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Making small gains everyday helps in the long route to healthy and safe dieting
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BALANCING ACT Dieting is not starvation
Every overweight person has tried dieting at some point in his or her life, but a few get it right. Here are some tips on safe and healthy dieting.
Dieting is not starvation: It is a way of reducing one's weight in a controlled manner. To lose one pound, you need to burn 3,500 calories more than you consume. To do this, reduce your intake by 500 calories per day. This will help you lose one pound (around half-a-kilo) per week. This rate of weight reduction is ideal and does not damage health. Weight lost this way is fat, unlike in starvation where it is mostly muscle and water.
Most people either grossly overestimate or underestimate the number of calories they use up daily. The way to avoid this mistake is to multiply the number of pounds one weighs by 15 if one is a moderately active person, and multiply weight by 13 if one is sedentary. Know how many calories each serving of common Indian foods contains. The National Institute of Nutrition has inexpensive and well-researched booklets on the subject. Buy them. Learn how much a pound of cooked rice means in terms of calories. Know what your favourite snacks contain (and do not contain).
Maintain a healthy proportion between all the major food groups: protein, carbohydrate and fats. Do not make the mistake of taking up diets that make one give up a food group entirely or over-emphasise one group. Eat lots of fresh fruit and vegetables everyday. They provide essential nutrients and are rich in antioxidants. Stop smoking and cut down on alcohol. Do not eat more than six gm of salt every day. Use herbs and limejuice to season food.
Exercise. This not only reduces weight on its own, but also helps relieve stress and gets in the way of using food as a stress reliever and source of comfort.
RAJIV M.
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