For sometime he had noticed that his movements while playing badminton were growing sluggish. He was also finding it difficult to squat and eat in his native places and the houses of friends. Then one day while playing badminton, his right knee got twisted. An orthopaedic surgeon suggested that losing weight would ease the pressure on the knee.

At the suggestion of a friend, he consulted us. He totally avoided eating pastries, chocolates, ice-cream, cream biscuits and all fried items for 4 months. During intervals of the day when pangs of hunger assailed him, he would devour platters of nourishing vegetable salads.

He ate a breakfast of idli, dosa or chapattis without oil. The accompanying chutney was made without grated coconut. Around 11am, he drank a glass of skimmed milk along with apples or papayas. At 1.30, his lunch would be a dark brown ragi ball along with dhal curry and perhaps two or three pieces of grilled/ tandoori chicken or fish, a little vegetable (sabji) plus lots of salad. At teatime, he would drink a plain cup of skimmed milk. His dinner consisted of two phulkas, dhal and salad with curds made from skimmed milk. After this he would eat some papaya. He used to drink one and a half pegs of whisky a day. This was cut down to 60 ml of whisky, two or three times a week.

His exercise included an hour’s morning walk in the invigorating green environs of Cubbon Park. In the evening, he would also stroll around the labyrinths of Basaveshwarnagar where he lives. (In the course of our work over the past five years, we have seen that walking twice a day has a tremendous effect in consistent weight reduction, specially with elderly people and people suffering with heart disease, diabetes, hypertension etc. You may do a 30-45 minutes walk in the morning and an additional 20-30 minutes in the evening.)