Was recently loafing at Odyssey book store, when I happened to come across this diet book displayed very prominently amongst the Bestsellers section.

I have been on a weight plateau recently (neither gaining nor losing), and thinking that may be I could try out a diet. This is a new experience for me, because I have never dieted in my entire life. I have always managed to maintain a good physique solely through exercise alone.

But time and a kid has caught up with me too and hence the need to browse through diet books .

Two reasons why this book caught my attention:

• The writer Rujuta Diwekar is the nutritionist behind Kareena Kapoor’s (size zero) diet. And so, there is living proof that this diet might actually work.
• Just by glancing through the book, you can make out that she is not advocating a diet of salad greens, and moong sprouts.

She gives you detailed eating guidelines without giving you written-in-stone rules such as “no chocolate”. Instead, she urges people to track their nutrition not their calories. For example, eating peanuts is not a bad thing, because it is also very nutritious. However, we should reduce our consumption of empty calories such as colas, and coffee/tea, alcohol, and so on. Also, if you must really eat something very high in calories, do it in the morning. This is the time the body’s metabolism and digestion is at it’s highest.

Summary of the general eating guidelines

• Eat something (a fruit is ideal) within 10 minutes of getting up in the morning.
• Eat your breakfast within one hour (preferably something freshly made such as idli/dosa/upma rather than cereals)
• Eat small quantities of food every 2 hours (something like a cup of dahi, some sprouts, some salad, some nuts, even a sweet if you want)
• Eat your dinner around sunset (ideal) or at most by 7-8 and keep a gap of 2 hours between your dinner and your sleep-time. Your dinner should be very light, and easy to digest.
• Eat slowly. Don’t gulp down your food. When you are eating, focus only on eating, and not checking email or watching TV.
• Eat fresh food rather than instant or frozen foods, as their nutrition levels are lower.

Sounds pretty simple, isn’t it?

The reason why she advocates eating every 2 hours is, that it keeps the body metabolism and energy levels high. And so, you are not starving at the end of the day, and then end up eating everything in sight.

Some Challenges I foresee

• One of the toughest parts of this diet is not being able to have tea/coffee as soon as you get up in the morning. As per Rujuta, this is a complete no-no. I am a complete tea freak, not just morning, I drink tea throughout the day. I tried breaking out my standard pattern yesterday, and pretty surprised to find out that I did not have any withdrawal symptoms (at least physically). But suddenly, just before bed-time, without knowing what I was doing, I had made a cuppa and gulped it down . Anyway, I think one cup of tea is more than ok and a big improvement from 6-7 cups a day.
• Not eating a heavy meal at dinner-time will definitely be a challenge. Yesterday, stuffed myself with delicious pasta, even after following this eating pattern all day.
• Difficult to control cravings so that you only eat in the morning. Just goes against everything I have been about food. Who eats puff or chocolate in the mornings? This is something she strongly advocates though, and it means a certain amount of planning and forethought. Whatever happens, the majority of calorie consumption should be in the morning, particularly for me as I also exercise in the morning.
• Making sure that I snack in small quantities. Portion control is very important here.

However, all things said and done, the diet advice seems a lot more practical than any I have heard lately. So, let’s give it a sincere shot and see what happens…easy is one thing, effective is another…

Will keep you posted if the results are good.

Note: This book is extremely local in nature. The foods described are all Indian foods, and the language used is full of desi (Indian) slang. Some sections of the book where she describes some bodily functions are pretty gross. …so watch out for that.

Anyone who knows about health and nutrition. What do you think? Does this sound like a reasonable eating plan?