Making Indian Diet Healthy for Weight and Fitness

While gaining those extra pounds comes naturally to many of us, getting rid of the unwanted flab is often a tricky proposition. Whether it is your arms, waistline, hips, thighs or bottoms, the stubborn fat won’t just go. The struggle for slimming down often gives you a hard time while your confidence and self-esteem takes a beating.

Well, fret not, for we bring to you an easy to follow Indian diet plan for weight loss. Yes, you read that right! An Indian diet plan can indeed help you get into shape. And you need not bring about revolutionary dietary variations in your meals to shed your weight. However, it is recommended that you take a glass of lukewarm water with lemon first thing in the morning.

Indian diet is notorious for the spices and the oil and what not. Though in a number of ways, it is nutritious as well, the sad part is that commercialization of foods and excessive dressing of things makes even nutritious food junk. There are a number of things about Indian diet that have been criticized time and again. However, is there a way to make our daily meals healthy? There are a number of dieticians who will advise you and chart out different diet plans for you. However, here are some ways which you can try for yourself before you head out to a fitness clinic.

Listed below is an Indian diet plan for weight loss and/or maintenance that could help you say goodbye to that extra fat:

• Breakfast: Try having skimmed milk and cornflakes or poha or brown bread upma in your breakfast. If paranthas are what you swear by, then you should ensure that the paranthas have been cooked in less oil or ghee. For those willing to try a South Indian breakfast, can go for idli, dosa or uttapam. You can also go for besan chilla or moong chilla in your breakfast.

• Mid-morning snacks: For your mid-morning snacks, you can always try mango milkshake made in low fat or skimmed milk. Ensure that you do not add any sugar or sweetener to it. At times, you could also try having fruit salad and add a pinch of rock salt to it.
• Lunch: For lunch, you should have a proper balanced diet. This could include rotis or rice (without starch) with vegetables, dal and curd or raita and salads. You can also try khichdi. However, if you want to go for a non-vegetarian meal, then you could include grilled chicken breast in your lunch.

• Evening snacks: For evening snacks, you can have tea without sugar, skimmed milk or just lemon juice. Along with tea, you can have roasted chanas or 2-3 wheat rusks. You can even try some seasonal fruits or dry fruits for evening snacks.
• Dinner: It is recommended that you have an early dinner. Your typical dinner meal could include rotis or phulkas with vegetables and a bowl of curd. Or you could try having khichdi or pulao.

It is important to note that this diet plan won’t necessarily make you go from flab to fab within just a week. It is more about maintaining discipline, abstaining from overindulgence and eating right things at the right time.

Following are some pointers that you should keep in mind when following the Indian diet plan:

• Include as much fruits as possible in your everyday diet.
• You can always start your day by having fruits, such as grapes, apples and melons. However, you should not eat any fruits just after having a meal.
• Decrease your consumption of caffeinated drinks.
• Never skip breakfasts.

Breakfast is considered to be the most essential meal. Therefore, you should never skip breakfast

• Increase your water intake.

As we all know, that water is a natural detoxifying agent and helps in digesting food, therefore, you should have at least 8 glasses of water in a day. You can also try lemon juice or coconut water instead of having plain water.

• Reduce gaps between two meals.

Ensure that there is not much gap between two meals since whatever food you eat is converted into fat instead of being used for energy.

• Refrain from mindless munching

While it is important to ensure that there are no long gaps between two meals, it is as much essential for you to restrict yourself from mindlessly munching when doing nothing.

• Shun all kinds of junk foods including bakery products as these are high on calories.

Although the aforementioned Indian diet plan is very generic, it may or may not garner you the expected results. This is because the caloric requirement of every individual is unique. Therefore, it is advisable that you also consult a dietician or nutritionist to help you chalk out an Indian diet chart for weight loss that suits you and yields you the desired weight loss results.