Satkam Divya tells you how to keep yourself healthy this festive season

Can diet alter your health happiness? The answer to this is a certain yes. One has to be thoughtful while eating if you love to be healthy and in shape. Festivals are a sweet delight we all know. However, too much of sweetness comes hand in hand with excessive calories which can hamper your body’s weight and health as well.

Festivals like Holi in which sweet indulgence is a must with no escape formula, it becomes hard to avoid sweet as well as its cravings. Certainly, there is no fixed diet which can be followed during a festive season. Also, each person will have their different set of rules. Like for example a diet suggestion by our grandma and a plan given by a gym instructor will match nowhere during these festivities. But it is an individual’s responsibility to kill those little sweet craving monsters jumping inside or to satisfy them with a little or optional indulgence. It has to be you and only you who can decide what and how much you are going to eat by following your ming or a heart.

• What are the basics of diet which need to be kept in mind during festivals?

Festive season diet is very essential and a beginning to the basics is by stocking the right type of food to munch on during celebrations. Getting your hands on the right ingredients is the best to watch your calories and keeping your diet healthy even amidst the celebrations.

You can choose to go nutty over the nuts since they contain the healthy fats which can help your skin and hair without any further harming to weight. A handful of dry fruits like raisins, almonds, figs, pistachio, apricots, and cashews, are few healthy eating as well as gifting options during this Holi. Dried fruits can also be added to several home-made low-calorie sweets during the festival as well.

It is also important to avoid deep ghee indulgence along with white sugar and instead, switching over to sweets made from jaggery or dark chocolate with dry fruits will be a far better option. Sweets made from white flour, sugar, and ghee must be minimised to keep excessive calories at bay. Eating healthy as well as gifting healthy items must be a proper mantra this Holi.

Spicing of healthy festivals can be done with savory and sweet foods by adding cloves, saffron, cinnamon, cardamom, and black peppercorns and others. Besides giving a good flavour to foods these are enriched with several biological properties to help the health with several benefits. These are also readily available in our Indian kitchens as well.

To keep yourself healthy and fit you can rely on the following tips:

• Try to stick to your daily work out regime if you follow any. Because little more food indulgence with a break of workout regime can trigger a sudden weight put on.
• Cooking fiesta during festivals is a stress buster for many. However, empty stomach cooking might result in snacking on each and every stuff your eyes get hold on. To avoid this, it is best is either to cook while you are not too hungry or keeping unhealthy snacks out of your easy reach in kitchen closets.
• Grocery shopping during pre-festival preparations must be linked with some principles to follow. Like opting for only healthy foods to store and avoiding unhealthy stuff from the beginning.
• Refrain from non-veg meals and opt for more natural vegetables and fruits in meals. Else opt a mantra to keep a balance between veg and non-veg diet with mindful diet instead of binging on non-veg entirely giving the festival a reason to yourself for overeating.
• Always remember to stay hydrated and have plenty of water and other fluids.

 The writer is CEO, KlinicAp