The good old pear-shaped is anything but funny, or attractive any more. So is the apple shape. Or any other but a perfect shape that a body needs to achieve. If the first rule of good health is to have regular medical check ups, the second, no less important, is to eat right.

    • *Watch what you eat: An ounce of prevention is worth pounds of cure. Take in more calories than what you can burn and be rest assured that the extra ones have got stored as fat. Fat is that enemy who needs to be attacked, not wept over with excuses like “It’s hereditary!” If being overweight is “hereditary”, then acquiring the perfect shape begins with your generation, now!

 

    • Fat is deceptive in the diet, because it usually exists as 100 per cent fat, while both carbohydrates and proteins individually represent less than 25 per cent of the weight of food. It’s tough to limit fat to 25 to 30 per cent of your daily intake of calories, but grit your teeth and do it. You can! So off with that mandatory butter on toast in the morning, or a quick cheese sandwich, and on with salads, legumes, fruit and low fat skimmed milk. And for those who think eating veggies is bovine, here is some lean meat, poultry or fish. And now just watch those stubborn inches give up. The difference between try and triumph is just a little umph!

 

    • *Formula Eight: Eat after eight and gain a lot of weight! It’s simple, really. We spend only 30 calories per hour during sleep. So if you do manage to get a sleep of eight hours, you still end up burning only 240 calories! Which means, if your dinner is more than 240 calories, the rest is going to be converted into fat while you are sleeping peacefully, probably dreaming of getting into the slimmest wear in the market!What you could do is, eat by eight at night and sleep by 10p.m. And be a little active in between. Those two hours are crucial, and decide if the extra calories will be deposited, or will simply burn away. Of course, dinner needs to be only half of what you’ve eaten as lunch. Sounds cruel? No, once you see yourself in the little black dress that you have been eyeing for sometime, a little discipline is well worth it.

 

    • *Water! Water!: Attack fat with water. Here’s a watertight plan: Drink good quantities of water to keep your appetite in check. Many times, what may seem like a desire to eat is actually sated by water. Keep sipping water through the day, and forget what irresponsible snacking is. Water, cold or warm, is sans calories. Take your pick!

 

    • *Cocktail time: Ok, so you are in that black dress of yours, in the midst of a party; it’s cocktail time. But Cinderella, there are rules to every partying! Alcohol can’t be stored like other nutrients in the body and so is burnt off immediately. It has blank calories which hold no significance. But your body burns alcohol, not fat. And the fat comes in the form of the chips and peanuts and cashews that go with drinks. No, you don’t have to turn into a teetotaller, just watch how much and how often!

 

    • *Stop unplanned eating: Don’t try every new restaurant in town. Watch TV, but also watch if you aren’t snacking on that entire packet of chips alongside. Stop stuffing the fridge with things that you love and have stored them for the so-called guests. You, will end up eating most of it.

 

Being overweight is, by itself, not a crime, but remaining so, definitely is. Like an enthusiastic weight-watcher had once said, “You don’t drown by falling in water, you drown by staying there!”

Great! You are then, on the right track. And go ahead and forgive yourself for not walking all seven days a week. Five days a week is just fine! Feel good for having walked those five days!!

In fact, the secret to a great body is in your mind. Just relook at the way you burn those calories and you’ll see your waistline turning near-perfect. Adapt the right behaviour, lose oodles of weight and gain tons of confidence. Let’s just put the agenda in a nutshell:

BOX (International Trend):

Food diary? It’s Passe!

It’s possible that painstakingly jotting down every dish that you’ve got in and how much, is getting tedious and heavy on your conscience. So, for instance that bit of chocolate mousse which had crept in one evening with friends which you decide to ‘forget’ to mention it in your food diary meant that you also spent sleepless nights wondering how many calories did your sin weigh, anyway?

A new trend in the US shows that a lot of people now simply use their cellphone cameras to this alternative. With your camera phone, you won’t need to write down what you eat, your dietitian can look at photos of what you actually eat – not what you think you eat to give you custom food coaching. In effect your dietitian will ‘see’ every bite. Users simply take pictures of everything they eat, and email them to their dietician. Once a week, on a personalised web page where customers keep track of their weight and other biometric information, they get video feedback from their dietician, who analyzes their nutritional intake and advises them on how to modify their eating habits.

According to the trendwatchers, the results have been encouraging. Chances are that you will soon start taking photos of healthier food and the others, of a slimmer you!