What can you expect from this blog
‘Healthy diet’ is a word that is often equated with tasteless, bland, and compromised food. Many of us find it difficult to stick to a diet because we think that we have to limit ourselves to eating certain foods or have to cave into a ‘boring’ lifestyle. However, this is far from the truth. A healthy diet does not mean you have to munch on salads for the rest of your lives.
With this blog, our dietitians in Delhi NCR wish to break this stereotype and help people understand that with the correct guidance, a healthy diet is not boring. In fact, it is something that can be made fun and interesting with the right set of tools. Read on.
Introduction
‘I think diets are absolutely boring and made for pretentious elite people who wear gym shark leggings for corporate meetings’, said Anushka while flipping her hair. Anushka is a 26 year old unmarried wedding planner who in real hates the whole concept of ‘marriage’ and wants to be that cool aunt who spoils her nieces and nephews. She credits or blames (who knows?) her career choice to her former lover who got inspired by the whole ‘band baaja baraat’ theory. Although she has groomed herself to get a hold of design concepts and gauge the whole feel of planning weddings, the hectic schedule demanded most of her time and left her eating foods from wedding buffets. Before Anushka got into wedding planning, she weighed 55 kilos and never had any ailments or problems that were inflicted by her weight.
Now, after planning all of those beautiful marriages, she had gained a whopping 20 kilos in the past two years due to buffet food. Now keep in mind that Anushka has been a rebel all her life like a lot of us, she thinks differently, works in a peculiar fashion, and does not like to compromise or settle for less.
Like a lot of young adults, Anushka thought that the whole notion of ‘going on a diet’ was extremely boring. ‘If I had to bore myself to death, I would watch the new season of ‘YOU’ on Netflix rather than going on a diet.’, Anushka smirked. Now mind you, we have got a lot of clients in the past who were rebellious and stern with their beliefs but Anushka was different. She was opposed to the idea of going on a ‘diet’. However, as soon as she tried our programs, she did not feel like she was taking a diet. Her weight loss journey and losing 20 kilos, in her words, were a breeze.
With social media glorifying ‘skinny diets’ and over the top juice cleanses as the only ways of seeing results through a diet, one can easily make up his mind into believing that all diets have just one motive – to make you suffer. Blame it on our education system, blame it on our parenting, or blame it on whatever you want to blame it on – the bottom line is that we as a society failed to educate each other on the difference between going on a fad diet and dieting to transform your lifestyle.
Some of the best dietitians in Delhi NCR at niwi.ai have made it our mission to educate people on various facets of health, lifestyle, and diet through our array of informative blogs and FREE nutrition counselling so make sure to check out our vault of blogs or speak to an expert if you need a customized roadmap that is compliant with your body and fitness goals.
Diet Vs. Lifestyle modification
It is essential to know the difference, similarity, and dependency between these two entities in your fitness journey. A diet comprises of temporary changes and tweaks in your eating habits to promote a certain outcome. In most cases, it is weight loss, muscle gain, or disease reversal (PCOS, Type-2 diabetes, Fatty liver, Acid reflux, etc). Once you have achieved that milestone, then comes lifestyle modification. This is the stage wherein you would not need to eat specific things at a specific time slot, but rather adopt healthy habits to promote and encourage your long term health goals. Consider diet as a stepping stone to a good lifestyle.
In this day and age where food delivery apps are faster than ambulances, people are becoming less and less health conscious. Don’t want to prepare food? No problem, Blinkit will deliver ready to eat options in less than 7 minutes. Don’t feel like cooking too? No worries, Zomato has launched a 60% off deal on pizza hut. This may be convenient but if you look at the broad picture, it can easily turn into a vicious cycle. Due to the ease associated with the ‘one click’ checkout process, people have become reliant on the kinds of indulgences.
This kind of approach makes a ‘diet’ or a ‘lifestyle modification’ seem boring. In all honesty, people come to dietitians in the worst case scenarios. Saw haphazard blood work readings despite taking allopathic, homeopathic, or ayurvedic treatments? Your doctor told you to get fit alongside his treatment? Tired of looking the way you do? Dietitian in Delhi NCR or whatever region you’re in would come to your rescue!
Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but we feel that the whole notion of diets being ‘boring’ is due to the fact that people come to dietitians only when they have something to ‘cure’. Healthy people can also team up with nutritionists, in fact, we have an entire blog that explains why healthy people should team up with nutritionists so do check it out.
Let us have a look at 6 steps that will let you overcome this notion and help you lead a good, happy, and healthy life.
1) Replace old beliefs with new ones
Education is the only way we can genuinely change our pre conceived notions about health, diet, and lifestyle. Read about things, attend expert sessions, consult the best nutritionists in Delhi NCR or wherever you reside and be prompt with learning more about what would be the best for your body. Besides that, our understanding of health is constantly evolving due to new discoveries and advancements in the field. What was believed to be the ultimate truth of health and fitness back in the day may not necessarily be true now.
For example, it was once believed that sinching waists through a corset was the only way for women to get slender waists. This assumption was followed by a lot of ladies, especially aristocrats to achieve that hourglass figure. However, scholars discovered a gut-wrenching fact about this practice – It causes scoliosis and is detrimental for your health if done constantly. Diet and exercise are the only two ways to actually lose weight and if you are looking to maintain the weight that you lost, you need to mold your lifestyle and make permanent changes that would be good for your body.
2) Find inspiration
Instead of finding ways to overlook your diet, focus on ways to find inspiration to make it fun. Remember that feeling of being promoted to a higher grade back in school and being over the moon to buy a new uniform, notebooks, and stationery? That is how it feels like when you tread on a journey to embrace a stereotypical ‘fad’ diet. It feels like you can conquer the world and overcome every challenge that comes your way. The feeling is similar to a sugar rush – it takes you to the moon but when it crashes, it fades away in a blink of an eye.
The goal here is to keep your motivation high. Motivation is a word that is subjective to everyone. Some may seek motivation from seeing their peers succeed, while others might keep a journal to pen down their thoughts. Regardless of how you do it, it is important to remind yourself of all the ways your body will benefit from whatever you are doing. We recommend watching body transformation videos, journaling your thoughts, and talking to people who have been on a similar journey to seek inspiration.
Inspiration is all around you – it can be in the form of seeing an old couple having coffee at a coffee shop or it can be someone coming out of a depressive episode to view life through a different lens. The thought of being your best self is the biggest motivator and nothing in the world can compete with that feeling. There is no amount of wealth that can help you if you aren’t in good health. So, always make sure to keep yourself inspired and look at the bigger picture of things.
3) Seek professional guidance
Dietitians in Delhi and around the world are trained to evaluate your body and recommend delicious and easy to cook meal plans. People who feel that diets are ‘boring’ have only been acquainted with salads, boiled foods, and bland foods. However, our best dietitians in South Delhi would tell you otherwise. At niwi.ai, we understand that everybody has their own set of needs and randomly eliminating foods from your diet can do more harm than good, and that is why our team of the best nutritionist in Delhi NCR prepare fun diet charts for you that would not even feel like a traditional diet. So, if your guilty pleasure is a cheat meal like Dahi Bhalla, we can include that in your diet and also offer legit recipes to make a healthier version of it.
People often think healthy eating can be expensive, and if you are someone like Anushka who feels that it is just for the elites, you are wrong. Time and time again, we have reiterated the fact that you can get almost all healthy items from a place as basic as a Mandi. You do not need to go to a fancy store like Modern Bazaar, Food Hall or Le Marche to get your hands on healthy foods. In fact, eating healthy is much cheaper than indulging in fast foods or junk foods. One meal from a fast food restaurant costs around Rs. 500 whereas one trip to Mandi with Rs. 500 in hand will be enough for a week’s healthy food supply.
4) Don’t be hard on yourself
We are humans and as humans, it is very important to acknowledge the fact that it is ok to make mistakes. We walk, we run, we fall, and then we get back up. The problem lies when you fall, don’t get back up, and crawl for the rest of your life. People get resistant to the whole idea of dieting because they feel it is not sustainable and although I do agree that some diets are absolutely not sustainable, you need to understand that a good diet is a stepping stone to a healthy lifestyle. It is a long and strenuous journey and requires you to take baby steps.
Can you expect a child to start feeding itself the moment it was born? Can you expect someone to park a car seamlessly when they have never driven it in their life? Can you expect an old person to do a split in one go? The answers to all of these questions are NO! Similarly, someone who has never been on a fitness journey can’t expect to reach their goals in a couple of days. It requires heaps of perseverance, dedication, and adjustments.
Let’s say you want to lose a total of 15 kilos. Would it be fair to go on a crash diet for a month and be disappointed when you see that the outcome is nowhere near what you may have expected? It is pivotal to understand that it took your body months to pile on that weight and nothing you do naturally can help with disappearing it. Instead of being hard on yourself and giving yourself an ultimatum, try taking it easy and doing it in a way that is fun for you.
5) Track your progress
A diet will not seem boring if you track your progress. If you see you’ve lost an inch, reward yourself. Rewarding yourself can be in the form of going to do a fun activity, buying something for yourself, or just giving yourself a pep talk. People often think that rewarding yourself only comes in the form of cheat meals and that is a huge misconception. This kind of reward system will ensure that you stay motivated and consistent with your efforts.
Tracking your progress keeps you accountable towards your goals which is a great thing. When you see your progress in black and white, it's harder to make excuses or ignore setbacks. This kind of approach also allows you to adjust your fitness routine if it is not working out for you. If you're not seeing the results you want, you can look at your progress and make changes to your diet to help you get back on track.
Don’t give up on your favorite meal, make it healthier….
We get it! It is difficult to destigmatize something that is so prevalent in today’s world. Although changing your lifestyle may seem like some resurrecting ritual, it is important to follow through despite the challenges. As far as the ‘diets are boring’ notion is concerned, niwi.ai’s best dietitians in Delhi NCR ensure that each meal recommended to you is as mouth watering as a full meal of junk food so you don’t feel like you ever left it. Don’t believe us? Try our programs to experience the ultimate lifestyle change.
This journey may seem tough, but any journey without the right guidance and partner is difficult. Everyone is different and every body is unique so what may have worked for your neighbor's son in his weight loss journey may not necessarily work for you. This is the reason professional help can give you the exact results you would want.
Ready for a health revolution? Join us to see visible changes in your body that will make you question why you ever believed the idea that all diets are boring and monotonous.
Our diet programs enable people to get to the core of the problem and be the best version of themselves.
At niwi.ai, we have helped thousands of people achieve their dream body, fitness goals, and better mental health. Our approach is not like the other dietitians in Delhi NCR, in fact, we follow a very fun approach to diet that does not make you feel like you are on a diet. We aim to make you feel more energetic, and definitely more confident in how you look and feel, all by improving your relationship with food!