A book to be chewed and digested.
To write something in the non-fiction category in a gripping manner, is not an easy task. But, Rujuta Diwekar succeeds at it. If her previous book,“Don’t Lose Your Mind, Lose Your Weight”, dealt with 4 important nutrition principles, her latest best seller, “Women And The Weight Loss Tamasha”, delves into 4 indispensable strategies pertinent to different phases in a woman’s life – nutrition, exercise, sleep and relationship strategies for teenage, premarital period, pregnancy, motherhood and menopausal stage. The ‘tamasha’ or joke lies in the idiosyncrasies of women in our society – their attitude to weight loss, their reasons for weight loss and the extent to which they go to achieve it. The purpose of weight loss could be anything from fitting into an old pair of jeans, looking good in a photograph to finding the right groom but sadly not HEALTH! All these are mirrored in the book in an outspoken, witty and humorous style.
Some of the initial chapters are so empowering – the author appeals to women to not always play second fiddle to somebody in life, but instead prioritise themselves, love their bodies, nourish them and stay fit. All through the book she reiterates to shift the spotlight from calories to nutrients. The emphasis is also on eating fresh food and not microwave heated left overs – a definite red signal to today’s modern life style. Thumbs-up to the chapters on Hypothyroidism and PCOS/PCOD. The author’s art of simplifying complicated topics with examples, so that readers’ get a grasp of it, is commendable (a common trait of excellent orators and writers). She draws instances sometimes from movies, sometimes from automobiles and yet other times from organising a stage show.
Other highlights of the book are:
- The boxes with extra information – they offer info about frozen eggs, plastics and hormones, adiponectin and what not! (These are personally my favourites).
- Samples of 3-day diet recall with evaluation and modification.
- The appendices with a comparison of breakfast foods, effects of low-calorie diets, about foods misinterpreted to be healthy and nutritional deficiencies.
If I were to rate this book according to the famous English Philosopher, Sir Francis Bacon’s saying,
“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested”,
I would place it in the last category. The book has a wealth of info right from the beginning to end and deserves to be read, reread and imbibed into life. It is indeed a book to be chewed and digested.
If you have read this book, express your views in the comments. There is a lot of space there for you to voice out your opinion. Oh, come on…drop in a line or two.
You could also suggest other books that are worth reading.
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