I know it is next to impossible to actually appreciate how much weight I have lost in these last few months because even my close to 15 kg weight loss seems to be concealed behind the cloak of more weight. After all, I was born genetically heavier and more prone to storing fat, with very little muscle tone. A born endomorph. But I cannot blame all my imperfections on what I inherited in my genes, and I will grudgingly admit that my proclivities, propensities and penchants, including a blissfully sedentary life and a not-so-sedentary avidity for food, are the paramount culprits.
What’s more, I also firmly believed that if I were denied food, good food, it may be profitable for my body, but doubtlessly detrimental for my mind, if you get what I am saying. But I was wrong. I lost weight, resolute that I would be happy with the food I ate and cheat whenever I was forlorn with what was laid in front of me. Thankfully, I managed with relative ease, and with a happy mind. So how did I go about this and what new things did learn? I learnt to eat more home food and the fact that restaurants were shut helped tremendously. I also gave vegetarian food a chance and realised that I am not as hateful of all things vegetarian as I thought I was, and this was my journey.
1500 Calories a Day
I started my diet under nobody’s guidance, no nutritionist, no dietitian, and no health expert. I decided to consult my common sense. And common sense immediately said, no deep-fried food and no sweets. But I need something sweet after every meal, even if it is a small piece of dark chocolate or the occasional mithai, pudding or ice cream. So, I thought to myself, let’s figure out the calories and see if I have the space to fit these things in. The argument I presented to myself was that calories needed to be watched and a careful reduction in my intake of thousands and thousands of calories would ultimately lead to weight loss.
So, I decided to eat around 1,500 calories per day, and then what I wanted to do within those 1,500 calories was my business. I also went and invested in an air fryer, which I think is quite a wonderful invention. I could actually eat Punjabi samosas (it’s my kryptonite) if I felt the urge. For example, a deep-fried Punjabi samosa depending on size is approximately 350 calories. If you buy Punjabi samosas unfried, and then fry them in an air fryer, you may reduce the taste by about 20 per cent but you reduce the calories by over 50 per cent. You can actually have your samosa and eat it too.
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My doctor, long ago, had given me a word of advice. She had said, “Don’t give up carbs, just eat less of them and try and avoid wheat.” I just love white bread, chapatis, parathas, naans and rotis. But as good as they may taste, they are terrible if you’re trying to lose weight. So that’s a huge sacrifice I decided I had to make. But then I also love Bhakri, done the Maharashtrian way, with jowar, bajra or nachni. My doctor had also said that rice was good to eat in a diet, as long as you watched your quantities. In any case, I prefer brown, red, Goan or wild rice over basmati. Healthy, full of antioxidants.
Bean Salads to Chicken Tikka
With these few rules in mind, I embarked upon my diet. However, there was one problem. I live alone, and have erratic working hours. I can’t have someone come and cook food for me, because most often I am not at home at mealtimes. I cannot carry a home-made dabba, because often I leave early in the morning only to return home late at night. So I decided that I needed a tried and tested calorie-counted dabba sent to me early in the morning. I decided to try Food Darzee.
They would do meals and a nutritional plan customized to my lifestyle. I asked them to plan a low-calorie meal of breakfast, lunch and dinner, preferably Indian food, with no wheat. All meals would arrive together in the morning by 7.30 am sharp, so that I could take them with me wherever I was going, including my friends’ homes for dinner or lunch. I just carried my food with me. I did that for over a month, and since I had opted for Indian meals, most often the food tasted decent. I did get bored of the monotony after a while and decided to change the service.
Active Eats was the other dabba I tried out. That too was quite nice. Sufficient food, great snacks and as tasty as possible. But as with Food Darzee, I got bored of Active Eats too, and decided to do my own thing. By now I was over two months into the diet and had lost close to 8 kilos. I decided that I would have my maid cook some food and I would order the rest on Zomato or Scootsy.
I chose to eat what I perceived healthy and generally started keeping an eye on quantities and calories. I’d indulge in bean salads with rajma and sprouts, South Indian snacks like idli and upma, Maharashtrian snacks like poha, kothimbir vadi, alu vadi, Gujarati thalis devoid of the pooris, puran polis and chapatis. I ate cabbage, French beans, cauliflower and karela for the first time in my life, and when undercooked with a light tadka are actually quite delicious. I started ordering Chicken Tikka, and other kebabs.
I chose to eat meat and prawn curry without the gravy. Sukka mutton and chicken with bhakri instead of chapati or naan. Zunka, pithale, lots of daal—varan, suka daal, tuvar, moong—and chickpeas. I learnt how to eat brown rice with yellow varan, with a generous helping of Jawla Koshimbir (dried shrimp salad, with onions, green chillies and spices), hummus with less olive oil, chaas, boiled and roasted sweet potato. Mashed potato without the butter and cream, and one fourth the quantity of any dessert I would have normally eaten. Because one-fourth bowl of pudding gives you nearly the same satisfaction that an entire bowl may.
I basically became aware of what I was eating and how it was impacting my body. That is more than half the battle done. Now I have a few more kilos to go, and I am doing that without any pressure of time limit in my mind. I don’t know if you will notice any difference in me even after all those kilos gone, because, after all, I will always be a fat man!
Kunal Vijayakar is a food writer based in Mumbai. He tweets @kunalvijayakar and can be followed on Instagram @kunalvijayakar. His YouTube channel is called Khaane Mein Kya Hai. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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