Maintain Diet?? My Story!!!

Why following a diet could be a question. The general trend of South Indians to be hefty has changed drastically over the last few years. People now are more health conscious and are trying to incorporate either exercise or diet or both in to their daily lives. Be it a half hour brisk walking or a 10 minute elliptical work out, or becoming a vegetarian for a period, we see that the generation today is involved in atleast one of these activities. And this sense of health consciousness has donned upon almost everyone, including me :p

I'm not a person who works out every single day. I'm laaaazy. And post wedding, i gained almost 8 kgs, due to the change in lifestyle. Me and my husband, we are major foodies. Only later we realized the weight we have gained over time and we couldn't workout regularly due to travels. So we started dieting. First i'll tell our modus operandi for the diet.

1. Heavy Breakfast
 Being South Indian, we like to have any of the south-indian food like idili, dosa, puttu, uppuma,  appam, or puri. Recently, we started using raggi puttu. But the overall idea is to have a heavy  breakfast.

2. Munch In Salads
 I have salad for lunch. But my husband likes to have it at different time intervals. He likes to munch  in some snacks all the time. So we replaced the snacks with sliced carrots, cucumber, tomatoes,  sprouted lentils. He have them at 11 am, 12, 1 and 2 pm. Since he is eating something at every  interval, he doesn't feel hungry.

3.Oats or Fruits For Dinner
 We have dinner by 7 30. We try our best to not have anything after 8 pm.

4. Drink Lots Of Water
 We try to drink atleast 8 glasses of water a day. We drink water whenever we feel hungry in between. This is the most important part.

5. Have A Cheat Day
 Once a week, we have whatever we like, we satisfy our cravings. Be it eating biriyani, or KFC, we have non-veg or rice or both once a week.

Its not easy to maintain a diet. During the first few days we were craving to have a piece of pastry or a scoop of icecream. But after 2 weeks, we started to feel different. Although it hasn't started showing out in our appearance, we feel lighter now. Last time i checked, i had already lost 2 kgs.  And my husbands cholesterol has gone down. So we are hopeful.

I've heard someone say "Have breakfast like a KING, have lunch like a QUEEN, and have dinner like a BEGGAR". This is apparently true. The reason being, our metabolism is on the highest side when we wake up, and it decreases as the day goes by. So its least during night. That is why it is best to have a light and early dinner, because all the food we eat during night does not give you energy, rather it is going to get sedimented as fat onto our body.

There are some things we avoided for the sake of the diet. We avoided having sweets and sugary items, tea only on alternate days, avoided maida products, fired and oily stuff, avoided banana, and vegetables that grow underground. But we have carrots almost every day. We drink 1 cup of green tea every day on empty stomach and we eat lots of vegetables and watery fruits. Once or twice a week we have egg. And we drink water whenever we feel hungry in between. We sometimes eat nuts like almond, walnut, pista etc for snacks.

People say that we should avoid eating out if we are on to reducing weight. And i know its true. But during most weekends we go out to have something. Currently, we are trying to reduce our eating out habits. Some days we become so bored of having vegetables, and would be tempted to have our cheat day early that week. But then we remind and motivate each other about the reward that we would get at the end of the week(dining out!!!). We don't have any rules on our cheat day, just that we would watch on how much we eat, and not on what we eat. So this is how we try to maintain our diet, and its been over 3 weeks now. We are trying to incorporate some kind of work-out too. I don't know if this is the healthiest diet, but this is what we follow and hoping we would be able to lose some weight :) .

Kurti Length?? What to pair it with?? What Suits Me?

Today, i would like to blog about some of the basics like what kind of kurtis would suit people and how to pair them w.r.t the height and body structure. Kurtis come in different lengths, varying from waist length to toe length long. Choosing the right kind will help one to complement their body structure. It is important to accept your body structure. But it is also important to dress according to what suits you.

Let me get this through, if you have the perfect body, all toned up, lean, and perfect shape, almost everything will suit you. And there is no question or confusion in that case.

No offence, but I don't want to talk about the perfect 'bodied' ones today.

Lets start off with the "shorties". Long toe-length kurtis are a big no-no for people who are short in length.  You would look shorter in these. But still you can opt to wear these, by pairing it with good pair of heels and leggings with lesser churi. Lesser the number of churi, taller you would look. No one would want to stay away from those elegant anarkali-kind toe length kurtis. Only thing, make sure your feet is visible, and wear heels. Dont wear toe length kurtis with jeans.

Short kurtis would look good on shorter people as this makes them look taller. The visibility of your legs causes this effect.

But if you are short and have thick thighs, please do opt for a kurti that is knee-length long. As that will hide your thighs and you will still look taller. If you want to wear kurtis shorter than knee length, pair it with jeans, since jeans does not hug like leggings. Don't wear leggings with short kurtis, if you have a heavy bottom. Its just really indecent!

For "longies", its best to opt for mid length or longer kurtis, you dont want to look like a giraffe. And again the same rules applies for people with heavy thighs. Shorter kurtis with jeans, longer kurtis with leggings (no heels :p), and knee length kurtis for heavy thighs.

The basic way to hide heftiness, is to direct the focus away from the hefty parts. So if it is your upper body that is heavy, wearing mid-thigh length or knee-length kurtis would be apt.

Another way to pair kurtis is with patiala pants. Patiala pants usually seem to suit longer people. But this isn't true, any one can wear them, if paired with the right kind of kurti.

If you are long, then go for knee length kurti paired with patiala and a pair of flats. Kurtis below knee length will hide the frills of the patiala, so knee length is apt. Shorter length is also fine, but that is totally up to you.

If you are short, then go for mid-thigh length kurti with patiala and a pair of flats( or heels, depending upon the situation). Knee length kurti is also fine.

So thats it! Just something I had in my mind. Hope atleast few would find this useful.
Have a nice day :)

Hummus And Tahini

Hummus is a great dip or spread made from chickpea flour blended with tahini paste, olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and garlic cloves. Tahini is nothing but sesame seeds Roasted and grounded with olive oil.

Tahini Ingredients:

Sesame
Olive oil

Method:

1. Stir fry sesame till golden brown. Be careful not to burn, as sesame gets burned easily, and tastes awful.
2. Grind the toasted sesame in  food processor with olive oil. Keep adding olive oil until you get a thick pour-able consistency.

Hummus requires only 1/4 cup tahini, So store the tahini paste in refrigerator in an air tight jar. This can be stored for several months. Tahini can also be used as dip for meat kebabs, can be added to noodle recipes, can be used as sauce for vegetable salad. Hummus is great with kebabs, breads burgers etc. Its an alternative for mayonnise. Hummus with little lemon juice and water makes a good salad dressing.

Hummus Ingredients:

1/2 cup water
2-3 garlic cloves
1/4 tsp cumin seeds grounded(optional)
1/2 tsp salt
2-3 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 cup tahini
2 tsp olive oil
3/4 cup chickpea flour

Method:

1. Add and grind all the ingredients one by one in a food processor to make paste.
2. Add water as required until you get the desired consistency. Add more salt to taste.
3. Transfer to a serving bowl and sprinkle some papirika or corriander or mint leaves over it.

Store home made hummus in refrigerator in an air tight container and can be stored up to one week.

Classic White Sauce

White Sauce is also called as Bechamel sauce. Though it sounds difficult, it is just a paste made of butter, milk and flour. White sauce can also be mixed with cheese or egg or sour cream etc to get different flavors.
This can be use with pasta or as a great dip for grilled steak and vegetables,as cream for soup, filling for sandwich or even with pizza. White sauce have to be served hot, as it begins to thicken as the temperature goes down.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
1 cup milk
1 Bay leaf, 1/2 Onion, 2 cloves(optional)
Salt, Pepper, Oregano (according  to taste)

Method:

1. Boil milk. You can add bay leaf, onion, and cloves to milk while bringing it to boil. This is totally optional.
2. Take a pan, melt butter, and add the flour. Wisk well. Flour should turn a little brown in color. The browner, the nuttier. Be careful not to burn it. Black means burned.
3. Then add the milk strained out of clove,bay leaf and onion. Mix well to get a smooth sauce. Cook for 5 mins, stirring continuously until the sauce thickens. Season with salt pepper and dry oregano.