my Top 3 tips for weight loss & healthy eating habit

Dear all, Thanks for this thread, I am a 35 year old writer based in India, am new here (used to live abroad but now settled in Chennai) and happy to share with you my top 3 tips by which I increased my stamina and lost 5 kilos in the last 5 months.


1. Drink 3 litres of water / fluid a day (all clear fluids like green tea, broth, coconut milk, buttermilk etc is included in this quota)
2. Only two main meals a day, breakfast and dinner (no rice for dinner)
3. Walking every day (30 min walk, 15 min stretch)


Each person's body is different, of course. Also, situations are different. But I find that most of times we as a family (or friends get together or function) go out for dinner so it is difficult to keep dinner light. The entire exercise ends in a failure. So I follow the two meal diet - I eat a heavy breakfast (to get me through the day) and a moderate rice-less dinner (so that I don't feel too heavy). I walk and stretch every morning, and also drink 3 litres of water throughout the day, which I firmly believe helps me keep sated with just 2 cooked meals a day.

I know you are thinking - what about lunch? Well, I wait till i get hungry - we are so used to looking at the clock and eating, and i am teaching myself to feel hunger and only then eat. Some days when it is so hot here, i don't feel hungry at all, all my body seems to ask for is water, so I just keep drinking coconut milk or buttermilk (this counts towards the 3 litre a day)... but some days I do feel hungry, I then mix a small bowl of seasonal fruits, 1 or 2 is enough. I also add olives, tomatoes, onions and cucumber - to give it a "chaat" punch. NO SALT OR DRESSING, only fresh pepper. Then I add walnuts, almonds and raisins (if I am feeling like it, I will add crumbs of feta cheese, but not every day).

This salad is more than enough for me to kill my hunger during the mid-day "hunger period". It's also best way to include fruits every day. This plan gets difficult to follow during weekends, when we cook meat for lunch, in which case I have my fruit salad for breakfast, and my lunch becomes BRUNCH. . Some other changes I have done which has greatly benefited me:

1. Switch from white rice to brown rice and millets
2. Eat white rice-based items only when it is unavoidable (like during an outing or function)
3. Walk 30 min every day (warm up, slow, brisk, fast/stairs, brisk, slow - each 5 min)
4. Do suryanamaskar every day (takes only 10 min, i do this after I finish walking)
5. Eat sweet items only once a day
6. Record my every day eating habits in Myfitnesspal.com diet journal (this helps me see how much unnecessary calories i'm dumping into my body!)

So these are some guidelines that have helped me lose 5 kilos in the last 5 months (I was 78k last Nov 1, now I am 73k y'day). For some people that is slow progress - but I am okay with it, because I am trying to keep this weight loss permanent... as they day, slow and steady wins the race, when it comes to losing the body weight... my ayurvedha doctor told me that we should aim not to put back the weight again, which is possible only if you make permanent diet changes in your life. So rather than looking for quick fixes, if one changes their diet pattern, it's 100% possible to get good results.


Thanks for your time, I hope to meet and make many like-minded friends here


R

 

hi sanjuruby,
i 100% get what you say. when i lived in pennsylvania, i never exercised during the winter (and of course put on so much weight) and also never drank much water bcos of the cold climate (result: lots of kidney stones). but then I moved to London and discovered the parks there... that was the secret. The more i walked, the more thirsty i got, so I kept drinking water... it was a good circle. Hail or sunshine, parks are always flat and nice, and tt's one thing that has saved me from obesity!

So those 2 experiences taught me the importance of walking. Currently in chennai I live near a park, but whenever I go to my parents home (which does not have a park nearby) I walk in their terrace. I also use the staircases to do a stair workout. Then a wall is enough to do arm and thigh pushups. We can improvise... the most important thing is the discipline, if you give the same importanc to daily exercise as brushing teeth or taking bath, it will become a habit... and if you invest in some weights, you can do weight training at home itself

Just a few tips I am sharing with you

R

 

Deepi deepi, I too LOVE non veg! Cannot live without it.

R

 

Priyashrini I too wish I lived in cool London . Miss it very much (more than US). Chennai is boiling hot now!

R