Don'T Lose Your Mind, Lose Your Weight

by Rujuta Diwekar

The body works on one basic principle: use it or lose it.

as long as you exercise it’s ok to eat whatever you want. Really think so? Do you think as long as you drive your car it doesn’t matter what you put into it; kerosene, petrol, diesel?

The worst thing is that most of these products use trans fat, which provides the right texture to food, makes it last longer and at the same time make you fatter and clog your arteries; also making you prone to heart diseases.

If you must eat chakli or chips make them at home and fry them.

To summarise: there is really nothing like ‘safe food’ or ‘fattening food’. Everything that you eat judiciously, at the right time and in the right quantity, is good for you.

If you eat at a time when there are hardly any digestive juices being secreted, when the stomach has lost its power of digestion, when there is no prana (life force) in the stomach and when the mind is distracted, how can you expect food to get digested properly?

According to ayurveda, overeating is the cause of all diseases.

Tip: don’t store sweets or fried foods at home. You might be gifted mithai and the like at festival time. After completely enjoying 1 or 2 pieces, give these away to friends, family, share it at office, give it to your watchman, bai, etc. Post tip: don’t always dump your excesses on one person. Choose different people for charity. But get those things out of your sight and reach.

The smaller the number of people the food is prepared for, the better its nutrient level. More the people, the earlier you start to prepare the food, and the greater the quantity of food cooked, the more oil and heat you use. That’s why restaurant food can never be compared to home food.

Kareena ate momos in Ladakh and they helped her lose weight because Ladakh is dry, windy, cold and at an altitude of 3500 metres. If she ate the same momos in aamchi Mumbai which is humid, hot, and at sea level, she would have become fat.

it means that every calorie we consume should be loaded with nutrients.

all you have to do is tell your best friend, your body, that you will be eating more than usual for Diwali, Christmas, Eid, your anniversary or party, etc. Your body likes being taken into confidence (who doesn’t), and it responds to this communication by increasing your metabolic rate, secreting more digestive juices, enzymes, and sending more blood flow to your stomach. So now your mind and body are both prepared for the onslaught of food and the calories that come with

relaxed state of mind is the best preparation for any indulgence.

when it comes to food think nutrients, not calories.

The glycemic index ranks carbohydrates depending on how quickly they lead to an increase in our blood glucose and insulin levels. High GI or ‘fast’ carbs lead to a quick sharp rise in the blood glucose levels and low GI or ‘slow’ carbs lead to a slow, steady rise in blood glucose levels. High GI foods (fast carbs) get converted to fat quickly and low GI foods (slow carbs) have a much better chance of getting utilised for energy instead of getting stored as fat.

be careful to choose slow carbs. Carbs that retain their fibre are low on GI; so if you look at brown rice and white rice the main difference is in their fibre content. Brown rice contains all the fibre and that’s why it has higher nutrient content and better fat loss properties. White rice on the other hand has lost all its fibre and nutrients thanks to the processing. So it’s high on GI and low on fat burning properties.

Your body can take high GI food only after exercise, when your body needs instant sugar.

Just because it’s good for you don’t eat all you want; always keep in touch with your stomach and make sure you don’t cross the overeating threshold.

Bread, biscuit and alcohol are all bad carbs or fast carbs and provided no nourishment to the Indian mind which then easily accepted slavery.

The beta cells of the pancreas produce insulin and alpha produce glucagon. When there is a rise in blood sugar level the beta cells secrete insulin, which stimulates cells in the body to grab glucose, leading to a fall in glucose levels. It also instructs the liver to store glucose as glycogen (glucose reserve). When glucose levels fall below a set point or optimal level, the alpha cells secrete glucagons, which instruct the liver to convert glycogen back to glucose. These two pancreatic hormones are responsible for maintaining healthy blood glucose levels.

you can safely eat your brownie, gulab jamun, etc without getting fat. Two things: eat them not more than once a week (and that’s the most you’re allowed!) and don’t eat them with a meal. A brownie or dessert after a lavish dinner means pucca conversion to fat because glycemic index and load are both high.

But if you want to have the gulab jamun with all the sweet juice and have developed the discipline to eat just one, then eat it by itself as an in between meal. This way, the high glycemic index will be set off by low glycemic load (less food at one time) and this will improve the chances of your body not converting the sweet treat to fat. (There is a good chance there is no conversion to fat, in fact.) So eat your pizza, but stop at one piece.

Where the glycemic index is very high, reduce the load. As I have mentioned, the best time to eat h...

We should eat fruits when we are in a fasting state or when our liver store is empty: so, first thing in the morning on an empty stomach, or immediately after physical exercise.

A glass of milk (with no sugar or sweetener) as a late night snack, or adding a milk product like paneer to your dinner can help you get your dose of tryptophan. When consumed with a whole grain like wheat, jowar, bajra or nachni, it will lead to a restful sleep.

people who exercise but don’t watch their diets ultimately deduce that exercise doesn’t work for them. Because without the amino acids reaching sites of action, exercise really doesn’t work.

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.

Don’t reuse the oil once you have deep-fried with it. Tip: avoid deep-fried food at large parties, because they are usually deep-fried twice.

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.

How much water should you drink? Drink enough so that your urine is always crystal clear, not light yellow, dark yellow or reddish.

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

High activity could mean both physical and mental activity;

any activity where you are very actively involved and that demands a lot of energy from you.

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.

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.

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.

Watching TV is not relaxing, but rather a taxing activity for the body, especially the eyes and the brain.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

Above all, be patient, kind and good to your body. It takes years and years for us to collect body fat, give it some time to lose it too. A thumb rule is that, if it took you 10 years to get fat, invest at least 10 months of consistent exercise, eating right and disciplined bedtimes before losing patience with your body or breaking your own heart.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.