This Summer let’s get Physical with Food Science, shall we?

I am friends with Rini A. Dasgupta, a beautiful soul and a fellow MBA, Rini at the very threshold of life has cracked the secret to Food science and Human biology which overlap to give you mind boggling results. Let me warn you folks, Rini is pretty keen on her fashion senses too and spends most of her time amidst models. So if you are keen on losing the belly fat or bat wings this summer then Rini is your girl to follow. Let’s see what Rini has in store for us with food and workout regime:

” FOOD FOR THOUGHT (AND STOMACH AS WELL)

To begin with – Rohan, brilliant article on food in your blog! It gives me immense joy and delight to see people like you who love food and eat it guilt free (and which is exactly why people must say to you, “Hey! You never put on any weight, you eat so much!”). What I have written below is a simple, holistic way to enjoy the delights food can offer you (thanks Rujuta Diwekar for being my biggest eye opener) and realize that a good body is an outcome of food + workout.

So readers, you must (obviously) have encountered instances when someone very rudely turned to you and said, “Why are you eating so much of rice? You want to put on more weight? Huh?” and you then (if you already have weight/fitness issues) immediately pause to think and very “diligently” delete it from your platter and load it with “fibre-rich” biscotti (oh the fancier the name, the better it must be for health!), vegetables (boiled only mind you), tasteless, tadka-less edibles (I call it non-edible). And when you DO indulge in eating good food, you do so with guilt. So now you have been successfully brainwashed into believing that YUCKY = HEALTH and YUMMY = FAT. Enter weight-loss industries with slimming belts, electric currents and other (devastating) methods. Enter GM diet and cabbage soups and other methods designed to torture thy holy self. Is that why you were born? To live a life of immense pain and say no to the wonders of food God gave us? Oh my GOD.

        In case you’re thinking what’s my point here (what! Is she crazy? She’s telling us to eat to lose weight!)  yes I am your crazy writer/new friend/very fit asking you to eat to lose weight. Let’s start with why our digestive systems, digestive fire etc. exist in the first place. To eat, swallow and digest, silly! Let’s get to the actual point(s) now.

1. DIT – Diet Induced Thermogenesis

This means the more you eat, the better your metabolism. No, this doesn’t mean one plate of rice and veggies every fifteen minutes. This simply means that you have to eat every two hours. The human body doesn’t understand logic (i.e. lunch is delayed due to office) it simply does what Mama Nature taught it – survival (remember Charles Darwin’s “only the fittest survive”?). Hence, when it misses a meal, it goes into survival mode, lowers metabolism and starts holding on to the fat stores because the body simply thinks there is lack of food and a threat to survival! Feeding it every two hours is a way of reassuring the body that there is no such thing so keep up the metabolism!

  2. A Balanced Diet –  A wholesome meal

Now just because I said eat every two hours, it won’t do you any good to run to KFC and Mc Donald’s every two hours! Any diet is not “one size fits all” but this is a general pattern. You have to include mostly what you have been eating since childhood and remain close to your genes, which means if your ancestors have been eating idli for 5000 years, yes you can eat them too. If you are a Punjabi, eat your paranthas. If you are a Bengali (like me) then eat rice! Indians, in general, should eat rice. Paranthas, gulab jamuns, dhoklis etc are NOT junk food!

• MEAL # 1 – Pre-Breakfast – Start you day with a high calorie fruit AS SOON AS you get up (and brush) because your blood sugars drop the moment you open your eyes. Fructose stabilizes your blood sugars + which leads to an escalating metabolism + hence your appetite is the way it is supposed to = now the body is equipped to burn more fat during the day! Now you are not empty stomached while taking a bath and getting ready for work etc. 

 

• MEAL # 2 – Breakfast – continue eating your parantha/ idli/ upma/ dosa/ cornflakes and no you will not put on weight because you have a good metabolism now!

 

• MEAL # 3 – Midday Meal – this is your meal two hours after breakfast and two hours prior to lunch. A pack of unsalted nuts like peanuts, walnuts etc. high in omega 3, they take care of your pre-lunch hunger cramps (aaaooo, I’m so hungry, stupid professor not releasing us for lunch!) well, just have them in class/office!

 

• MEAL # 4 – Lunch (usually the second meal of the day for most people who then wonder, “Arre I hardly eat man, still I am fat yaar”) – this is the time to eat your rice/dal. Remember to eat rice every day (another article for another time, for now just believe me). Vegetables keep rotating and just continue eating what your grandmother/mother used to eat. Your stomach will tell you when to stop on time now, simply because you have nourished it since morning!)

 

• MEAL # 5 –the 4pm meal – you stomach makes a slight demand again, so you can very well eat a small bhel (wet bhel, not dry, as pudina is a brilliant laxative for your stomach) and your body is back to being your content wife/child and does no drama.

 

• MEAL # 6 – and the 6pm meal (what a coincidence!) – this perhaps is the most important meal after your first meal (fruit in the morning) because this will determine your dinner appetite. Never skip this one COME WHAT MAY, because if you do then you will overeat for dinner, which results in bloating, no hunger in the morning, and then you skip your pre breakfast and breakfast. Bad thing na? Now this meal is as simple as a glass of milk/chaas/lassi with a small sandwich (yes you can have white bread or brown, your choice) or a couple of carrots.

 

• MEAL # 7 – the LAST supper – roti/veggies/lean proteins whatever. And you won’t overeat now because? 100 Rini points for your answer.

 

• Now, eat you meal # 7 (your last supper) two hours before going to sleep. Why? Because your body does its repair work after you sleep hence with undigested food in the tummy it is torn between the two duties. It finally chooses to leave the food unattended (not digested) and does the repair work. This also leads to bloating by the way!

                        

• MITAHAR – The “sweet” experience with food

Engaging your senses (ALL FIVE OF THEM) is crucial to keep your agni chakra (digestive fire commonly known as metabolism) burning bright. This ensures that your mind is accepting the food that you eat and the body then does a better job of digesting it. So look at your food and let your eyes enjoy the colours of your meal, smell the lovely aroma with your nose, touch the texture and feel it with your fingers, taste it with your tongue and then hear it crumble inside your mouth with your ears. That means – no television, phone calls, spoons and other distractions. Mitahar ensures you don’t overeat (because the body acknowledges all that goes in and how much should go in). Junk foods numb your senses, hence mitahar is difficult to practise then.

 EXERCISE – if you have an ass, move it.

Now that we are done blaming food for all the fat that we gain, let’s get more real that we already just did. We are not here to lose weight, but to stay fit. Fat weighs very little and muscle mass weighs a lot, so weighing scales tend to mislead you in terms of health. Even after you burn a lot of fat, your weight may remain the same or even increase as that is your bone and muscle mass. It is crucial to build muscle mass because the more muscle you have, the more your fat burns automatically. No, weight training does not make you a body builder (they have ENTIRELY different lifestyles and diets, including pills and steroids). The human body can only build so much of muscle and upon reaching the peak with a certain amount of weight, it maintains the same with regular exercise. Again, exercise is not “one size fits all”, so invest in a gym/trainer and be regular.

To conclude, I would simply like to say that you have to 1.eat and 2.exercise and 3.enjoy both. You don’t have to exercise because you eat, but because you have a BODY. It doesn’t get simpler than that. Cheers everyone and enjoy the wonders of food, exercise and the brilliant health it will shower upon you!”

(Courtesy Rini Ankita Dasgupta – Guest Blogger)

dasgupta.ankita@gmail.com (feel free to compliment/complain/add opinions/suggestions)