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Fad diets and a fatter you?

There are so many ways to knock off those embarrassing pounds. But do they really work, asks aparna karthikeyan

QUICK FIX SOLUTIONS? You cannot stick to a diet of soups and salads alone

Oh! If only I had fragile wrists, delicate shoulders and a sylph-like waist, I wouldn't have been mistaken for an "all-in wrestler"! For a cabbie recently ignored me, assuming that my powerful arms could competently lift the heavy bags out of the car-boot. That embarrassing minute, I decided to keep all my chins up, and try my best to shed some of the highly superfluous lard. My resolve was strengthened by the fact that it's oh-so `in' to be pathologically thin; it's `cool' to walk into a garment store and shop for oneself in the kids' section. (Buying jeans, like I'm often forced to, in the politely termed unisex, a.k.a men's section, is an embarrassing admission of unfeminine dimensions!)

But, I daresay I'm not alone — an alarming number of people want to lose weight and the great majority don't want to sweat it out. Like me. <243>I feel exhausted just looking at <243>others exercising. And so I optimistically joined the swelling ranks of <243>the `No thank you, I'm on a diet' brigade.

Choices aplenty

Patience not being one of my virtues, it was a ridiculously easy choice between `fad' diets that promised to knock off 11 pounds in a single week, while others modestly assured the same over several soul-tormenting weeks of near starvation.

Or so I smugly thought when I imprudently opted for a `no-carb' diet — watermelons on day one, veggies on the second, and both on the third. And so on. But whoever got to the `so on'? Day one I felt very sad, and I already missed all my favourite foods. Day two was very bad, and I was hungry and irritable. Day three, I was dead tired and began hallucinating about "real food". Day four, I dumped the diet. Only to recklessly jump onto another highly recommended `quickie' — the soup and salad diet. The pictures accompanying the text certainly looked appetising — gleaming soup tureens and hand-tossed salad with real cheese.

To cut a long story short, it was a disaster — the soup was too watery (`cream' soup was unfortunately `fattening'!), I was constantly ravenous and the salads made me sympathise deeply with rabbits. Great big dollops of mayonnaise or a generous helping of grated cheese would've helped, but mayo and cheese, like everything nice and tasty, was plain fat. Needless to say, my resolve to keep up with dieting was at its lowest ebb... until I read this tid-bit about the actress who grew attractively thin just by sipping endless glasses of fruit-juice (and nothing but) for a few days. But just as I was meditatively sipping my fourth orange juice du jour, the family wickedly laughed me out of it. Who knows, maybe it would've worked...

But I had my revenge on the pack of laughing hyenas, when I discovered the secret of the Greek Gods — olive oil! Just drizzle olive oil on the food, or so I surmised, and we'll put the models out of business. But alas, olives have a distinct smell, which isn't always masked by powerful Indian spices.

The family stoically braved the olive oiled sambar and silently wept over "funny smelling" vegetables; but they drew a line when it murdered dosai as they knew it. That, as you probably rightly guessed, put paid to my dream diets.

Post-prandial analysis

So, where did I go wrong? Apparently, as I learned later, I was foolish to opt for the quick fixes. It probably does work, in the short run, but the body soon believes there is a famine, slows down metabolism and starts storing fat! (While we are deluding ourselves that we're losing weight!) If that wasn't ironical enough, fad diets supposedly stress both the physical and mental health of the individual (See? It was the dieting that unhinged me!). Scientists are also studying the negative effects of crash diets on the immune system. Low blood sugar levels are typically known to make one feel real sad, driving one to seek sugary solace from a packet of choco-chip-cookies.

The real downside, however, is the inability to keep the lost weight at bay. It quickly piles back, this time as plain fat (no, not even a single muscle!) choosing the most embarrassing spots, tempting one to start all over again. No wonder, it's rightly called "yo-yo dieting."

Fighting fat to fighting fit

Consult a dietician for a tailor-made plan that suits your lifestyle.

People doing serious work — like lifting boxes out of car-boots — need more calories!

Set realistic goals — and work steadily towards them. Reward yourself with a treat for sticking on to your diet — just don't make it a habit, like twice a day!

Jot down all that you eat in a diary; just reading the horrid list after a few days will cure you of mindless snacking!

Moderate exercise and sensible dieting (avoiding fatty and fried foods) is the safest bet to lose weight and keep it off.

Opt for `low-carb' and avoid `empty' calories — guzzle water when thirsty, not soda pops.

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