A kilo a day keeps the doctor away

Picture shows home grown baby tomato's.

I once was a real gourmet in other words a BIG food lover. I ate tasty food in large quantities.

My wife is a great cook, really loves to experiment and I was an Epicure in tasty food. I did exercise occasionally and managed to hold myself without looking awful but was hovering around 90 KG's.

Food becomes tasty when all the wrong components get into them. In short the more tastier its the more unhealthy it would be. This is what now I teach my Kids "If it tastes real good, it aint good for your health".

My family is mostly fish'eaterians, I think that is a standard thing with Mallus. But I am on the extreme side of it. I love fish with almost anything. Give me fish 5 times a day and you could see me beaming. Fried and Grilled are my favorites.

I alone can consume around one to two kilogram of fish easily in one sitting. On top of it add 15 teas for the day, Couple of them would be Dham Chaya (strong, thick tea, allowed to simmer for around 15 minutes), one payasam after lunch every day, halwa, ladoo and anything sweet. I was crazy abt ghee rice and liked biriyani equally.

Needless to say my wife is an expert in all the foods that I liked and she was experimenting Chinese on top of these. In short she loved cooking and I loved eating. We were a perfect pair.

Here I will tell you about how I took a U turn in my eating habits. Dont get me wrong I still am a food lover but now know where to draw the line.

I was in Dubai at that time. One evening while coming from work I visited my friend in his place. He had helped me initially when I came looking for a job. He was in his late thirties, had no interest in any physical activities, had a mechanical work-eat-sleep routine. A typical Mallu, working in Gulf. During the weekend he went fishing with his friends and that was the best physical I know him doing other than with his thumb on the TV remote.

When I visited him, as usual he gave me sweets, chips and stuff that had come from Kerala. That is very common with him, his friend circle is huge and you can see something in his room 'from home' all the time. I noticed something on his face, it was like oil oozing from his face, he was all glowing, his already big tummy had enlarged, neck looked shortened, it was actually a sickening site. I remember commenting to him that he is putting on weight and he gave me the usual 'no time to exercise' excuse.

In less than a week I got the news that my friend had a stroke and had gone to Kerala for a bypass surgery. After around a month I met him again in the streets of Dubai. Well that’s a wrong statement, actually he met me. I did not recognize him, the guy had reduced his weight at least half his size, he had a cut out jaw line, tummy was hardly visible, his body was screaming healthy!!! He was walking from his office to his room a good 3 KM in the evening. He told me that he now walks both ways!!!

This was his story. He went home planning for a bypass surgery, but his neighbor pleaded him to give just 10 days for Naturopathy before going for the surgery. The neighbor too had a twin block case that was recommended for a surgery it seems someone else convinced him to try Naturopathy first and he came clean and healthy without surgery. So my friend got admitted in a hospital in Calicut and they put him fasting. In two weeks all the tests revealed that his blocks were gone. He became much trimmer, they gave him guidelines to change his eating habits and asked him to start exercising.

He gave me one CD containing mp3 audio of speeches made by the revolutionist Dr. Jacob Vadakkancheri. Naturopathy says ‘There is only one disease-accumulation of toxic waste in the body. And there is only one cure-helping the body to remove the toxins’. It uses no medicines, they teach you why your decease got cured and by the time you discharge from the hospital you will know how to treat yourself and your family, at least for 60% of all ailments you will not run to a doctor after that.

More than a year passed after hearing my friend’s story. I liked the things that I heard in the CD's. I have few relatives that had lived Naturopathy lifestyle but we use to feel sorry for them. The way they punish themselves by avoiding anything they really liked. This was never meant for a food lover like me. During those days my back pain started troubling me. Most of the doctors that I visited advised me to shed weight. Shedding weight is really something. I tried to reduce my food intake but it din reduce my weight. The back pain also hindered my exercising routine resulting weight increase. That was when my wife advised me to take Naturopathy seriously.

When I quit my job in Dubai, I got another offer in Jeddah and went back home for the visa process. The visa process took months to work out. During that time I managed to make a two week trip to the same hospital that my friend visited. The Nature Life hospital of the legendary Dr. Jacob Vadakkancheri.

Most of the days during the evening they had classes. They teach you what to and what not to eat. The patients talk about their experiences. Most of the cases are chronic, either patients are poor to continue the costly medication or cases where the modern medicine fail to cure. I witnessed one small baby around 5 months old with fever daily for many months failed by all kind of treatment from Medical college.

The baby had the first feverless day on the third day of arrival after months, said its mother. From there I learned that diabetics really is not inherited like we had been taught and it can be cured, really!!. It’s just that you need to revamp ur life style to live a non-diabetic life afterwards. I also learned that Naturopathy is very effective for heart blocks where a bypass is advised, very effective for cancer that comes as lumps.

My aim was only to reduce some weight so I decided to fast while I was there.

Fasting is not meant for everyone. You need to have a strong will to continue with that. You take a vegetable juice in the morning, around 11 you take a glass of water sweetened with honey, for lunch another glass of tender coconut water, around five another glass of honey water and that’s it for the day.

You will feel sick and tired by the end of the first day, the second day you will somehow manage it, headache will start, the third day you will be at the edge, you would want to stop this madness. By that time your urine would turn black and smelly due to toxins being flushed out of ur system.

By fourth day many guys quit, but I decided to hang on, next day onwards you will feel much lighter, concentration would be increased, sleep will be good, no more hunger, u won’t find a need for food, these drinks itself are more than enough for you. The urine becomes clean. Morning starts with a Yoga class, the teacher keep telling me that I can stop if I am feeling weak, the truth is I was feeling energetic never like before.

Towards the last date they start giving you orange, that will bring back hunger, small quantity of rice and raw vegetables are slowly introduced in the diet. The 13th day was Eid so I forced them to stop my fasting on the 12th day and returned home. My weight had been reduced a lot. None of my pants would fit me, my shirts all looked oversized. I had lost 10 kilograms in 12 days. ie around a Kilo every day.!!!

But most importantly I came back as a changed man. I cut out tea all together. No more sugar, no daily payasam, no soft drinks, no Maida (common flour) based food like Porottas, Sweets, Biscuits etc. Stopped Chinese and MSG (Mono sodium glutamate commonly called as Aginamotto). Heavy breakfast was replaced with fruits. Dinner was moved to dates. Lunch I decided not to change. I still have a heavy lunch. My wife replaced ghee in ghee rice with coconut oil, the difference is very minimal, in fact none of our guests could identify that.

I don’t follow fully what I learned during my days of treatment, I do not want to punish myself by saying NO to all the food I love. Naturopathy asks you to become vegetarian. I believe a life without fish would be very boring. I took what I wanted from the teachings.

I do not miss any of these things that I stopped. I once in a while taste sugar in tea or coffee, I honestly do not like its taste now. I still chew a piece of Halwa once in a while, but the feeling to pick the next piece is not there anymore.

I can assure you Naturopathy really works, I had been there, seen that. Try it, you will know how much you had been fooled by modern medicines.