These hacks will help you manage your weight and diet
If you managed to escape the Ganesh festival minus major weight disasters but are awaiting the festive season with dread, here are a few mind hacks that may help you tide through without an increased waistline.
One bite at a time
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Yes, this may be a bit obvious. But, often, as is mentioned in the seminal mindfullness book 'How to Train a Wild Elephant', By Jan Chozen Bays, we are not aware even of what we are eating, let alone how much we are eating. In the book bays talks of how, when not watching, we pop in the second bite even before we have swallowed the first one.
Reaching out for a sweet? take a bite, put it back on plate. Finish chewing for 10 minutes, slowly and then reach out for the second one. Even if you still eat the same number of sweets as you would have anyway, you will atleast enjoy each bite as you were meant to.
Pick the time
Without realising we pump sugar-laden sweets or fried savouries (that samosa pav during a coffee break) only to beat stress. The more stressed you are, the more unhealthy calories you will dump in your body.
Instead of thinking that you can avoid stress eating (it's not an easy habit to break), keep the savouries you crave on a given day, for a time when you can eat it peacefully, and enjoy it. Perhaps, breakfast, before you head to work. Or dinner, without electronic media to take your mind off from wherever it keeps rushing to.
If the office crowd, or friends, insist that you partake of sweets being offered, keep aside a dabba in which you can store them until you reach a more relaxed, unrushed state of mind. For the stress eating, keep carrot sticks at hand [ensure you pack a dabba every day, it takes 5 minutes to peel and chop] or even uncut apples. The hard chewing they require is often relaxing enough. Plus, of course, the sugar release.
Pick your battles
Going for a party at a friend/relative's place. Ask them what's on the menu (if you know them well enough it shouldn't be a task). From the list decide what you really want and how much. Spend some time thinking about what you'd like to eat and why. At the party, since you know your plan, your brain will be in auto mode and will pick exactly what you'd decided. Chances of going overboard are few.
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