Take care of your eating habits

You will be surprised as to why I am discussing this topic and how it is correlated to business. Let me explain. Your eating habits decide your health and your health decides your success.

It is advisable for any person to learn and cherish good food habits from their childhood. My parents fulfiled their duty. They taught me the importance of simple but healthy food and inculcated good diet and discipline in me. I followed the same timetable until my adulthood. Somehow in my middle age, I neglected the ideal lifestyle and fell prey to ill-health, thereby suffering a lot. I also lost a large part of my money and mental peace. At last, time set me right and I returned to the experienced advice of my parents.

It all happened the moment I changed my lifestyle. When I started my career as an intern in our shop, I would do a lot of hard work. Apart from sweeping the floor, cleaning the tiles and loading-unloading heavy bags, I would stand all day behind the sales counter. The hard work kept my eating and sleeping habits sound and intact. But, when I became the owner of our business, my lifestyle changed suddenly. I began sitting in my cabin the whole day. Thus, my lifestyle became sedentary. Besides, in the race to chase success, I began overworking and thus skipped the proper timings of lunch and dinner. I would return home late at night. This all led to various ailments and I became a patient of obesity, acidity, headache, chronic back pain and depression.

One day, I saw a family of four outside the Krishna Temple in Dubai. They were poor labourers working hard but eating and enjoying their meal happily. I realised then that my illnesses were primarily due to my sedentary lifestyle and indiscipline. I vowed to regain my lost health and began implementing an ideal timetable for my daily routine. This change worked along with some therapies and medications and I recovered from all ailments.

I remembered the precious words of my parents and vowed to follow their advice once again. I gave up oily and spicy food and discarded junk food. Instead, I changed my diet to simple and non-oily rotis, boiled vegetables, green salad and fruits. I limited my office hours and started exercising regularly. I began taking my meals on time. In office, I avoid sipping tea, coffee or carbonated beverages which contain sugar, instead I drink a lot of water. My changed food habits have kept me active and healthy. You can also test this formula and change your life.

Dr Dhananjay (Jay) Datar is the chairman and managing director of Al Adil Trading.