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Want to keep off sweets?

Go slow when it comes to eating sweets this season

Variety will fill a bulky recipe book.

A 213 KB mail waits in the inbox. The caption wishes you a Happy New Year. That should bring unalloyed cheer. Click in, and drop your jaw. The e-card is a feast for the eye, wholesome eye-candy! The photograph at the top has cool cup cakes with marzipan figures lying lazily in the middle. The more enticing second snap has a plate full of gulab jamuns, smooth and smothered in finely grated nuts. Yummy! But for the catch. Each might weigh no more than 15 grams but will translate into 500 calories once they go down your gullet. Is it legal to send such photographs to unsuspecting weight-watchers?

Are you planning to give in to sweet temptations this season? Go ahead, and choose from a wide variety. Start with chocolates — peach loops, Swiss thins, mint, assorted choco goodies... Indulge in the south Indian, jaggery-coconut-ghee sins. Go khoya with sweets from the north. Travel east with all those calorie-enriched milk concentrations. Chennai is a foodie's delight!

Have a weakness for kesar? Pick from kaju kesar, kesar roll and kesar laddoo. Oh, you're a pedaphile? There is makkan peda, malai peda. A burfi buff? Pista, condensed milk, coconut, besan. Is there anything to equal badam burfi internationally? And ah, the spread of halwa happiness! Raisin, papaya, date, moong dal, wheat and pumpkin. Unleashing a flood of ghee as you chew them! And the one-and-only nut/ghee spiked gajar halwa. And I won't even mention the kheers. The variety will fill a bulky recipe book.

How to keep a check

But if you want to keep your `sweet habit' in check, here are a few tips. Number one on the list is: never eat sweets alone. Gather friends for support. Ask family to rally around. Sweet talk (oops!) them into sending dried fruits and nuts as gifts instead of sugar-drenched soan papdi. Don't open e-cards. Hit the delete button and send a "Thank You" note with a picture of flowers or bells or both. It's difficult to count your kilos like in a rocket launch, but knowing how much it will hurt is a good take-off point. For example, a small cup of carrot halwa, say 12 to 15 grams fat, will deposit 400 calories in you. Rice kheer with a shower of nuts (6 grams fat) will mark about 200 calories. Noticed how kheer is creamy and tastes better in a restaurant? The chef ladles in pure malai before the bowl reaches you. Spoon in two rosogollas and a couple of those luscious jamuns and you begin to resemble them. All sweets, without exception, are calorie-rich.

At home, make them in small quantities. Serve yourself only a small portion or just half a cube. Take small bites and chew them well. Start a conversation with family/friends as you eat. Put the leftover in an unreachable place.

If you are in a restaurant, order a dessert (it's the festive season!) and go Dutch with your companion. I'm not sure how much the eat-and-exercise routine is successful, but no one can quarrel with the benefits of a regular walk. Take a 45-minute brisk stroll with happy thoughts of the slinky dress or the tight jeans you saw in the shop window.

When you visit friends, ask for a glass of water before they bring on those gorgeous sugar creations. Stay only for a short time. Tell them you are fasting and would they mind if you took the sweets home? They may forgive you for not appreciating their culinary/buying skills. Back home, give all the sweets away. Visit the nearest home for kids and watch them gobble the goodies happily. The joy of giving!

Unless it's a medical mandate, don't opt for sweets made with artificial sugar or herbal sweetener. You eat sweets for their original taste and wholesomeness, not because you have to. Enjoy what you eat. That's what festivals are for.

Feeling guilty? Make a New Year resolution to work off the kilos. There is a whole year to break it!

GEETA PADMANABHAN

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