Rajesh Goyal is the Chairman of Delhi Housing Finance Corporation. For sometime, he and his wife have become an object of envy and admiration among his relatives, friends and known people for having lost 32 kilograms of their weight in a few months.
It was during the national lockdown that Rajesh Goyal and his wife started following Low Carbohydrate Healthy Fat diet with intermittent fasting, after absorbing the concept in the article “Recovering Health through Power of Food” I wrote in March, 2020 in this magazine.
Rajesh Goyal and his wife are known to us for many years. Rajesh happened to be overweight and wanted to reduce weight but did not know what to do. I explained to him the simple concept of healthy food with intermittent fasting which is not a weight reduction programme but achieves lesser weight as one of the effects. They started following it when the country was going through the national lockdown in March this year.
The concept of this lifestyle is that one reduces drastically the intake of carbohydrates, particularly the refined carbohydrates, in food intake, keeping protein intake moderate and with large increase in healthy fats in the form of saturated fats including ghee, butter, curd, milk, cheese, coconut oil and some intake of healthy Omega 3 oil like flaxseed oil. This food intake, unlike the dietary guidelines of the World Health Organisation shuns Omega 6 oils. Simultaneously the intake of added sugar is eliminated or considerably reduced.
Food intake is generally restricted to 8 hours in the day and for the rest 16 hours, there is fasting, no intake of calories. One can take green tea, coffee without milk and sugar and water during the fasting hours.
One beneficial effect of large intake of healthy fat is that for the 16 hours fasting there is no hunger and one feels completely satiated and there is no discomfort for not having food for the larger part of the day.
Rajesh who had been struggling with his weight for many years lost 15 kilograms in less than 2 months after he got accustomed to the new food and fasting regime. He was 120 kg before he commenced the new eating regime and achieved 15 kg reduction which was beyond his imagination.
This magical success prompted him to resolve to achieve the two digit weight which he had earlier thought was not possible for him. It is creditable for him that he has not only retained the 15 kilograms reduction, he has further reduced 5 kilograms in the last few months. It was a pleasant surprise for him when the weighing scale showed his weight in two digits a few days ago. He is determined to bring his weight further down and achieve ideal weight for his height.
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His wife has also followed the new diet and fasting. She has achieved a remarkable 12 kg reduction in weight in a few months and is confident that she will achieve further weight reduction. More than weight she is extremely happy that her health has improved remarkably. Her fitness level, her feeling of wellbeing has seen remarkable improvement. Of course, she has become an object of admiration in her known circle. A beneficial effect of the changed lifestyle has been less work for her as there is no issue of supervising dinners these days as they have done away with dinners for months as they finish their last meal before the sunset.
As their new lifestyle has become known in their friends circle, changes have started coming in their social circle. Recently when brother of Rajesh celebrated his birthday, instead of organising the normal dinner for the celebrations, it was a lunch celebration as his family had become accustomed to their not eating after sunset. They say now life has become easier that after finishing their work for the day, they can spend the evenings with much comfort without having the tensions of late dinner and frequent going outs.
Some of his friends and relatives have started imbibing the new fitness regime to improve their lives.
( Views are personal)
(The author is an IPS Officer of 1987 batch, is presently Joint Secretary with Ministry of Home Affairs)
