Do you need to lose weight?

Here's what I've got to say to all of you folks who have been feeling miserable because you believe you cannot fit into one of those haute couture. No need to burden that intelligent brain of yours to understand a simple message - "you are what you eat".

Earlier I too was obsessed with my figure but today, as a nutritionist and dietetics student, my perspective of the "obese image" has undergone a sea change.

I salute my professors for their help and all those absorbing lectures about food, its essence, its impact and the ways on how to reduce our extra mass of flesh that makes us look little bit more "full". Obesity is not a problem but a condition where you have to make the right choice. Making the right choice, which I made after so many years, is difficult but worth it. I realized that our daily meals were delicious but high in calories. I had asked my professor about why some people looked healthy, like my pal Jaya, in spite of consuming those extra smiling calories. The professor told me that weight also depended upon the body metabolism. As it turned out Jaya had a quicker metabolism. Lucky for her.

Our diets are high in sodium, fats and calories. Everyone loves to cook but if you want to maintain a healthy body, you may have to modify your way of cooking. Like my aunt says, cooking is an art. It is easy to cook but to understand the nutritious value of the food, one needs a thorough knowledge of the food value. Whenever I cook I try to make sure that I prepare a balanced meal. It consists of rice (carbohydrates), pulses (protein), vegetables (vitamins, minerals) and the delicious pickle (let us add it in an insignificant amount so we can forget about its calories unless it is a low calorie one). So, a balanced diet contains sufficient amount of carbohydrates, proteins and the extra supplement of magnesium and minerals.

There are no rules as to what is healthy for an individual but there are some general guidelines to see if your weight puts you at high risk of future health problems like hypertension, diabetes, arthritis and cardiovascular problems.

According to dieticians one should never skip meals or leave in the morning without a proper breakfast as it is our main source of energy for the entire day. Instead of three big meals a day you should consume food more frequently in small amounts. You can combine food at meals with essential nutrients if necessary in order to reduce fatigue. You can break a meal into several smaller snacks.

My sister tried to indulge herself in a crash diet that worked for sometime but later proved to be a mistake. She had to put up with those extra body mass that she had tried so hard to lose. This is primarily due to what is known as the YOYO syndrome.

In the beginning, you tend to eat less and sometimes people don't eat at all. This condition is known as anorexia. Some people tend to throw up or vomit whatever they have eaten. It is called bulimia. Although this formula appears to work for a brief period, it does not really work in the long run. Initially it makes us happy since we are shedding extra weight but there comes a time when we become so hungry that we tend to indulge ourselves with high calorie content food. Before we know it we find that we have unknowingly put on that extra weight. It all happens when our intake of carbohydrates lessens and our body building substance, protein, breaks down. This leads to muscle wasting and we become more hungry and that extra weight that we had tried to shed off, in fact gets augmented (it happened to me).

To maintain a healthy diet it is important

• that you don't skip meals
• consume 3 meals a day or preferably portion them into 5 meals
• drink 6-8 glasses of water; food like vegetables, fruits, beverages, fruit juice and milk can contribute towards water intake
• but be cautious of the calorie content fruit juice

Being a slow eater means

• you are less likely to overeat
• you consume more time to eat the meal
• you cause less stress to your digestive tract
• you are allowing your body to signal fullness

To quickly find out if you are a part of this increasing majority, calculate your BODY MASS INDEX (BMI).

BMI stands for "Body Mass Index", a ratio between your weight and height that correlates with the amount of body fat you possess. BMI is the preferred professional method of evaluating whether you are overweight and thus at risk of related health problems. However, there are certain people for whom the BMI cannot properly predict the health risk such as competitive athletes and body builders, whose BMI is high due to a relatively large amount of muscle, and women who are pregnant or lactating. Nor is the BMI intended for growing children or for frail and sedentary elderly people.

According to federal guidelines, a score in excess of 25 means you are carrying too much weight. Serious obesity is defined as a BMI of over 40. A body mass index of 40 translates into a weight of about 200 pounds for a person 5 feet tall or 300 lbs. for someone 6 feet tall.

For example, Cynthia is 18, she weighs 50kg and measures 5 feet 3 inches (1.60 meters). Now to find out her BMI, I divide her weight by height square (in meters). Her BMI is 19.56. So, if you refer to the chart given down, she shows signs of healthy weight.

Here are the standard levels for men and women.

Level	Men	Women
Underweight	<20.7	<19.1
Healthy weight	20.7 - 27	19.1 - 26
Overweight	27.1-31	26.1-29.9
Obese	>31	>30.0

If your BMI is high, you may have an increased risk of developing certain diseases, including

• hypertension
• cardiovascular disease
• sleep nausea
• osteoarthritis
• female infertility

Women typically collect fat on their hips and buttocks, giving their figures a "pear" shape. Men, on the other hand, usually build up fat around their bellies, giving them more of an "apple figure". This is not a hard and fast rule, though. Some men are pear- shaped and some women become apple-shaped after menopause.