HOW MUCH, WHAT & WHEN TO EAT

Over 23 years of experimenting with my own body and guiding others on has taught me a lot about health and fitness. One of the main lessons I’ve learnt is that diet and exercise go hand in hand. One without the other leads to an imbalance. Some of the fittest athletes and army officers I’ve known have died suddenly of heart attacks after the age of 40. This is mainly because they reduced their exercise but continued their eating. Imbalance between diet and exercise invariably leads to trouble.
Questions abound. What is the correct balance, how does one strike it? There are two parts, diet and exercise. For this article let’s restrict ourselves to answering questions about diet that every health conscious person faces: ‘how much, what and when to eat’.

Question 1: How much to eat
Though type of food consumed matters greatly, on an average, we need to balance out calories burnt against calories consumed. To lose weight, we must burn more than we consume and to gain weight, we must consume more than we burn. To maintain weight, a balance is required. I have come across a few people who don’t gain weight easily so they indulge without a thought. This myth is often busted at a high price. People who appear thin from outside are not immune to the dangers over eating. Over eating can lead to accumulation of cholesterol, triglycerides, clogging of arteries, etc. Most of these will not be visible from outside before a lot of damage is already done.

Question 2: What to eat
Most of us understand that it’s important to stay away from high fat, fried foods, etc. However, in cases of people trying to gain weight, there is a tendency to eat a lot of exactly these foods. Here’s a tip: regardless of whether you are trying to gain or lose weight, please stay away from the following and allied foods: High fat, high sugar, foods with sugar listed in the first three contents, fried foods, excessive intake of alcohol, refined white food and smoking. These won’t just make you gain weight, they’ll make you unhealthy and can lead to a painful and early demise too!
Eat healthy food regardless of weight gain or loss. For those who’d like to gain weight, exercise and build muscle (yes women too!). Increase your protein intake proportionately; do not indulge for the sake of weight gain. For those who’d like to lose weight, you could look at trying foods that increase metabolism like pepper, green tea, etc. Metabolism also increases with the right type of exercise.
On an average, people with high protein diets tend to look tighter, healthier and have better shaped bodies. This however does not in any way mean that you give up carbohydrates.

Question 3: When to eat
There are several different schools of thought here. The main ones are:
1. Have three distinct meals a day. Breakfast, lunch and dinner.
2. Eat only when hungry.
3. Have several small meals a day.
Here are two bits of information that will throw light on this topic:
1. Studies indicate that whenever food enters our stomach, the body processes it. This processing costs us calories, on an average a minimum of 100 calories is expended in burning any food in our system.
2. Our metabolism gets activated every time it has to process food.
Let’s work with the above two nuggets of information. Rather than consuming large amounts of food occasionally, it may make more sense to eat several small meals each comprising around a hundred calories or less throughout the day.
This way, our metabolism stays active and we expend at least a hundred calories in processing each meal. This could be a lot of expended calories over several meals a day.

Lastly, I believe that our body gets affected by the moon (just like high and low tide) and our metabolism speeds up and slows down accordingly. I therefore recommend that you finish your last meal before 7pm every day.
To get to your best shape and to maintain it, use scientific tools, facts and figures. Take help from experts they may have more technical information and case study experience than you. Always observe and understand your body type because no one has more access to your body and its reactions than you. We are what we eat so eat healthy foods, think healthy thoughts and live a healthy life.

Written by: Captain Vinod Nair