Diet Expert: Weight Loss, Calories, Digestion, Sugar & Belly Fats | Pooja Makhija | FO433 Raj Shamani

34:22how do people get addicted to this one bite but if you tell someone I love sugar versus if I tell you I love cocaine or I'm addicted to cocaine why do we look down on cocaine addiction because we know it's bad for us but sugar addiction I have a sweet tooth I'm good you better word to do I have sugar cravings. We just give ourselves these labels. But actually it's an addiction. Because sugar hits the same dopamine centers in our brain as does cocaine. It's a reward system. And sugar is eight times more addictive than cocaine. So I should be looking at someone who's saying I'm addicted to sugar eight times worse than when I look at someone who says I have a cocaine addiction.

35:15but we don't we just take it lightly we just take it oh I'll learn I'll change I'll try it's not that if you if you teach people the right way to look at certain foods and certain nutrients and certain subsets of food you can change that yeah you can change that and then people when they are going through an emotional slump when they are at low they get addicted to substances even more and that's how they get addicted to sugar as well here's a question

35:47how should we eat when we are going through a breakup how should we eat when we are going through a burnout how should we eat when we are going through a crisis okay what should we do because this is the time where they will get addicted to all the wrong things right now okay so when we are already downhill okay the trouble with the meal plan becomes is not that is not the fact that we we are we had planned to fail in our eating it's the lack of planning that caused us to fail okay so when you are already downhill or in a crisis the first thing you do is literally make out a 10-day cyclic menu sit down with someone who's not in that same downhill slope like you okay okay if you have uh the privilege of a nutritionist or a friend who knows a little bit bravo otherwise just sit down with a friend just use ai chat gpt fair enough fair enough give a 10 day detailed cyclic menu breakfast lunch and dinner put it up on the fridge give it to the chef if you have a privilege of a help give it to mom give it to a give it to your spouse whoever that this is the way i'm going to eat don't ask me questions even if I don't, I have planned it.

37:10So I will shut up and eat it. I'm not going to crib. I'm not going to this thing. Put these meals in front of me. Let's hope my downhill gets better. That's the I would say that's the only thing that you can do. Because if you're going to live moment to moment, meal to meal, it's one bad choice over the other. Because if you made one bad choice, then you'll say it's a reward and punishment cycle, right? So if you've cheated, then you'll want to punish yourself and say, Who said to eat two lardus for two lardus? Don't eat six hours for six hours. Because we as humans tend to do that, right? You cheated, now punish yourself for it.

37:43Oh, six hours I was good. Let's reward myself with one lardu. So it's that vicious loop. But if everything is planned in front of you, you have planned it, you have prepped it, the food is there in front of you. If you eat the right food at the right time, you're far less likely to pick up the wrong food at the wrong time. Tell me top five right foods or good foods to eat during crisis when you're low your energy is down you're craving almost everything i would definitely eat my protein okay because it'll keep my sugar cravings down i would definitely eat good fats because then my stomach is full longer i would definitely eat higher magnesium rich foods because magnesium helps you calm down lullabies you to better sleep anxiety and anxiousness becomes better so magnesium rich foods could be seeds nuts they're all magnesium rich they're also good fat rich so they go together i would ensure that my hydration is good because i don't want to confuse thirst and hunger because your thirst and hunger centers are so close together in your brain that 90 percent of the time when you think you're thirsty when you think you're hungry you're actually thirsty so i would ensure that my water intake is checked off so that my food and

39:00and five I would do a little bit of love or comfort eating see because you are going through let's say a batch and food at the end of the day is emotional yeah okay now to say I will go through that loss and I will still be a saint is a tad bit difficult so give yourself a little bit of leeway see one meal a day or less than that? One small cheat. One small cheat. See, remember, every bite is information. We all know the importance of information in today's time and age. I want to give my body majority of the time good information. But because of my discomfort or anxiety, give a little bit of naughty information.

39:46Okay? But majority is good so that I'm able to get out of this problem faster. But when majority of the information given is wrong because of comfort eating, you are slower to process this loss or this sadness or this anxiety so it'll take you longer to get out of it if you have given the body the right tools to get out of it you will get out of it faster you'll find a you'll find that light of ray or that silver lining because your body was equipped to finding it this is a self-healing machine all of these moments when you're going when emotional eating is high when you are depressed, sad, tough all of these days, emotional eating is high then mental sharpness also depletes.

40:34So tell me top 5 foods I should eat for mental sharpness. Most of us associate mental alertness to a stronger brain. Okay. But where are your neurotransmitters? Gut. Okay, so it's not these are not brain foods. you have to eat gut friendly foods because for every one signal that the brain sends the gut the gut is sending nine signals back to the brain so your eating can control your mental sharpness to an extreme level but if you are dehydrated if you are protein malnourished if you are eating more sugar lack of sleep, lack of exercise see I will tell you what you can that talk in different formats in different formats same five principles you can apply you can help yourself see that's the magic see a manual this could be that just a simple manual you're looking at muscle cramps look at these you're looking at headaches you're looking at digestive issues you're looking at anxiety memory look at these it's literally magical the application which is exercise non-negotiable because exercise because just like diabetes is a disease being sedentary is a disease yeah okay and how you age depends largely on how you move true and 50 percent of india does not move our physical activity levels 50 % of us urban population are not moving okay women are far more inactive than men and therefore obesity rates are equivalent they did a study between Pune, Mumbai, Chennai six out of ten people are physically inactive and physical inactivity is equal to inadequate aging it's a disease and that's what we have to highlight most people thing exercise is just a way to look good okay when I want to look good but how you look as benefits of exercise is a dot compared to everything else that exercise helps you with mental alertness everything every organ of yours benefits from exercise far more than just your weight okay far more than just your weight so if you learn and when we say physical activity it's movement it's strength training because to make sure that your bones can take this see our body is magnificent but it's actually a skeletal mass and we are ignoring the skeletal structure because our bones are not they're they're a live tissue they're not cement like most people think that they're cement.

43:39They're not. It's a live tissue. And it's made up of osteoblasts, which make and build and osteoclasts, which break bones. And if you don't put weights, or you don't put pressure on your bones, the osteoclasts are anyways doing their job. Because aging causes hormonal changes, insulin resistance, all of those which are anyways making osteoclasts, your breaking cells far more active than your building cells. So if you're not going to do some strength training to activate the blasts, you're just going to be a melting frame. You know, there was one very interesting statistic I read which said it takes 400 repetitions to make a new memory.

44:25Okay? 400 repetitions of anything. But if you do it in play, it only requires 10 to 20 repetitions which is the great saga behind how kids know the wordings of all their lovely songs but can't remember three theorems or definitions, why? Because this is said a lot but 400 times the song has listened 10 times and all the lyrics are closed because it's done in play because it's done in play so if we learn how to do an activity in play, enjoy the exercise instead of a trainer sitting on your head and giving you instructions. If there's any form of movement that you enjoy, that in itself for you is not being sedentary.

45:16Tell me, compare Indian diet versus Western diet. Who is better? Indian. Indian diet is better? Why? How? What? Classic Indian. Classic Indian diet is how your grandparents ate. Okay. Tell me key differences. So I've said this multiple times over multiple forums that if India's invested money to do a... See, right now, if you Google best diet in the world, I got Mediterranean. But look at the Mediterranean diet to us. Very similar. Very, very similar. The Indian thali literally can be an example of the best plate in the world. Look at the Indian thali. We always have a little bit of salad. always have a little bit of fermented achar which is today called probiotics will have at least 2-part sabzi 1-2-part daal or chicken will have carbs carbs are there I'm not saying that carbs are there but it's a balanced thali and if you sit in that thali where they serve it in this order you remember I taught you meal sequencing so when we sit down on a leaf and they come and sequence it for you they actually give it to you in the same format so there is always logic behind what our ancestors have done see if you pick up any trend where has it come from you call it yoga you call it meditation you call it

46:50turmeric lattes where did it come from it's our Vedas and our culturally, we were nutritionally a very apt community. Till we thought that this our house is too boring. Let's ape the West. Let's see convenience. Let's see packaging. Let's see two-minute foods. That's where the trouble arise. If we go back to how our thali was made, our thali is marvelously healthy. Our thali follows, our ancestors have followed what today science will call chronobiology. What is chronobiology? What our ancestors have always done. Sunrise pattern, sunset pattern. Biggest meal is breakfast, smallest meal is dinner.

47:35Always told to us. Today science does studies and researches and calls it chronobiology and then we follow the same thing. Okay, so there was a very interesting study that they did. They took 100 obese women, gave them an isocaloric diet. Isocaloric but divided according to chronobiology. Big breakfast, 700 calories. Small lunch, 500 calories. Smallest dinner, 200 calories. King, prince, popper. Like our dadi said. And then they took group 2. Isocaloric, same calories. But reverse. 200 calorie breakfast, 500 calorie lunch, 700 calorie dinner. Both groups were given for 12 weeks this diet. Group 1 lost double the weight as group 2.

48:23Chronobiology is something that we have been told to do our whole lives. Culturally, us. So when you say which diet is best, if we go back and we do it, we have really our ancestors had masters and BSc and PhDs in nutrition even without doing basic nutrition. But is it different in the North and the South? everywhere is it like North Indian gut is different than South Indian gut the things which South Indian will be able to easily digest and North Indian won't be able to and vice versa yeah because this is all again genes right the Dravidians then classic Indian diet will not seem to be different for all our vegetables will be different our carbs will be different our thali division will be similar if there is fermented iddly dosa there will be roti there will be rice the carb will vary the method of preparing the doodi ki sabzi or karele ki sabzi will be different but are there any major differences between a North Indian and South Indian?

49:29I would classify it to taste, nothing else because in general taste and preferences it's not that oh biologically there's nothing or evolutionary because there's so many years, so many things so many years, the only thing that we have all in common is our thrifty gene our tendency to be storers that's all we have to remember that's why we have to move more that's why our emphasis on physical activity has to be more okay I was going through your Instagram okay and I found out bunch of concepts which were pretty unique for me so I wanted to talk about that and I want to ask you what are these I didn't purposely I didn't open those videos because I was like I'm going to ask you in detail about these things okay so first was travel constipation what's this?

50:16See when your when your environment changes your body's responses change okay when now when we are traveling everything goes hey-wire right your time zones change your water changes your food habits change your sleep timings and your sleep quality changes yeah now all of these have a direct correlation to how your bowels move because your bowels follow an H-M-F rule H for hydration, 3 liters, 2 to 3 liters. M for movement, 60 minutes of your movement for proper peristaltic movement of your bowel movement. And F is for fiber, which is your vegetables and your fruits. Now, when we travel, the HMF goes out of toss.

51:05And your sleep goes out of toss. So So automatically your bowel movements go out of trust and therefore came the interesting word of coining it as travel constipation. Okay. See they are basic fundas. So then what we do? How do we fix it? Hydration, movement and fiber. Don't forget your water. See when you're traveling you will you'll end up paying more for water than in some countries you'll end up paying more for water than beer. Yeah. You're up in countries most of them. So no water is not drinking. focus not doing oh my god 3 euro so we are not drinking enough water we have to focus on your water movement it's going to be it's not one day because of long flights it's not one day but once you're in Europe you have to walk far more than what you walk in Bombay so movement and you just have to include your fiber because their fiber is quite negligible see aat hali has a lot of vegetables they'll put two pieces of broccoli and call it fiber and if you call for an extra plate of vegetables I call for a pizza with extra vegetables they gave me a plate of aubergine as vegetables I was like okay their obsession with eggplant needs to be studied right now especially all these European countries imagine I ordered a pizza and they gave me aubergine imagine the combo they eat vegetarian pizza if you ask aubergine is like just there It's just very high culinary value.

52:39Whatever that is. Okay. Biggest travel we're talking. Tell me a flight, long flight travel routine. Okay. Tonight I'm taking a 23 hour flight. Wow. Okay. So firstly, because of the altitude, your cabin has lesser oxygen. Okay. So lesser oxygen means more inflammation. so what I would do is at least make sure that your omega-3s are at a 2000 so take a 2000 milligrams of omega see because you have to prevent this 23 hours of inflammation yeah to not trouble your body if you make sure of that then when you land jet lag becomes better to tackle so first I would ensure at least 2000 milligrams of omegas to keep my inflammation low because of the low oxygen which is going to be inside the cabin okay okay two it is massively dehydrating to be up there.

53:31It's leeching out literally a liter of water every three hours if I'm right. So make sure you're hydrating that much. Like drinking a lot of water. Water with salt. Not just water. So water with salt. So make sure that you're electrolyting your water. Stay away from the alcohol. I don't drink alcohol. As much as it may be tempting to be in whatever class. I don't drink alcohol in life only. best drink to have on a flight is a virgin mary okay because it's tomato juice which reduces inflammation it has salt and pepper which gives you the electrolytes it has a dash of spice because there's a very interesting study i read which says that our palate the taste buds are reduced to 50%.

54:22Okay. You see, flight food is always more flavored so that you find it tasty. Even the flight snacks will always be more flavored so that you find them tasty because A, because of dehydration. Yeah. Because of dehydration up there and because our taste buds have become less receptive, we are not being able to taste our food very well. Yeah. And that's why it's high sodium and that's why it's tastier. Yeah. We call it the Onami so there are five taste buds okay and there's one onami, onamis which is there in soya sauce and all of these, they are intact, onami, sweet, salt bitter, they are all reduced, that's why onami or most of, most flight food will have higher onami factors it was very interesting I like flight food by the way because of this only maybe because they make it more flavorful they are trying to make it more flavorful and sleep as much as you can that's the best time to catch up your thoughts are anyways going to be lesser because there's lesser oxygen lesser hydration thoughts will be closed you know also there was a very interesting study that I read this less oxygen this less hydration makes you more emotional notice that that movie you will see in flight you will be more versus if you have seen it at home interesting right you tend to become more emotional up there wow I've never noticed but I'll try to notice notice otherwise just keep the focus on the hydration I enjoy comedy movies a lot when I'm in flight so probably that emotion is bumping up but not like sad emotion fair enough I'm more of that rom-com girl so I will watch I will watch that movie and then I'll be like oh

56:06interesting but and of course movement if you will drink enough water you will get up that many times to go to the bathroom so the movement always happens before you hit the loo take 2-3 chakras of the aisle and then go to the bathroom before you go back to your seat take 2-3 chakras of the aisle and then go back to your seat that automatically helps yeah you have a lucky girl syndrome what does that mean? okay so we have a part in our brain that is the filter through which most thought processes filter okay I forget the technical name okay but that's the part in the amygdala which which wakes up in the morning and you start the filter for that so if you wake up in the morning saying wow, today I've woken up fresh and today is going to be a lovely day.

56:53So the body picks up all thought processes that are lovely, happy, make sunshine, make the most of the day. So you tell the brain what to pick. And our brain is attacked with literally tens and thousands of bytes of information every second, out of which it can only pick up some 30 or 35. So that entry point in your amygdala tells your brain, what is it that she wanted today? I woke up saying, slept so badly. I have a headache. So the thought processes then filter through, I'm bad. But when you wake up saying, I'm the lucky girl. God is kind. Everything is there, hariyom, happy, morning you are inducing what the brain has to filter so if you filter happiness automatically you are a lucky girl so it's just that syndrome that you induce to have everyday as a happy day.

57:53Yeah and there are a lot of studies proven which have proven these things I told you I'm a girl of studies and science so if this is a syndrome that we just discussed, it wasn't something that would be on my page. But because the study clinically showed how I can literally filter my thoughts to those to give me that syndrome, then I'm going to call myself that lucky girl. There was an experiment I was reading on the same thing that there were two groups of people, both were given the same newspaper and they were asked to find specific words. And one group, they felt that they were the ones who used to feel lucky.

58:31The other one was like, we don't feel lucky. they were given the same newspaper and the ones who felt they were unlucky they didn't find those words and the ones who thought they're lucky they found those words in much lesser time yeah because your brain is filtering it's getting like tens of thousands of bytes of information every second and then from there it filters that's how magical this machine is but are we loving it and respecting it to its due course? that's the question we have to ask ourselves that we have been given this magnificent body are we loving it and respecting it so that was a very interesting saying that said you can have 99 problems till you have a health problem and then you only have one problem true because if one part of our body refuses to work when we wake up this morning how difficult is it how difficult is it but this body is cleaning, filtering, detoxing, autophagy gande cells nikaalo, nahi cells binao ye chot hai self healing I don't have to do anything you have one more thing which is fake sleep connection with sleep what is fake sleep most people think that I'm finding it difficult to sleep so I'll take alcohol because that put me to sleep very easily because alcohol does that people do that?

59:53yeah so many people do that I need a drink because I can't sleep okay so alcohol definitely induces faster sleep but it disrupts long-term sleep or REM sleep so that's called fake sleep so when you use alcohol to fall asleep faster but are not getting the quality of sleep while you're sleeping that's why in the morning you'll still wake up tired so you had extra to drink or you had one drink to drink whatever and you knocked off but when you wake up in the night you're still tired. That's because you slept but fake slept. And many people sadly are using the crutch of alcohol to say let me stop my mind, let me allow my gum, let me just fall asleep.

1:00:38And that's fake sleep. How would people do that with marijuana and cigarettes and other things as well? All forms of intoxication, trying to make their brain shut down by forceful unhealthy measures to fall asleep but then clearly they are affecting the quantity and quality of overall sleep see when you sleep you have to wake up like a bull ready to charge when you're not doing that is because there's something amiss yeah you are sleeping but you're not rested true and there was one last thing which i wanted to cover was health routine for summers winters and monsoons this is different summer diet different monsoon diet different winters different in winters we tend to forget water okay that's why we somehow say winter it feels like it's not it feels like but the weather made you forget thirst so you confuse the two similar thing happens in monsoons because we see so much water we forget to drink the water okay so that's why the focus changes because our environment is stimuli right when when the stimulus is more and more water, we somehow confuse the two.

1:01:49Of course, in summer, we are losing that much water. But if you're not doing mineral water, then again, you're not hydrating yourself well enough. And also in summers, because of the excessive heat on the outside, foods which are easier to digest just accelerates metabolism. So instead of having pakao haana, the more you have sauteed or kacha haana, it's easier for your body to digest it. so instead of having the same dal chawal sabzi if you make it like a sprouted salad with some carbs in it you had the same dal chawal sabzi but you just had it in another form a spoon of dhai in it some chaat masala in it it's cold it tends to like you could just put cold rice in it like a cold curd rice with tons of sprouts and veggies it's automatically a more delicious meal that you will enjoy in summers versus eating in winters and in winters we tend to have more comfort with warmer foods okay therefore the soups and therefore the hot curries are satisfying that's why that's why winter foods will be more things that are warm stimuli and just changes in the environment in Mumbai we have to keep hot in Mumbai we have to keep all hot we have to keep all hot our winter is not just for showing but our winter is open I'm very happy to wear a couple of nits.

1:03:10I'm very happy to wear a couple of nits. I'm very happy to wear a couple of nits. Bombay weather is hardly any change in winters. Like this is colder than the winters right now. True that. I was warned. I was warned. But I was like okay. Because thundi is difficult to then process mind thought because you're all constantly distracted with the peripheral blood flow trying to keep me warm here. you've worked with a lot of celebrities also you work with a lot of them who's the most disciplined one when it comes to food to the team he can eat the same food and he has things in very simple formats, he's not a very fancy guy if he'll have ragi ka steamed ball, he'll have it everyday for lunch for days and months and weeks and he doesn't get bored so he is diligent even Deepika very diligent that's why she is see I'll tell you what people just have awe of celebrities okay but they don't see the hard work these guys do the boring monotonous regimes they follow for weeks and months to get that look it's not just it's not just of course talent is gifted but how they have to look for a particular role they really work hard Ishaan Kattar works so hard to look that look because it means something to them and all that is hard work it's not just a magic wand it's hard work and that's why they are who they are so we aspire to be like them but if we work as hard as them we will you know because this very interesting theory that I came across that said, looking a particular way, like you said, celebrities like, or losing weight or being healthy or being skinny is rented, not owned.

1:05:19And the rent is due every day. Just you have to follow the same route to stay that way. okay it's rented it's not owned by you you can't put your feet up and say cool done dusted and every celebrity does that as religion to be who they are they pay their dues to be who they are which is why they shine true who's the most notorious one who do you think is the one who's like little things don't do Ranbir when he started was naughty he was like Pooja, you're making my mutton I won't listen to it he also hated my vegetable juice and said I won't drink it but then a couple of years later I met Neetu and she's like Pooja, he doesn't go a day without his vegetable juice not a day I don't know what he's doing today but yes so some amount of naughtiness of badmashi is there in everyone what's there in vegetable juice which you didn't like it's not the best tasting juice right give me Ranbir Kapoor vegetable juice it's three colors of vegetables it's any three colors of vegetables put into a mixi with a little bit of water it could be carrot, tomato, beet, spinach bell peppers doodi any three colors of subzi in your fridge put it into the mixi, little bit of water blend, strain, put 50 % roughage back nimbu, kala namak, slurp yes it won't taste good one time it won't taste good two times but like i said a habit takes 400 attempts if you make faces and have it or 10 attempts if you say i will and this is going to do me good it's going to make my skin good it's going to make my eyesight good it's going to make my digestion good it's going to make my bowel movements good and in 10 tries you will love the vegetable juice yeah yeah so you have to acquire the taste like the first time someone taste vodka they don't like it I don't know but I I'm just saying yeah okay but pee pee we can't forget we can't stop drinking same thing with the vegetable juice you don't start to like it I used to hate my morning juice every morning I have the same juice that I drink celery cucumber beet spinach moringa so that's a vegetable juice every day I drink that the same thing that's a vegetable juice and now I started liking it like now if I don't start with it my day goes bad that oh something was missing yeah something A good health factor, a good feel good factor was missing.

1:08:00It still tastes horrible. But now like my body needs, my body craves it in the morning, that first thing I need it. Yeah, because your body likes it. It's not the tastiest thing in the world, but it's giving your body what the body wants. So therefore you are enjoying it. So that's a perfect glass of vegetable juice. Now, had you put even one fruit in it to make it sweet, I would have said that's not the smartest. But you are doing it just perfect. So that's your glass of vegetable juice. And see, you automatically just love it. Because your body needs it. So you're liking it. Goal goba ke aap koi bi problem pakar lo.

1:08:34The solution is the same. Protein, exercise, sleep, right food and? No, that's what I was saying. No, we didn't do the last one which is target nutrient. So for every purpose there is one target nutrient that will have to be focused on. For example, for bloating it's salt that's the target nutrient for anxiety depression it's magnesium for better sugar balance while you're diabetic it could be chromium piconylate for better immunity it could be zinc for better for better lesser blocked sinuses it could be curcumin and vitamin C. For lesser inflammation, it could be omega-3s. So there will be a target nutrient that can change.

1:09:30So as long as the basic diet is taken care of, then you give that one target nutrient for one specific purpose and you can help that. That's the target nutrient. Well, thank you so much. My pleasure. Thank you for coming here and doing this and explaining the fundamentals. Perfect. And I hope... And the memory thing is stuck with me. I'm going to use it and exploit it to the T. I just love it. That's just something which is... In your case, the memory thing, in some other listeners' case, something that connects with them to be able to enjoy this journey called life and most importantly, enjoy the process in becoming, then it's called mission accomplished.

1:10:15Yeah. Because every person has every person has been put on this earth for a reason. Okay? And I think my reason is to make people realize that with very small changes you can get very big results from this body because you have been gifted this marvelous machine and all we have to do is love and respect it and then it loves and respects us for the rest of our lives. Thank you. My pleasure. Thank you so much for watching this episode end to see you. Now you have to do three things. First of all, subscribe to this channel because as much as you subscribe will be better and valuable guests we will get you for.

1:10:56Number two, I have to tell you in comments about this episode what you like and what bad you like so that we will repeat mistakes. And which guests you want to see back to our podcast so that we will take them and give you more value. And number three, this episode you must have to share with someone. because one conversation can change someone's life. I'll see you next time. Until then, keep figuring out.