Tummy Talks

This blog's photo is not what you think it is. It's really not what you think it is! I am not at all promoting over eating! In fact it's just the opposite! I have around 6-7 meals every day and hence the need to plan. Unfortunately we realize weight gain rather late (No, it does't happen suddenly!) and so it feels that losing weight takes hell lot of time. In the pursuit of losing weight, we forget that most difficult is to maintain your ideal weight! My grand father once told me that consistency in your weight for a long time is a definite sign of being healthy! It is good to remember that as I have always been in the normal BMI band (even as a chubby teenager!) I have been in the 2 kgs plus minus ideal weight since the year 2000. I put on 12 kgs during my pregnancy and lost all of it in the next year going back to the ideal weight I had since 2000. The only reason I am sharing this is to emphasize what I am saying is tried and tested! If it worked for me for almost 15 years now, chances are more that it might work for you too!


A few of my rules that have worked wonders!

• Eat within first 10 to 20 minutes of waking up in the morning. (This is the time I usually eat a fruit or cereals)
• Eat every 2-3 hours! Sometimes even less if your body tells you to! 
• Eat 2 hours before you sleep at night. 
• Only eat while eating! No multi-tasking please. You don't realize you are eating and how much you are eating if you eat on the go, in front of the TV, while reading something, are you getting what I mean? So sit down and eat, this takes only 5 minutes if you are having a mid meal or 10-15 minutes if you are having lunch or dinner! 

Breakfast, Lunch, High Tea and Dinner 

• Eat everything! Food is heaven and can be healing if you let it! 
• Moderation including moderation is the key! There's no point in eliminating some food items just because they are supposedly fattening! Have them in moderation, break them up as your mid meals! 
• Serve yourselves. Pick up only how much you want. It saves you the guilt of over eating under the pretext of not throwing away the food on your plate. 

Mid meals that I pack for the day -

• Fruits (I have mostly Apple and Banana - its just very convenient to carry.)
• Phutane or Channa 
• Dry fruits (1 Date, 2 Almonds, 2 Walnuts, 1 fig and 10 black raisins)
• Cheese slices 
• Cereals and milk
• One glass of whole milk
• Khakra or dried rotis
• Sandwich
• Roti roll

One last bit for this post - please wait for at least 4 weeks before you judge if this eating pattern works for you or not! Remember, slow results are long lasting results!