Maintaining a healthy weight is important. It can help in the prevention of many diseases. A healthy weight makes one feel good and provides more energy to enjoy life to the fullest. Medicircle has come up with a healthy weight awareness series so that people get aware of the right way of losing weight according to their body types instead of blindly following other people’s weight-loss strategies. 

Dr. Hemal Barchha is a Nutritionist, Homeopath, and Weight Loss Consultant, Kurves n Smiles. He takes care of Nutrition, Diet, and Slimming requirements of people with a mission to make them stay fit and healthy.

Weight Fluctuates 

Dr. Barchha emphasizes that “there are frequent fluctuations in our weight for e.g., after meals, our weight tends to increase by 500 grams or a kg. Similarly, if we have not taken water for long, there might be dehydration, and probably a kg of weight loss due to this. But these are not actual weight gains or weight loss. Permanent coming down of fat percentage is exactly what we can consider as actual weight loss,” says Dr. Barchha. 

Stop aiming to get skinny

Dr. Barchha points out that “It is important to have some amount of healthy fat in the body. It is a notion that skinny people are ideal people in terms of their weight but then being very skinny is also not good, because the muscle strength is very low in such body types. Just like being obese, being skinny is unhealthy too.”

Remove Roadblocks

Dr. Barchha identifies the following roadblocks and stresses to remove them for best results:

• Self-designed diet plans are not according to one’s energy consumption and energy burnout - Nowadays, everyone is under the notion that he/she is an expert in weight loss and can guide others by reading diet plans on the internet. What they do not realize is that people of different body types need different diet plans. Everybody’s routine, eating habits and activity levels are different so one diet plan cannot suit all. 
• People do not set realistic targets – Most of the people are unaware of what their ideal weight should be because they have never tried to calculate it and thus their targets are not realistic, rather based on someone else’s reference point. Calculation of fat percentage is an important criterion to understand how much weight you need to lose and how long will it take. When you burn out fat, definitely the weight would come down.
• The plethora of information is confusing - Lots of information about weight loss is flooded on the internet and is confusing people. People should be self-centric in their plans and take professional guidance for a good outcome.
• Comorbidities cannot be avoided - If one is suffering from any ailment like diabetes, hypertension, or high cholesterol, then weight loss plans should be made without ignoring these.
• Work on metabolism too - Metabolism plays a very important role in weight loss. If metabolism is low, then give it a boost. 
• No yo-yo dieting – If one has lost weight, it should be maintained instead of adopting the pattern of weight loss, weight gain, and again attempts of weight loss of the regained weight

Sleep is Significant 

Dr. Barchha highlights the significance of sleep, “When people talk about lifestyle modification to lose weight, they talk about healthy eating habits and exercise schedule but they somehow miss the third part which is sleep. It's very important to understand that our body needs rest so that it can come out with fresh metabolism the next day. Religiously following a combination of good eating, exercise, and sleep habits will lead to weight loss,” says Dr. Barchha.

Mindset sets the milestone

Dr. Barchha advises, “whenever you start the weight loss initiative, start with a positive mindset because your mind plays a very important role. If you are starting with a negative mindset, definitely your journey would not be that easy. If somebody is pushing you for weight loss, and you are just doing it for the sake of the other person, it's not going to help. So always start with a positive and happy mindset.’’ 

You can get in touch with Dr. Hemal Barchha at: 

Email: [email protected]

Mobile: 9867606664

Address: Kurves n Smiles, Nutrition, Diet, Slimming, Homoeopathy & Mental Health, 307, Corporate Corner, 3rd Floor, Near Dalmia College, Sunder Nagar, Malad West, Mumbai – 400064, Mob - 9930916657

(Edited by Amrita Priya)