Intermittent fasting: something new?

We find it fascinating when something gets introduced to us from a foreign land. Be it fashion, culture, a trend, or a diet! The pride in being local is yet to thrive in us. The Prime Minister of the country called in us to be Vocal for Local. The call is not just a voice, it’s a cry for long standing dues for the richness of our practices, our arts, our culture and most importantly for the pride in our own people for what we were and what we are.

Intermittent fasting in its various shades & colours have are being received with wide eyes in India.  Intermittent fasting is not new to us; every religion in India has age old practises of fasting either for a day in a month, or for couple of days in a week, or for a whole month!

I first evidenced intermittent fasting as a child, when I saw my grannies and my parents fast on certain days of the month or change their routine and eat at stipulated time either post seeing moon or eat restricted food items throughout the day.  Ekadashi was one such day in Hindu calendar that we fast entirely and eat meal only next morning! This comes every month and kept all the diseases at bay along with spiritual detox! Similarly, we see a different type of intermittent fasting during Ramzan and Lent month followed by other communities.

There is various type intermittent fasting like 16:8 type where you eat within 8 hrs in a day and fast for 16 long hours, the other type is alternate day fasting with total fasting followed by a normal routine. Another type of fasting is skipping meal in a day with normal routine etc…

Internet is filled with benefits of fasting, yet let me tell you! At a cell level, it helps in a process called autophagy(self-eating) and reduce stress causing agents and increases life span. Well this was ‘discovered’ and given a noble prize. We can imagine our ancestors turning in their grave looking at things being ‘discovered’ after they learnt and followed it for thousands of years! Wish we had taken interest in researching into our own long followed traditions and documenting it to show the world that they owed this and many more things to us!

 Let us take country like Japan and China, they have highest number of people above the age of 100. This is because they use traditional medicine, document it and teach to their next generation. This trend is not so cool among our current generation and for every small health variation we rush to the doctors or self-medicate. We don’t let the body learn to heal with what it can, and end up consuming quick heal medicines which traps us in a cycle of ‘fall sick-quick heal-fall sick’!

Fasting is best done as per the individual’s convenience and with right guidance than influence of internet! Follow the type of fasting done in your religion but not with feast and then fast nor with fast and then feast or take the right guidance.

Our country has the treasure that we never cared to dig in. Our ancestors lived close to nature and discovered ways to heal and deal with the requirement of human body, soul and mind. The real cure for our mind and body is to get back to our roots and find the right medicine or just the right way to live. That includes to a great extent to listening to the body and its vital signs on an everyday basis, rather than when the mirror shows a remarkable change or when we let our body go for a spin thinking that it can handle everything we stuff inside!

Do ask your queries and let me know your opinion!

Let food be thy medicine.

Achi

Lifestyle in Quarantine!

Hello folks, how is your quarantine life going on! Hope all are safe at home but have complaints of getting bored often, no going out, no meeting friends and worst of all no exercise and lot of food cravings.

Yes, that is why I am here to help you a bit to get your things right on track. It is already more than ten days in quarantine and you still have ten or more days to go. Right now we really don’t know how many more days and let’s hope that it all ends soon and we get our life back to good old days again!

The sun is already high on the sky as you open those eyes. You don’t quite feel that you had enough sleep right? So you decide to roll on for some more time before you finally decide to set your foot on earth! The maid is in home quarantine too, so you decide to do the morning routines together. By the time, you clean, sweep, mop, freshen and have your breakfast, it’s already 11. Then you are not hungry enough and you have your lunch at 3 or 4 in the afternoon. Your afternoon nap is an extended evening sleep. So, you really are not hungry at dinner but you still are confused about having it or not. But unwilling to go to bed without having dinner, you fill your stomach as the curry tasted great tonight! So, what’s the deal, the same was our routine on every weekend before the COVID-19 days too!

That’s true, but every day can’t be a Sunday right? So, when weekend lifestyle shifts rigidly to every day, then you are in trouble! Between, you had started getting bored on day one and then somehow managed day two and day three and again felt the same and started binge watching, binge eating, and spending most of the time on social media. The online video streaming channels like Netflix, Hotstar and Amazon Primes has kept your eyes wide open for late in the nights and made you feel hungry again and helped you munch on an extra calorie in the form of snacks! So this is how most of your quarantine days go by and this vicious cycle keeps repeating no matter what!!

For those who are working from home, with your company behind you with lots of

deadlines and you begin to become a couch potato to finish the work assigned until late nights and your family serving you every food items and meals to your spot without even realizing your lifestyle is at a great trouble.

Now, be sure that when this lockdown ends, the effect of your quarantine day’s lifestyle is going to show up! Or even before that, I mean, for the next couple of weeks, you might tend to put on weight, increased mood swings, irritation, hormonal trouble, gastritis, improper digestion and to go on with the list many other conditions to join in!! For women, while on periods, it becomes challenging to work and focus with all sorts of mood swings, carbs craving, PMS, cramps! Increased food intake to calm your mind during this time can lead to weight gain, PCOD, insulin insensitivity and so on! It is for sure a drop in your physical fitness, weight gain, change in your hormonal levels, changes in your menstrual cycles and so on!

So, are we on a same ground to an understanding that we need to work on our lifestyle? If so, let’s get to work now. So, here I come up with few tips for you all while you stay safe but want to be productive and moreover not welcome a series of health issues while trying to be safe from a deadly virus.

Let me divide these tips under various categories to make it easy for you to follow!

1. Routine
2. Diet
3. Hobby building
4. Productive works

Routine:

1. Wake up early in the morning! I know it’s not easy, but just think, it gives you a long day, where you have time for everything you really want to have in a day – your exercise, routine, work, entertainment, games, your hobby and what else!
2. For those who work from home, before you login, kindly stretch yourself up with exercises like yoga, pushups, crunches, cardio and keep a table with right height as your working desk rather than couches and beds!
3. Plan a day ahead, plan a quite lot on activities so that you don’t get slogging on a single activity and get bored and get back to your vicious cycle. Just before you sleep, or just as you wake up, thank the god for a wonderful day ahead and try to make a list of things you want to do, for eg: the book you are going to finish, the article or painting you are going to work on, give bath to your pet, or clean your room, try new breakfast dish, and so on.
4. Take afternoon naps not more than 30 minutes, as this can avoid you from going to bed too early or too late thus avoiding a disturbance to your hormone cycles and routine.

Diet:

1. Eat all your meals on time, breakfast within 9 am, lunch within 12-1pm and dinner before 8.
2. For those who are on watch for weight gain (this shall also include those who are healthy and must take care of your health very seriously!) intermittent fasting does wonders! It improves your concentration and thus start having two meal per day and rest of the day have plenty of fluids. For those who are working from home, two meals per day works better as you tend to sit longer than the rest, thus also helps in providing enough gaps for your overworked digestive system.
3. Enjoy your meal with simple dishes rather than elaborate meals, your body will store all the excess and that’s what we must stop! Also going for simple dishes avoids spending too much time in cooking, or planning, or preparing which can make you easily tired without enough helping hands!
4. Try to include all food groups in your meals like: cereals, pulses, vegetables, milk and milk products and avoid eating till the brim.
5. Sitting longer can also cause constipation and thus increase your fluid intake with 1-2 tbsp of psyllium husk in it.

Hobby Building:

1. If you already have a hobby then it’s great! Immerse yourself in it at least for one hour in a day.
2. For those who don’t have one, develop one like sketching, painting, writing/blogging, glass painting, gardening, kitchen gardening and so on.

   

   Hobby persons. People of creative professions at work. Artistic occupations, retro hobbies cartoon characters vector illustration set

3. Spend time on learning prayers, reading book, learning to cook if you are a beginner!

Productive work:

1. For those on work: Work only for stipulated time with less breaks and more productivity so that you can logout in time and spend the rest of the day with stretching and playing indoor games with family.
2. Learn to practice yoga, meditation, those which can be learnt from online certified trainers, zumba or even workout sessions seeing youtube channels will be great.
3. Begin with early morning one hour exercise to keep up your motivation throughout the day, to be fit and to choose mindful eating.

You must be wondering why am I speaking in a blog on Diet and Nutrition. No, we speak about Lifestyle changes rather than just diet. The first chapter in the book on right nutrition is right lifestyle!

All the best for a new healthy, warm, happy and productive lifestyle during the remaining quarantine days.

For any queries and to know more about various aspects of nutrition, stays tuned or contact me on my email id: akshatha.nash4@gmail.com.

The next article here will be on all you need to know about intermittent fasting and how beneficial it is if followed in the right way!

 

Let food be thy medicine

Akshatha Ashok