3 lessons that I learned after practicing good food habits for 500 days

This article is about 3 food habits that can give you more productive days and fewer sick days.

Anyone who is ready to make some little lifestyle changes for prolonged health benefits will get benefited from these habits. Although these habits are trialed and tested in the Indian subcontinent, these can be practiced across globe.

After reading this article you will learn how making small changes in your food habits can give you fitness for a lifetime.

I have been learning and practicing food habits for more than 2 years now. Coming from a very simple lower-middle-class family where people have only one life goal which is to earn money, I have understood the importance of physical health, mental health, and financial freedom.

1. Try not to eat after sunset: As per Ayurveda, our digestive system follows the movement of the Sun very closely. So it means our digestive fire which is responsible for digestion ignites with the sunrise and extinguishes after sunset. In our modern lifestyle, we have the habit of eating very late which is wrong. It leads to indigestion. The main problem which I faced because of eating late is the gastric problem. This gastric problem not only harmed my stomach but it started giving me hard time with my throat which in the worst case leads to a very bad cough and cold. So now I have my dinner before 7 pm mostly and it helped me tremendously with my health.
2. Eat according to season and locality: Eating according to the season means eating fruits and vegetables which are harvested in that season and so are easily available. The in-season fruits and vegetables will be cheaper as well when compared to vegetables coming out of cold storage. In some cases it might not look good but taste wise it is better than the ones coming out of cold storage. You also don’t have to eat imported fruits and vegetables to get any particular nutrients. Eating fruits and vegetables harvested in your locality can give you all the nutrients required. Nature makes sure that all the nutrients required by your body are made available in the fruits and vegetables harvested in your locality. In a nutshell, eating fruits and vegetables based on the season and that are available in your locality gives benefits both to your health and pocket.
3. Try not to lie down before 2 hours after your meal: Not lying down until 2 hours after a meal has helped me tremendously with my health in general. I used to get sick a lot, especially with cough and cold. On average I get cough and cold 4–5 times in a year which roughly gives me 5–8 non-productive weeks in a year which is around 20% and it matters. I took a lot of medication and consulted different doctors. I used to get cured but I was looking for a long-term solution. My search came to an end after I met Dr. Shermija B. Stephen. She not only prescribed better medicine but also suggested a couple of lifestyle changes. One thing that really helped me with my pro-longed cough and the cold problem is not lying down before 2 hours of having food. The reason was simple. Lying down makes your digestion slow and pushes the gas formed during digestion upwards. This upwards movement of gases formed during digestion causes a bad throat. Bad throat consequently damages the nose and finally the ear. In short, practicing not lying down post meal gave me tremendous relief from my pro-longed cold and cough problem. This practice has other benefits as well like better digestion of food and relief from obesity.

There are a lot of such eating habits which are very old and have already been mentioned in our ancient ayurvedic textbooks but our (Indians) struggle for survival in the past couple of centuries made us forget all these. As Naval Ravikannt famously said, “The older the problem, the older the solution. How to eat well is one of the oldest problems”. This is well known that Indian culture is very old and so is Ayurveda.

I write more such life lessons based on my experience on Twitter