Diet Trap

It may be a completely illogical dream, but for many of us, true bliss would be to be able to eat as much as we want, of whatever we want, without worrying about putting on weight. On a wish list, this would rank right up there, second only to having pots full of money or permanent good health. Or a perverse way of looking at it would be as the saying goes, 'God, if you can't make me thin, please make my friends fat'. The gym I go to offers one free session of diet consultation, and I recently came home with a diet chart that the nutritionist assured me, if followed, would make me drop two kilos in three weeks.

I haven't seen too many diet charts but I'm sure they look pretty much the same, with frugal, low-calorie foods in small quantities, repeated over and over. The most exciting item on my chart was a brown bread toast or a Marie biscuit to be eaten only in the morning. The rest of the food items were grilled chicken breast, egg whites, grilled fish or sautéed vegetables. It may a little boring, acknowledged the dietician, but added that even if it didn't whet my taste buds, at least I wouldn't feel hunger pangs. The only issue being, a big part of the satisfaction of hunger is eating a delicious meal, not a barely edible one. It lasted three days before I lapsed back to normal dal, sabzi and roti.

The simplest formula to lose weight is also the hardest to do: eat less, exercise more. People who keep weight off are the ones who continue some form of calorie restriction indefinitely, after they've finished the diet. Since this unfortunately involves enormous dedication, even the most determined have relapses. Diets don't work, because they are simply not sustainable. You are going to slip up, eventually. But if you manage to keep the slip-ups somewhat regulated, indulge occasionally and have a regular exercise routine, you might just stave off the pounds a little while longer. After all, what's a life of constant deprivation of one of the greatest pleasures of existence — food? And who decides what's the perfect weight, anyway? Which brings us to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's bizarre remark on malnutrition in his state, blaming "beauty conscious" girls from the middle class who don't eat enough because they're worried about getting fat. Firstly, it's extremely unlikely that the Wall Street Journal reporter's question was meant for this socio-economic strata. He was probably referring to the Human Development Report of 2011 that says in Gujarat, 44 per cent children below five suffer from malnutrition and nearly 70 per cent are anaemic. It's almost impossible to believe that an astute politician like Modi would connect body image with the shameful truth that there's simply not enough to eat for many children in India.

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