What are the fundamental steps to adopt a healthier lifestyle? What foods should you snack on between meals?
We bring you a series of excerpts from celeb nutritionist Rujuta Diwekar's well-received book Don't Lose Your Mind, Lose Your Weight, which has already sold 10,000 copies within 20 days of hitting bookshelves (Also see Part I: Do you need to relearn your eating habits?, Part II: Fat plays a big role in our body and Part III: Dieting? Self-awareness is crucial).
The author is fitness guru to stars like Kareena Kapoor and Konkona Sen Sharma and in a two-part interview with rediff.com, Rujuta also discussed her career and mantras to stay fit.
Rujuta will also answer reader queries, you can address questions to her by clicking here.
Here are two sections from Chapter 6, Crossing the bridge: From knowing to doing.
Okay, now that we have collected all the gyaan, we need to put it together to make it of some real use for us. Without it, this book too will become like everything else we already know about diet and exercise: impotent information that will never bear the fruit of health, well-being, and peace...
So what are the fundamental steps to start adopting a healthier lifestyle? Here goes.
Step 1
Wake up closer to sunrise.
Ideally: wake up a little before sunrise so that you can witness the peace that every dawn brings. It's not called 'awakening' for nothing. Don't just leave this activity to when you are at hill stations. Dawn brings hope and energy for not just the day, but for life. Sunrise provides us with the vitamin D that we need to maintain healthy bones, gives us the 'me time' to clear our head, and cleanses our body of the tamas or the sloth of the night.
Let's get real: okay, sunrise is great. But if this sounds way out of reach, just wake up an hour before you are used to. If you are waking up post noon, start with waking up 2 hours earlier. Waking up even 30 minutes earlier gives us much needed time to workout, exercise.
Step 2
Eat within 10 minutes of waking up.
Ideally: eat meal 1 within 10 minutes of waking up. And obviously you can't start with tea, coffee or a cigarette. If you can't bring yourself to eat a big meal, start with a fruit. Absolutely any fruit is great. Keep it fresh, not frozen. Don't add salt, sugar, chaat masala, etc to it. And of course, don't squeeze it into a juice.
Let's get real: 10 minutes sounds like a big deal? Okay, eat within the first 30 minutes of waking up. But make sure that you are not reading your paper, checking your B-berry, giving instructions on the phone, etc while doing this. If you workout first thing on rising, eat a fruit before working out. And please don't eat in bed. Get up, walk around a bit, and then go for your food...
Excerpted from Don't Lose Your Mind, Lose Your Weight, with permission from the publishers, Random House India.
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Also see: Meet the lady behind Kareena's size zero
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