Overcome diet roadblocks on your way to weight loss

You think you’ve been relentless about your diet and exercise. Despite it all, you’ve hit a plateau, and your weight loss appears to have stopped. If this is your story, then don’t give up just yet. What you need to do is correct some common mistakes.

Sweet binges: Diets naturally imply restrictions. So if you cut out the sweets you want them even more. Sometimes, it’s the sweets you will binge on as the cravings often win. And sugar makes you crave only more sugar. It’s a vicious cycle.

Handy tip: Include vegetables which are sweet in your daily diet – sweet potatoes (low on the glycemic index), cabbage, carrots, pumpkin and onions. If you can’t give up on that cake, bring it down to once a week and eat fruit on other days. Have snacks at frequent intervals like early evening or before going to bed (with a gap of 45 minutes to bedtime). This will ensure you have steady blood sugar levels, making you less hungry and prevent you from overeating.

Eating out and not planning meals: You may think that sticking to salads at restaurants is okay. But here you have no control over the portion size, and have no way of knowing what their kitchen uses for oils and flavourings (like MSG which causes bloating or high corn fructose that has more calories than sugar). Or you may end up just eating way too much bread or bread sticks, waiting for you meal to arrive.

Handy tip: Take five minutes of your day to plan the meals and snacks for the next day. Take another 10 minutes to pack snacks ready to go with you the next morning. Instead of eating bread, ask for an appetizer, something to go with greens, vegetable or soup, which is a good way to prepare for the meal. If the portions are large, split the main meal with a friend.

Recipe: Low calorie (18 per ounce) mock egg tofu salad

It’s a great source of digestible protein, and gives you vitamin B, minerals, phosphorus, iron, sodium, potassium. Tofu also has calcium equalling that of milk.

Ingredients (Serves 6)
Silken tofu: 225 grams
Onion: 1, grated
Celery: 2 stalks, finely chopped
Carrots: 2, grated
White wine vinegar: 1 tbsp sea salt to taste

Method
Steam the tofu, squeeze water out of the tofu block, and set it aside. Mix the rest of the ingredients in a bowl, and crumble tofu into it. Mix well. Chill for 10 minutes before serving. Great in a sandwich, on a cracker, or by itself.

—Shonali Sabherwal is a macrobiotic nutritionist, chef, and instructor

SPEAK UP

What did you think of this column. Do send in your comments on healthofdna@gmail.com. To get in touch with her, please write to shonaalii@macrobioticsindia.com