Now that you’ve made Fitness a habit the next big question is going to be what kind of diet should I follow. Which brings us to the fundamental question.

Why do we eat…?

We eat to survive. Now, such a simple thing has just gone over the roof with modern day diet fads pushing us to the brink and making us believe that whatever we’ve been eating so far is wrong and if not catered to something is going to go wrong. Brace yourself, nothing is going to go wrong.

Before starting any new method of dieting, we all miss out on figuring out what is so alarmingly wrong about our current eating habits which must be addressed to, there is no point in trying to write an answer without knowing what the question is. Now lets just have a look at the three most common dieting dialogues that keeps circulating and let us see what can be done about it.

The first and most common dialogue that floats around is “I think I should cut down my carbs”. The primary source of energy for the human body is carbs and the body needs it. depriving yourself of carbs is like operating your automobile on Reserve Fuel (glycogen and fat). Now once you’ve exhausted your reserve fuel your vehicle would cease to move but the human brain is smart enough in creating and sourcing a new gas station from its own body which would be your muscle protein which would lead to muscular atrophy or muscle mass loss.

The second dialogue is “Am on a HPLC (High Protein Low Carb) diet”. This reminds me of a adage which says “too much of anything good is also bad” while proteins are building blocks of life a strong building is just not made of bricks and stones it is the cement(carbohydrate) that binds these together forming a strong and a sturdy structure.

The third dialogue is “I have stopped eating any kind of fat”. Of the three macronutrients the one that is looked down like a taboo has been fat. If your building is just left blank without painting it would it look nice…? and if you’re not lubricating your automobile properly the lifespan of the same is going to come down similarly fat plays and important role in maintenance of skin and lubrication of joints and it goes on. We can look at the importance of fat as a separate blog sometime soon.

Now here’s a simple way to fix your dietary requirements is by looking at this food pyramid chart given below. I can hear you saying “now please stop I already know this”.

Now the next step would be to make a note of whatever you’re eating and how many liters of water you are consuming through the day along with the time this would help you in identifying your hunger frequency right from the moment when you wake up until you go to bed. please include everything even if it is just one Oreo biscuit during tea time after doing this observation for a week now compare it with the chart above and you would be able to identify where you’ve been going wrong.

For further assistance you are always welcome to approach Niranjan Ganesh, Fitness Trainer and author of this blog post for any queries.