Do some quantity control
Sharad Puranik
Do some quantity control
(By Lisa Sarah John, Courtesy Bangalore Times, Feb 4, 2008)
Most people who have attempted to lose weight know that they have to avoid fatty foods like butter, ghee, deep fried foods, sweets and red meat. Over the years, they develop a fair amount of self-control. However, it is human nature to gradually lose that control, even when it comes to over-eating regular, healthy food.
So, you may be 90kgs, even though you don't eat any fatty food and still wonder why you're not able to shed those extra kilos. You need to understand that if you are very lean and your weight is proportionate to your height, you will have less fat mass in your body and more muscle mass or lean mass. Therefore, you'll have a high body metabolism and will be able to eat a larger quantity of food and burn it off and stay trim.
However, if you're 10-20 kgs overweight, you will have more fat mass and less muscle mass. Your body metabolism will be low and you require much less food than a thin person and less quantity compared to what you could have eaten when you were thinner. Age also plays a role: when you were 25-years-old, you may have eaten three, four or five rotis in a meal and stayed thin. At 45, you may need to eat only two rotis to maintain your energy needs and stay trim.
Every person in every age group must eat three regular, balanced meals every day. If you skip even one meal, your metabolism will go down and your tendency to put on weight increases. If you miss meals, you will develop the habit of overeating.
The next step is to figure out the quantities that work for you. Food is divided basically into carbohydrates and proteins. In a meal, bread, rice, rotis, cereals, oats, etc., provide carbohydrates and milk, eggs, dhal, pulses and non-veg provide the proteins. Besides this, there's cooked veggies, raw fruits and salads.
When measuring carbs, it must be measured as slices of bread or rotis,
one level standard measuring cup (1 cup equals 225ml) of cornflakes or cooked rice or cooked broken wheat or kichidi. Oats or ragi may be measured by heaped table spoons. Two heaped tablespoons of raw oats or ragi can be cooked into porridge with water to equal two slices of bread. You can add milk. Most people need to eat either 2-3 slices of bread or 2-3 rotis in one meal. We never advise eating only one slice bread or one roti in a meal. Cornflakes or rice is usually one cup or a maximum of one-and-a-half cups a meal. Just half a cup of cereal alone or half a cup of rice alone is not advisable. Cooked dhal, chole, rajma, etc., or cooked sabji, should never exceed one level measuring cup of 225ml for any meal. I have observed that many eat only one roti but eat 2-3 cups of cooked sabji or cooked dhal or chole with it. These items contain calories and oil used for seasoning, so you may either put on weight or not reduce at all. Many overeat and find it hard to do quantity control. This is where skimmed milk, curd, fruits and raw salads come in. If you drink a glass of skimmed milk with your breakfast every day, you won't overeat. Have a fruit at 11 am or 12 noon so you are not too hungry before lunch. Similarly, a fruit at 6 or 7 pm is advisable before dinner. Also a raw salad with both lunch and dinner is the best way to control the quantity of cooked food in these meals. Curds/buttermilk too can be added to lunch and dinner.
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