What happens to body if you eat less?

 

We all are aware about the benefits of eating small portions of meals but often don’t know the right way to do it. Today, I am going to share about my experience about how small changes in my diet helped me to eat less and lead a healthy life.

When I was back at my work place, I began my day with green tea, which has few drops of lime in it. It helped to take out all the toxin from the body on a daily basis. It was my first and last tea of the day, throughout the day, I won’t drink tea / coffee after that. But yes, sometimes I may have coffee, that too if I come across CCD (café coffee day) outlet or CCD vending machines. I just love their coffee. Common, I am human being too.

Green tea is followed by breakfast, I have cornflakes with milk and raisons. I add raison to get the sweet taste. I take a small cup of milk in a bowl and add cornflakes to it, so that cornflakes is submerged completely in milk. That’s it, I am done with my breakfast. You can use any other food item like chapati, idli or muesli but keep the quantity minimal. Earlier I used to have 4 idli’s now I eat only 2, as its sufficient for me to survive. I never skip my breakfast as it is the first meal of the day, we shouldn’t skip it. Breakfast itself means breaking the fast.

For lunch I have little rice, curry and some vegetable. I also try to include cucumber as much as I can in my lunch. Whenever I have fried fish or fried chicken, I make it a point to have either cucumber or onion. In such situation, rice portion is reduced a bit.

My evening snacks are digestive biscuits, rice puff or groundnut. As there are healthy snack options and can be easily found at home. But yes, there are days when I crave for having something from outside like samosa, rolls or anything which I feel I having then. And I just have it, believe me it makes me really happy. As these are done occasionally.

I have my dinner by 8 pm usually unless I am out or attending a party. Because I sleep by 10 pm and doctors say we should have minimum 2 hours gap between our sleep and dinner. After dinner I don’t eat anything, not even snacks. Drink water whenever thirsty and also keep a water bottle handy near bed for night. I make it a point to drink good amount of water before and after dinner. So, that I don’t feel thirsty at night. Best way to avoid eating after dinner to brush your teeth 30 mins after your dinner. Then the chances of eating anything is less.

I like to eat something sweet after my lunch and dinner. So, I always keep jaggery handy with me, I take small bite of it or have groundnut jaggery chikki.

 

I know some of you will ask me some tips for eating less

Ø  Drink water before your lunch and dinner, water will fill your stomach and you will tend to eat less

Ø  Include salad for your lunch and dinner, salad will fill your stomach

Ø  Once a week eat very light meal like curd rice or khicdi, it is good for digestion and healthy for stomach

Ø  Always drink water from water bottle and not glass. Reason, through water bottle you will drink more water than glass. Keep your water bottle handy

Is losing weight a mental thing?

If I ask to a question “ who wants to reduce weight?”  I think all of you will raise your hand, including me. We all want to look slim and fit. But it isn’t as easy as raising our hand, we have to work towards to it to achieve it.

The first thing most of us do in order to reduce weight is to either go on a crash diet or take gym membership. This enthusiasm doesn’t last for more than 2 weeks or max to max a month. After that we are back to our usual routine.

But, if we tame our mind we can cut down on our food and try to eat less, which can help us to shed little weight. You would be wondering how to tame our brain to control our hunger pangs. Its time taking process but if you follow it for a long time, till brain process this information. You will see the difference.

Let me explain it to you through an example

We usually tend to eat less at home but we are out for some party or a restaurant were all our favorite dishes are served, we can’t resist and tend to eat a lot. Problem begins from this stage only.

Before I moved to stay with my parents, I followed a strict 3 meal plan with an evening snack occasionally. But being at home, my diet plan changed and I put on lot of weight, which I realized which I was unable to get into my trousers.

So, I again went back to my previous plan which was little tough initially but over period of time, I was able to get my diet plan and control my hunger pangs.

After coming home, my dad used to get samosas or Vada's daily home at around 6.30 pm and I used to have either 2 Vada's or samosas followed by dinner, which resulted in weight gain. As brain got the message that my appetite has increased, it got comfortable with me eating more especially during evening times.

If you eat more in evening, then you tend to feel hungry in morning too. Hence, portion of breakfast also increased but lunch portion was the same.

So, I decided to control my diet again and send a new message to my brain, so that my desire to eat more is reduced.

First thing I decided to do was either have samosa for dinner or chapatis. In case I am having samosa, then I won’t have dinner on those days. Yes, I felt hungry at dinner time so I drank some water for a day or two and from the third day onwards, my hunger pangs decreased a bit and within week things were normal for me.

As a result of which I wasn’t feeling hungry for breakfast also. Now my appetite for both breakfast and dinner have reduced drastically and I am happy about it. And I made a point to continue with it.

On days when I have heavy lunch, I skip my dinner or have very light dinner. Reason, if I have dinner followed by a heavy lunch then again, brain will get a new message and I didn’t want that to happen again, which  I didn’t want to happen.

Try it, I am sure you will get a feel of it when you practice it for long time and stick to this regime that long.