Daily Quota
Instructions
1. Space your meals evenly across the hours you are awake.
Your diet is divided into 5 meals in the day. This division appears to produce best results in our experience. Ideally you should spread the mealtimes as evenly as possible across the hours you are awake during the day. There is no exact time you must consume any food, and if you miss a snack in between meals, not to worry, it can be consumed later with your next meal.
2. Eat the diet as written as much as possible.
Dietary variety is very important. Eating as many different types of food as possible is good for your health. Your diet contains many foods, each one containing different nutrients needed for the body in the right proportions, including carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins and minerals, fiber and water. Therefore, you have something different to eat every day as the ideal diet. If you can follow as written, that’s the best approach. However, if there is a meal option that you cannot eat for any reason, it can be exchanged with any other meal options from the same mealtime.
Foods marked with * in the plan provide you protein. It is important to eat them, and to space the foods evenly across your day. If the diet is too much for you, feel free to eat less than what is outlined of foods that are NOT marked with *.
3. Yes, you can eat dessert (and all the foods in the plan are OK for weight loss).
Fun stuff recommended at the end of the day is to make your diet interesting. Enjoy it guilt-free, if you enjoy dessert. A small treat for yourself, at the end of a diet day, will top off your fullness, and you will be ready to stop eating for the day. Eating this dessert will not reduce your progress in any way, as the plan has been carefully formulated.
4. Drink water. Drinking plenty of water is important.
Aim for about 8 to 10 glasses a day. If you cannot drink a glass of water at once, drink smaller quantity many times.
5. “Free” foods: certain items not explicitly mentioned in the plan can be eaten as you like.
- Black tea / coffee / green tea, diet drinks (such as Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi, Coke Zero etc have no calories. Feel free to enjoy them.
- Coconut water (not the malai), lassi (buttermilk) or clear soups have very few calories.
- Some other examples of food that have calories, but could be considered as negligible, due to the small amount we consume, include paan (beetle leaf), supari (beetle nut), or similar condiments. Sugar-free chewing gum has no calories.
- Also, some people love to eat mint or a small hard candy (orange or strawberry flavored sweets) after meals. These are also ok, if eaten just a couple or so a day.
6. Ingredient weights are raw weights, unless specified.
All weights mentioned in the diet plan are raw, before cooking, unless specified in the instructions. Your kitchen scale will be handy here. On first day, please weigh the amount of wheat flour allowed to you (before adding water or oil). Then, determine how many chapaties / roti / or phulka you can make from that amount of wheat flour. Once you know the number, you need not weigh the aatta every day. Similarly, weigh raw rice on day 1, then cook and keep a measure of how many bowls does it make after cooking. Same rule applies to pulses or vegetables. If you eat fish / chicken / meat, the weight is raw, and without bones.
7. Measure your oil carefully every time you cook.
You really have to be careful about the amount of oil in the diet. It has more than twice the number of calories compared to protein or carbohydrates and it is easy to unknowingly exceed oil intake. The specified spoons of oil is your entire day’s quota for cooking.
8. Oil/butter alternatives.
Feel free to use Oil sprays like Pam Spray to minimize oil consumption. Also, sprays like “I Can’t Believe its Not Butter”, are a good zero-calorie substitute for butter.
9. You can use spices according to your preference.
Spices have calories. However, considering the very small amount that we use, there is no need to restrict spices. Since you will start using less oil, perhaps, food may taste a bit spicy and you may have to reduce the spice level a bit.
10. The type of protein powder/protein bars to get.
Most foods given in the diet are commonly found and easy to prepare. As part of the diet, we sometimes suggest protein powder and/or protein bar. If you are unfamiliar with these foods, you will be surprised how effective they are as part of your diet. The brand we recommend most (because of its taste) is “Isopure”. Whichever bar and powder you purchase, ensure that it does not have too many added components. Powder should be nearly 100% Whey (milk) or Soya protein. These products are available at many retailers, as well as online at Amazon.in and FlipKart.com.
11. Don’t hesitate to get help.
You can always reach us via email at support@dhurandharclinic.com