It is the most asked question in the world of internet. Most of us wants to be fit as fiddle. But it’s tough nut to track. The metabolism is never the same as you were in teens. You have very high metabolism when you were kid or in teen age. Remember the days when you used to eat quintals of rice and gallons of soft drinks, and you were still slim and trim 🙂 Hope you are now reminiscing about your school/college days 🙂. Our cells are aging, there is a gradual decline in the metabolism as you age. Over the past 2 years I have gained weight. Now I am on a mission to do it again. I am super confident that I will get back to the shape again. I have done it twice of loosing body weight in my past. So I think I am qualified enough to give ounce of knowledge which I have. Below are the things which worked out for me.
1. Eat till you are 70-80% full
Imagine you have mouth watering dish in front of you. May be a Hyderabadi biriyani. Damn !!! It is very tough to resist yourself. But if you are on a mission of loosing weight , you have to control yourself and eat less. Common guys no need to fill that stomach. Give some breathing space to your stomach.
So no need to go bananas and overeat when you see that beautiful flavoured biriyani next time. 🫤
2. Curtail simple carbs, compensate with complex carbs
You have to decrease the intake of simple carbohydrates. Simple carbs will do sugar spike in your body. If your body doesn’t need those extra calories that you have eaten will be stored as fat around your waist, hips etc.
Things which I avoided
- White sugar as much as I can.
- Decrease intake of processed food.
- Dont eat something which comes in packet.
- Avoid soft drinks
- Sweets
What I ate
- Breakfast
- Oats, Poha, Upma , Idli etc
- Fruit salad
- Sometime I skip breakfast as part of intermittent fasting. But if your body supports , then go for it else drop the plan.
- Lunch. I opt for any on of the list below.
- Indian meal- eat rice in moderate quantity
- If you are eating a typical Indian meal, increase the proportion of curry and daal. Decrease the quantity of rice.
- Include fibre as part of your meal
- Chicken salad sometimes
- Roti meal
- Better than rice. You can replace this with rice if possible for somedays.
- If you get ragi roti , it is good.
- Indian meal- eat rice in moderate quantity
- Dinner –
- Same as lunch. Nothing different
Drink plenty of water –Â I am so bad at it. But drink minimum 2L of water per day.
3. You have to be in calorie deficit
If you know that your body needs 2000 calories. If you eat 1800 calories in a day, you are 200 calorie deficit. But lets be practical guys. It is not possible to measure all these stuff , count and eat. You have to be smart enough to know how much your body needs.
4. Physical activity
Albeit diet plays a key role in the journey of weight loss, but physical activity plays role of catalyst in achieving the goal quicker.
- Hit the gym if possible.
- Engage in strength training. You will burn the calories even when your body will be resting.
- I am not against cardio. Cardio is good for your health, hearth health. But strength training plays a key role in the journey of weight loss.
- Walk if you dont find time for gym.
- At least something is better than nothing ..Hit that 5k,8k or 10k step count target.
4. Intermittent fasting
In intermittent fasting, you will be not eating anything in the fasting window. People normally start with 12 hour. Then they stretch that fasting window to 16 hours. Even you are not allowed to drink tea during the fasting window. You can only drink water. But I would advise to understand your body if this suits you. Else you are free to drop this plan.
5.Dont Drink , even social drinking
I dont drink, so it becomes easy for me to loose weight quicker . But people who drink are prone to gain weight. But why??? Lot of calories in a beer can. Obviously you will not be done with one can. You drink 3-4 can, you gain 600-800 calories. I am completely against drinking as well. You are inviting problem by damaging your liver. Avoid occasional drinking as well. Your gut bacteria is not going to like it 🙂 This is altogether a different topic. I think I need to write blog on this as well.
If anyone of you give up drinking by reading this message, I would be very happy that I could change someones life for not addicting to something which is injurious to your health.
Lets come back to the point. In a nut shell , drinking lot of beers or alcohol you are consuming too much calories
6.Loose fat , not body mass
Our target is to loose body fat. So have protein in your diet. You should not be loosing muscle mass.
7. Be consistent and have patience
Believe me, mostly give up during this weight loss program. The reason being , it is such a boring process. You cannot eat always oats and salads. So you have to balance it well. It will take time to loose weight. It is a mind game. You are sacrificing lot of things to get in shape and for better health. Follow these for few months and see the difference. You can have cheat day to satiate your desire for food or sweet. But you have to bounce back the next day to have that regimental diet training 🙂
It is not always possible to maintain such life style throughout your life. You have to maintain your weight around that range once you get back to that shape.