fruit A to Z of Healthy Food
Apple: As basic as it may sound, an apple provides you with 13 minerals that you require daily. A simple mix of apple, walnuts and yoghurt makes for a great breakfast to start your day.
Broccoli: The vilayati version of cauliflower is now readily available all over our city. Make good use of it. In a recent survey of greens, broccoli was found to be the healthiest, since it is a powerful anti-carcinogen.
Cucumber: As chilly as winter is, in Mumbai it’s a very short season before it starts simmering again. Don’t forget to chomp on this refreshing veggie come April. Because April as they say is the cruellest month.
Dudhi (melon) : is known to reduce blood pressure. Incorporate dudhi as part of your cuisine to lower your blood pressure, for a healthier heart in general, to lower cholesterol, and many other benefits. You can use it as a sabzi, or in a raita, or even as a juice.
Egg white : Make it a habit to remove the yolk, since egg whites are a great source of protein. Egg white omelettes are slowly becoming the norm for those who like their breakfasts to be substantial.
Here are some of them
Keep dinners light -This may sound so simple that many people disregard this advice. The truth is that dinner calories have a very strong effect on weight. Firstly, we usually become very sedentary after dinner Even if we don’t sleep for a while, we’re still sitting or lounging around comfortably, maybe involved in some mental activity. But there’s very little walking, so actually all the calories we eat are stored, and calories, which are not burned soon usually, turn into fat.
The truth is that many of us actually eat two dinners. One dinner is when we come back tired and famished from work – when, with tea, we tend to eat Namkeens, biscuits, sandwiches, or some bread with leftover vegetables. By 9 pm we are ready to eat what we actually call dinner. In my experience this is one of the most important contributors to obesity. Only people who keep their post 7 pm food consumption light can lose weight.
Start the day with warm Tulsi water – A great way to start the morning is not with tea but with a hot decoction made by boiling ten Tulsi leaves in water with a small piece of ginger. This is not only assists in clearing the system, it is also good for the liver function which plays a very important role in weight loss.
Drink herbal drinks with meals – Anything from jasmine tea to chamomile tea or a Tulsi drink can be very beneficial when taken with meals to assist in weight loss.
Avoid very heavy combinations – Simple logic! Eating too many foods like dal, raita, rice, roti, non-vegetarian dishes together will overload the system and weight loss is all about keeping the system light so that the digestive processes do not get overwhelmed. So eating two products at a time is better than piling on all the food groups in one meal. All nutritionists write about eating a balanced diet with all the food groups, but this does not mean eating everything in one meal.
Avoid processed and refined food – Avoid sooij, maida, chips, bread, sugar, white rice and juices. Processing floods the system with sugar, and our poor overworked in sulin has to fight to keep the blood sugar in control, and it ends up sending much of this sugar to be deposited as fat.
Eat enough vegetables and salads – This may sound boring but the truth is that at the end of the day vegetables and salads have enzymes which aid in digestion which we desperately need to assist weight loss.
Keep hydration adequate by drinking enough water – Please do not count your umpteen coffees and teas as water as these have a dehydrating influence.
At the end of the day, it is important to follow what works for you. But even if one can follow two of these tips (specially the first two), you will lose weight!
