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Are you looking for the best Diet Plan to lose weight? This article has everything you need to embark on your journey to weight loss while eating an Indian diet.
The main goal is to focus on eating a balanced diet.
While the term ‘balanced diet’ is used a lot, what we mean by a balanced diet is a balance of the 3 major food groups – carbohydrates, vegetables and protein.
This can feel like a big challenge with an Indian diet. The reason is that the typical Indian diet these days is high in carbohydrates – rice, roti and potatoes and the amount of vegetables and protein is very low. Sugar is also on the high side.
Think about your daily diet, it may look a bit like this:
This shows that our typical day’s eating:
All of this is made worse by the lack of exercise and poor sleep. This is the reason that the number of overweight & obese people in India is very high. The health consequences of this are metabolic diseases like diabetes, where India is leading and is now called the ‘Diabetes capital of the world’.
Source:mint
The situation can certainly be reversed with a structured plan, effort & patience. You do not need to do anything extreme, starve or try diets like keto or paleo that require you to completely stop eating food groups. These do not work except perhaps for a short while. The key is to balance the diet while still eating according to your local culture and customs. This is certainly possible with the Indian way of eating. The goal should be to balance the main food groups – carbohydrates, protein and vegetables.
Weight loss will always require that you limit your overall food intake. But that does not mean that you need to obsess over calories or starve. Instead, if you focus on high-quality foods and balance your plate with carbs, protein & vegetables, then you will find that you are able to eat within limits and also not go hungry.
This way of eating allows you to listen to your body and make food choices based onhow you feel, instead of choosing foods based on calories.
Your body does not think in terms of calories, it cares for nutrients like vitamins and minerals.
So it’s important you speak the same language as your body. In fact, in the long-term calorie counting can lead to anxiety issues for some people and disrupt their relationship with food. We don’t want that. After all, food is not just nutrition, it’s also emotional and social for us in our personal life as well and in our families and communities.
When you think of a diet plan for weight loss, think of what your body needs in terms of nutrition. Addressing this will give your body what it needs and allow it to get into fat-burning mode also. Here are the main nutrients that you need to cover:
The best Indian diet for weight loss will combine these major food groups. By learning how to balance these foods across your breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner you will find a weight loss diet that works for you and that you can sustain in the long run.
It can be tempting to focus on the ideal breakfast for weight loss, lunch for weight loss or best dinner for weight loss.
What is more important is a balanced overall food intake in a day.
Below is an easy to follow weight loss diet chart that can be followed for a week (7 days). The portions are based on someone in the weight range of 65-75 kgs and should be used as a guide.
Please note the following points:
Some foods are noted in cups. A cup = 240ml. This is a standard unit of measure and you can buy it from Amazon, seethese options. The cup in red below is 1 cup.
While we have provided a weight loss diet plan below, please use this as a guide only. There is no single ideal diet chart as a one-size-fits-all answer approach will not work when it comes to a weight loss diet plan. One’s nutritional requirements will vary based on a number of factors, including gender, height, weight, meal preferences, any medical conditions, allergies etc.
We have prepared a diet plan ideal for weight loss focusing on mainly Indian foods. This diet plan is a sample, and we would recommend that you work with aDaily9 coachto customize it for your needs.
Roti and paneer bhurji
Day 5
Masala omelette
Paneer tikka
Day 6
1 fist fish curry
Rice and fish curry
Vegetable pulao
Here are 5 tips that will help you get the most out of the weight loss diet plan:
We know that snacks and sugar cravings are a real problem for most people. That is we focus a lot on solving this in our coaching programme. Fruits are a great option for a snack. You can have 2-3 fruits a day – like banana, apple, orange and any other fruit in season.
Eat the fruit, not the juice.
Chewing and eating food helps signal to your brain that you are full.
Whether you are feeling like a snack or craving sugar, always have a glass of water first. This will help as in many cases you are actually thirsty, not hungry. We find that having a glass of water before a meal can also help some people eat more mindfully.
If cooking or getting a lot of vegetables is hard, you can use raw cut vegetables like tomato, carrot, cucumber & capcisum as a side salad. Add some lime, salt & pepper for taste.
There will be days when you give in to temptation and binge or a social occasion where you overeat. Do not dwell on it, you are human. The key is to get right back on track the next day.
One bad day is never a problem, the problem is when it becomes a habit.
Prevent that by getting back on plan the next day.
If you do not sleep enough, you might struggle with weight loss even with a good diet & exercise. Also, poor sleep increases cravings for food and sugar and you will find that you always eat poorly late at night. Avoid all of these problems by having good sleep hygiene. It will improve your health, your mood as well as your weight loss results.
An important point to keep in mind is to set realistic goals for yourself when it comes to weight loss. Here are a few things to bear in mind:
BMI
Body Mass Index or BMI has been around for a long time and is a commonly used measure to check if you’re at a healthy weight. What you may not know is that the range of BMI for Asians (and Indians) isnot the sameas the global WHO guidelines. This is partly due to genetics which means that Indians are at higher risk of diseases like Diabetes at lower BMIs. Here is a snapshot of the WHO and Asian BMI cut-off points. Be sure to track your BMI using the Asia-Pacific column on the right. Normal BMI per this is under 23.
If you’d like a more accurate measure than BMI, try the Waist-Height ratio (WHR). It’s better than BMI as a measure of health. The WHR measure says that your waist should be less than half your height. Measure your waist around your belly button, and not your trouser size.
Research over the last 30 years has shown that fat accumulation around the waist is much more problematic than elsewhere. So dealing with this is the best way to avoid health issues like Diabetes. In theDaily9 coaching programme, we use WHR and track it throughout the programme.
It is important to focus on fat loss and not just weight loss. The body will only burn fat at a certain rate and it helps to be aware of that. You need to appreciate that the weight gain did not happen suddenly, so expecting it to disappear suddenly is not realistic. If you lose too much weight too fast, you are losing water weight & muscle, we do not want that.
In general, a weight loss of 500-750 grams per week is realistic.
While this may not sound like a lot, that’s about 2kgs in a month and in 6-12m that can help you lose most or all of your excess weight. These are the kind of results we consistently see in theDaily9 coaching programme.
Make a start with your weight loss journey using the diet plans mentioned in this article. Also track your WHR in parallel. You will find that using the plans above will help you improve your WHR and bring it closer to the goal of 0.5.
We’ve worked with thousands of Indian men and women and understand the unique challenges they face when trying to lose weight or find a healthy diet plan for weight loss. You can see some of our success stories here. The Daily9 system is proven to work as an effective weight loss diet plan. The expert coaches at Daily9 have developed practical ideas and strategies that work in real life and improve the weight loss that you can achieve with Daily9. This helps with weight loss and also many health conditions that Indian men and women face like digestive issues, diabetes, PCOS, thyroid, fatty liver and joint problems from excess weight.
While there are many calorie counters and weight loss programs out there, we believe that a focus on quality & nutrition (and not just calories) is critical for any weight loss diet plan. Instead of tracking calories, we believe in tracking healthy habits at Daily9.
Most importantly, the Daily9 healthy diet plan for weight loss is practical and suits an Indian family environment. This will set you up for success with weight loss and also weight maintenance in the long run.
If you’re looking for a scientific and practical approach to weight loss, take a look at theDaily9 coaching programme. It’s the only program that helps with weight loss and weight maintenance.
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We know that weight loss is confusing. Click the button below to chat with us on WhatsApp. We are happy to answer all your questions & help you decide if D9 is right for you.