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Six effective diet rules

Almost all of us have at some point in our lives tried to diet to lose weight. We've all attempted to knock off one food group or item from our plates. I am guilty of banishing sugar from my food for months, only to come back and devour it with a vengeance! Now I'm wiser thanks to advise given by fitness instructors and nutritionists and here's sharing with you what I've learnt about diets. Believe me these tips work!     1. Healthy substitutes: This is for all those who need an occasional nibble at work. Stay away from biscuits and other fattening foodstuff. Keep a jar of assorted nuts handy in your office drawer. Carrot and cucumber sticks are also a very healthy option. If these are 'boring' go for good old 'khakra', but make sure it's from a health food store, most of the commercially available 'khakras' contain high levels of oil. Baked snacks like baked 'sev', sesame or peanut 'laddoos' made with jaggery, multigrain rusks or toasted brown bread are healthier options. But make sure you don't overindulge in these. These are only meant to control the insane urge to order a hi-calorie smoothie or chocolate doughnut during the 4 pm craving. So learn to ration the portions.   2. Ordering in? If you are really tempted to order in a 'biryani', that is if wild horses can't help in keeping the urge down, then go ahead, order. But right at the beginning give away half of the 'biryani'. This will ensure that you eat less!   3.Go slow at night: Most of the working folk tend to attack food at night, the only time they have the leisure of scanning the fridge and hunting for hidden temptations. Precisely for such times do refrigerators come with a lock and key. Once dinner's over, lock the fridge and brush your teeth. If you have a supportive partner, you could hand over the keys to him for safekeeping with a clause that no amount of cajoling or bribing should bend him! This will ensure that the chocolate pastry remains in the fridge and your brushing of teeth will remind you that you are done for the day and you cannot brush again!   4. Don't reward yourself with food: Do you think because you've spent an hour at the gym you've earned a slice of pizza or cheesecake? Get realistic. If your goal is serious weight loss, restrain yourself from such indulgences, or it will be an exercise in futility, whatever you sweat out will all come back with the pizza and dessert.   5. Give in to your craving: Mark two days in a week when you will give in to your craving. But remember to stick to this schedule. And once again don't go overboard. A small slice, a small piece or a half a glass, that's it. Remember the rest is poison!   6. Healthy cuppa: If you cannot do without your coffee and tea fix, then it would be in your interests to go sugar free. Or else substitute the sugar with a healthy option like palm jaggery. Think of white sugar as your ace enemy and you will strike a lifelong friendship with your weighing scale!

Time your meals to your body rhythms

1. Yang energy (digestive fire) is highest from 11am to 1 pm, therefore; we must eat our biggest meal at this time of the day. At this time we are able to metabolically process the most food. We are unable to process food at night time. Eating heavy at the end of the day leads to the accumulation of wastes and undigested food in the digestive tract. The liver becomes overburdened and is unable to perform its functions of detoxification and repair of the tissues. Therefore the body becomes weakened and susceptible to Candida, allergies, eczema and toxic overload. Eating at night will also cause insomnia as the body does not allow itself to shut down and make the transition towards the sleep state. If we remain awake past 11pm we interfere with our livers function of detoxification and rebuilding of our body. At this time we often get a second wind as well, making it even more difficult to fall asleep. Therefore, we should aim to go to sleep around 10:00-10:30pm to regulate our autonomic nervous system and avoid depletion of our vitality and Yin (body fluids/hormones/glandular tissue).

   It is also important to allow the digestive system to clean itself after you eat. This happens naturally two hours after you eat. The digestive tract secretes more digestive juices and enzymes to clean and sterilize the bowels. You may feel the urge to snack at this time. If necessary you could eat a piece of fruit, however it is best to allow the body to be free of more work. If we eat during this time we disturb this process of self-cleansing which again leads to bacterial/candida overgrowth and dysbiosis and digestive upset and myriad health problems.

   Take home message: Meals should be timed appropriately.
   Breakfast = 7-9 am. Lunch = 11-1pm. Supper = 5-7pm. (These are the Stomach, Heart and Kidney times)

2. Relax when you eat

   The digestive system only works properly when we are relaxed and at ease. This is because the first level of digestion occurs in the mind and brain. When we eat in a relaxed manner we will taste our food and become absorbed in the process of nourishing ourselves. This is natural. Eating in a distracted way, for example watching TV or having involved conversation during our meals will take us away from the relaxed and absorbed state. This will disengage the brain and mind from digestion and lead to all sorts of digestive and systemic difficulties.

3. Avoid all cold food and drink

   When cold food and drink makes contact with your stomach, the secretions of the stomach are decreased. Food will sit in the stomach longer to be warmed before it can be digested. The food we eat cold is not properly digested leading to illness.

4. Avoid drinking water with meals

   Water dilutes the acid and enzymes of the stomach. The stomach functions to turn the food we eat into a 100 degree soup. Therefore it needs some fluid, but this fluid must be in the form of broth or light tea which does not dilute digestive secretions like water. Sipping hot tea or eating soup will help our stomach to make our meal the appropriate consistency. This will decrease the workload and energy expenditure of the stomach and digestive system and increase our absorption power and overall vitality

5. Decrease raw and concentrated (heavy and fatty) foods

   Raw foods are densely packed with vitamins, minerals and are very fibrous. This makes them difficult to break down and digest. Steaming vegetables briefly until they become brighter will make them much easier to digest and therefore will provide you with much more nutritional value. Boiling and stir frying are also good ways to prepare foods. Thick sauces, high fat foods and too many vitamin pills/supplements will also weaken the digestive system over time and should be moderated.

Dr. Maria Papasodaro, ND
www.naturestouchnd.ca

Treat yourself right

Being your own doctor and popping pills without prescription can be fatal. It's not always advisable to consider yourself to be a medical authority and manage diseases on your own In US cough and cold medications have been linked to a significant number of adverse effects like convulsions, rapid heart rates, and unconsciousness and several deaths Kiran Yadav

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I T'S an easy reference check you can do open the medicine box you have at home and count the number of drugs you actually bought on prescription. Chances are that all the antidotes you have in there, for fever, cold, cough, indigestion, headache, constipation, painkillers etc, were bought over the counter. A few other antibiotics in the box may remind you of the indiscriminate advice on dosage your friendly neighbourhood chemist gave you. Worse is when the chemist doesn't hesitate to administer a full course of medication over the counter, just as doctors do. Well, if you thought that you don't really need to consult a doctor for common ailments it might help to read on. In India, according to a study done by Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad, fever, headache, general body pain, knee-joint pain, vomiting and asthma are some of the illnesses for which people take medicines on their own. "Only a few drugs such as antipyretics, antacids, multi-vitamins, and cough suppressants belong to the OTC (over-thecounter) category. Most others, like antibiotics, tranquillisers, cardiac drugs, hypnotising drugs and several analgesics or painkillers, belong to Schedule H category, and therefore shouldn't be sold without prescription," says Sushum Sharma, HoD, Preventive Health Program and senior consultant Internal Medicine at Max Healthcare in Delhi. He adds that even OTC drugs should be used only in an emergency and that too in the lowest possible denominator. The doctor must be contacted soon after. Self-medication becomes risky when some disease, unknown to the patient, gets suppressed for a long time. For instance, what you consider to be fever, can turn out to be dengue, a recurring headache can actually be meningitis, what you perceive as simple knee pain might be a severe orthopaedic problem, says Sharma. "Parents need to be particularly careful in case of administering drugs to children below the age of two. Most people, for instance, take cough and cold casually. Even nonconcentrated cough and cold formulations are easily available over-the-counter. In the US these medications have been linked to a significant number of adverse effects like convulsions, rapid heart rates, and unconsciousness and several deaths. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recommend against their use for children less than two years old," says Rajiv Chabbra, Consultant Paediatric and Neonatal Intensivist, Artemis Health Institute. In fact, more than 40% of parents use cough syrups for children younger than two, even though it is not recommended, nor proven effective for this age group. Though persistent cough is the body's mechanism for shedding viruses and the duration of a cough is commonly two weeks in children and three weeks in adults, it's better to exercise caution. Research scholar Misel Trajanovska from the University of Melbourne found 98% of the respondents purchased an over-the-counter medication in the past year and Paracetamol was the most commonly used drug (95.9%). The implications are startling: 16% of poisonings reported in the emergency department were due to Paracetamol and 11% were caused by cough and cold medicines. A lot more is happening globally. Earlier this week the US FDA imposed an urgent warning on Cipro and similar antibiotics, citing risks that they can cause tendon ruptures, a serious injury that leaves some patients incapacitated. Indiscriminate use of medicines should also be avoided because the sensitivity levels of people vary - what might be an appropriate dose for one might be an overdose for another. There's also the possibility of different drugs reacting to each other. Adults need to be as careful. It is important to go beyond the symptoms and investigate the real cause, says Dr Khusrav Bajan, Head of Internal Medicine department in P D Hinduja, Mumbai. "A person having cardiac or hypertension history needs to be extra cautious. For example a person, already on medication for blood pressure, can suffer from increased BP and even a cardiac arrest if he pops in the wrong pill. A medicine taken for mild giddiness can cause severe swelling. Antibiotic overdose can result in resistant bacteria. There are several combinations of the same drug available under different names and you need to pick the right thing," adds Bajan.