Allegro Con Brio

Well, here is something for you to chew on—the less you eat, the fatter you get. What I mean is, you may lose weight by drastically cutting down your calorie intake, but if you eat the wrong foods, you will continue piling plaque in the arteries, loading the kidney, heart, liver and, yes, your fat cells too. So, eat right. Nobody can or should give you a list of what to eat; right for you may be wrong for me (it’s like marriage, you see). But unlike marriage, you have lot of scope for trial and error, till you finally figure out what’s right for you.

Here is a hint—no matter what or how much you eat, look for this feeling—“light and lively”. When you undereat, you feel restless, when you overeat, you feel dull. “Light and lively” is a state of being somewhere between the two, and you can achieve it with what I call “meditation-like” eating. What do I mean? Here are some principles worth following:

• Observe yourself as you eat. So no TV, cellphone, Twitter etc while you eat.
• Eat with your hands, when possible; when you touch your food, you are less likely to overeat.
• Our eyes love colour, so let your food be colourful; ensure, at least, that there are reds and greens in your lunch and dinner.
• Use your nose—if the food smells “off”, abandon it.
• The sound of a silent prayer works wonders for the enzymes and digestive juices—I kid you not!
• Let your tongue taste what you eat by limiting the number of foods you eat at a time. Eg. roti + sabzi + dal is enough for one meal. Salad and curd? Your next meal, two hours later.

(A fortnightly column on nutrition and fitness, by the best-selling author of Don’t Lose Your Mind, Lose Your Weight)