Did Bebo put on weight within a week? - Page 2

There are many myths and rituals attached to what to eat when you're pregnant, and many women find themselves facing a huge dilemma about dietary changes during their pregnancies. From eating more than the usual amount (because hey, there's one more person I'm eating for) to gorging on healthy Western grains and veggies, we've tried it all.

But trust actress Kareena Kapoor Khan and her friend Rujuta Diwekar, the well-renowned nutrition and wellness expert, to stand apart from the crowd. In an hour-long online talk (part 1 or a 3-part conversation on food, fitness and pregnancy), the fab-and-fit duo broke some of these myths about what to eat during pregnancy.

Both insisted that no two pregnancies are the same, and one shouldn't blindly follow a diet plan because a celebrity endorsed it. Kareena also said that food and a good diet is a very personal experience, and what she craves might not be what you would ever want to eat.

And guess what the Jab We Met star craves the most these days? It's karela! Yes, the actress actually likes the taste of bitter gourd, and refuses to add any sugar to make sure the bitterness fades away. "I like the fact that it has a slightly pungent, bitter taste to it," she says in the video which was posted on Rujuta Diwekar's Facebook page.

Also read: 6 food items you might be eating at the wrong time of the day

Now you might not like the taste of karela yourself, but you don't need to eat it simply because your favourite and fittest actress does it. In fact, that's the very point Kareena makes in the video: Every body is different, and so is every pregnancy. The key to a healthy pregnancy is to "stick to whatever you've been doing."

This, of course, does not mean you should be overeating. But you should in fact rely on locally produced, seasonal vegetables and fruits to prepare your meals. While using local ingredients and eating homemade food might not be as popular as eating quinoa or chia seeds, that's actually what your body needs most of all. Rujuta uses the recent turmeric lattesensation as an example.

For those who don't know, turmeric latte is actually a version of the very Indian haldi doodh. But it made a huge comeback in its country of origin, India, after the rest of the world went crazy over it. "We are constantly waiting for the West to approve of something before we eat that," Rujuta explains. So the idea is, eat what you have been eating for a long period of time, because that will keep the balance in your body and life intact.

Most women tend to forget that pregnancy is a part of a woman's life, and we don't really need to do anything out of the way before, during, or after it. In fact, if you want to have a healthy lifestyle and pregnancy, then you should make the changes long before you get pregnant, and not right after you conceive. The focus of our diet should be to use all the vegetables available during their peak season, be it beetroot or gourd, to maximum effect.

Also read: Healthy food can be tasty too, let an expert tell you how

This does not mean that you should overeat anything. Kareena and Rujuta both insist that overeating, desserts, midnight snacking and binge eating should never be indulged in, pregnant or not. If you crave sweets, indulge in some homemade sooji, besan or pinni laddoos like Kareena does, instead of relying on shop-bought goodies. The other sensational takeaways from this interesting conversation relate to two food items we Indians love: dahi and ghee.

Rujuta clears the air about the whole 'when to have dahi?' question, by stating that if set at home, you can have yogurt whenever you want to. And with regard to ghee, both maintain that it's something we have been used to since our childhood, so continued consumption can't suddenly make you fat. Rujuta even suggests that it's good to have ghee in the post-pregnancy period, because it helps your metabolism and is good for your health when taken in small proportions to flavour food.

Kareena and Rujuta also released their Mental Meal Map, a diet plan that can help you stay away from overeating, and yet make you feel light and energetic throughout the day.

Mental Meal Map:

Step 1. Visualise how much you would like to eat.
Step 2. Serve yourself half of the visualised portion on your plate.
Step 3. Take double the time to eat the meal.
Step 4. If you're still hungry, just start again from step 1.
Half portion + Double time = Energetic and light

The obvious message of this talk is to encourage women, with the brilliant example set by Kareena Kapoor Khan, to respect and use local and seasonal produce, while at the same time sticking to what we've been eating all our lives without running after ingredients that need to be imported from across the world. Staying healthy is something that can be achieved by being in sync with your immediate ecology, and that's just what our bodies are naturally tuned to do.