Hello there.
My name is Harish and I am 46 years old.
I am a vegetarian but I eat eggs once a week.
Problem is that I am overweight by about 15 kilos. My height is 5ft 11 inches.
I do go out in morning and do 30 minutes walking/jogging.
However I am not clear what should be my food intake and how to avoid binge eating.
I have a craving for sweets and need to cut it down drastically.
How do I get out of this craving mode?

Ans:

Diet should comprise of small frequent meals to increase your metabolism.

Include nutrient dense foods with high protein and fibre to increase satiety value and provide essential nutrients.

As you are busy at work, include healthy foods like buttermilk, fruits and nuts as fillers in between meals.

Avoid skipping meals as this will lower your metabolism.

Excess calories at dinner will get converted to fat and will result in weight gain.

Have a bowl of salad before dinner and include fibre rich foods to add bulk to your diet.

Have a cup of skimmed milk at bed time in case you still feel hungry.

Milk has the amino acid tryptophan, which helps in inducing sleep and provides protein which is slowly digested and raises the satiety value.

Ans:

Binge eating is harmful.

Although it may seem you have not put on much weight now, eventually the weight increase will be alarming!

More so, your fat percentage will increase and your lipid profile levels consisting of cholesterol and triglyceride will be high.

This leads to a metabolic syndrome which includes obesity, high fat levels, high BP, and high blood sugar levels.

Make a list of all the healthy food options you can cook and replace the unhealthy food options with low fat and low sugar substitutes.

Concentrate on portion sizes.

Make limited portion sizes so that you do not overeat.

Ans: Dear Balaji,
Overeating usually suggests emotional hunger rather than physical hunger.
This means that you are feeding an unresolved emotion that gets satiated when you eat making you feel less lonely or happier or more loved.
You must identify which emotion is crying out to be fed...so that you can address it and eliminate it from the source.
In the meantime, maintain a disciplined physical fitness routine and alongside work with an expert who can help you trace the overeating to an emotion so that you can be free from this.

All the best!

Ans: Hey Aravind, I know how frustrating this can be. But definitely we can improve.

1. Work on balancing your meals - have nutritionally deficient meals (protein, fibre deficient) can make you feel hungry soon after a meal. Take portion of protein, one portion of salad, one portion of cooked vegetables and one portion of carbohydrates. If you are a vegetarian, you can have 2 portions of proteins

2. Avoid eating only fruits. Club them with handful of nuts or a portion of proteins (hung curd). Eating only fruits will make you feel hungry soon due to their fructose content.

3. Go for a quick walk/jog after a meal. This will sensitise insulin and the cravings will curb.

4. Include 30-45 minutes of exercise daily to help you curd overall cravings too.

Also, you can check for HOMA IR index (requires 8-10 hours of fasting) - this tells you if you are insulin resistant. Symptoms apart from feeling hungry and sweet cravings for insulin resistant are Dark patch on neck, skin tags around neck and under arms, feeling tired all the time, frequent thirst and urination. The tips I mentioned will help you reverse insulin resistance too. :)