In 2020, take back control of what you eat. Here is nutrition expert Rujuta Diwekar's cheat sheet to help you reset yourself in 10 days for better sleep, less bloating, more energy.
Pre-breakfast
Eat a banana or any other fresh fruit first thing in the morning. You can also eat soaked almonds or soaked raisins. But don’t start your day with tea/coffee.
Breakfast
You can have a traditional home-cooked breakfast like idli, dosa or poha about 45 minutes to an hour after the pre-breakfast snack.
Mid-morning snack
You can have a fresh fruit or a home-made laddoo or barfi. Or a seasonal/home-made drink, such as coconut water, buttermilk, nannari or nimbu sherbet. The Ayurvedic wisdom behind including these drinks during the day is to stoke the appetite, ease digestion and boost the immune system.
Lunch
Add ghee, the ultimate Indian superfood, to every meal. It is a fat that breaks down other fats, reduces sweet cravings and is excellent for digestion, keeps joints healthy and skin glowing.
4-6 pm meal
The key to losing weight lies in what you eat between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m.. It is a time when most of us are the most hungry and also the most careless in our eating. You could eat a chapati with ghee and jaggery or choose between poha upma, dosa, egg-toast, murukku or home-made coconut, gram or gond laddoo. If you have early dinners, then just have some groundnuts with jaggery.
Dinner
For dinner, eat rice with sambar, rasam or dal and any vegetable. Pick hand-pounded or single-polished rice, instead of brown rice for your everyday use. This easy to digest and complete meal also improves sleep quality. It is suitable for people of all kinds of constitutions according to Ayurveda.
