Don’t binge, eat right

                              (By Lisa Sarah John, Courtesy Bangalore Ti,mes, Apr 30, 2007)

Most know a lot about dieting and exercise but they lack self control and motivation to practise what they know. One day you overeat and though the food choice may be right, the quantity is wrong. Otherwise you eat the right amount but suddenly give in to an urge to pop a few pieces of chocolate into your mouth. To over come this problem, you need to develop control.

When we are children we don’t exercise control in many areas of our life. We say whatever we feel, we want to buy everything in a shop. But as we grow older, we control our speech, buy only what’s necessary.

Similarly, we need to realise we must exercise control over eating, or we will have trouble with our bodies. The first step is to always be conscious about how much you eat. Take full servings on your plate rather than one idli or a slice of bread, and then another and then another.

At lunch or dinner, heap your quota of rice or chapati on your plate just once. Likewise, your dal and sabzi cannot be unlimited. Some control the quantity of rice or chapati and then keep eating dal and sabzi.
Cooked sabzi or palya have calories we must count. It is only salads that you can eat in unlimited quantities.
One of the most helpful tools to weight control is maintaining a daily diet dairy. We account the food eaten through out the day in the exact quantities measured in cups. 1 cup equals 225ml. Also when eating fruits or snacks, don’t sit with a whole tray of fruits and end up consuming bunches of grapes instead of half a cup or a whole dish of cut fruit instead of one whole apple or orange. Similarly don’t carry a whole packet of biscuits when you sit to watch TV. Place only two biscuits on a plate.
The second factor is quality control. Most often we choose a food or snack because it’s a favourite, even if it oozes oil or ghee.

While on a very strict diet avoid fatty foods like full cream milk, butter, ghee, cheese, paneer, all fried food, nuts, coconut chutney, pastries, desserts, chocolate, ice cream and rich meats, totally for 30 days to lose about 3kgs or for 3 months to lose 10kgs. Thereafter, while on maintenance, eat fatty foods only twice a week, say an ice cream on Monday afternoon and Chinese food on Friday.

If you binge while on maintenance and eat fatty food at all meals for 2-3 days or eat small amounts of fatty food daily for 2-3 weeks you will quickly put back all the weight you lost in the month.

 

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