Navratri, a vibrant 9 nights festival held in India to honour the Mother Goddess Durga. Fasting is a part of its celebration. Usually people keep the fast for religious reasons but there are some who find an auspicious way to detoxify their body.
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I know a lot many people who observe the fast just to lose weight. But the problem is instead of fasting, most of them end up fasting on high-calorie food. Some people literally starve aimlessly during these 9 days and as soon as the fast is over, they binge on food like anything and end up putting on so much of weight. While others, unknowingly consume much more calories than their daily normal intake of food. Do you think it is the right way of Fasting? No, not at all!!
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So DON’T MAKE YOUR FAST FATTENING and follow the tips given below :
- Keep yourself well-hydrated and maintain an optimum level of fluidity in your body. Try to make a habit of having 1 glass of water every hour. Apart from water, you can have fresh fruit juices, coconut water, lassi, herbal teas etc. Better to start your day with green tea along with 2 dates or almonds.
- Fasting could be tiring for your stomach, so avoid long gaps in between your meals. It would not only prevent acidity and heartburn but also keep your metabolism intact.
- Potatoes and sabudana are two most commonly used ingredients during these 9 days. Replace your all fried aloo recipes with the boiled potatoes like instead of fried aloo chat, opt for boiled one. Sabudana (pure source of carbs) when drenched in oil in the forms of vada and pappad become highly unhealthy. Sabudana khichdi is better option.
- Keep on munching nuts and fruits for mid meal snacks.
NUTS :- You can have handful of roasted makhanas, almonds, walnuts or hazelnuts. They offer satiety and keeps you full and good source of proteins too.
FRUITS : -They have healthy sugar fructose. Just add them to your salad, smoothies and raita.
Basically the rule is to keep eating something every few hours. - Strictly avoid namkeens, chips, pakodas and other fried items as they are fattening and loaded with cholesterol. Rather than frying, try to steam, boil, bake or grill your food items.
- Better to cut down calories by cutting on kuttu and singhara flour. Try amaranth (rajgira) flour as it is gluten free, good source of calcium , proteins and easily digestable too. Roti is better option than puri anytime.
- For your sweet tooth, indulge in fruit yogurt which cools you down and make you feel refreshed. But still, if you can’t resist yourself from gorging on sweet delights like sabudana or makhana kheer and pumpkin or lauki halwa, try to use skimmed or double toned milk and substitute sugar with low calorie sweeteners or natural sugars like honey and jaggery.
EAT SENSIBLY, FIND HEALTHY OPTIONS AND DON’T LET FASTING RUIN YOUR DIET…
HAPPY NAVRATRI !!!