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How do I stick to my diet? I don’t! I wish I did!! |
‘I very much appreciate your candid posts. Like you, and many others on your thread, I love food and now have to change the way I approach food in my 40s. It’s easy to say go on a low carb-no sugar diet, but executing it/ the planning, and making it into a beautiful meal, takes enormous energy. Your pictures of your plates are creative and I feel inspired every day. And I love your candid accounts on the struggles. I would like to read a post on how you plan your day on meals and yet are surrounded by food as a food writer, the challenges and how you manage it all. And yes all the best on this journey. Good healthy food should look beautiful, be plated tastefully and taste well.
This story is dedicated to my friend Soma Chaudhuri who wrote the above comment in response to a post where I wrote about my experiments with dieting and of my frustration and regret with my post dinner bingeing.
Soma has been a champion and cheerleader of my writing right from the initial days of my blogging. She was 3 to 4 years my junior in Presidency College, Calcutta, and we had both graduated in sociology. Our dads apparently knew each other as they both worked in the NHS in UK. We did not really know each other in College. As far as the dad connection is concerned, I am not sure if she was born during the time the two knew each other. Or myself for that matter.
She is a well regarded professor of Sociology in the US today. Has has two very sweet daughters and a cat who is the eldest of her children. It is through the blog that we connected, and we have met in person a couple of times includin once in a flight to Kolkata. Her elder daughter, who was with Soma on one of her trips, is a French fryo-phylle.
I had promised to reply to her comment and here I am before dinner and after having written a couple of entries for my next book, The Diary Of a Cat Dad. The boys egged me on as I answered the queries of the mother of their friend, Miss Moota.
(PS: I wrote the post last night and edited it today.)
I will dissect her comment and address them one by one. Just as our HOD, Dr Prasanta Roy, taught us to do.
- I very much appreciate your candid posts. Like you, and many others on your thread: I have always believed in being candid in my blog and am careful to not mislead my readers. Thanks for appreciating this. I will try to always maintain this.
- I have to change the way I approach food in my 40s: Well, I am hurtling towards my 50s and I need to be even more careful I recently met a friend who is of similar vintage. She said, ‘our outlook to life is changing as we get ready to move into our 50s. We are no longer ready to accept what we’ve been doing all this while.’ She spoke of it in the context of work but I applies to our health as well. I made many attempts to change my diet in the past with limited to no success. It was because of Covid that I took my diet seriously. I got herpes zoster post covid and my blood sugar went up.Getting my blood sugar in check was important to control the herpes affliction. Herpes was torture and I was willing to do anything to bring my sugars down. I reached out to my friend and dietician, Dr Ria Ankola, for a diet course and followed it diligently. As K points out, I had no appetite then. She would serve me dinner as I had no strength to bring my plate from the kitchen. She would try to make my plate look pretty so that I would eat. If I had no hunger then I would obviously not eat. That made sticking to my diet easy. My friend and diabetologist, Dr Manisha Talim, put me on meds. She weaned me off them once my scores stabilised. I later learnt that the medicines had played a role in my weight loss. I felt a bit disappointed on hearing that. I thought that my losing weight was all me. Turned out that it was not. That threw me off and I Iost my dieting mojo.
My love for biriyani has not diminished with age. My body’s ability to process it has! It’s easy to say go on a low carb-no sugar diet, but executing it/ the planning, and making it into a beautiful meal, takes enormous energy: I owe this entirely to my Ria’s instructions which were rooted in my current reality. It did not involve starving or giving up any major food groups (except sugar). I believe in living in accord the middle path and the diet she gave me was rooted in that. Look at my current diet for eg. Eggs in the morning with whatever one eat. Lunch of fish/ chicken, vegetables, millet roti or unpolished rice, dahi. Dinner oof fish/ chicken, vegetables, khapli roti, dahi, no rice. This is an approximation of course, but if you see all food groups are covered. All meal timings too. She changes this as and when my scores change. DO NOT think that will work for you. One advantage we have over those in the first world is that we have cooks who can make rotis etc.
- Your pictures of your plates are creative and I feel inspired every day: This is something I started a few years back. I looked at taking control of my diet for the first time in my life. Eating things like karela, lau and unprocessed grains which I never had before. Which is why I called these my #littlejackhornermeals. I was a good boy. Plating everyday food prettily made it a bit more appealing to me. My mum knew this when I was a kid and I had special plate from which I would eat. Now K buys me lovely plates. Our young friend and neighbour, Gia gifts me some too
- And I love your candid accounts on the struggles: The struggle is real. I am a good boy all day. I have no idea what happens post dinner and before going to bed. I go berserk and eat anything sweet that’s at home and I do not even like sweets that much. I like to blame it on the sugar free desserts that we have as they make me crave for sweets. Add to this my finishing all the salty stuff at have as I have always loved namkeen. The truth is that I cannot blame this on anything else apart from my lack of discipline. I was very disappointed with myself. Specially as my weight went up to where I had started. What’s the point, I thought as I went into a shell. Then my therapist told me something interesting.”Don’t look at where you were. Look at how you can improve over yesterday.” I was stunned, This is exactly what is said in Nicherin Buddhism which I follow. The principle of continuous advancement. The writing on the wall is clear. I just have to implement it. ‘Hard hain’ as it was said in the movie Gulley Boy. My therapist also suggested that I chew sugar free chewing gum or drink water when I get cravings. Well there is a reason why they compare sugar with crack. I need to go cold turkey. Nothing else will work. Chewing gum or sipping on water doesn’t help. Which is why I give chocolate and mithas coming home to our cook.
Sugar addiction is as real as crack addiction. - I would like to read a post on how you plan your day on meals and yet are surrounded by food as a food writer, the challenges and how you manage it all. That’s simple. I rarely do restaurant reviews these days. There is no compulsion to eat out regularly. I avoid hosted reviews as the plague. I prefer to go by myself, when I go out and pay for the meals. In which case you don’t have to eat thought the entire menu unlike in hosted meal. The ‘problem’ is when I am recognised and they send ‘dessert on the house.’ Why god? Why? I write less on food these days. More slice of life essays. My next book, The Diary of a Cat Dad, is about our cats and not my food explorations. If this makes me less of a food writer, then that’s fine. I have done that beat for 15 years.
- And yes all the best on this journey. Good healthy food should look beautiful, be plated tastefully and taste well. Thank you so much Soma. Let me live up to your kind words by not bingeing today. Hashtag #youvegotthis. I did have some salty biscuits and cheddar but no sweets apart from my dietician approved no sugar added Brooklyn Dairy chocobar, peanuts and home roasted makhana. Incidentally one of the top chefs of Mumbai had told me that salt is addictive and this is why he adds extra salt. This was in response to my pointing out that the food he had put out was too salty!