Shonali's Beauty Diet

I have just finished reading The Beauty Diet by Shonali Sabherwal. The philosophy behind the book is that though diet provides nutrition, it can also make one look good by "helping weight-loss, getting a proportionate body, making your skin glow and your hair and eyes shine". And who wouldn't want that, right? So, I am writing this one to share with you some of Shonali's tips that I have found helpful and easily applicable.
First up, Shonali talks about going local. So when we go veggie shopping, the thing that we all can be blamed for (most of all me) is buying easily available packaged stuffs from your neighboring Safal outlet or the SuperMarket. Shonali says that one should rather go for buying from the sellers of veggies on rickety carts or the Sabji stalls where the veggies are all fresh and certainly far fresher than the packaged stuff that may have travelled far and wide struggling with death and disease just to reach our hands.
Secondly, go traditional. In India, we are becoming rather American in our food choices. And this is courtesy the hectic schedules we lead. So, you have just about fifteen minutes before you need to send that report. What do you do? You eat the first thing you catch sight of. A cheese sandwich, pasta or a cup of noodles...anything. No planning, no guilt, no thinking. Just eating and getting done with it. That means completing the lunch as well as quenching the hunger pang. But eating is supposed to nourish. Today, American fast foods, processed and packaged foods from the West have taken over most of our meal plans. Stick rather to your roti, dal and green leafy vegetables. The standard Indian diet is very healthy and works well in the Indian scenario, says Shonali.
Shonali also talks about treating your meal times as sacred. I totally second that. Normally, I find myself caught up in a whirlpool of things. Even though I schedule, try to manage my time and so forth. I end up missing out on most of my meals. And that is perhaps because I am not prioritizing it yet. This tip will inspire me to now (touch wood!).
I liked a few tips she gave for a healthy snack planning.
Go shopping: which means making a list of all the ingredients you require for your snacks and hitting the stores.
Organizing the snack for each day of the week, putting them in a zip lock bag and freezing. Then all we have to do is defreeze it the day we want to eat it.
A few skin care tips:
Sleeping: No prizes for guessing why it's so important to get a good dose of it on a daily basis.
Clean bowels: If you skip this step in the morning, it will show on your face. There are toxins you are holding in.
Exercise: I love this one. Nothing like working out, going for a run or just jumping to get a rush of endorphins to give you a quick glow for a night out.
Cleanse, tone and moisturize every morning and before going to bed: It works, so says she.
Stay happy, natural and remember to splash you face with cold water right after you wake up. Helps to knock down all the dead cells.
And finally, get a facial every weekend (ahumm, I told you that the book was called The Beauty Diet),
For controlling hair fall, Shonali suggests drinking spinach juice.
There is also a test in the book about how young you really are. It's a reality check on our body. I got an A by the way...(hehehe).
Towards the end we have Shonali giving us a few of her recipes on health food.
I can't wait to try them or the rest of the learning from the book...