Healthy Indian Foods to Eat during Ramadan

You can eat healthy even during Ramzan fast. A satiating meal in the morning is the secret. Here are some tips on how to go about it.
Here's : How To Eat Healthy Food during Ramadan (Published in Citizen Matters 19th July 2013)

Eating Healthy at a PUB? Yes, it's POSSIBLE!!!

Think of pubs and ‘fish and chips’ is the first thing that you associate with it – blame it on the Brits! You’d cringe at the thought of stepping into one if you belong to the ever increasing fitness and health conscious tribe. Well then here’s some good news for you: 

Read more in my article published in Health.india.com on 17th July 2013: Eating Healthy at a Pub? Possible!

Expert tips to eat healthy in a pub!

If you are a health and fitness enthusiast, pubs would be the last place on earth that you would be going to! After all, it is a place where people go to drink and be merry. That said, there are always times when going to a pub becomes a social necessity. We are certainly not advocating the use of alcohol, but merely giving you a few tips that will ensure that these trips can be made healthier than usual.

These days, pubs offer a lot more than fish and chips and with some smart choices you can actually find some healthy stuff in the menu. Nutritionist Sweta Uchil-Purohit tells you how to make healthy choices when in a pub.

For starters: What does one drink in a pub? Answer: Definitely not milk. But beware, you could get more calories from what (and how much) you choose to drink than the cake you refused earlier at the office party! That’s because every gram of alcohol contains 7 calories whereas a gram of sugar has 4 calories. While both these forms of calories are called empty calories, it is easier to go overboard with alcohol as it’s a drink. Add to this the food that you eat and you could be having a whole day’s calories in that one night!  For those who can stick to just one drink, here are a few tips to make sure that that drink lasts for a while to prevent someone from topping it up for you:

• Take small sips instead of gulping it down (in which case you’ll be left twiddling your thumbs while the others are still drinking).
• Nibble on some food in between sips.
• Drink water in between – always good to keep yourself hydrated no matter where you are. Read about the 9 hangover remedies that actually work! 

And here’s a reminder of the approximate calorie* count for different drinks to help you make it last the whole night:

Drink	Quantity	Calories*
A glass of wine	147ml	125 calories
A bottle of Light Beer	355ml	110 calories
A bottle of Regular Beer	355 ml	150 calories
A shot of Hard liquor	45 ml	95calories
A glass of cocktail	133ml	anything from 100-300 calories

 *Note: Calories can differ from one brand to another depending on the amount of alcohol it has.

If you must drink then wine would be a wise choice given the associated health benefits. For the ladies who prefer cocktails here’s a shocker – some of them have more calories than alcohol alone! That’s because the calories from the syrup or sweeteners increase the calorie count in the drink.

If you want to stay off drinks completely, offer to be the ‘designated driver’ and you can be sure your friends won’t try to tempt you to have that ‘one small peg’. Opt for a juice instead of mocktails, as the latter is mostly a concoction of artificial flavours and colours.

Coming to food, follow the golden rule of avoiding food that is fried or greasy (chips, chivdas, fried papads, cocktail samosas, fried peanuts, French fries, fried chicken, Chicken 65, etc) or too sweet (desserts). Indian pubs have a good range of tandoori foods to pick from and these can be good news as these are foods that are baked with just a marinade coating like fish/chicken tikkas or tandoori paneer. Add a salad (without the dressing) and some nuts to munch with your drinks and you could just get home without worrying about that extra time you’ll have to spend at the gym to burn it off!

Here’s how a ‘healthy’ night-out at a pub can look:

Drink: Wine, water or juice

Sides: Nuts (salted nuts can make you thirstier so keep a glass of water handy) and a salad

Nibblers: Tandoori fish/chicken/paneer or grilled chicken/fish/paneer, steamed momos, satay, shish kebabs

Hit the dance floor if the pub has one as there’s nothing better than burning those calories while letting your hair down. All said and done, moderation and portion control is the key to leading a healthy lifestyle, so keep track of the quantity as well. Cheers!

Diet and Fitness Tips for the Monsoons

After the long, hot summer months, the monsoon rains bring much needed relief from the heat. The rains, which are a welcome change, can spell the end for outdoor exercises for all health enthusiasts. The rains also tend to bring to the table steaming teas along with hot ‘pakoras’. So how does one take care of the diet and exercise with all these hurdles? Here are some tips to help you continue your weight loss journey:
Exercise:
• Outsmart the rains and join a gym/aerobics/yoga/dance class. Since these are conducted indoors, the rains are highly unlikely to hamper your fitness plans!
• Invest in some exercise machines like the treadmill/elliptical/exer-cycle and burn those calories without having to leave your home(make sure to exercise otherwise you’ll end up using them to dry your wet clothes)!
• If joining a gym/exercise class or buying exercise equipment isn’t too friendly on your pocket-then pick up some exercise DVD’s or surf the internet for exercises that you can do at home.
• Keep yourself active-take the stairs whenever possible, jog inside the house, do simple home exercises. Doing this will keep your metabolism from slowing down.
Diet:
• Avoid binging on fried foods (pakoras, chips, namkeens, samosas,etc) as far as possible. Moderation is the key word here.
• Snack on the grilled buttas/makkai/corn that seem to pop up everywhere with the rains. Nothing smells better than corn being roasted over hot coals on a rainy day, besides the fiber makes it an excellent heathy snack.
• Eat light meals and keep yourself hydrated by drinking loads of water.
Precautions: A word of caution as the monsoons also brings with it the dangers of waterborne diseases like cholera, jaundice, typhoid and diarrhea. Here are some tips to avoid falling sick this monsoon:
1. Drink only boiled/ bottled water. Carry a bottle of water from home to avoid drinking water from unsafe sources.
2. All vegetables and fruits should be washed well in clean water especially those that are consumed raw. Avoid eating salads and cut fruits, juices, golas and chaats from the street vendors.
3. Eat home cooked meals as far as possible. If it isn’t feasible at all times, then opt for cooked meals like roti/chawal with sabzi/dal. Avoid sandwiches, raitas, salads, which can contain raw vegetables.
With these simple precautions you can prevent yourself from falling sick which will end up as another excuse for not exercising.
Just keep in mind that the monsoon season is no excuse for NOT exercising!

5 Reasons Why Summer is the Best Time to Shed Weight!

With the summer sun beating down there isn’t much to look forward to other than a summer vacation somewhere cooler. For those who will be stuck in the heat, and have been planning to lose weight since the New Year, here are five reasons why summer is the best time to put your weight loss plans in action:

1. Easy to stick to a diet plan: with no relief from the heat, fried, greasy, heavy food is probably the last thing you want to eat! That itself cuts out a lot of calories from your diet!

2. Fruits and salads are so much more appealing-the water content in fruits and veggies makes it all the more delicious during summer. This not only adds much needed fibre to the diet, but also helps in keeping your body hydrated.

3. You could lose extra calories by just drinking ice cold water-yes, scientists now suggest that drinking ice cold water may burn a few extra calories as the body has to raise the temperature of the ice water to the bodies temperature! This may or may not be true but drinking 10-12 glasses of ice cold water a day can’t add calories as water is a great zero-calorie drink!

4. No festivals until August-so that means no excuses of having to break the diet due to festival binging! From now until Krishna Janmashtami (10th August), you can focus on your diet!

5. Exercising in the heat could burn more calories-this is the principle behind ‘hot yoga’ (Bikram yoga)! Supposedly, exercising in the heat burns more calories since it makes the heart pump harder to your extremities to help you lower your body temperature, which rises fast in hot weather.

So stop wasting time and get started and who knows you could end up losing up to 8-10kgs by Independence Day (15th August) if you only make up your mind!