What is the best Indian diet for weight loss?

The way to fitness and being healthy is 80% nutrition and 20% exercise.

You will find umpteen number of diet plans and exercises out there. My question to you is, “Do you want a sustainable lifestyle change or a short-term benefit plan which will eventually backfire while emptying your wallet?”

What the fitness and food industry often overlook is the key to it all: A healthy, fit mind and a strong will-power coupled with a constant motivation and being happy while you are on your journey to a fit body, and not the other way around.

Accept and love yourself as you are. Until you do that, your journey won’t even start.

So, what we need to do is to produce a consistent calorie deficit for weight loss; i.e., the amount of calories burnt should be greater than the amount of calories consumed. And as our weight drops down, consequently we now need lesser calories for it to work.

So, what, when and how much to eat? Let me tell you one thing: YOU DO NOT NEED ANY DIETICIAN TO TELL YOU THAT. After all, how can someone else decide when and how much you got to eat? The diet plans are NOT tailor-made for you!

We need to address the three basic questions:

What to eat?

• Stick to whole, unprocessed, Raw foods including fresh, seasonal fruits, vegetables and salads. Salads sometime before meals really help limiting your food intake and provide you with all the essential vitamins and minerals.
• Say no to artificial sugar, sweets, desserts, ice creams, packed food, fried food, all junk food including samosas/pakodas/jalebis, all sugary drinks, artificial juices and sodas. Even deep frozen foods are a no no since they have preservatives. Remember, in addition to piling up waste calories, your internal organs and arteries also get damaged.
• The combo of sabzi-chapatti is the best; or dal and chawal for meals.
• Do not skip meals. It’s outright dangerous and unhealthy.
• Check your smoking/drinking habits. Try to limit and stop them altogether.
• Maintain a FOOD JOURNAL. Religiously record when and what you ate/drank and also how hungry you were when you started eating and how were you feeling then. Often, we have a lot of bites of stuff here and there without consciously realizing how it is adding to the unneeded food and calories. Also list if what you had was FUN or FUEL food. Fun foods are those which do not serve any useful purpose to the body except empty calories. The ratio of fuel to fun foods should be 9:1.
• Limit tea/coffee intake. 1 to 2 cups a day with little sugar are fine. But please do not have tea empty stomach first thing in the morning. Trust me, it was very hard for me to give up my morning tea but I did and I am very happy now.

Check out my profile to get started on your customized weight loss journey today.

When to eat?

• There are different kind of body types with different rates of metabolism.
• There are people who need to eat after every two hours (me), then those who feel hungry after every 4 hours and then one of my friends only needs to eat twice a day!
• So, there are days when I have 6 meals, on others I only need 4 depending on my workout that day, the season, hormones and so on.
• So, eat when your body tells you to, when you are actually hungry and decide how much you need to have when you feel satisfied. Notice that I used the Word satisfied,not full.

EXERCISE:

I was regular at the gym from the year 2002 to 2010 barring a few months. While I was fit, I used to eat a lot with the result that the moment I left the gym, I gained weight fast. Then 2 meniscus injuries forced me to leave the gym for good. Subsequent pregnancies left me with little time to focus on fitness. Though I did eat sensibly, I wanted to get fitter and decided to turn the tables in October, 2016.

I have been working out consistently from the past 8 months. My workouts are flexible. It starts with a warm-up, then 10 minutes of walking followed by 10 minutes of jogging/running (on the road). This then is followed by a variety of activities depending on the day/mood including 20 minutes of either:

• Weight training
• Aerobics
• Zumba
• Dance
• Crossfit
• Planks, squats and other toning exercises.

Check out my profile to get started on your customized weight loss journey today.