The Pcod- Thyroid Book (Compiled From Women and The Weight Loss Tamasha)

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India's most loved fitness professional, Rujuta Diwekar is the winner of the Nutrition award from Asian Institute of Gastroenterology. Her more than 15 years of experience working with people from all walks of life and helping them deal with lifestyle disorders has come together in this book.

Don't Blame It On The Hormones.

As women, it has always been up to us to leave behind the heritage of health, just like your grandmother did for your mother and everyone in the family. But it's not easy to leave behind a legacy of health and harmony - we must first create that in our lives. That requires making time for ourselves, be it for exercise, to eat right, or simply to nap.

This book is about taking charge of ourselves, thanking our bodies and making peace with the fact that it's not the hormones, it's us. What can we do about our food, sleep, exercise and relationships that will make us feel good, help us overcome the conditions of PCOD and hypothyroid, and most importantly get off drugs and stay off them for good.

You think you should check your thyroid? If you haven't said it aloud, you have said it in your mind, and it's always in response to your body getting fat. It's like we almost don't think of our thyroid or our hormones in general if life is going our way, but we are quick to blame them when it is not. From obesity to bad skin, fertility to acne, mood swings to bloating, it's the bloody hormones. But are we really the victims of our hormones? Or are we the victims of our lifestyle?

The latest buzz in the bio-chemistry academe is to declare muscle, the skeletal muscle, that which moves on your command, as an endocrine organ. This is to really put the need to make lifestyle changes in perspective, give it the limelight and the long-due importance it deserves. Almost everyone is willing to pop a pill to regulate the thyroid or to get one's period, but how many are ready to work out even 150 minutes a week to regulate the thyroid and period cycle? Most of us accept (however incorrectly) that this pill is now a lifelong saathi, a partnership that will be broken only with death, but are we ready to partner with exercise till our last breath? Not quite. There's always something else to do — kids to be picked up, clothes to be laundered, hair to be blow-dried, etc. Then of course if it is something that requires a pill, it is taken more seriously by the family. Exercise on the other hand is considered a frivolous waste of time. Honestly, more people are ready to support your shopping instead of your exercise routine.

What we do know as scientific truth is that every cell in the body, especially the neurotransmitters, the glands and the hormones, respond beautifully to exercise just as they do to eating right. But how many of us will really commit to eating right? Most of us women are victims of what is called as chaotic eating. Chaotic eating is the exact opposite of regulated eating. Whether or not we will eat breakfast depends on what time we woke up or the children went to school. The chocolate box we finished last night was out of boredom and frustration, same with the vada pav that you ate the evening before. There is no plan, eating is an act of random happenings or accidents. Somehow though, if the period is late, thyroid is dull, etc., we never quite think it's the food, but that it's the hormones. Always, it's the hormones. But hormones are made out of the food we eat, and if your eating is more accidental than planned, then Allah Malik. Unless of course you decide to take charge, eh?

This book is about you taking charge, about you understanding that love and responsibility towards oneself is what you need to do daily. And sorry, but popping pills on time doesn't qualify either as love or responsibility, it stems out of fear and lack of accountability towards one's lifestyle. Food has the ability to heal, it is more powerful than any lab-made drug, and once you see food as the healer, the fear and fuss around food will disappear. Where fear about food ends, health begins. And with good health, the hormonal balance is restored. No, not with weight loss but with health. So first things first, forgive the doctor/dietician and everyone between who said that you must lose weight. Forgive even more the ones who said that you must lose five/ten or fifteen kilos to make your hormones better. Forgive, because they don't know what they say. They should have said 'gain health, not ‘lose weight for the desired effect, but darna and darana is unfortunately how the health business operates.

So let's look at the strategies that will help us and in turn our hormones. What can we do about our food, sleep, exercise and relationships that will make us feel good and lead a drug-free life. Read on: we made it easy for you and in this book is only what is relevant; nothing more, nothing less.