Quarantine diet tips: Eat in silence and eat slowly to manage how much you should eat
Highlights
- Avoid counting the number of calories while eating food
- Eat with all your senses
- Half of your plate (50%) should be dedicated to grains or millets
Diet tips for lockdown: When it comes to losing weight or maintaining your current weight, how much food do you think one should you eat? Nowadays, there are multiple food options whether its low carb foods, high protein or low calorie foods. But, you can almost never be sure of how much to eat in meal. Answering this very popular question is nutritionist Rujuta Diwekar on Instagram. As part of the recently concluded World Health Day (April 7), Diwekar tells us how much we should eat, as this is one of the most commonly asked questions about food.
Quarantine diet tips for weight loss: How much food you should eat?
With regards to the lockdown and quarantine period that people are currently going through because of coronavirus outbreak, Diwekar had shared a weekly quarantine diet and workout plan. This plan includes diet and workout tips that can be followed throughout the day during quarantine.
However, this plan does not include how much you should eat and the celebrity nutritionist answers this for us.
"The question of how much to eat is especially concerning many people right now because they believe that they are unable to burn as many calories as they usually do by staying at home," she says.
Also read: Quarantine Tips: Finding It Difficult To Manage Your Routine? Here Are Some Tips That Can Help
1. Calories don't matter
She says that the number of calories in your food do not decide how fit, fat or thin you are going to be. You need to stop looking at food in terms of carbs, fat, proteins. Instead, food should be looked at as local, seasonal, cultural and something that supports you in testing times, like the humble dal rice.
Do not count calories while eating your food
Photo Credit: iStock
2. Follow the mental meal map
You must follow the 3 Ss while eating. S1: Eat with all your senses. That is when you are eating, your vision, hearing, taste, smell and touch must be activated.
S2: Eat in silence, without any distractions like phone, laptop, TV, book or newspaper.
S3: Sit down cross legged and eat. Try to have at least one meal in a day by sitting down crossed leg, and not on the dining table.
In order to know how much you should eat, you can use Diwekar's mental meal map. It involves the following steps:
STEP 1: Visualise how much you would like to eat
STEP 2: Serve half the portion of the amount that you have visualised to eat in STEP 1.
STEP 3: Take double the time to eat the meal you served in STEP 2.
STEP 4: In case still hungry, start again from STEP 1.
"Make sure that you take your time when eating. In this case, satiety signal can often be delayed. Eating two quickly can make you end up stuffing yourself," she explains.
Also read: Quarantine Meal Plan: Use These 3 Indian Foods For Preparing Multiple Meals
3. Meal proportions
Half of your plate (50%) should be dedicated to grains or millets (rice, roti, jowar, bajra, etc). 35% of your plate should be dedicated to pulses (lentils and legumes) and vegetables (subzis). If you are a non-vegetarian, then the meat proportion should also be 35%. The remaining 15% of your plate should be dedicated to chutney, pickle, papad, raw salad, etc.
"Foods like khichdi, dosa, parantha qualify as complete meals as they provide us with all the necessary nutrients," says Diwekar.
These are a few simple and effective ways to decide how much you should eat. Stay indoors, stay safe and stay healthy everyone!
Dal rice or khichdi makes for a complete and nutritious meal
Photo Credit: iStock
Also read: Celebrity Fitness Trainer Gives Diet And Workout Tips To Stay Fit When Working From Home Or In Self-Quarantine
(Rujuta Diwekar is a nutritionist based in Mumbai)
Disclaimer: This content including advice provides generic information only. It is in no way a substitute for qualified medical opinion. Always consult a specialist or your own doctor for more information. NDTV does not claim responsibility for this information.