I know many of us (especially girls) must have struggled at some or the other point in our lives with the obsession to reduce our waist line (though as per our height and weight chart we may have the ideal weight!).There is nothing wrong in doing it as long as u r not doing it at the cost of your health.
As dieting may help you to reduce inches from your waistline but you may also end up losing your health and glow for ever.
So, here are a few tips which I have gained from my personal experience and would love to share with all of you, the once who have the ideal weight and still want to loose some extra inches and also for those who r at the obese side and need to shed some pounds for health reasons?
First rule is NEVER GO ON A CRASH DIET. You should never keep your stomach empty and never ever starve yourself. Doing this will only help you loose your precious health.
So, let?s start with right from the time u wake up. No more bed teas and coffees. As soon as you get out of your bed try to take at least one glass of fresh water (you can warm it a little bit if the weather is cold). Once you get used to it u can increase the intake to 1 Liter.
This should be the first thing u do in the morning after u brush your teeth. This is a wonderful therapy to cleanse your system and helpful in many problems like acidity, constipation, obesity etc. Remember you are not supposed to eat anything until 1 hour.
Now let?s come to the breakfast. This is truly the most important meal of the day. No more traditional paranthas and puris. Instead you can have stuffed/roasted paranthas cooked with no oil.
Here are a few more options? u can have some fruits like apple, orange, Papaya anything except for Banana and mango and team it up with some low fat milk. U can also have low cal cereals (there are lots of choices in the market now days!) and again team it up with some low fat milk. Remember milk is important but should be low cal.
You can also have brown bread (the ingredients should say Whole Wheat and not Bleached or processes wheat flour), Roast it but try to have it dry with no butter/cheese/jam. If you eat eggs, you can have them twice a week. Fill your self up so that u don?t need any munching before lunch time.
Now comes lunch. U have can have 3, 4, 5.. Chapaties with any home made *sabzi( Vegetables)(made with little oil), dal, low fat curd and some salad. Sometimes u can have besan ka chila ( gram floor dosa) or normal dosa made with little of no oil. In fact u can find a lot of low cal food which is easy to make at home.
Dinner should be light and try to finish it by 8-9pm. Make it as early as possible. There should be a gap of at least 2 hrs between your dinner and sleeping. Again u can have some chapattis and home made sabzi( vegetable), any dal, salad, low fat curd.
You can even have rice but have it only in either of the meals but remember to drain the starch so that means you can?t cook the rice in rice cooker. You can eat all the seasonal vegetables available but try avoiding Potatoes and do not over cook the vegetables.
Now coming to snacking! You can have tea/coffee/juice/soup/fruits in between your meals. Remember tea/coffee should be with no sugar, if u cannot have it without sugar then you can try the low cal sweeteners available in the market. You can team up tea/coffee with roasted Chana, roasted corn, low cal biscuits, pop-corns etc.
Juices should be only fresh, tinned juices are a big NO NO.! Soups should be clear with no butter and creams.
Avoid fried food, colas, tinned juices, chips, chocolates, fast food like pizzas burgers, fries, namkeens etc. All these things are very high in cal with zero nutritive value. You should have them not more then once a month.
Try to eat home cooked food but if you have to eat out, look for the healthier and low cal options like salads, boiled/streamed food, dosa, idili( Most of the south Indian food is healthy and low cal too), Dokhla, etc .
Believe me, if you look around u will find a lot of healthy/ low cal options. Drink around 8-10 glasses of water in a day (this does not include the morning water) but avoid drinking water with your meals.
Eating healthy will gradually become a habit to you and will end up making a healthier and slimmer person out of you.
Take out 15-20 minutes everyday to do some light exercises, take a walk, play with kids or do any other activity that demands some physical exercise.
Trust me it?s not difficult you just need some determination and self control. I know sometimes its gets difficult to resist but every time temptations surround you just remind your self that your desire to stay slimmer and healthier is much more them the desire to eat that particular thing!
If I can do it anyone can !All the best!