Category: Fight with fat

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Samosa Queen

That would be me. There was a time when the only samosa queen I could have imagined myself as, would have been the kind who outdid everyone at eating samosas. However, now that I am a grown up respectable SAHM-to-twins kind of a person, the said epithet has many more dimensions.
In fact, since I’ve had the twins there are times I find myself doing things I could never have seen myself doing… it’s a kind of surreal, out of body experience.. when I look at myself and think ‘Is that really me?’
And so it was when I found myself surfing the Net for a recipe to make samosas. The kids had something called National Day which meant they had to dress up in Indian clothes and carry and an Indian snack and I was instructed to send samosas. They are just not for the readymade ones. I looked for frozen stuff too but gave up when everyone said they had too many preservatives. Google it was then who came to my rescue.
Of course I knew the basics having eaten millions of them. The filling was easy enough – I added some beans and peas to beef up the health quotient of the potatoes. U Tube taught me how to do the dough here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x17wnChUfY . Then it was simple.. roll small rotis, cut in half, make a cone, fill, seal, fry on slow heat. Pretty doable, I thought.
However, the first one I put in, puffed up like a blooming flower in fast forward and spilt out its entire contents… so did the second and third. I think I hadn’t sealed them properly. After that, the fourth, fifth, sixth.. in fact almost all, fried to perfection. Was I thrilled! The kids loved them… at least Hrit did. Naisha barely tolerates food so if she ate even one at school I am happy.

That’s how the samosas turned out..



THE BAD ONES..



… AND THE GOOD ONES
And that’s how the kids turned out
One of the rare times when they posed perfectly…

.. and then brotherly affection took over.

Points of note: 1. Naisha has her breakfast tucked away in the corner of her mouth
2. Hrit wore that smiley to even things out because he had no accessories like Naisha who had bangles and hair clips

It would seem that ”God helps those who persevere” holds true in the kitchen too, not just in the gym.

While on the gym.. that’s the reason I’ve been a bit laid back on blog posts. I’ve been in exercise mode these past few months. I try to squeeze in short walks when I can, along with the gym and am happy to see some progress. However I still don’t fit into the top which I once could, six months back… so I’m not sure I can call it progress.. I need to reach the base point before I can start talking about actual ‘weight loss’. Sigh!
Oh one happy thing.. a new entrant in the gym asked me if I was married.. Heh heh heh… how’s that for a compliment! Or maybe she thought I was an sulky old spinster. Humph!
Anyway, what with heavy duty cooking and exercising this past week’s been pretty adventurous. I also splashed hot oil on my arm and am currently sporting some awesome blister/boils. I’ll spare you guys the pictures only if I get enough sympathy comments.
PS: I caught myself spraying the loo with my favourite deo. I was just glad I wasn’t spraying room freshener on me. Senility?
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Happy or Sad?

 

Sometime back I stumbled upon this contest at Indiblogger where you had to write about an instance that made you happy and sad at the same time. Finally now that the contest is ancient history, I have my moment.
The happy news – I lost some weight.. well not much weight… but some solid inches for sure.
The sad news – the weight loss translated into the loss of a dear loved one. My jeans. If you think I’m too much of a material girl (if I can call myself that at 40, ‘girl’ I mean) let me tell you it’s no ordinary pair. It’s my newest possession, about a month old (that’s no age for anyone to be declared dead) and it was love at first sight. It was the perfect blue denim with these cute shiny Swarowsky things at the sides – a real prized possession. Besides it cost almost 4K (The Husband must NOT read this). And now, sigh!, it’s a misfit.

 

According to the ‘think positive’ philosophy that I’m determined to follow I must concentrate on the happy thought of the weight loss.. but it’s really too early to raise a toast, if I’m honest. These vacations I piled on calories like never before — total lack of exercise plus FOOOOD. How I binged and how it showed.

 

So what I’ve lost is just the tip off the four-kg fat iceberg I piled on. Can you believe that .. four kgs in two months! Damn that ice cream, that kulfi, that Lakhnawi chaat and those ghee steeped paranthas. What’s worse the voice of my conscience (that’s my mum) was quiet because she was busy managing work and my not-too-well dad. She had a guilty suspicion she’d driven him to falling ill by her constant nagging about his weight. You see she’s the conscience of the entire household. And so, though she did bring up my weight, she wasn’t really in form.

 

Back from Lucknow, as I browsed at Shoppers the only T shirt that fitted me was a bright red one… unfortunately it bore the inscription ‘I love my bump’. The only bumps I had then were goosebumps.

 

I have been slogging it out most conscientiously at the gym since that fateful day.. trying to squeeze in 6 days a week plus a short walk when I can.  And look where it’s landed me.
This pretty friend of mine will now be relegated to the dark confines of the they-don’t-fit-me-anymore clothes’ cupboard, waiting to be worn again some day. Only I can’t but hope I never fit into this one.. or do I?
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It’s a tough road to travel

Try anything worthwhile and there are a hundred roadblocks and so it is with trying to stick to a sensible diet. Here’s my list of the toughest pitfalls.

Picture courtesy Google images
Kids.. They are the biggest roadblocks of all. It was all much much easier before they came along. I’d simply NOT keep fattening stuff at home. Our fridge never had butter or cheese or chocolate sauce or Nutella (yum). Not so now. I have to keep the fridge stocked with all of those plus mithais and sweets. It’s so easy to pop in a chocolatey, gooey éclair each time you pass the fridge. What’s worse, I have to make stuff they love which is invariably fattening.. aaloo paranthas, French fries, puri-aaloo, pastas loaded with cheese, groan…. And then I have to say ‘Eat Eat Eat’ to them while saying, “DON’T EAT DON’T EAT DON’T EAT” to myself. What a trial.
What do I do: Well I make watered down versions for myself. A muli parantha for me when it’s aloo paranthas for them.. a pasta dish heavy on veggies minus the cheese for me while they tuck into the cheesy version.
Stress…. And there is plenty of that thanks to Point No 1. Each night after we’d put the kids to sleep the husband and I would order tubs (yes tubs) of Natural’s Ice Cream (isn’t it heavenly?) and demolish the entire tub between the two of us. That was our way to relax. As soon as the kids were asleep we’d crave something scrumptious. That’s when the kgs started piling on.
What I do: Plan. I now keep something low fat and delicious for the night. I get the maid to chop fruit or I make some yummy honey/lemon tea. Well it’s not a Natural’s tub but we make do.
Weekends: All week I’d be carefully counting calories… avoiding anything that was remotely fattening. Then along comes the weekend and I think I can relax a bit and bang… my dieting takes a plunge. All my calculations go for a toss.
What I do: Again, planning seems to make it better.
Parties… All those birthdays I go to thanks to… yes once more it’s Point No 1.. and the yummy foods on display… all of it necessarily fattening. Tough to resist.
What I do: I choose the lesser evil… Make a beeline for the salads, pile up the raitas, missi roti over puris, mixed veggies over koftas.
Formal dos… These are worse than regular parties where you can hide and escape…. Husband’s boss’ party or at the in-laws (specially if they’re new ones), and the boss’ wife/MIL saying — Why aren’t you eating? Oh come on.. you can diet another day. Have some kheer, na. Dead dead dead.
What I do: I load my plate with everything on offer.. yes everything. Then I eat just the healthier stuff while letting the dangerous things rest on the plate. Then when the dinner is winding down I quietly dump all of it. Wastage ..I know. But then I read somewhere, “It’s better to let food go to waste than go to waist.”
That’s it then for now… eat well and eat carefully.
PS: Incidentally one of my favourite quotes is “Everything I like is either illegal, immoral or fattening”
BTW there’s a page on FB by that title too. Talk about like-minded people.
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The great battle of the bulge

No prize for this one but I did get a special mention at the Blogadda contest ‘Good over Bad’.. yay yay yay. Here’s what judge Vidya Sury had to say…

Tulika (yes, I scrolled your blog to find your name) – more power to you! You’ve proved that one of the really ‘good’ qualities of an individual is the ability to laugh at the self. Humorously presented – and fun to read, you’ve waged the battle against that “bad” xxl and emerging victorious on the path to looking “good”. Yes, when you talk about health, good is certainly better than bad. Listen to your body talk to you!


This is what I think I look
like when I exercise



 This is the story of the war I’ve been fighting for as long as I can remember — the battle of the bulge — the biggest battle of my life. There has been no truce for nearly thirty years.

For many many years I had been on a winning streak… till my twins happened. The enemy, finding my attention diverted, attacked with full force. By the time the kids turned four and I took cognizance of the situation, the enemy stood waving its victory flag all over me. My cholesterol was soaring and my knees hurt from carrying the excess weight. My ten chins showed themselves off proudly like the ten heads of Ravana. I needed to take charge. It was gym time.

I took on aerobics six times a week. I loved the music and thought I’d have fun. My mistake. Ten minutes into the session and I was spent. I stood panting by the stepper. “Giving up?” Taunted all of my seventy kgs? “No way,” said I and on I went driven by will power alone.

There were days of kickboxing, which I thought I would enjoy till the instructor told me to do sixty kicks in a row followed by sixty punches…. My shoulders protested, my thigh muscles cramped but on I went kicking and punching away at the enemy.

Then there were Fridays.. bhangra days. Now, I NEVER dance, never ever. Not even a casual step or two. But I was a woman on a mission. Fridays saw a resolute me boogeying to bhangra beats. I thought that was as far as the War would take me.

My mistake again. The instructors introduced Salsa every Monday. Slasa and me??? My friends laughed … but did I back out? No. On I went. “One two three.. five six seven..… move your waist,” exhorted the trainer. I struggled to move my feet, my waist and my hands in time to the music holding on to an imaginary partner. Once I lost my self-consciousness it wasn’t so bad. I began to have fun. And the icing on the cake – it wasn’t hard work like the bhangra.

After a well-rested Sunday I entered the gym thinking of a cool Salsa session. But is a war ever easy? No sir. The gym replaced Salsa with Hip Hop. Gawd I don’t even like watching that. But where was the choice? Shahid’s song boomed out — Dhan tanan.. Half a dozen youngsters shook, moved, jiggled and jogged. I thought I would die before I’d try those jerks. But I didn’t. The second week there I was again, yes all of my 40 years and 70 kgs, trying to keep pace. I never dared to glance at the mirror at my ridiculous self. I hated it.. every bit of it. But I did it… again and again every week.

For two long months the weighing scales refused to budge. Then slowly.. very very slowly.. gram by gram.. they moved. Within four months people were commenting.. my XXLs are now XLs and I’m waiting for the Ls.

I war with fat because I love myself. Oh yes I intend to be around for a long long time.. my kids need me and I like being alive.

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Fat or what?

“Mama all the children are calling me motu”, cried H. His complaint brought an involuntary smile to my lips. It wasn’t that I was insensitive to his pain .. it’s just that it was so incongruous. One he is not fat.. at all, two even if he were, at four years of age he is just too young to start worrying about it.
In any case, he didn’t appreciate my smile at all and added with a wail, “They are teasing me mama.” I quashed the smile, gave him a hug and told him to not bother about it.
Even as I said that I knew I was asking for the impossible. At forty years of age, on the wrong side of 70 kgs, when someone tells me I am overweight it raises my hackles and in my mind that person is forever branded as insensitive and rude. And here I was advising a four-year-old to not mind his friends.
Predictably enough, he wasn’t convinced. “You give them a shout, please.” he then proceeded to escort all the kids in the playground, one by one, to their respective mothers and they were all dutifully admonished.
Kids can be quite ruthless and I do hope this teasing doesn’t stick.. once they figure out how much it distresses H I’m sure they’ll take to it with greater gusto.
What’s worse if it sticks, it stays for life.

Like it did for me. Never in my life have I been able to consider myself ‘not fat’ – thin is of course a dream. When I look back at some of my school pictures I realise I wasn’t really fat at all then.. but at that time I remember being constantly distressed about the weight — right through adolescence to — now.
I lay the blame squarely at the door of my sister and cousins. All of you guys, it is just because of you painfully thin, malnourished creatures that my chubby frame was so conspicuous. And the teasing… I don’t even want to start thinking about it.
I am having the last laugh, however. As we’ve grown older the ‘fat’ has caught up with ALL of us and ALL of us are having to work equally hard to keep it off. Hah. For me it’s an old enemy, so old that it’s almost become a part of me, a friend almost, by long association. I can handle it so much better. Double hah.
But don’t worry.. being a better human being than all of you I shall share my experience and wisdom. Write in for advice.

But I digressed… about H .. I do hope he never ever gets stuck in a body image like I did. I do hope he learns to be happy the way he is. But I do do do sincerely hope he NEVER EVER becomes overweight. Oh and N too.. though she’s so on the other side of the spectrum I don’t think I need to worry. Ummm… not yet at least (one can never tell with the evil ‘fat’).

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