Food Preparation -What I've learnt

When it comes to food preparation, I've learned a couple of things over the past few years.

1. Fresh ingredients and whole unprocessed food is the tastiest.
2. You have to know what spices and herbs you like to make your meals taste fabulous.
3. Freshly made ginger garlic paste is the key to tasty dishes, whether it is biryani, paneer butter masala or tandoori chicken.
4. Jain food (food cooked without garlic and onion) comes in handy when you don't want your mouth to smell of onion or garlic. Granted, most of them add oodles of oil and sugar to everything, but you can change that.
5. Vegetables with low moisture are great to pack in tiffin boxes. Examples include capsicum,carrots,onions,raw cabbage.
6. High moisture vegetables are best eaten at home.(Cucumber,tomato,spinach,mushroom)(They rot when packed).
7. Things like khakhra, roasted peanuts,roasted channa dal,rusk,apples and biscuits are great things to carry with you when you work in a BPO job with ever changing food breaks (sometimes you're not given a break also!)
8. Malabar gourd when cooked in dal should never be taken to office. It turns sours and tastes awful.
9. Master the dishes which your Mom makes so that you can cook it when you crave it.It is good to learn and be self sufficient.No one lives forever.It also saves money.
10. Pasta,white rice and biryani once cooked perishes fast, so cook the desired quantity so that nothing goes waste. We have frequent powercuts in India so cooking in bulk is plain stupid.
11. Prepare a dessert on Friday so that its ready to eat post workout on the weekend.(or whichever is your day off)
12. Whatever is crunchy is a combination of carbohydrate+fat and/or sugar. eg: cookies,puffs,jalebi,vada,chocolate
13. Whatever is fluffy is very high in sugar.eg: bread,cake
14. Modern day bakeries use hydrogenated fat and soya cream in their goods making them ideal for screwing up your hormones and they don't even taste good and leave a film on your tongue.
15. It is never a good idea to pack boiled eggs as a tiffin item. It smells and tastes awful. Fry them in oil or butter if taken to office.
16. When you can't fathom what the milk has turned into, because you forgot to bring it in, convert it into Naan. Add a tsp sugar,salt,1/2 tsp yeast, the "milk" and flour. Knead to a smooth dough and set aside for an hour. Then roll and cook on a pan. No wastage, and everyone loves naan.
17. Take advantage of discounts on vegetables at Big bazaar,foodworld and reliance fresh.
18. Use up items like dal, chickpeas, moth beans,rajma,maida quickly as veevils tend to appear.
19. Always learn new cuisines to keep food interesting. Not only will your nutrition be great, you'll have a greater drive to exercise.

I will update this if I recall more. :)

Aging and its effects

In Indian fitness groups on facebook, predominantly frequented by men, there is often a complaint heard that Indian chicks don't lift. I regret to say that, once I also held the same beliefs.

Once I entered the corporate world, and was subjected to its pressures, I spiralled into ill health.
Its not just the laddoos,cakes and late night popcorn that colleagues force on you.
Some days are just more hectic and you do burn more calories. Eating more carbohydrates would have been the best solution. But when you have paid a self proclaimed transformation specialist who doesn't give a fuck about your nutrient timing and ever changing shifts, you are bound to fail.

We are conditioned to believe that we should never miss a workout by the media. This may apply to people who like to skip hard work. But when you are not sleeping enough and work for 12 hours, you might get more health problems.

Once i injured my back,knee,shoulder and now my eye, my view on fitness and life has changed considerably.
I used to be the mad person working out for 2-3 hours in my college days.That has all changed.
I changed to working out thrice a week.
Now that I'm scheduled for surgery,I will be unable to workout for a while.

For BPO employees, focussing on getting adequate rest is crucial and next comes meal preparation.
Screw working out. You're better off without it.

Also, as an analytical person who likes market research, I interviewed a couple of colleagues and found that the fit males exercise for 5-6 hours once a week.On the other hand, fit women ate small portions and were active on a day to day basis.

Why?
Males have stronger joints and can bear the stress of working out that long once a week.Women have weaker joints and cannot handle once a week overdoing it.

You will also find in these fitness groups that men make fun of women who practice group exercise classes. They assume that women have the same joint strength as them.There is no hope for such people. Lol!

The classic schedule of an IT employee is tight. From the time the cab driver calls in the morning to the time you catch the cab to reach home,its all a nightmare. And in the midst of this shit, you are expecting yourself to eat and workout like a pro athelete and look like a steroid infused dumb fuck.

Quite often,the average bpo employee cuts out the warm up, cool down and stretching to save time. This often leads to back,knee,shoulder and chest injuries.By the time, they figure that their plan isn't good they have a good number of injuries.

Bear in mind that hiring a young PT won't help you, because they make you do plyometric exercises which will most definitely injure you.Do your research and train yourself.

I believe that the book, "Strong Curves" by Brett Contreras is the most underrated book of the century. In lucid language and easy to implement.

Instagram models before and after pictures

Most of us women look at these accounts online and eat even less and exercise even more and eventually burnout and fail. I suggest you go through these pictures and tell me whether you think these are people who will understand your struggle with body fat.
Sometimes, we require ourselves to unfollow such accounts and do what you know is right: small increments in exercise, changes in diet only when needed, focus on getting enough sleep and protein, taking adequate rest days.

The older you get, the more rest days you might require.
In my early 20's I spend 2-3 hours in the gym 6 days a week.Now,at 28 i workout 3 times a week,for sometimes 45 minutes,other times 30 minutes if my joints hurt.
Listen to your body.

Videos most informative on getting rid of belly flab

https://youtu.be/5gSVr8q9IkQ

https://youtu.be/KiZ78JPsXpE

https://youtu.be/8dQkyzUdsM8