Curb your cravings to lose weight

Being on a diet seems to be the in-thing today. At any social gathering, the conversation will turn to fitness or weight loss at least once through the evening. It’s good to be health conscious and being careful about shedding those extra kilos.

But we also need to be careful about what we are doing about it. Most of these pills, diets and equipment available to help us reduce can have adverse effects on your body. The biggest damage that can be done is to lose weight and ruin one’s body composition. The normal body is composed of 30 per cent bone and fluid, 15 per cent fat mass and 55 per cent muscle mass. The 30 per cent bone and fluid is constant in an adult body. When you are over weight or obese the fat mass may become 30-40 per cent and reducing the muscle mass to 30-40 per cent only. The ideal weight loss procedure is to bring down or reduce the fat mass while trying to preserve and build up the muscle mass.

In order to do so, one must be aware of the composition of food, the fat content of food and the importance of exercise in building up your muscle mass. If you decide to eat only boiled vegetables and chapatti for a month but occasionally indulge in a spicy dish or a cream pastry, by the end of the month you may lose 6 kg. However, along with your weight loss, you may start losing hair and your skin may begin to sag. The reason for this could be that there is not enough protein in your diet and you have lost a lot of muscle mass too.

Vegetables and chapattis are only rich in carbohydrates but you need protein too which is available in milk, curd, dal/pulses, egg or non-veg food. These will help in building up your muscles and necessary in hair growth as well.

Every day, the body requires a balanced amount of carbohydrate food — bread, rice, cereal, chapatti, vegetables, fruits etc. plus protein food as mentioned above and 2-4 tsp unsaturated oil which is used for seasoning of vegetables, dal, etc. Even while losing weight, this basic carbohydrate, protein and little fat requirement of the body must be met on a daily basis. If you are on a diet, even for a day, without this basic nutrients of food, the body’s composition will be disturbed and it’ll lead to vitamin, mineral deficiency.

The correct method of weight reduction is healthy balanced diet and cutting out on fatty food completely.