Control Quantity and Quality

I know a lot about dieting and exercise but I lack self-control. One day I over eat and though the food choice is right the quantity goes wrong. Other wise I eat the right amounts but suddenly give in to an urge to pop a few pieces of chocolate into my mouth at night. I realize now that this is why I am not losing weight even though I am trying very hard, can you give me some tips that will help me build my self-control?

I am glad you realize where you are going wrong. The most important word in achieving good health and fitness is the word CONTROL. When we are children we don’t exercise control in many areas of our life. We say whatever we feel, when we go to a shop we want to buy everything-we don’t understand value or cost. But as we grow we control our speaking so much and we buy things only as per a budget of money that we can spend. We train ourselves to be in control in these areas.

In the same manner, as we grow older we need to realize that we need to exercise control in our eating other wise we will have trouble with our bodies. The first step is to always be conscious about how much you are eating. Serve the full amounts of your meals onto your plate at one time rather then take one slice bread or one idli, then another and another and more. Similarly at lunch or dinner put your quota of rice or chapathi on your plate once. Not 1 table spoon rice, then a little more and more. Similarly your dhal and sabji cannot be unlimited. Some are very strict about quantity of rice or chapathi and then keep eating the dhal and sabji till they empty the serving bowl. “Its only vegetables why not?” Cooked sabji or palya have calories that we have to count. It is only salads that you can eat in unlimited quantities- every thing else has to be counted and accounted.

One of the most helpful tools to weight control that we have today is the habit of maintaining a daily diet dairy. We account the food eaten through out the day in the exact quantities measured in cups. 1 cup equals 225ml. Also when sitting down to eat fruits or snacks like biscuit and tea please don’t sit with a whole tray of fruits and end up consuming bunches of grapes instead of half a cup or a whole dish of cut fruit instead of one whole apple or orange. Similarly don’t carry a packet of biscuit when you sit before the T.V. Put 2 biscuits on a plate and sit down otherwise the whole packet will be over and you won’t even have a clue as to how many were in it.

The second factor is quality control. Most often we choose a food or snack on the basis of, “this is my favorite dish”. “Even if it is oozing oil or ghee, since I love it I should eat it”. But if you want to be healthy, wealthy and wise, all choices much be based on whether it is a fatty food or not.

While on a very strict diet completely avoid fatty foods like full cream milk, butter, ghee, cheese, paneer, all fried food, nuts, coconut chutney, pastries, desserts, chocolate, ice cream and rich meats, for 30 days to lose about 3kgs. There after on maintenance, when you plan to eat a fatty food make sure that you indulge in any one item like a pastry or a bar of chocolate, a packet of chips or one meal out only once in a week.

If during maintenance you go on a binge and eat fatty food at all meals for 2-3 days or you eat small amounts of fatty food daily for 2-3 weeks you will quickly put back all the weight you lost in the month.