Healthier
The Winter Break Detoxification of a Workaholic College Student
During the academic year, I lead quite an unhealthy lifestyle. I'm an unapologetic, workaholic college student who doesn't exercise or eat balanced meals. And to be honest, most days I don't have the time to eat full meals at all.
Instead, I'll inhale several cups of coffee in the morning (because I am a Gilmore Girl) and consume copious amounts of tea at night. I'll eat a banana, granola bars, and sometimes a quesadilla or wrap at the dining center but that's usually it. It's not because I don't know how to cook or that I don't have the means to get food, it's simply because I don't have enough time.
Typically on weekends I'll cook myself a nice pasta dish with tons of veggies or on Tuesdays and Thursdays (my lighter days) I'll prepare a chopped kale and spinach salad. That's about all the time I can allocate for grocery shopping and cooking.
That's why this winter break I decided that I needed to be kinder to my body and rejuvenate myself with a detox. Even though I was traveling across India, I committed to a basic dietary schedule that I could add to and also omit from as long as I followed its basic structure.
No matter which city I was in, I began my day around 8:00 am with a cup of chai with lots of ginger, some toast, and a variety of fruits (figs, watermelon, guavas). Later, around 10:00 am I had fresh coconut water or narial pani as we say in Mumbai. It was hydrating, packed with antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals.
For lunch, I either ate sautéed veggies like okra or rice and lentils. If we were ordering take-out then butter chicken or malai chicken with tandoori naan was my go-to order. Dinner was usually some variety of baked meat, rice, roti, and more lentils.
Since I'm a foodie, I couldn't stick to just the basics and ate lots of paani-puri (an Indian street snack), ras malai, ladoos (Indian desserts), and of course chocolate. However, all in moderation.
In the culinary world, people usually refer to a detox as a period when they're only having veggies, fruits, or juices. But my winter break detox had me abstaining from a hectic schedule of running between classes, extracurriculars, and throughout campus. In lieu of eliminating foods from my diet I tried to maintain a fairly normal eating schedule. And to me, that was both refreshing and rejuvenating.