us. Let’s take some real action. And like one of the placards in the peace march in Mumbai declared: ‘We are against terrorists not against Pakistan’, it’s important that the action that we take is not misplaced. Food, sanitation and education for all, is probably the most fundamental step to tackling terrorism. (Shah Rukh Khan once said that if
he was the prime minister for a day he would build toilets all over so that women and the poor would not go through daily humiliation.) So what are the fundamental steps towards adopting a healthier lifestyle?
Here goes.
Step 1
Wake up closer to sunrise.
Ideally: wake up a little before sunrise so that you can witness the peace that every dawn brings. It’s not called ‘awakening’ for nothing. Don’t just leave this activity to when you are at hill stations. Dawn brings hope and energy for not just the day, but for life. Sunrise provides us with the vitamin D that we need to maintain healthy bones, gives us the ‘me time’ to clear our head, and cleanses our body of the tamas or the sloth of the night.
Let’s get real: ok, sunrise is great. But if this sounds way out of reach, just wake up an hour before you are used to. If you are waking up post noon, start with waking up 2 hours earlier. Waking up even 30 minutes earlier gives us much needed time to workout, exercise.
Step 2
Eat within 10 minutes of waking up.
Ideally: eat meal 1 within 10 minutes of waking up. And obviously you can’t start with tea, coffee or a cigarette. If you can’t bring yourself to eat a big meal, start with a fruit. Absolutely any fruit is great. Keep it fresh, not frozen. Don’t add salt, sugar, chaat masala, etc to it. And of course, don’t squeeze it into a juice.
Let’s get real: 10 minutes sounds like a big deal? Ok, eat within the first 30 minutes of waking up. But make sure that you are not reading your paper, checking your B-berry, giving instructions on the phone, etc while doing this. If you workout first thing on rising, eat a fruit before working out. And please don’t eat in bed. Get up, walk around a bit, and then go for your food.
Within an hour of meal 1, eat a nice, home cooked breakfast.
Ideally: a hot breakfast is the perfect meal 2 as it is freshly prepared and full of nutrients. Idli, dosa, uttapam, upma, parathas (cooked on the tawa but not fried), porridge, most egg dishes (scrambled, boiled, poached, omelettes) are good options. Breakfast is the meal that needs to become the family meal, instead of dinner. Eating early improves metabolic rate, arrests ageing, and reduces hunger pangs in the day.
Let’s get real: family breakfast sounds straight out of a Sooraj Barjatya movie? Ok, so you have no time or facilities for a home cooked hot breakfast. Buy organic muesli from your local health store or just buy cereal which is not malted and hasn’t had sugar added to it (look at the ingredients on the side of the box). To this, add some milk or yogurt and get going. And if you can only have breakfast on reaching office, try and eat something that is not deep-fried; many of us tend to pick up a samosa, bhaji, etc, something easily available. Try to take a homemade roll or sandwich with you, for example.
Notes
• This is also a good time for a multivitamin or a B vitamin supplement.
• On days that you are running late, skip meal 1 but make sure you have meal 2 before running out of the house.
Step 4
Eat every 2 hours after meal 2.
Ideally: calculate the number of hours that you spend away from home.
Divide that by 2 and carry those many meals with you. So if you leave home at 8.30 am and return at 7 pm, you are out of the house for 10 and a half hours. You should then be eating 5 to 6 meals. For optimum fat burning, lunch should be around 11 am instead of the usual 1.30-2 pm. If
you have the luxury of going home for lunch, do so. If not, wherever you are, sit in peace and eat. Avoid eating while standing, walking, or driving.
Let’s get real: you are out for 12 hours and dividing this by 2 brings it to 6 meals! You can’t possibly carry that much, and come on, you don’t have boys to carry it around or staff to organise this like superstars do. But don’t worry. Not all your meals have to be complicated. Most of you are used to bringing lunch to work. Eat that at 11 am as your meal 3. For all the in between meals, here are a few options that can easily be stacked in your office drawer; or your office boy can easily be instructed to buy for you.
Some, like the poha, upma and vegetables, you can bring from home too.
1. Nariyal pani—and eat the malai.
2. Lassi without salt or sugar, but you can have other seasonings like jeera, dhaniya and pepper.
3. Channa and peanuts: easily stored at office. Just make sure your colleagues don’t know where you store them or they will be over before you know. Or get your singdana wala to bring you a 5 rupee packet daily. Make sure you eat them without masala and avoid the deep-fried ones. Buy the ones that are roasted.
4. Cheese: buy a packet of singles or cubes. (Preferably cow cheese.) They can stay without refrigeration. Best kept out of others’ sight.
Great for keeping that glow on the face.
5. Curd or yogurt: there are many varieties available in the market and in various sizes. Take your pick. Great for digestion problems.
6. Milk or soy milk: get your regular dose of protein and fat. They are available in one time serving sizes and there are flavoured milk and soy milk options now.
7. Carrots or cucumbers: easy to carry. Won’t leak like tomatoes. And remember, no need to peel or cut; just wash and eat for maximum enjoyment and nutrition.
8. Boiled eggs or omelettes: can be bought locally (usually near every office) or cooked in your office pantry, even. Or you can bring the boiled egg in from home and keep it in its shell. It might smell though.
9. Protein bars: great-tasting and easy to store or carry (not to be confused with cereal bars, which are high in carbs). These are found in
gyms, sports and health food stores.
10. Poha, upma, idlis, dosas, parathas or grilled sandwiches from a local eatery or pantry. So you eat only half of what you’ve got, share with your colleagues and earn brownie points with them.
11. Sprouts. Keep a sprout maker at work place. Refill it once every 2
days. And eat a handful of sprouts from there. Make it the new gossip place. Chuck the coffee or tea machine.
12. Cereal. Remember to only eat your handful. Pick a cereal without added sugar. Look at the ingredients.
13. Wholewheat toast with peanut butter, home made white butter, cheese, tofu spreads.
Notes
• Try to eat sitting crosslegged. You can do this even while sitting on a chair. If you can’t, bring both legs up, and definitely try doing it even with one leg. (To send your blood to the stomach area.)
• Lunch is a good time to have a fatty acid supplement (flax seed, omega-3) as it improves insulin response.
• Don’t have tea or coffee without eating anything (so, eat with your in between meal) and limit this to 2 a day.
• Offer 1 of these options to your clients or people you have to meet at work, instead of the regular chai and biscuits; you’ll both end up eating healthier.
• If you have a lunch meeting, remember to eat a meal about 11 am from one of the options, and then at the restaurant, eat half of what you have on the plate. Then remember to eat your next meal after 2 hours.
• The more heavy options you can eat just before leaving from work.
(You’re dog-tired after a day’s work and need the energy most then.)
• If you are going to workout immediately after work, have something from options 9 to 12 just as you set out.
• If it’s going to be a stressful day, go for carb- rich options like cereal, poha, upma, etc.
• The basic principle of the in-between meals is to have low GI carbs with protein and fats. If you’re being less active, you could just go for
the protein and fat options like the peanuts, chana and cheese. (No food is really zero carb, and these will give you small amounts of carbs, protein and fat, stabilising blood sugar and giving you adequate energy.)
Step 5
Eat your dinner within 2 hours of sunset
Ideal: if the sun has set at 6 pm, eat dinner latest by 8 pm. Better still, have it by 7 pm. We already know that loading the stomach with dinner when it has little or no digestion capacity is a sure shot way to get fat (and to fame and recognition as the ‘fat person in my building, office, college, school’).
Let’s get real: ok, so some of you are still in office, or travelling or waiting for others to get back home till 8 or 9 pm. Rethink ‘dinner’. Have a healthy and nutritious meal between 6 to 7 pm; and then go for a token dinner later, ideally no later than 9 pm. You can have this first meal either before you leave from work, or in the car, or before you start preparing and planning for dinner if you are a homemaker. What this will ensure is that you are not ravenous by dinner time, or else you will overload your stomach when it can digest the least.
Some options for the early dinner or meal at 6 to 7 pm are (and there are a few other options above):
• Roti rolls: great for those who eat in transit. Roll what you fancy in the wholewheat roti: veggies, paneer, tofu, chicken, fish, omelette. You would probably need to bring these from home and refrigerate at work.
• Grilled sandwiches: ask for wholewheat bread, get the butter out, keep the cheese. And always share this. The serving size in restaurants is always XL.
• Meal replacement powders which serve a minimum of 20 grams of protein, for the super duper no time to eat category. Mix in water or milk shake it. And then have it.
• Sprouts with dahi: more wholesome and easy to eat if you are having it before leaving from work or at home.
• Muesli with milk or curd or other whole grains like ragi, barley, mixed grains which you get in co-ops: especially if you are exhausted mentally, or a child, or an adult who goes to late evening workouts.
• Brown rice khichdi with paneer and veggies: keep the quantity right on this.
• A bowl of dal.
• Non-veg eaters, you can eat your chicken or fish at this time.
Notes
• If you are the type who needs ‘comfort food’ or reaches out for dessert when ‘mentally fucked’, or experiences road rage, you can’t afford to ignore this step.
• You will discover more options on the way as you adopt this policy.
But the principle of this meal is to go low on GI carbs and protein. My success with my clients rests on how well we plan this meal.
• Bad news. This meal is the biggest challenge. Good news: once you get this right, you are 99% on track.
• It is the best policy to adopt against overeating later. Don’t skip this meal if you plan to drink later in the evening or are going out for a late evening dinner, entertaining clients, etc.
• If this is the time you are eating your early dinner and you aren’t eating anything afterwards (ie, not doing the token dinner), remember only 2 things and nothing more. Your meal should be a combination of low GI carbs, fats and protein.
Token dinners
• Freshly cut veggies made into interesting salads (no dressing or sauces please)
• Dal with sabzi
• Stir fry with veggies of your choice
• Soups (but don’t put them through a mixie)
• Grilled vegetables
• Avoid carbs here, especially high GI ones like noodles, pasta, white rice, biscuits, pancakes, crepes, etc.
Step 6
Sleep at a fixed time
Ideally: sleep at the same time everyday. Always before midnight. In an ideal world, by 10.30 pm, after finishing off your last meal at 8 to 8.30 pm.
Sleeping at the same time daily is the best gift that you can give yourself. It goes without saying that all those who sleep at a fixed time also wake up at the exact same time daily. Envy somebody’s clear or ageless skin? Chances are your object of envy is sleeping at the exact same time daily. This is also one of the most safely and fiercely guarded secrets of some of the prettiest faces. A lot of women I have worked with in the film industry follow this rule. We think they are partying all night when in fact they are sleeping.
Let’s get real: same time everyday? I sound like a Nazi don’t I? How about giving yourself a 1 hour window? So you sleep daily between 10.30
to 11.30 pm. At least on the weekdays, and take the weekend off. But on all other days, guard your skin and keep your body young by keeping to your bedtime within the time limit.
10 things that will pull you back
1. Refusing to learn from experiences.
2. Believing that there is indeed a ‘magical and quick’ way to burn fat.
3. Not taking care of yourself. Depending on others to do this.
4. Being critical of yourself. Losing fat is about making progress, not about achieving perfection.
5. Eating too much at one time.
6. Eating after a long gap.
7. Taking a ‘drink beer and laze around’ holiday.
8. Expecting results in the first week.
9. ‘Overdoing it and pushing yourself too far, to do whatever it takes.’
10. Not realising that there is much more to life than how much you weigh.
10 things that can take you forward on the path to staying fit 1. Cook something for yourself once every week. If you can’t cook, learn to cook, even if its simple rice and dal. It will put you in touch with your kitchen and is an expression of love and compassion towards yourself. (Women, please cook a dish that is your favourite, not your spouse’s, child’s or neighbour’s.)
2. Maintain silence as a regular practice. It could be a fixed hour or a few minutes every day, or an entire day once a month. If this is not possible, at least give up on 3 or 4 sentences (that you would normally not hold back). But plan and stay with it. The tongue has to know that you are in control. (The tongue is also the main organ that controls what we eat, and we have to show our tongue who’s the boss!) 3. Go without salt once every month. So eat according to the 4
principles, but just cut the salt from your diet. (Do this a day before that big party, for best results.)
4. Wake up just a little earlier than you are used to. And sleep just a little earlier too; 30 minutes is a good place to start.
5. Try and adopt the crosslegged posture while eating.
6. Also the squatting posture while shitting.
7. Keep up your favourite hobby, whatever it is; cricket, sitar, painting, acting, dancing or reading. Even an investment of as little as an hour a month makes life richer.
8. Take a Himalayan holiday and get off the touristy route—TREK.
Great way to meet interesting people, and to be near untouched meadows, peaks and streams.
9. Learn something new every year. Keeps you young from within and it shows on the body. Being young is a state of mind where you feel free to be inquisitive and even stupid.
10. Get your family and friends to support you on your journey to getting fitter and leading a fulfilling life.
‘Now’ is the best time to start
The power of now. Hajaar books have been written on the power of now.
Spiritual gurus ask us to stay in the now. Misery, fear, failure is in the past and future, in the now there is bliss (or so we are told).
So, stop waiting for the perfect time, when you will end the bad relationship, come out of a hectic work week, stop travelling, finish your exams, etc to start. Just start now. It is the perfect time to start. Let me tell you the story of a wise man and a fool. Both these men had a bowl and they had the task of collecting raindrops in the bowl. The wise man put his bowl out and collected a few drops every time it drizzled or rained a bit. The fool waited for the ‘perfect time’ when it would pour so that he could fill his bowl to the brim in no time. The wise man’s bowl was full in no time, while the fool continued to wait for the perfect time.
So even if you can manage a little; a drop or a few drops, of the book right now, start collecting them now and in no time your bowl will be full with health, fitness and peace.
Fat is fit
My partner GP of ‘Connect with Himalaya’ was thrilled no end on hearing that Harish Kapadia (a walking talking encyclopaedia on the Indian Himalaya) would be visiting and staying the night on the same property where he and his group were camping. All day, he told the group stories and legends about Harish Kapadia. The number of books he has written, the mountains that he has climbed, the initiatives that he has started, etc. This obviously built a lot of expectation about India’s most popular and loved mountain man. When he finally arrived, he was not exactly what the group imagined. He turned out to be an unassuming middle-aged man with a paunch.
‘Aren’t you little “healthy” for all the adventures you do,’ asked one of the men from the group. Harish Kapadia was rather amused and declared that ‘fat is fit’. (Now the buzz word of the group, albeit for all the wrong reasons.) And why not? It’s stupid to measure fitness on the weighing scale or on a tape. If you can climb the biggest mountains in India, work for your community, write interesting books, narrate amazing stories, arrange seminars and talks on the Himalaya and their changing climates, and have a fan following amongst all age groups, then you are indeed fit. Fit to pursue your passion wholeheartedly and lead a fulfilling life. The point is to not just eat a wholesome diet, but also to lead a wholesome life!
1 Kareena ka Tashan
‘Hello? Why is your cell switched off? Bebo’s been trying to get in touch with you ya.’
‘My battery went off,’ I managed.
‘Get a new phone now,’ said Shaira, as she hung up. Kareena was one of her closest friends. Shaira had been on the diet plan for a while, had dropped her body fat levels, and was now looking gorgeous within 2
months of delivering her second baby.
Even while we spoke there was beep after beep; messages on my now active cell phone.
I started reading one message after another. ‘Thanks for being there luv, lost 4 kilos’; ‘Hey guess what, I am fitting in my 1986 jeans, saved it from college time. Muah’; ‘Can you give me an option, I will puke if I see muesli now’; ‘Maam, I am sick. wont come to the gym today’; etc etc… till I came across this one:
‘Hi, this is Kareena Kapoor. I hv bn trying to get in touch with you but your cell is swtchd off. I have heard so much about you. Got your no frm Shaira. Wats a gud time to call? Thanks.’
‘What?’ I thought to myself. Read it again. And then I got back to answering all the smses on the phone and pushed Kareena Kapoor’s message out of my mind—it was clearly a bad joke. How could she be so normal and real? No middle men calling? Nobody calling to say ‘Tumhari to life ban gayee. Madam/sir milna chahte hain.’
I had nearly made up my mind not to call, but then reminded myself that when I first heard from Anil Ambani, it had happened in a very ‘normal’
way too.
‘Hello Rujuta, Mr Anil Ambani would like to speak to you. When would you be free to talk?’ The real stars never display any ‘starry’ behaviour I guess.
So I called back on Kareena’s number. ‘Yeh mera dil pyaar ka deewana,’
went the ring tone. The tension built. At the time, everybody was talking about how hot and ‘healthy’ she looked in the song with SRK (its one of the remixes, I love).
‘HI!!! How are you… I have been trying to call you ALL of yesterday…’
We decided to meet the day after.
Shaira had warned me that Kareena is ‘Too down to earth and simple ya,’
but I still didn’t know what to expect. When I met Kareena, she was wearing tracks and a ganji with hair piled up in a ponytail.
‘HI!! [I later came to realise this is her trademark high energy greeting]
F-i-n-a-l-l-y! How much I tried to call you… Shaira is looking so good ya.’
A glowing complexion (Kapoor trademark), sans make up (even moisturiser), sparkling, intelligent eyes, an animated and almost childlike expression; unassuming, head on her shoulders, feet on the ground. This was the enigma called Kareena Kapoor.
‘Hey, you look really good in Don and even better in person,’ I told her.
‘Thanks,’ said Kareena and smiled genuinely. I knew her critics and rivals had made rude comments about how she looked in the gold coloured dress which she had worn in that number, so I was quite taken aback by her plain and simple thanks. Not once did she say anything like, ‘Yeah, but I need to lose weight.’ No pointing or pinching of body parts and saying,
‘Yeh jaana chaiye.’
The most striking aspect of Bebo’s personality is that she shows unconditional love and acceptance towards her body. She is not the type to hold herself at ransom on the weighing scale. ‘Listen, I just get so confused with what to eat ya, especially when I am shooting out of Mumbai.
Sometimes my system feels very disturbed, at times I am bloated. I workout very regularly, hardcore. From struggling to do 5 to 6 suryanamaskars, I am doing 50 aaram se now. My strength and stamina is good. Now I want to get all lean and toned.’
Like most of us, Bebo was confused. Fat-free or low carb, almost everybody, on the set, shoots and parties, had an opinion on what was the best diet, and which would yield maximum results. The ‘expert’ opinions didn’t help either. Dieting, as I have said before, is synonymous to starving or eating yucky food, and this was not something she could ever bring
herself to do. People around her were on juices, soups and salad, etc in the name of diets and these things didn’t appeal to her. ‘I think all this is a perversion,’ she told me.
‘You know, I have to wear a bikini for this new movie I am doing, Tashan. I want to feel comfortable wearing it, for that I need to get all lean.’
‘When I saw Shaira eating all the time, kabhi peanuts, cheese, roti, sabzi, chicken and losing weight, I was like, this sounds like a deal, man. I can do something like this. I love eating.’
‘Wow, she is going to be easy,’ I thought to myself. (Easy is my term for sorted people, for those who have already made up their mind to eat right.) The challenge was Bebo’s long working hours and the many on location shoots she needed to do. Unlike what we are led to believe, actors actually lead a very tough, almost middle class life.
‘Look I have lot of outdoors now. And I am a vegetarian so my options are limited when I travel, and sometimes I get so hungry, I really don’t know what to eat.’ She also had long working days, which were also a challenge for changing eating habits.
I assured Bebo that we would plan the diet around her schedule, explained the 4 principles, and worked out a plan for her. Luckily, she was in Mumbai in the first two weeks, so we had the home ground advantage.
‘Are you sure I will lose weight on this? This is just so much more than what I eat!’
From eating 2 to 3 times a day, Kareena’s diet changed to eating up to 8
times a day. Obviously this included all her favourites: paratha, poha, cheese, paneer, etc. ‘I am going to give it my 100%’, she assured me.’
‘Plan for everything in advance,’ I warned. ‘Stock up your stores and watch your timing to the T’.
‘I will be bang on,’ said Bebo. And she was. Totally.
I met her after 2 weeks. ‘I am looking like a stick,’ she announced. ‘I am loving this. I am never hungry. After every 2 hours, I get this feeling that it’s time to eat and I eat little and feel very happy and satisfied. So new for me. I am used to not feeling hungry and then dabaoing when I see food.
Everybody is telling me how much weight I have lost.’
She had barely lost 2 kilos, but she was totally supportive and appreciative of herself and the efforts that she was putting into eating right and eating on time. This was new to me. I usually have to lecture people on learning to appreciate their bodies. I was used to people losing as much as 30 kilos on the diet, yet remaining unappreciative of themselves and their bodies.
And irrespective of the weight they lost or the sizes they dropped, nobody had ever said to me that they were looking like sticks. Most people pointed out to ‘problem areas’ when told they were looking leaner.
Bebo was already looking and feeling great. Weight loss is never on my mind, and it was not on her mind either. She has from day 1 focussed on the basics: eat right, eat on time, plan and carry meals so that there is no panic situation, workout 3 days a week.
Her eating habits, meal composition and the size of her meals had changed. Bebo’s digestive system was feeling relaxed and happy. Her body, face, skin, hair looked better than ever. When she shot for the song ‘Its Rocking’ in the film Kya Love Story Hai, the media went into a frenzy and called her anorexic. (It’s just too tough for most people to believe that correct eating and working out regularly can change and transform bodies.) While the people that she worked with and those who were present on the sets were seeing her eat all the time (in fact, eating the so called ‘fattening’
foods), she was already getting the reputation of being a ‘sing-dana girl’ on the sets.
‘ Jab We Met was a landmark because the audiences loved her in the movie and the character she played. Everybody wanted to take the chulbuli train-catching Sikhni from Bhatinda, Geet home. She was dressed mostly in Patiala salwars, long kurtas and longer skirts. But the fact that she was
‘covered’ on screen didn’t deter her from watching her diet. By this time she had adopted the diet and its 4 principles as a way of life. All that changed was her meal options as Geet made her journey from Rajasthan to Punjab to Himachal. She was feeling healthier and nourished from within.
And you can see it too: in ‘Mauja hi mauja’ she looks leaner than in ‘Its Rocking’.
The real test came in September 2007 when she had to shoot in Ladakh for Tashan. The original bikini shot was planned in Pangong Tso, a high
altitude salt lake. (Second highest in the world. It’s on the border of India and China and amongst my favourite places in the world.) I was very excited about the bikini shot, and Bebo was in great shape. However when I met her for planning her Ladakh diet, she was kind of nervous. It was a long schedule in Ladakh and she worried it would affect her diet.
‘Will I get any vegetarian food in Ladakh? I hope I don’t mess up all my hard work just because I don’t get proper food.’
‘Don’t worry Bebo, Ladakh is predominantly vegetarian because of Buddhism and you will love their food, their pudina and butter chais,’ I reassured her. Ladakhi cuisine is amazing, and Leh has some really good eating places—the pizzas especially are to die for.
Kareena’s meal 1 would start at 7 am because she would wake up by 6.45
am to report on time for her shoots. She was very happy to know that Ladakh was vegetarian because that increased her meal options. Of course, to be on the safer side she took her soy milk and peanuts with her.
Ladakh tends to be very sunny and windy in the day and extremely cold in the nights. During her shoot she was eating momos and thukpa for lunch, yak and goat cheese as in between meals, etc. basically the yummiest of local produce and cuisines. What makes Kareena what she is, is the fact that once she believes in something she never questions it. She puts her full faith into it and gives it everything she has. So while others speculated how and why was she eating carb rich and therefore ‘fattening’ momos and thukpas along with the fat rich and therefore ‘fattening’ cheese, she relished every bite of them. It went with her philosophy of eating ‘real’ food. Bebo continued to look and get leaner and healthier.
The bikini shot eventually didn’t happen in Ladakh; it was shot in Greece instead. Here the vegetarian options were limited. Mostly we had to stick to peas, beans, rice, stuffed tomatoes and capsicum, feta cheese and fruit yogurt (all local produce). Again, Bebo’s diet consisted of foods which were considered ‘fattening’ yet what was reported in the media was an
‘orange juice diet’. After the song ‘Chaliya Chaliya’ and the tastefully shot bikini scene (easily the best till date), her lean look and her outfits made the press speculation around anorexia and orange juice diets even stronger.
Though I was interviewed prime time on numerous channels, journalists with unhealthy body compositions (sorry, they really don’t take care of
themselves) were not ready to accept that she was ‘eating’. Everybody felt that only not eating (or at the most having only orange juice) was the way to get as lean as Kareena. (I am using the word lean because she looks healthy and toned, not drained and skinny).
Her body didn’t get lean overnight for ‘Chaliya chaliya’ or the bikini shot. By the time she’d shot for these she had watched her diet for over 6
months. She had been working out for more than 5 years with great consistency. (She never got bored of working out. She tried different exercises, from weight training, to treadmills, to power yoga.) Her body was already intelligent; people who workout regularly have cells that are
‘smarter’ or more ‘intelligent’ than people who don’t exercise. This means that the cells, enzymes, and hormones when stimulated with the right supply of nutrients (through eating right at the right time) quickly learn to let go of fat stores, improve metabolic rate, and work at increasing lean tissue (stronger bones and denser muscles). A body which has not worked out or has no interest in working out takes a longer time to respond to fat loss, because the cells are not very receptive or smart.
Kareena was exactly of the same body composition, or only marginally different during the shooting of Tashan, from her Jab We Met days. But the character she played in Tashan was way different from Geet. Here she was not bubbly girl-next-door, she had shades of grey. Her styling, clothes, hair, makeup, reflected this. Gone were the long kurtas and Patiala salwars. Enter short skirts, bare midriffs, dark kohl, curly hair and the bikini.
‘Oh, she has really lost weight,’ the world noticed. ‘She is so thin now, size zero.’ But she was the exact same size for Jab We Met. If there was any difference it was in the clothes, character and the way she was shot.
Her body had changed from ‘Yeh Mera Dil’ to ‘Its Rocking’ to ‘Mauja hi Mauja’ to ‘Chaliya Chaliya’, and had done so at a slow, steady, consistent pace. Nobody seemed to notice. For them she was ‘fat’ in ‘Yeh Mera Dil’
and ‘super thin’ in ‘Chaliya’. Kareena has been accused of not eating, and nothing can be further from the truth. The only reality is: eat right and at the right time, workout at least 3 times a week and your body will change.
Kareena has made eating right fashionable. More and more people are now waking up to the fact that if she has remained lean for more than a year and worked nonstop (she has one of the busiest schedules in the industry)
there has to be something more solid and real to her weight loss than the whole orange juice and starvation theory. (Orange juice; nobody can stay on it for more than 3 days, and certainly no one can shoot having had only orange juice. And eating little or nothing in 3 days never leads to a fab body.)
Through the media furore, Bebo didn’t give a damn about what the world was saying, whether they called her fat or thin, and followed her heart. She knows looking lean and staying healthy is a lifelong commitment. She has made it. She is the face of my ‘Eat local, think global’ philosophy.
PS: Recently, when Bebo shot for Kambakht Ishq in Venice, she ate pasta, cheese and olives, again considered ‘fattening’. Her stylist and the writer of her movie went on the diet after they saw her eating ‘everything’
in Venice. According to me, dieting is fun. Eating is comforting, we really don’t need to let go of it to get lean. Today, for all the girls on the sets of Kambakht Ishq it’s fun time. They all take their 2 hour break and eat what they are supposed to; peanuts, sprouts, dal khichdi, etc according to their individual plans. They are enjoying being on the diet. So can you.
Size zero
Breaking news: Bebo bani size zero! Kaise kar dikhaya Kareena ne yeh Karishma?
Heard of vanity sizing? It’s the practice of labelling your clothes smaller than the actual size so that you feel good about fitting into ‘oh smaller than I thought’ size. (Don’t we all love to fit in a dress smaller than our size?) It’s a kickass marketing strategy to get women to buy more (basically encourage them to SPEND more).
Size zero gained prominence in the media after the famous ‘size zero ban’ at the Madrid Fashion Week. (This, interestingly, had to do with BMI of models and not with the clothing size they wore at the fashion week. Once again focussed only on weight and height and nothing to do with fitness or body composition.)
As for me, I quickly googled size zero when I saw the above mentioned breaking news. I am a ghat, so have very little to do with style, clothes, fashion, etc. But now I am a walking encyclopedia on size zero. This is what it is: size zero is a US clothing size, equivalent of a UK 4 or Europe 30. This clothing size was not invented to fit a new emerging class of super slim celebrities or models, just plain vanity sizing.
Now size zero between me and Bebo is a joke: she sucks her cheeks in, pouts and says,
‘Ruj, I want to be size zero!’
2 It’s non-negotiable: exercise as a part of your life
Is exercising a must? Yes, it’s a must. Our body, this wonderful creation of God, was designed for activity. Walking, running, twisting, jumping, etc.
Just like the way man created this wonderful machine called the car. Cars were designed for driving.
Here’s a story for you. Once upon a time there were 2 cars parked next to each other: a Maruti 800 and a Mercedes Benz. The Maruti would go for drives almost every day at least for 30 minutes. The Benz preferred to stay parked. Of course, she would get regular waxing, cleaning, etc and looked fab from outside. Passers by would stop and give her a second look. Then, after 3 years, terror struck on the coast of Mumbai, and both cars had to move to a safe place. The Maruti could quickly start and get to a safer place. The Benz, on the other hand, had a tough time just getting started; she looked great from the outside but inside she was rusting from lack of activity. Thanks to the spirit of Mumbai, some passers by pushed it so that she could start herself and she only barely managed to get to a safe place.
I don’t have anything for Maruti or anything against Merc. I am just saying that irrespective of the make, the cost, the status or the reputation, driving is the car’s primary function or nityam dharma. A car which is driven with love and care, looks great not just from the outside but feels great from the inside too. The driver (in-dweller) of the car can stay in touch with the car’s feelings, problems, etc only if its driven regularly. As the car gets driven regularly, it finds the space to communicate openly with the in-dweller or driver: ‘Hey, I am running out of petrol’; ‘I think my brake oil is low’; ‘Hmm, I love this road’; ‘Ouch, don’t overtake like that, please’
etc. Without the act of driving, there is no space or scope for communication.
Similarly, our body, irrespective of the genetics (car make) that it is born with (naturally thin/will get fat at a later age/still look good at 50, etc) and income level it enjoys (some of us stay in match boxes, others in bungalows, etc), needs exercise and activity. When you exercise, the body gets the chance to communicate with the in-dweller. (‘I think I should finish eating by 8 pm’; ‘Ouch, my knee hurts in this position’; ‘Wow, I love
running’; ‘Am I looking bloated’, etc). This communication gives us a chance to tread the path of health, correct our mistakes; reaffirms our belief in eating correctly and at the right time. Without this communication there is not much happiness and much less peace.
So exercising, whatever your age, status, body weight, salary, gender, etc is a must. The physical body or the ‘ananmaya kosha’ needs to workout. It’s pretty simple: if you are breathing, you need to exercise. Research is increasingly pointing out that even those amongst us who have different abilities need a workout. (The gyms that I run in 2 colleges in Mumbai, Ruia & SIES, have some members who have overcome serious challenges of sight, hearing, mobility, etc to keep fit. My trainers love training them because they are among the most sincere and dedicated members we have.) So if you are ‘normal’, hello! Wake up and exercise. Hospitals and doctors are increasingly using physiotherapy as one of the major post operative procedures. It simply means activity. (Why doctors might not believe in activity or exercise as a means of staying healthy or injury prevention, pre-surgery is a mystery).
Which exercise you choose as means to keeping fit is a completely personal choice. A lot of what you prefer doing: yoga, weight training, running, swimming, etc has to do with your temperament, what you discovered first or what your friends and family believe in or recommend.
All forms of exercise lead you to the same path, that of health, vitality and peace. The benefits of exercise go way beyond losing weight or losing inches. It will improve muscle and bone density, heart and lung function, lower blood pressure, stabilise blood sugar and make you agile, faster and stronger.
But this happens only if you eat right and keep the right attitude towards life and exercise itself. Adopting exercise just as a means to losing weight can be detrimental to health, because you will risk doing too much in too little time. Once you commit yourself to regular workouts, weight loss will just happen, with the right diet. Putting time constraints on results often takes the fun and joy out of exercise.
Before embarking on a fitness programme make sure that you go through a preliminary fitness test. This is a non-invasive test which measures your
body composition, flexibility, strength and endurance. A basic knowledge of these parameters is important before starting on a fitness plan.
Like MSD once said in an interview, ‘The most important part of fitness is REST’. Workouts, whether you run, weight train, do aerobics, spin or swim, are catabolic in their very nature. Which means that every time you exercise there is microscopic wear and tear to your muscle. Exercise actually breaks your body down. Just like driving will cause wear and tear of the car, but keeping it parked all the time will destroy it. However, the difference is that the human body is blessed with a process called adaptation: when exercise provides the right stimuli (wear and tear) the body’s ability to adapt kicks in. So with the help of right nutrients (that come through food), water and rest, the body rebuilds what has gotten broken down during exercise. That way when you do the same workout the next time, it causes less or no damage.
Then, for your body to keep learning, you have to increase the stimuli. So from running 2 kilometres you run 3 kilometres, from 2 rounds of surya namaskar you go to 3, or from 2 pounds on the dumbbell curl you go to 3.
You increase the stimuli, create new wear and tear in the body, and then use all the nutrients in your body and adequate rest to learn or adapt from that stimuli, so you keep growing, getting stronger, fitter, leaner with each passing day.
Of course, when you commit to exercise you must ensure that you seek the advice of the right professional. When you meet a trainer, ask her about her qualifications, experience, etc. Discuss your problems with her, gauge whether she understands you correctly, puts your concerns to rest and suggests a good programme. Make sure the programme is personalised to your needs, fitness levels (or lack of them), timings and goals. Most importantly, it must provide for adequate recovery time. Just like you should not trust a nutritionist who doesn’t believe in exercise, you should not trust a trainer who doesn’t believe in eating right. Your trainer (whether or not she can speak in English) should have sound knowledge on exercise physiology, kinesiology, biomechanics, injury prevention and should look in good shape. A trainer should be able to teach you the correct form or technique of exercise and should help you have a realistic view in terms of how soon you can see ‘results’. But trust me, ‘results’ start happening from
minute 1 of exercise, whether you see them or not. So please don’t grudge your body for taking time, instead encourage it to take all the time in the world.
Go ahead and choose the exercise you want to commit yourself to it. A lot of people I meet are scared to exercise because they feel they will lose all the benefits of exercise when they stop exercising. Of course fitness is a perishable entity, it’s not something that can be stored forever. But then why should you ever stop exercising? Exercising is crucial to the body, just like driving is to the car. So go ahead and workout. Your body will be able to maintain fitness levels for up to 3 weeks without stimuli, after which it will start letting go of its fitness levels. Our body works by one principle, remember: ‘Use it or lose it’.
About 5 years ago, each one of us had at least 10 phone numbers by heart. Enter mobile phones and we don’t remember our partner’s number, or work or home numbers. The brain has lost its power to recollect because we are just not using it for this anymore. So if there is no reason to use fitness then you might as well lose it; or at least that’s what our body believes. The good news here is that just like the brain, muscle has memory too. So if you take to exercise even after a long, long gap, your muscles will return to the fitness levels you stopped at because it will remember them. Just like a poem you knew in school; if you hear somebody recite the first 4 lines, your memory will be refreshed and you can join in from the 5th or 6th line.
And if you are tired of weight training, take to cycling. Bored of that?
Take to running. But remember that exercise is a lifelong commitment. So you will need to keep at it, in one way or another.
‘Will exercise cause injuries?’ is like asking, ‘Will driving cause accidents?’ Well, not if you are not drinking and driving, not driving when you are tired and sleepy, following all the traffic rules, not driving in a fit of rage and taking care of the body parts of your car; enough petrol, brake oil, coolant, etc. So if you follow all the rules, you can have a safe drive and enjoy your car. Similarly, working out when not sick, tired or sleepy, eating right before and after exercise, drinking enough water, warming up, cooling down, stretching, using the right techniques, etc will not injure your body.
But when you overdo exercise and don’t eat or rest enough, it’s like an
accident. You can see the damage but you can’t make out what caused it; too much exercise, too little food, lack of sleep, or something else?
On the other hand, doing too little exercise is a pure waste of time and energy. Every time you exercise, it should challenge the body’s current fitness levels. This is called ‘the progressive over load’ principle. Which means every day you teach your body a little bit, so that it continues to learn and remain interested in exercise. Just like after you learn the alphabet you progress to words and then to sentences. If you are taught alphabets every single day, you will lose interest in them. And if you are taught sentences on day 1, you will decide that they are just not right for you. So an exercise should follow a proper step up plan and never under work you or overdo.
Is one form of exercise better than another? No. Do what you enjoy doing. Not because some celebrity endorses it, or because it’s a great calorie burner, or anything else as slight. Workouts are after all a way of overcoming our body’s limitations. Just make sure that your trainer understands your strengths and limitations, and the strengths and limitations of the form of exercise that he or she preaches and practices. The essence of all forms of exercise is one, the differences are only superficial. All forms of exercise should help you get closer to yourself, allow your body to communicate with you, and help you overcome the limitations of your body. A good religious or spiritual leader helps you understand your religion better, shows you how to adapt the principles of the religion to your daily living depending on your surroundings, and knows that all religions lead to the same goal. A fundamentalist leader, though, has poor knowledge about his own religion and is therefore incapable of guiding you onto the right path. Similarly, a trainer who looks down on other forms of exercise other than those she preaches has limited understanding of her own form of exercise. All exercises lead to the same goal: that of health, fitness and peace.
Exercise myths
Weight training
Myth: the biggest myth about weight training is that you will develop muscles or become a body builder if you start. Have you ever picked up a cricket bat and played on a Sunday and feared that if you continue playing you may turn into Sachin Tendulkar? Sounds stupid? So does this.
Reality: training in the gym will only make your bones denser, joints, tendons and ligaments stronger, and muscles bigger (men) or toned (women). As your body develops stronger bones and muscles, it learns to become an effective fat burning machine. Muscle and bone are active tissues, so they burn more fat for you.
Recommendation: train at least twice a week for not more than 60
minutes. If you are suffering from joint pains or have arthritis or osteoporosis in the family, you should definitely invest time and money in a good trainer and gym. Always have your post workout meal of high GI and protein within 20 minutes.
Yoga
Myth: you have to give up on sex if you start yoga. This is one of the most popular myths fitness professionals have to hear. My God! Nothing could be further away from the truth. Lord Shiva, the first guru of yoga was a complete family man; ‘Hum do hamare do.’
Reality: yoga is about being in control of your body, mind and senses. It encourages having a balanced and disciplined approach towards life.
Bramhacharya is not abstinence from sex but conduct (including sexual conduct) which will bring you closer to reality or your true self. So go ahead and do your suryanamaskars and asanas. If it does affect your sex life, trust me it’s only going to be only for the better.
Recommendation: yoga is a restorative form of physical exercise which also works at calming your nerves and senses. You can do yoga daily. Keep your stomach relatively empty before you start with the postures and eat a healthy meal post your yoga class.
Walking
Myth: walking is much safer than running. I think walking is the most overrated exercise. In India it is as much of a phenomenon as the big fat Indian wedding. Just like at the wedding, everybody who walks is fat, hairy, gaudy and loud. Men in large groups wearing shorts and protruding bellies, women mostly in pairs (they’re mostly with another woman) in salwars and shoes; lastly, a Maruti van outside the park selling juices in all colours and if you are a regular some complimentary moong shots.
Reality: walking in the same park, doing the same rounds, with the same people, conversing about the same topics—share bazaar, the economy, recipes, daughter-in-laws, state of the city—will not improve anybody’s fitness levels (and that’s why it is a dangerous waste of time and energy).
Some people walk for years together and see no benefit at all. These obsessive walkers may occasionally use the gyms where they walk some more on the treadmill and instead of chatting with friends, change channels on the TV screen. Others indulge in some perverted forms of breathing and call it prananayam. Walking is great but only if it provides a challenge to your body. Try the talk test. If you can’t talk at all, you’re walking or running too fast. If you can sing, then you’re too slow. If you are walking properly, you’ll only be able to talk with difficulty and most certainly won’t be able to gossip.
Recommendation: Try running for 30 minutes at a stretch. If you can’t, try running a couple of rounds instead of just walking. You can start with as little as a 30 second run and build up slowly to 3 to 13 minutes over few months. Try interval training; run for a while, then walk, and keep repeating this cycle. Always invest in good shoes, and stretch before and after the run.
3 DIY diet recall
Day 1
Time Food/drink with quantity Activity recall Workout
Day 2
Time Food/drink with quantity Activity recall Workout Day 3
Time Food/drink with quantity Activity recall Workout
This book would not have been possible without the help, support, inspiration and sacrifice of many people around me. And at the cost of making it sound like a film award acceptance speech I would like to thank:
• All my ‘diet clients’ who supported me wholeheartedly during my marathon book writing and for putting up with my switched off cell phone/no appointments for 2 months/ sms and email replies after 2
days. And also for reassuring me with ‘Don’t know about others but I will definitely buy your book.’
• My entire team at Ruia and SIES college gyms for actually working better when the boss was not around. And for making excuses about my absence with the gym members.
• My marathon runners for being patient and ‘totally ok’ about me not putting up the Sunday long run analysis as late as Monday evenings.
• My trainer friends and yoga teachers for sharing some really interesting diet stories and myths with me.
• The entire staff of Costa Coffee, Oshiwara, where I wrote most of the book.
• My parents and my sister, Ankita, for always being there for me.
• My workaholic editor Chiki, for her encouragement and retaining what I thought is essential for my book even when she thought otherwise.
And a very special thanks to my partner, GP, without whom this book would ‘not quite be there’.
A note on the author
Rujuta Diwekar works out of Mumbai, practises yoga in Rishikesh, ideates in Uttarkashi and treks in rest of the Indian Himalaya. For over a decade she has worked with people from all walks of life on fitness and diet related issues. Her celebrity clients include Kareena Kapoor, Anil Ambani, Saif Ali Khan, Konkona Sen and Preity Zinta. Amongst the few qualified sports science and nutrition experts in the country today, she has redefined dieting with her holistic approach towards a healthy lifestyle.
