Maintaining a healthy weight is important for your overall health and can help you prevent and control many diseases and conditions as it helps you lower your risk for developing these problems, also helps you feel good about yourself, and gives you more energy to enjoy life. 

Dhanashri Khedekar Kale, Clinical and Research Dietitian, is specialized in Ketogenic therapies for Epilepsy and other neurological disorders. She also is a Nutrigenomics counselor and has been in this field for over a decade. Her mantra is 'to acquire, share and serve the knowledge you have'.

Can eat home-cooked food for weight loss

Dhanashri explains, “When you're going for a weight loss program, you yourself should be determined and treat this journey with luxury and not as a shortcut because usually, people are in a hurry of losing weight and don’t realize that with quick weight loss, there always is a yo-yo effect, you can regain weight because the body needs a lifestyle modification. Also, to make that journey smooth, you need a good company who is a qualified dietician who will give a customized plan as per the person's time schedule because it is the convenience that matters if you give a practical diet plan, then that person is going to follow and the compliance is very important. One must have heard about 10 kg weight loss in a month, Scientifically you can loose 1-2 kgs in 15 days. But having said that we cannot predict, how the person’s body is going to react. So, you need patience for that. We also look at the blood parameters in order to rectify any deficiency. That is the right way to start. Then, the water intake is important and the level depends upon person to person. The next thing is to follow up in order to make changes and break the monotony. Also, I believe that with home food, one will definitely lose weight just with portion control.  Having said that, if you have comorbidities, then you need to look for certain food products which need to be restricted or avoided,” she says.

Challenges faced by the wellness sector 

Dhanashri shares her opinion, “There are two aspects, first - the quacks, self-proclaimed nutritionist or dietitian who do the one or six months course and call themselves dieticians, that's a worry. One needs to get a clinical aspect for weight loss as there are hormonal changes in PCOD, Diabetes, thyroid and we need to consider that. The diet prescribed by the quacks can be fatal to the patient. The second aspect is that there are so many health and wellness products in India endorsed by celebrities and the people buy those products as they think that it is healthy but health should not be about celebrities, it should be about your body,” she says.

Be happy with what you have 

Dhanashri sheds light on the subject, “Every individual is different, and finding a diet on Google won't really help. So avoid such things, instead: 

Go for a qualified dietician who will help you out in being healthy and fit. Accept your body type & be comfortable and work on it accordingly. 

Do not be stressed, be happy with what you have, and try to be a better version of yourself,” she says.

Find Dhanashri on:

[email protected]

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dt-dhanashri-khedekar-kale-99164b1b0

(Edited by Rabia Mistry Mulla)