Dear (food) Diary: Journal your way to a healthier and Happier New Year

Model Shama Vazid sends photos of what’s on her plate to her trainer to stay on track. Calorie counting is not her forte, mindful eating is.

When 37-year-old Dr Suvajeet Duttagupta was on a Keto diet in 2017, he went from 96 kg to 65 kg in just a few months but when the pandemic hit, many things slipped and the weight came back. That's when he and his wife, home baker Shweta Katiyar, 36, decided to make fitness a priority to allow them to travel and enjoy physical activities such as cycling and hiking. "I weighed 99 kgs and couldn't sleep properly. My knees hurt, my skin felt greasy, had hairfall, was pre-diabetic and had breathing trouble. I found it difficult to exercise and procrastinated every chance I had," she recalls.

Food journalling has been the easiest way for Dr Suvajeet Dasgupta and chef Shweta Katiyar to lose weight and keep it off. PIC/SATEJ SHINDE

The couple took to mindful eating and documenting their food intake in a notepad and later by entering it on a fitness app called MyFitnessPal. The initial hiccup was realising that the quantity required to hit the Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) goal felt less. "Our brain would feel it was being forced to starve," says Dattagupta, "It took some time to realise that the food quantity was more than enough. Food journalling helped. Also, unlike before, we didn't want to restrict ourselves from eating certain food groups, so we got a fitness band to monitor the calories that were being burnt. Now, we don't restrict what we are eating, but just mindful of how much we are eating. We even track our binging. Our magic formula has been calorie counting."

"Food journalling is for anyone looking to practise a little personal accountability," says Katiyar. "If you want to understand diet patterns, it's a wonderful tool. Also, you begin to realise that fitness is a lifelong journey and results take time. It can turn into a habit if you do it every day. Even if I taste new desserts, go on a vacation, or eat out, the next meal I am back to eating the normal way - eating what I cook, and logging every meal. It might not be for people who have underlying medical conditions, or someone battling eating disorders - they would need professional help."

Dattagupta adds that for those who don't cook their own food or can't measure the ingredients of their meal, this can be difficult. "They can just track the size of the cooked portion to help make better decisions about eating," he adds.

The couple suggests starting by calculating TDEE and reading the nutritional information given on the label of any food item that comes out of a packet. This should help one make a somewhat conscious decision on what or how much of something you want to eat. "When you see results from this practice, it becomes easier to measure meals and learn to develop a visual cue for portions, he adds.

Katiyar feels being able to pursue an active life is her greatest motivation. "Food journalling offers a visual reminder of how far I have come. My recipes are all in one place. Every non-scale victory (NSV), like being able to go up multiple flights of staircases, walking, being able to bend or squat without worrying if I'd be able to come back up, working in the kitchen without any ankle pain or back pain, has helped cement my belief in food journalling."

When you hit a plateau, and Dattagupta says they are inevitable, maintain a gentle calorie deficit and exercise regularly. "I've decided I don't want to restrict my diet or over-exercise," he says. "Even if it's just walking inside my house and tracking my activity with a fitness band. I trust the process of a consistent daily routine."

In December 2022, post delivery, model Shama Vazid's weight hit a new high (85 kgs) causing ailments such as back, feet and knee pain that barred her from doing normal tasks. "That was my moment of truth," she says, "making me realise that I need to turn to an expert for guidance to focus on my diet and be motivated to work out because I wasn't able to move due to the extra weight."

Vazid turned to FitWood, a platform that lets you stay fit by dancing to the beats of Bollywood songs. By June 2023, she reached her target weight of 65 kg and presently weighs 61 kilos. "I am concentrating on building muscle mass at the moment and developing strength. The progress has been incredible,?" she says.

Vazid sends pictures of her meals to her trainer, who tweaks what's on her plate to help her make the right choices. "This got me into the habit of keeping meals simple and effective to attain my goal and to eat clean," she says. "I'm not the one to count calories, and I was glad that my trainer didn't make me do it either."

Andheri resident Saurabh Garg relies on WhatsApp support group to stay on track. He posts pictures of his food to the group and journals on apps too

Vazid's meals are cooked at home, and the key to keeping them clean is to prep the day before. "I have a weekly meal plan and prep every day," she says. "I start with a three-egg omelette with greens and a side salad of tomatoes, lettuce, and onions. Then soaked nuts at 11 am; two rotis with dal and a portion of chicken (grilled)for lunch; one banana and a cup of black coffee, no sugar as a mid-evening, pre-workout snack and dinner is either soup or salad, or two small rotis with a vegetable. "

Often, Vazid would lose a couple of kilos and gain three. "But I kept going, and stopped checking the scale and concentrated on just being consistent," she says. For Saurabh Garg, 41, grew up in Delhi which meant, "I love junk food and eat it at all times," he says with a laugh. When COVID-19 hit, watching people suffer from lifestyle ailments be more prone to it, with longer recovery times, made him rethink his lifestyle choices.

"I was hitting 40," says the marketing professional and writer, "and knew that life would go downhill fast from here. So I decided to get on to the longevity bandwagon - starting with conscious eating. Since I don't cook at home, my meals are either had outside or ordered in, it was even more challenging. Now I make conscious choices, for example, a low-carb meal over a fried dish and eating in a limited window of 16 hours. It may not sound too great, but I prefer to choose the lesser evil. I journal what I eat with a close group of friends on WhatsApp - they are my favourite critics who care - by sharing photos of what I have eaten. The minute I binge in a row, they point it out. I also write down what I eat in a notepad." Garg feels food journalling can be overwhelming if you don't have a digital tool. "It is not for people who are not technologically savvy, but you can start with a pen and paper," he says.

Keeping on track

To build it into a habit, Garg recommends doing one or more of the following…
>>  Create an accountability group - get a few friends/family to ask you for updates. >>  Do this over a simple WhatsApp group
>>  Use apps. The way you can set reminders for meetings or medicines, set reminders prompting you to log what you eat
>>  Offer yourself rewards after each successful logging of a food
>>  Invest in tools such as Continuous Glucose Monitors (CGMs) to track the impact on your blood glucose on an app