If you are over weight, it’s not all your fault. We have become a sleep deprived society that makes us crave calorie dense food. Our jobs require us to sit all day and travel in car/ bus, so we are not moving enough to send our bodies the signal that we are active thriving humans. We are stressed at work and home, which makes our body think we are in hostile place and it holds on to more fat. On top of that we have easy access to packaged, ultra-processed food. The end result is soaring obesity and diabetes.  Here is what you can do to sanitise your home and life:

1)    Take an inventory of food in your home. Divide them into two categories – red and green zone. Red zone are the ones that are ultra-processed – sweets, chocolates, packaged snacks, biscuits etc. Stop bringing them home. 

2)    Don’t keep  fizzy drinks and juices in your home. They are liquid calories. 

3)    Keep a water bottle or jug visible. Make it attractive so you feel great when you use it. Put some chopped cucumber ot fresh mint in the water

4)    Keep vegetables at eye level in the fridge, not hidden in the bottom drawers.

5)    Plan your weekly meal in advance. This way you will not make decisions out of hunger. When you come home after a tired work day, it is difficult to be motivated to cook something and you end up eating some unhealthy food. 

6)    Eat out of small plate. That’s a great hack for tweaking your hunger signals. 

7)    Keep fruit and unsalted nuts in your home for times when you really need a snack. I prefer to keep shelled ones. Removing the shell requires an effort and makes it harder to gorge on. 

8)    Keep your bedroom, keep and calm. Don’t have overhead lamps in your bedroom and prefer to have side lights and table lamps. 

9)    Avoid having a TV in your bedroom.

10) Keep your bedroom cold when you sleep. 

11) Remove curtains early in the morning so that as much natural light can come.

12) Take home cooked meal to work. 

13) Enjoy a filling, protein rich first meal of the day before you go to work. This will keep you full and reduce your desire to snack.

14) Bring a water bottle with you to work. Try and drink the whole bottle before lunch. When we drink enough water our craving for snack is less.

15) Keep an emergency snack pack of healthy food with you at work.

16) Send your child to school with healthy meals/snack. 

17) Eat mindfully. Not with newspaper or phone or in front of TV. A detailed toolkit on mindfulness is shared in the beginning of this newsletter.