Weddings, Restaurants and Festival Food

A diagnosis does not remove you from weddings, festivals or restaurant meals, and a plan that requires it will not last.

The guidance most people are actually given is gentler than they expect: you can still have your favourite foods, sometimes in smaller portions and sometimes less often. That is the whole idea, applied to an occasion.

For a wedding or a big function, a few things help. Eat something normal beforehand so you do not arrive very hungry. Walk the length of the buffet once before taking a plate. Fill up on the salads, curd and paneer or chicken dishes first, then take the rice or biryani as a portion rather than a base. Choose the sweet you actually want, take one, and be done.

Sugary drinks are the easiest thing to give up here — cold drinks and packaged juices deliver a lot of sugar with no fullness at all. Water, chaas or plain tea instead.

And a short walk after the meal is genuinely useful. Activity broken into small amounts through the day counts towards your weekly total, and after a large meal is a sensible place to put some of it.

One heavy meal shows up on one reading. A festival month of them shows up on your HbA1c. Aim to keep the exceptions occasional rather than perfect.