Showing posts with label Rujuta Diwekar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rujuta Diwekar. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Feels good when someone says "Hey! You've lost weight!"

Wow, so a colleague almost jumped when she saw me, after returning from a three-week tour, and exclaimed "Wow! What are you doing? You've lost so much weight!"

I mean, is there something else that can give you a higher "high"  than such a comment?
I haven't yet weighted myself after May when I started out on this weight-losing venture.

I haven't been keeping up with my diary entry every day here on the blog. Life has become so hectic at work and at home.

And this hectic schedule is what really gets us women out of shape. Again, I'm taking all inspiration from Rujuta Diwekar's book, agreeing with most of what she says, discussing the issues she tackles. We tend to ignore our needs so often because well, it's not tied up with the needs of our family. Husband is travelling, so I won't cook a propah breakfast, or will skip making a subjee and live off salad and bread maybe... You know, trying to convince yourself that "why should i cook just for myself?" or some such logic.

It's tragic we don't care much for ourselves as individuals, na? I know all this and yet I do it all over again. That's wither called weakness or stupidity...I can't decide.

Really, with Hubby travelling, with Sonny absolutely refusing to let me exercise (he wakes up soon after I wake and comes and pushes me or sits on my lap!!), it's becoming a challenge to keep with my schedule -- both with exercise and food. The last week I've let myself wander off track and in the process let myself down too much.

I MUST MUST MUST wake earlier. But aaarggh Bangalore's beautiful cloudy weather makes you want to curl up and sleep well into the morning these days.

What I am keeping at though, is smaller portions, more frequent meals. The size of  my tummy tires has reduced, though they're still clinging on steadfastly to my sides and front like a little child.



Monday, May 9, 2011

It's so easy to lose control when you know you're dieting

The last two or three days have been wuzzy. Or maybe I choose to think that's what it was. Because I went way off the track that I started on.

On Saturday evening I went back home from work -- to mom's -- and i don't know what took over me. I decided I would eat one idli and that's it. A generous aunt had left behind some tempting spicy red tomato pickle. I just gorged on it with one idli and then lost contorl. I ate another half. Then I ate one chapati with it. Then some cheeselings. Then another chapati!!!! Of course I went easy on the dinner (I mean yeah, I don't skip dinner!) Laugh all you will. It was sheer indulgence.

Yesterday, Sunday, both meals of the day were had outside home. Dinner was pizza! Yeah yeah, says "tch tch" to me in disgust or laugh if you will. But I had fun eating the pizza and Rujuta Diwekar says only if you enjoy your food do you derive any benefit from it.

And while I am at guilt conession, I have another confession to make -- a good one  -- exercise, even the minimalist kind I'm doing right now, is really beneficial when you chum. I mean, way fewer cramps, lesser pain and discomfort overall. Yeah, three cheers to the joy of exercise.

Today I'm back to "the diet":
8 am --exercise
9 am -- a banana
10 am -- breakfast -- poha/avalakki upma and one glass tea
12.30 pm -- some spoons of poha again and a small glass of chikoo milkshake (no sugar)
2.15 pm - lunch -- two chapatis, potato/carrot/onion subjee (no salad today), half cup of raw plantain subjee.
3.45 pm -- one mug tea


Monday, May 2, 2011

Starting on a new weight loss (hopefully) journey

The blog's title is self-explanatory.
The blog's URL explains my problem most vividly -- I'm always WAITING to lose weight and almost always doing nothing much to help it.

The last one week I have spent very seriously mulling over my life, how I want to be as I grow older, and realised my health has always been a sore point.
A lot of my problems stem from my rather sedentary life, absolute lack of exercise, sheer laziness, and a weakness for fried food and sweets. That, everyone will agree, is a deadly cocktail of a problem.

It has left me overweight most of my life -- I've moved from wanting to shed just 5 kilos to now about 8 to 10. This is after all the BMI calculation, visits to doctors for all sorts of problems. All the arrows pointed to the same thing -- exercise, lose some weight, maintain it and get healthy.

Easier said than done.

There are a whole lot of thoughts I need to put down on this, but I'm going to start off today with my "food/activity diary" for today. I don't know if I'll post it everyday. I'll try. Just as I will try to seriously get into an exercise regimen, just as I will hopefully eat sensibly and healthily.

I'm going to be 33 in a few months. I weigh 62.9 kilos (as of yesterday) and I'm 5 feet and a little less than two inches tall. That makes me, on an average, overweight by about 12 kilos technically. I'll be lenient and say 10. I've had a child three years ago and I have the most jiggly wiggly lower belly fat that disgusts me. Other gory descriptions in the following posts.

The last three days I've been reading Rujuta Diwekar's book "Women and the weight loss tamasha", highly recommended by the best friend. I've just made it up to page 75, so I'm not going to make too many comments on that right now, except to say that most of what she says sounds senseible. I'm first of all trying to follow her reccomendation of trying to eat smaller amounts of food every two hours.

Let me make some things clear
1. I am not embarking on any fad diet
2. I'm NOT going to simply change my food and sit waiting to lose weight
3. It does not mean I'm enrolling in a gym today. But I will slowly begin to build up some exercise regimen for myself.
4. I'm no expert and I'm going to try and find my way around this, like most people do.
5. I will not harm myself in any way in this process and will consult a doctor/dietician if things begin to go wrong.

Diary May 2, 2011
7.15 a.m. -- started with basic stretch and warming up exercises for 30 minutes.
8.45 a.m.-- ate a yelakki banana
9.40 a.m-- breakfast -- two onion dosas (rice/urad/maida/besan-mix) with half-spoon ghee and groundnut chutney powder. Half a glass of milk tea with Sugarfree. (I would earlier easily eat 3 or 4 dosas)
12.30 pm-- mid-morn snack -- 3/4 th of a methi khakra
2 p.m. - lunch -- two wheat chapatis with a cup of bhindi (okra/ladies finger) curry (homemade), quarter cup raw banana (balekai) subji (from our office canteen), a small bowl of salad (cherry tomatoes/yellow capsicum/cabbage/cucumber). (I would earlier also have curd rice with all this for lunch).
It's now 3.30 p.m. and I have to go down for my glass of tea. It's an addiction. I don't know how I'll hold up till tonight. Will edit this entry and complete the diary tomorrow.

Yeah, so completing it:

3.30 p.m. - one mug of tea
5.30 p.m. -- a few almonds and black currants
7 p.m -- one cup poha and a few spoons of salad (corn/cucumber/pomegranate) and a square of dark chocolate (ummm i'm not really dieting, am i!?)
9.30 p.m. -- one egg roll, one bowl rice eaten half with dal and half wih curd.