I was taught about balanced diet in my high school days more than
three decades ago and at that time I was not able to comprehend neither its
importance nor its requirement. As children in our time we used to eat whatever
was available at home. There were no sophisticated eateries outside and no fast
food were available except perhaps, chats and golgoppas from road side vendors. We were often cautioned by our
elders not to indulge in roadside dishes as they were unclean and liable to
cause stomach problems. But never were we conscious about gaining weight and
let alone losing weight by using balanced diet. Our life style then was much
simpler and our daily doses of food intake consisted of proteins,
carbohydrates, minerals, fats and what not. I really did not understand at that
time the use of eating weighted quantity of rice, dal, vegetables, fruits and
all that terming it as “balanced diet”.
As time elapsed and Indian economy opened up in the early 1990s
the Indian market was invaded by the MNCs and drastically changed the way Indians
ate. Fat rich fast food outlets mushroomed and mouth licking stuff like pizzas,
burgers, pastas, grilled chicken sandwitches etc were made available in plenty.
These sophisticated eateries served food having very little nutritional value.
No wonder people indulging in these modern fashion foods gained weight and lost
strength of body and mind due to malnutrition like condition. Now to combat the
weight gain modern health clubs (Our age old body building akhadas, renamed) sprung up. MNCs made money
by putting fat on our bodies and the Health Clubs started making money by putting
us on rigorous physical exercises to burn the fat. What an irony !!
But the comfort crazy population detests health clubs. All they
need is a short cut for losing weight. This is where the dieticians step in
with their business ideas. They show beautiful dreams of weight loss by a couple of kilos (or even
more) every week. And the gullible indolent people give in and accept their
crash diet plans. Now these plans show very good results initially but what we often
fail to realize are the negative impacts of these plans. Crash
Diet Slows down metabolism and makes one very week and sleepy. You feel food
craving all the time and hardly gather energy for any hard physical work. The
worst thing is there is no guarantee that the lost weight will not come back
again.
I have been a foodie since my birth and I would never like to
accept any crash diet plan to lose my weight. I feel if I do that I will
probably not be able to sustain at all. Overweight that I am, I would prefer a
balanced diet plan in addition to a regular mild work out. The advantages of a
balanced diet plan is that it helps to control and lose weight moderately, keeps you fit by providing
proper nutrition and improves your digestive system and metabolism. A good
balanced diet plan aims at reducing calories without letting your body to be
deprived of nutrition and should include the following.
- plenty of fruit and vegetables
- plenty of bread, rice, potatoes, pasta and other starchy foods (choosing wholegrain varieties when possible)
- some milk and dairy foods (choosing lower-fat varieties when possible)
- some meat, fish, eggs, beans and other non-dairy sources of protein
- just a small amount of food high in fat and sugar.
It is commendable that Dabur is campaigning
for use of Honey, the natural sweetener. Honey is definitely a good substitute
for the calories rich Sugar. And the Honey Diet is a good form of balanced diet
which every overweight individual should adopt. For more details on Honey Diet
please click the link below.
