These balanced and nutritious diet plan will provide you with 1200-1500 calories per day with carbs, fat, and proteins in the right proportions. It is advisable to have at least one fruit every day between meals. Eating a bowl of salad 10 minutes before lunch or dinner is also a good practice. This will prevent you from overeating.

To improve the flavour, do not over load your vegetables and curries with chillies. Instead, include lots of herbs and protective spices like methi (fenugreek), hing (asafoetida), haldi (turmeric), dalchini (cinnamon), laung (cloves), badi elaichi (cardamom), sauf (fennel) and sarso (mustard) in the curries. Add appetisers like coriander/mint/raw mango/tomato chutney, oil-less pickles together with condiments and spices to your meal.

Rutuja Mahajan, Consulting Registered Dietician