Dr Kavita Ramanathan

HEALTH AND WEIGHT LOSS Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, it is said. I would say, beauty lies in the health status of the person. An unhealthy person, whether physically, mentally, emotionally unfit will never exuberate his/ her true beauty. Health is the first ingredient to make one look and feel beautiful and confident. Maintaining one’s ideal weight has in recent times gained a lot of significance in context of good health, good quality and longevity of life, in addition to having good self-image and confidence. Increased body fat has been shown to be associated with several lifestyle related conditions like diabetes, hypertension, arthritis, mental illness etc. All these comorbidities not only reduce life expectancy, but also compromise and hinder the freedom that one would like to enjoy. Watching one’s weight can be effortless for some while for others it could mean being mindful all the time. What does one blame this to? Genetics? Metabolism? Attitude? Lifestyle? Hormones? Well, all of these, I guess. Genetics – well, we all know there are fat genes, thin genes, genes that affect our satiety centres when we eat, genes that affect our basal metabolism, genes that affect our hormones etc. Bad news is there is really nothing much we can do about these today. It is what we are born with. But the good news is that the other factors which can help override the effect of our genes are very much in our hands! The one and only most important factor in this our diet! If we compare diet with exercise, the role of diet is over 80% compared to exercise in the weight that we carry. Eating right is the one thing that we can do to change our body composition. Cutting down on the carbs and saturated fats, eating plant protein, vegetables, and fruits, including probiotics like curd in our diet, keeps our intestines and colon clean and healthy. This in turn, improves our digestion and facilitates better utilisation of whatever we eat. Eating small frequent meals is another effective way to improve digestion and kick our metabolism into action. Consider our body weight as a balance sheet in accounts. The balance is created when debit equals credit, that is the maintenance weight our body. To reduce our balance, we need to increase credit and reduce debit. In analogy, if we need to burn more than consume, we need to also apportion our meal proportions so that we keep some manageable deficit everyday which can be credited from our stores! Another way to give a push to our metabolism is to exercise regularly. The level, type of activity is best left to the individual. But its best to listen intently to your body speak rather than create goals looking at others at the gym or park. We can start only from where we are and take baby steps from there by being consistent. The one thing that I have seen work consistently is if one pursues some form of structured activity in childhood like a sport or dance. Even after people give it up, still the metabolism stays high and such people metabolise faster than others. I always believed that our body image, weight is also how we perceive ourselves in our minds. We need to recognise the ‘fat feeling’ in our mind and heart and get rid of it. ‘Fat feeling’ is the normal perception of our body size. It is the body image that we am most comfortable with in our minds, maybe because it was with us for as far as we can recollect or it’s a childhood image. It is often the feeling that makes us keep adding the extra cushioning under our skin under times of unhandled stress. If we have this ‘fat feeling’, then we need to catch it, face it and overcome it. This is often what makes it difficult to keep off the weight lost. During weight loss, we often have a support group, or a peer group and we are happy to fit into our new clothes etc, in short, we are motivated and on a high with the transformation. However, when we reach a stressor in life or lose our motivation for some reason, we find ourselves slipping back helplessly. Reaching your ideal weight and keeping it is a commitment to the lifestyle for a lifetime. So, we need to tackle it holistically. Also, what is our ideal weight? What is the weight we want to achieve? Standards these days are high with skinny being the perfect look. However, we need to set realistic goals that are achievable and maintainable for us. If there were just one size and form that is ideal for all, then Nature would have meant it that way, with all of us being physical clones of each other! Being healthy, fit, and active, feeling energetic and live should be the target and not some number on the scale.