Have you wondered why some are so lucky and you aren’t? Haven’t you dreamed of being able to eat as much as you wanted and still sport a skin tight sexy figure? Better still, did you know you could eat as much as you wanted and lose weight?
Yes, that is what I said…you could eat lots and lose weight. But it does not mean you can eat lots of anything that you like. There are some food you have to avoid and some you may eat lots.
Before we go into the details, we need to learn a few things about why we gain weight and fat, in the first place.
All animals that live in jungle and have the freedom to feed on their own never become overweight. There are times in the jungle, when food is hard to come by and they lose weight. But even when the food is aplenty, they do not become fat and obese, like your pet dog or cat.
All animals, including human beings, eat to their stomach’s fill, when their favourite is served to them. But in the jungle, animals stop eating when their stomachs are full. And when the stomach is full, the food craving of the mind stops as well and they never over eat.
What about us, humans? There is this guy I know of, who is addicted to drinking beer in the afternoon. He is a site engineer and almost always facing the full brunt of the sun’s wrath. “By the time it is about 3 pm, I am so tired and thirsty that only a chilled beer can “straighten me up”. I go up two bottles of beer every afternoon, and then it helps me eat a heavy lunch. I take a nap for an hour after that and get back to office afterwards”
“How many glasses of water can you drink when you are very very thirsty? I asked him
“2-3 glasses. Can’t drink more”
“Does that quench your thirst?”
“Yes, it does. But beer quenches my thirst and makes me feel good too”.
Did you see where we are going wrong when it comes to what we eat & drink, from the above conversation?
We eat and drink not just because we are hungry or thirty, but we eat because food makes us feel good, and it is not just beer. Now look at this way. You are hungry and come to the dining room ready to eat an ox. Your mom or wife serves you, your most hated food. Now, where did those hunger pangs go? One look at the food and you are ready to skip breakfast.
What about those animals in the jungle? They don’t eat if they don’t find what they like to eat. True, but whatever they like or made available to them in the jungle was prepared by the best cook in the world. And she created that endless abyss you call your stomach. But she, Mother Nature, also created the right kind of food to fill that infinite cavern or stomach.
And what happens to those animals that eat only Mother Nature cooks for them? Their hunger pangs and food cravings stop the minute their stomach is full. What about us, who cook, refine and alter the chemical composition of those good food servings, by chemically treating them or heating them or cooking them or by adding heated oil and sauce to them? We simply do not know when to stop eating.
Yes, beer quenches your thirst and we do not know when to stop because craving does not subside even after your thirst has. The same with chocolates, ice creams, pizza, biscuits and all those yummy, sugar rich delicacies that tease and torment your sensitive, “taste-crazy” palate.
Simply put, the animals in the jungle eat to live and we, the humans, li[o]ve to eat. Now what happens when we fight the food cravings? One long look at Salman Khan’s or Kareena Kapoor’s figure and we are ready to diet from the next day. We take vows not to over eat and indulge in all those delicacies.
This is so easily said than done. You are at your aggressive best the first three days of starting the diet. You look at those who eat junk food most contemptuously and even loudly wonder why these gluttons cannot follow a healthy life style.
You will have become an epitome of everything good and healthy. You coax, persuade, cajole, pressurize, threaten and even blackmail everyone into following suit.
Now, on the fourth day, a minor change in attitude starts to happen. The sugar cravings, which were hitherto shown the back door, slowly appears out of nowhere and starts to peep out of the louver window of your “Berlin Wall” of defenses. The ever sweet, all forgiving, mouth watering, luscious beauty of a “Black Forest” cake winks at you from across the kitchen shelf.
A low moan escapes your throat, as your mind is flooded with all the memories of good moments of ecstasy, you and this cake shared. But it is only the fourth day and there is still some vestige of will power left in you.
With tears in your eyes and a last parting glance at the lovely piece of enrapturing beauty of a “Black Forest”, you move out of the kitchen and walk up the stairs to your bedroom. Your heart is laden with heaviness of having to part with someone whose only endeavor ever, was to make your palate and mind feel good.
The phone starts to ring. It is your best friend on the line.
“Hey, what the heck is happening? I haven’t seen you in three days. I am at the Priya Bakery munching a loaf of sweet plum cake. Come over fast”.
Suddenly, all your heaviness is gone. So are the guilt pangs of being tempted by that “Black Forest”. You change into jeans and ride off to meet your friend at the bakery. She was so sweet as to order your favourite delicacy and have it ready by the time you arrived. You take a long look at that “sweetie pie” on the table. A long, sigh laden with heavy emotional charge, escapes your chest. And you fall all over your “sweetie pie”
with all the passion of a woman who ran into her lover, she has not seen in months, in her bedroom.
And then you turn around to kick that dingbat Venugopal’s eight meal diet plan out of the window for a big six.
Now I have got calluses on my behind from being kicked so many thousand times by all those who cheat on the diet. And if I don’t do something about it, I would end up being the first person on earth with cancerous growth on the rump.
I think I have made one thing very clear, which is, eating what Mother Nature gives you do not make you fat, but when you overeat what you cook at home, it does inevitably make your tummy as wide as you are tall.
There are also some delicacies that you can eat lots and not put on weight even you have cooked them. You cannot eat them raw either. They are meat, fish and eggs. There is a very famous diet which allows you to eat meat and just meat and lose weight. It is called Dr. Atkins diet. But then, Dr. Atkins also cautions you against eating too much.
So how do you go about eating lots and lose weight? The underlying principle in this theory is to stop yourself from eating to your heart’s fill or learn how to stop food cravings. If your diet is a mixture which has just enough carbohydrates and high in protein, you can kill those food cravings to a great extent. And yes, such a food combo will fill your tummy up so much, you will not be able eat again for hours.
The most important thing about this is to kill your hunger pangs even before they are born. It is only when you are hungry or haven’t eaten anything for a span of 3 hours that food cravings start to haunt you. And never, if your stomach is full.
Follow these simple guidelines to make it easy for you.
1. Drink one glass of water every hour. You could ward off a lot of hunger pangs when you are not dehydrated and thirsty. Water is also a very important ingredient in all fat loss diets.
2. Always ask yourself if you are eating to fill your tummy or falling prey to your food cravings. The food cravings have regular timings and intervals and so make sure, you eat some fruits or drink milk or eat some proteinous food like peanuts [not fried] an hour and a half before your regular meals.
3. All sugar laden food can play havoc with your digestion, energy production, health and good eating habits. Try not to run into situations where you are tempted to “taste a wee little bit” of the rich food. If you are on a diet, it is better not to eat with the family as this getting together can make you eat more than you really need.
4. Be prepared in your mind for the eventual “slip and fall”. You will cheat on the diet some day or other. So what? It is not the end of your life. It also does not have to be the end of the diet either. You start from where you stopped. After having given into temptations, you have let some steam of your mind and now try to get back to the diet and follow it strictly
5. Remember those incidents that tempted you and finally got you to side step and take the wrong track. Try not to fall into the same groove again.
6. The day you start to diet is the day your friends decide to give you a long-promised treat. It may also happen that the next day, your best friend is getting married. So what? It is not the end of your life. You enjoy, make merry, and come back with a vengeance to get back to the diet.
6. Try your best not give up exercise, whatever happens. This act makes sure that you are not going to get fatter than you are now, whatever you do.
7. Do not ever tell anyone you are on a diet. Your friends are going to laugh at you, tease you and your parents, siblings and the family are going say, ” oh, yeah!? Now this is the 42nd time you are on a diet. Please do not make an as..er..donkey of yourself”. So if you have to say it, tell them that you are on an ayurvedic medication which requires that you stick to certain food habits.
8. Look at yourself in the mirror and try to like what you see there. I know it is difficult. It is a fat, ugly and gross looking creature that you see in the mirror. But try hard to like it. Did you do that? Ok, now TRY HARDER TO LOVE YOU!!!. It is very important to do so. One thing all obese persons have is “lack of self esteem”. Remember, if you do not love what you see in the mirror, no one else is going to love it either.
You cannot do anything for a person you don’t like very much, now can you? Smile at yourself with just your eyes for about two minutes in the morning and evening. Keep your face and lips from following up that smile in the eyes. And when you talk to
those people who ridicule you, smile at them with your eyes and remember you have to love yourself whatever they say. And you try to like that person too. Believe me; it helps to make things easy for you. And very fast too.
9. Remember to smile at this fight in your mind, this tussle your sugar cravings has with your will power. Try not to be heartbroken when the will power loses out. But simply smile with all your heart. Remember, there is nothing, absolutely nothing that cannot be won over with a sweet smile.
10. Look at your sugar cravings as though you would look at a sweet little kid. Smile at all the tricks it plays on your will power and mind and very slowly you will find that you are beginning to master the craving and win the battle of the bulge in the most effortless way.
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