“Eating without hunger and eating because it is time are our biggest mistakes”: Dr Gauri Rokkam

Award-winning yoga expert and nutritionist Dr Gauri Rokkam’s new book Craft Your Wellness: Balance Your Mind, Body, and Spirit (Fingerprint Publishing, INR 299) is a result of her study of ancient Indian scriptures along with modern scientific insights to healthy living. Using principles from naturopathy as well as the latest nutritional research, her book highlights the transformative power of mindful eating.

Connecting the dots between diet and mental peace, Dr Rokkam explains how the principles of yoga enhance a healthy lifestyle. “I love that food can change lives. It does not mend the body in parts, but as a ‘whole.’ When the body is ‘rightly’ fed, it wins battles, and you experience ‘true’ health,” she states.

Dr Rokkam holds a doctorate in yoga and life sciences from SVYASA Yoga University Bengaluru, and a Master’s in food and nutrition from Bengaluru University.

Here is an exclusive excerpt from the book, published with permission from Fingerprint Publishing.

By Dr Gauri Rokkam

Today, we have stopped looking at food as food. We are breaking it down into its components. We cannot use such reductionist theories with food and our bodies. Both are hugely complex, working in synergy, and therefore should not be isolated. That is why looking at the body as a “whole” and considering whether our food is “wholesome” is very important for optimal health.

For the food to be considered healthy, it should not create excitement, be intoxicating, or create cravings. It should also not be heavy and make us feel drowsy after eating. Any food that leads people to any kind of unconscious eating should be considered unhealthy food. We seem to be eating anything tasty. Where it came from, what processing it has undergone, and what’s left of its original form are critically important considerations.

First, let’s understand where we are going wrong. As a nutritionist, I see four challenges around eating.

1. What to eat?

With lots of inexpensive, easily available, and extremely tasty so-called food around, it is a challenge to stick to eating healthy food. We are consuming large quantities of highly processed, refined factory-made foods today. They have hardly any life/prana, nutrients, and fibre. At the same time, they are full of toxins like preservatives, colours, flavouring agents, and more.

How can it add good health to our lives? I know some people feel life is not worth living without such artificially tasty food (read: junk). However, indulging in such eating habits will eventually lead us to a state of ill health, diminishing the value of life itself. The choice is ours to make.

2. When to eat?

Eating without hunger and eating because it is time are two of our biggest mistakes. We are often advised to eat frequent, small meals. This takes a heavy toll on the gut because it is not designed to work 24/7. Eating frequently disturbs its function along with that of hormones that ensure that we consume the right amount of food we need to fuel our bodies each day.

It decreases the satisfaction derived from the mild flavours and taste of natural foods. This in turn leads to overeating and increased cravings for unhealthy food.

3. How much to eat?

The stomach is muscular in nature and can expand. For most of us, years of overeating have resulted in the stomach losing both its original size and shape. Now it can hold huge amounts of food. So, we struggle to feel satiated no matter how much we eat, leading to obesity and other related diseases.

4. How to eat?

The substantial consumption of unhealthy food is sufficiently detrimental, but how it is consumed further aggravates the situation.

We are always encouraged, from a very young age, to eat quickly, leading to improper digestion, and assimilation of nutrients, resulting in digestive issues. The habit of multitasking during eating and otherwise is another huge bane in our times, leading to stress-related diseases.

Eating right alone will not suffice without addressing stress. Unresolved stress can create havoc, leading to a multitude of diseases.

This reminds me of a beautiful verse from Mankuthimmana Kagga, one of the best literary works in Kannada by Sri D.V. Gundappa.

Roughly translated, verse 677 says, “It is not what we eat that nourishes the body. It is what the body can digest that nourishes it. The rest is thrown out as waste. Similarly, what is the value of making life stressful chasing after more than we require? Needs can be met but greed knows no bounds. All we need is just a handful of food, is it not?”

Let’s begin our journey to learn all of the above in detail and equip ourselves to make the right choices regarding food and lifestyle. The body is a wonderful and efficient machine. It needs very little fuel but lots of nutrients to function optimally and be in good health.

However, we seem to be doing the exact opposite, i.e., more calories and less nutrients. Most studies point to the fact that a diet with just a 10 to 15 percent energy deficit that is micronutrient-rich is essential to promoting good health.

The island of Okinawa, Japan, has four to five times the average number of centenarians living and healthy. One particular study on the population has shown that not just lifespan but also quality of life improves with a low-calorie and nutrient-rich diet.

Our bodies work best when fed only after the earlier meal is completely metabolised. That is when the hunger-satiety hormones start working properly. The function of these hormones also requires us to be in sync with the body’s natural circadian rhythm of day and night.

We need to make sure that we eat only during the daytime, have an early dinner, and sleep early as well. Good habits and good health go together.