Hello! After almost a month!

Hi everyone,
This blog was started as a diary towards my journey to weight loss. But then after 5 days there were no more posts from me!

I know whoever has visited this blog during this time (I swear, people visited it! I checked the stats. I am pleasantly surprised :D). Okay, where was I? :P
Yeah, whoever has visited this blog during last 25 days, must have got some pity for me! Alas, one more dieter who couldn't keep her diet going!


BUT! (And I am saying that with a bigger butt now, pun intended, squats work!)
I did not leave my healthy eating habits and workout regimens during this time. I was used to blog from my phone using the blogger app. It messed up big time and I simply didn't have enough time to reset everything! Sorry folks :(

Neverthless, I am at my current weight of 69 kg today. It's been exactly one month since I started this blog.. yay..!! Happy one month anniversary! And I am 5 kg lighter!! 5 KGS..!!

During this time there were lots of ups and downs which I will share with you all. I hope blogger app doesn't act up this time in phone. I would try to blog everyday.

An overview of what happened in last few days: I basically got insights. You know the kinds, like great saints get just before eloping in woods!
- Emotions, eating and emotional eating
- Cyclic patterns in women, more than just the stuff people talk about secretly!
- Will power, will power expenditure and it's consequence in long term
- Dieting is as evil or good as you do it
- Healthy habits make you healthy, diet just leverages you to a good state
- Failures, pitfalls and errors are inevitable. How you deal with it is what matters
- Much more.. :)

I also had some mixed moments:
Health wise, I realised I had exercise induced allergy (allergy due to exercising)
My cousin's wedding came in between! Now that's a challenge to a dieter!

Also, conversations with few friends led me into thinking, Indian have biggest problem of 'what should we eat while dieting'. I would cover that up as well in coming days.

For now, I am signing off.

Loads of love,
Determined Diva.

A walk in the Garden

Good morning folks,
Diwali is still in the air, and by that I mean pollution!
My morning started very gloomy. Everyday I wake up with good amount of sunlight peeping through my window. Yesterday, to avoid pollution I had my AC on (I know, I added to the pollution). So windows were closed. I woke up in entire darkness. Bad start!

I decided to turn a bad day into good one. Got my sports shoes and got ready for light stroll in the garden. I got some shoe inserts to support my foot arches and help me recover from my shin splits.

Garden air.. sweet smelling flowers, birds and some senior citizens. I felt and enjoyed all these things as eveyone usually does in a garden. But then after a few minutes into the walk, my eyes got fixed on shoes of a girl walking ahead of me. And I got real disturbed!!

Her shoes looked in utterly bad shape. Nike shoes in such shape.. shame! Totally ill fitting, her foot rotating inside the shoe in random directions. I had just yesterday wrote so much about shin splints; and here this girl walked like this. I kind of felt hundred walkchins echoing inside my head, telling me to go and inform that girl. (Btw, walkchins are mirror brothers of munchkins, who like walking instead of munching!)

Controlling that urge seemed like an herculean task!

So a little pat on back for not approaching random people in garden with unsolicited advice! Looks like this blogging thing is creeping in my day to day life too :०

A few minutes passed by, I saw a couple. Grey hair, 65 something. The man looked atheletic while the woman looked over weight and debilitated. She had some custom made shoes on her feet and she could only take a step of half a foot at a time. The husband calmly was holding her hand and encouraging her to just keep going in similar pace. It was one of the cutest things I saw. I had my eyes teared up, I kind of paused and just stood there. Then smiled and moved on.

Looks like there will be more trips to the garden henceforth :-)

Keep Loving,
~ Determined Diva

Diet sweets and diwali

So the diwali is still here.
While my leg is recovering from shin splints, I decided to do some light walking on the road.

Gym is closed due to diwali, remember? :-(

So here I was feeling good about doing a light walk and sticking to my diet. Everyone else was easting plates full of sweet sevaiyaan!
What do you do when people tease you? You make something better tasting and yet something within your diet and tease them back ;-) B-)
So I went into the kitchen to make some savoury sevaiyaan fully loaded with veggies.. yummy, delightful, masaledar yet healthy. Win win..!! :party :party

By the time sun kissed the middle of the sky(I am just trying to use fancier words like those for an afternoon), my mother decided to feed me kheer! Now why on earth mothers are so emotional? Well, may be because they are mothers :-D
So she and me reached an agreement. I would only eat kheer worth below 150 Calories. Now that's where I trapped my mother ;-)
She asked me calorific value of milk, vermicilli and sugar. As soon as I told her the numbers, she looked frozen in confusion. Now that looked like a perfect occasion to eliminate ghee from recipe, substitute buffalo milk with low fat milk and cut down sugar to just 1/4 amount of the original.
I told her to grab some kesar to give it a rich feel. Kesar wouldn't make us fat.. :party
So I ended up having a small katori of kesar sevaiyaan kheer. Still happy though,  it was well under 150 calories that I budgeted for it. I swapped my lunch with mixed fruits and some salad. So still a good day.

Hope all of you are sticking to the diet as well. It's 80% diet and 20% exercise towards a good body.

If you are craving some sweets, prefer something lighter like kheer. Which have bulk and yet a little forgiving.

Have a happy and nutritious diwali.

P.s. I am avoiding crackers too. I want healthy lungs, beautiful skin and hair too. Pollution makes it ugly. Please minimise the pollution.

Love,
~ Determined Diva

Diwali sweets and my diet

So it's Diwali here.
The time when most of the people give in to the temptation of sweets and fried food.
I have decided to stick to my diet.
Well, in all honestly, I tried a small spoon of ice cream. It's been almost a week that I have not had a single grain of plain sugar. That ice cream gave me jitters!
I felt like somebody has put some utterly sweet poison in my mouth. And I say sweet, not in a good way.

So my body has gone out of habit to eat so much sugar.
I know if I push myself to eat first four bites of anything sweet, remaining portion of it would be finished within seconds.
But lets not do that :-)

Moreover my gym is closed for 3 days. Diwali holiday.. yay..!! :party
Not very joyous when I think about feeling lethargic again if I don't go to gym :-(
So I might pull out my old dumbbells from the trunk and do a little bit of upper body training while my leg is resting.

You all lovely people have a safe and happy diwali.

Thank you for reading about my journey.

Love,
~ Determined Diva

Managing Shin splints

Hi Peeps,
So I was down with shin splints. As I already have told you all about shin splints, which feel like pain in front portion of lower leg, can be quite debilitating.

Yet I have managed to stick to my diet. I am feeling a little derailed due to injury. But as they say, whether a day is good or bad depends on your attitude; I decided to make it good.
Eating salad, yogurt and boiled legumes. Feeling pretty good. Light and healthy.
Will not weigh myself for a week, instead will be happy about how I am feeling aboyt my body :-)

Now lets talk a little bit about shin splints.

So what causes shint splints is, extra shock to the lower leg, for example running on treamill. It can be due to:
1. Improperly fitting shoes
2. Sudden increase in running/treadmill speed, distance or duration
3. Uneven surface or slope
4. Flat foot, unequal leg lengths

How to treat it?
1. Rest
2. Ice
3. Compression
4. Elevation
5. Evaluation

1. Rest- give the leg complete rest. Do not walk around or exercise for next 72 hours.

2. Ice- apply ice pack over painful area

3. Compression- use compression bandage to give some pressurr and support to the affected region

4. Elevation- keep you feet elevated. Easiest way is to keep 4-5 pillow under your feet

5. Evaluate- if the pain doesn't improve in 72 hours please refer to your doctor.
And after the pain subsides evaluate the reason of injury and fix it.

Other tips:
1. You can take a pain killer everyday to manage with pain and help in recovery

2. Keep your treadmill in gym always atleast 1% inclined to reduce incidence of shin splints

3. If you have flat feet, wear shoes with arch support built in.

4. Massaging the area lightly may also provide you some relief.

5. Warm up before the workout to reduce injuries

6. Stretch to keep your muscles flexible.

7. Keep the muscles of your leg (tibialis anterior) strong by working it out. It is generally very neglected by everyone.

Image source:http://www.nhs.uk

First speed breaker- Shin splints

Murphy's law: If something can go wrong, it will.

This seems to be working with all the force in my case.

I was determined to work out and eat healthy. So I chose to do some cardio.

Walking at the pace of 6 km/hr, felt good for 10 mins. And then.... my lower legs started hurting! Ouch!
I pushed my self to walk more but the pain kept getting worse, I had to stop. :-(

So little cardio. Still better than no workout. I am still on my diet. I have consumed salad, boiled legumes, brown rice, bran biscuits and low fat milk.

This experience taught me a few things:
1. Some days will be bad no matter how hard you try. Accept the fact, move on and do whatever you still can.. e.g. still eating responsibility

2. Start slow. Slower than your body can tolerate and then slowly build up.

While I am at it, let me talk a little about lower leg pains after a run or walk, on a treadmill or road. They are called shin splints, as they are felt along the shin ( anterior border of the lower leg). They are quite painful and one might need to take a break from workouts due to it.

So, in my next post I would talk about shin splints in detail with a little blabber about my progress.

Love,
Determined Diva

The new beginning Starts

Hi, everyone.
I know at this point of time, everyone probably means no one. Yet I will blabber. Why? Simple! Because I am silly :P and every blog has to start somewhere :)

So I have started this blog towards my weight loss journey, and as we say 'beginning is half done'.. so I should probably stop typing and run towards the weight scale.. I might have lost half of my weight *eyes shining like glistening top of a freshly baked bun*

After this momentarily celebration, I should tell you a little about my self.

I am a twenty something medical student. Yes, doctors can neglect their weight too! And trust me they feel double amount of guilt, for they know a lot and yet haven't cared.


I weigh 74 kgs and i am 5'4" tall. Weigh... over the ideal weight!
I have a few health issues, which was the prime reason I had so much interest in biology and ended up being a doctor.
 The relevant ones include, unstable joints and chronic back pain due to exaggerated lordosis which affects my exercise routine.

I have planned on to take the healthy approach consisting of following components:
Healthy eating (Controlling portions but not starving)
Moderate exercise
Stretching/yoga/meditation for added holistic balance.
Building habits instead of crash diets



A little more about me:
I love food and cook moderately well.
Biology has always intrigued me, so has biomechanics. Hence I would also be posting a little information on exercising.
I love word puns, so you might come across them here sometimes, in Italics.

Till I reach my goal weight I will blog under the name of  'Determined Diva'.

Hope to celebrate the revelation soon :party

Love,
~Determined Diva