Ideal Diet for working Women

Is there such a thing as ideal diet? And where do you find it? The answers surprisingly lie in very common-sensical approach to food. All the nutrients to make you experience a vibrant good-looking body and keep your energy level high and consistent. It should leave you free from a nagging concern over extra pounds and extra inches. The diet should facilitate your body to stabilize to an optimum level unimpelled by toxic waste; which is assimilated into the body after incomplete utilisation/digestion of food.

This diet is based on consumption of a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables as they contain a lot of natural water. The primary component in our body cells is water. So these fresh fruits and vegetables can be most easily digested, absorbed and converted to energy for our day to day activities. The more processed, denatured and dead the food you have the more energy your body will require to digest it.

This diet programme does not believe in starvation or crash dieting to lose weight. The base is a food group combination and making energy available for body activities other than digestion. Once on this diet programme, the body can easily breakdown foods and eliminate the undigested food-whereas a wrong combination of food consumption would result in accumulation of the waste in the body resulting in weight gain and toxicity.

Wholesome fresh foods brimming with nutrients can nourish your body and reflect the effect on your skin, hair etc. It can additionally help solving symptoms of problems regarding digestion, constipation, allergies, headaches, menstrual problems, pimples, arthritis, eczema, heart problems and other diseases; if followed religiously. If these exciting and innovative aspects of fitness and weight loss are followed you will reward yourself abundantly with a youthful, slender body, beauty, vitality-physical, emotional and spiritual health.

Breakfast

Begin your day with fresh fruits on an empty stomach-they pass from the stomach to the intestines at a very rapid pace. Digestion, absorption and conversion of food to our energy unit glucose is done rapidly. This glucose is to be necessarily supplied in sufficient quantities to our brain cells to let our working be efficient. Now, assuming you eat a heavy breakfast consisting of one, two or three concentrated, processed items like bread, butter, egg etc. then a big amount of energy will have to be diverted to digest this breakfast.

This is the cause of a groggy or drowsy feeling after sometime of consuming breakfast; as the glucose supply to the brains is reduced. Which is why you find women dozing in trains and buses on their morning trip to work. You have put your body to a bigger job of digesting all that you have ingested.

Two or three varieties of dry fruits in the midmorning hours for the ones who are not trying to lose weight or who feel slightly hungry is permissible.

Lunch

Lunch can consist of a combination of cereal or pulse with a lot of vegetables-cooked and raw. So whole wheat flour, bajra or jowar rotis or moong sprouts should be combined with a lot of high water content veggies. This food combination is again to facilitate only limited amount of energy to be diverted for digestion of food. So the concentration in office work can be still maintained.

Snack

An ideal evening snack, if required, can be a vegetable sandwich containing no cheese or butter-and should be made preferably of brown bread. On the days home a hot clear vegetable soup could be a better alternative.

Dinner

For dinner you can have a complete meal of chapatti, vegetable, dal and salad. This meal should be consumed at least two or three hours before you go to sleep. The amount of food consumed should be left on your hunger pangs to decide and not on your taste-bud.

Small changes, large benefits:

Non-vegetarian foods like meat, chicken, fish, egg etc. can supplement the basic diet in dinner - but it is not essential for gaining strength.

Give a moment's thought to this; strongest animals like elephant, camel etc. are all vegetarians.

Another consideration is fibre. The importance of fibre is being stressed in every area of health care. Remember meat has no fibre content at all.

Milk and non-veg proteins can easily be substituted by processed soya protein. It is a good quality protein and when processed is void of allergens and toxins to be easily absorbed in our body. It has proven to be a good source of calcium and iron as well as has a protective effect on our body; for e.g. it has an anti-carcinogenic effect.

The oil intake should be limited to two or three teaspoons/day. Latest studies show that corn oil contains a good amount of anti-oxidants like Vitamin E and additionally in the long run helps to regulate blood glucose, blood pressure and serum cholesterol levels.

Dos and Dont's

Principle to be followed is NO FASTING, NO FEASTING.

Do not increase stimulants like tea/coffee to more than 2 cups/day.

Do not consume too much processed, fried or baked food as it is difficult to digest.

Your daily diet should be accompanied by 8-10 glasses of water/day.

For the body to function effectively it is imperative to integrate the outlined principles of good eating with a well-balanced exercise programme.

A minimal of twenty minute aerobic activity like jogging, tennis, brisk walking, swimming, aerobics etc. goes a long way to make your body work efficiently.