Rujuta Diwekar makes one laugh with her views on diets. ?What is this fad about diets,? she asks. This, coming from India?s top celebrity fitness guru, who has worked with top industrialists, Bollywood actors, models amongst others. ?If a diet is about losing your appetite, starvation; then it is about losing health. One needs to feel hungry all the time; be it hunger for learning, for youth, et al.? Diwekar shot to fame for the supposedly zero-sized figure of Bollywood actor, Kareena Kapoor. She laughs aloud on hearing ?zero size?. ?Tell me, can any one be zero-sized? Is that possible?? she ripostes. Diwekar has come out with a book on fitness and what she terms ?eating sensibly?, Don?t lose your mind, lose your weight. The book details amongst other things, eating the until-now-believed-untouchable foods when on a diet. There, the word again! Diwekar finds the ?diet? word obnoxious. ?It is such a put-off word, diet?.
In the book, Diwekar will have readers wide eyed with her ?can have foods?? cheese, paneer, even fried stuffs. Nothing is taboo as long as it is in moderation, she says. The good thing about Diwekar is that she connects immediately with her talk about simple foods and reaching out for what one can afford versus unattainable goals and expensive food. ?What am I saying which is unheard of or is new?? she asks, busting the ?secret to a good health? mantra. ?We Indians are so star-struck. When Kareena says she has benefited from following me, everyone now thinks, ?Then, Rujuta Diwekar must be good?. If the West says X food is good, we are so readily willing to hear it. Why do we need validation from another source??
So what is Diwekar saying that has not been said before? For starters, the most radical being, ?Nothing is fattening. It is what you do after eating, or rather what you don?t, that is the problem.? What are the popular myths about food? Diwekar, svelte and casual to boot, says, ?glorifying certain food and demonising others; for instance, the oft-heard statement?banana is fattening and orange is good. Or believing certain vegetables like potatoes, for instance, are calorie death food. The worst and the most hailed is that bottle gourd (dudhi) and bitter gourd (karela) juices are good. For god?s sake, if you don?t like what you are eating, it is not going to show on your body. Don?t punish your body for your excesses.?
Diwekar says sensible eating is all that is required to lose weight. Or rather, as she puts it, ?to stay healthy?. ?Dieting means starvation for those on a diet. Our body is very smart and the moment it is starved for food, it will learn to store fat. So dieting is a lose-lose situation.? What about carbs? She counter-questions, ?What about carbs? Everything an Indian eats is carbs?be it idli, dosa, poha, rice, chapatti, puri; why even the sattvic diet is all carbohydrates. They are low on GI (glycemic index) and release slow sustained blood sugar. We need to learn to rely on it. They are also high in minerals and fibres.? For those who think coconut is ?bad?, here is the good news. ?When you eat idlis, have it with coconut chutney and sambhar. Mint chutney does not go with it at all. Foods need to blend. Coconut is a fat burner ? the type of fat found in coconut actually helps fat burning processes of the body?
There are many dos and don?ts attached to eating food. Diwekar enjoys ticking them off. ?There is much importance attached to water and the various temperatures it must be had. Now, water is just water irrespective of how you take it in. There are some who don?t drink enough of it as they fear water leads to bloating. No food can introduce fat, it depends on our state of mind. The body burns fat if it is calm and relaxed. If it is stressed, it gets catabolic ? diseased state.?
The bottom line then is, ?There is no bravery attached to weight loss. You can achieve it just by falling sick. What is important is to feel good about yourself, treat yourself well, be committed to eating properly and exercising; and weight loss, rather fat loss, will just happen.?
Simple, isn?t it? But as Diwekar says, it has to be validated by some famous personality before anyone in her ilk can be heard.