A few drops of lavender not only helped me relax and deal with my stretch marks, but also masked the smell of the sesame oil.

A slave to diet books and regimes, Alka Bhardwaj Ahuja, refuses to give up the battle or the war against flab

You may be what you eat, but I definitely belong to the group of people who feel what they read. With books having been such a passion all through my growing years, it was only natural that as I grew older, my fancy turned to tomes that promised to improve and enhance my health and beauty.

It started innocuously enough in college where the priest who taught us physical education, handed out printed sheets he swore by: Charles Atlas’ (he of the 90-pound-weakling-to-lusty-muscled-jock-in-nine-weeks fame) bodybuilding secrets. While tip Nos 2, 3 and 4 – exercise naked, in front of a mirror, next to an open window (for free movement, inspiration and fresh air, respectively), just made the class giggle, it was tip No 1, the notion of Dynamic Motion, that held me in its thrall.

Walking, it suggested, was more than just a way of getting from Point A to Point B, when you used it to tighten your glutes by clenching them hard with each step, extending each leg farther than your normal stride while breathing deeply. Standing still, it averred, took on new meaning when you constantly tightened and released your kneecaps, glutes, abs and pecs in turn. Your muscles – if you wanted to believe Atlas as I did – were building even as you queued up in the cafeteria for a cuppa.

Putting those theories into practice was the work of a few minutes and, very soon, I was making my way across the campus like an ageing, asthmatic, arthritic camel and could easily be spotted in any crowd as I stood ‘dynamically’, my body a mass of twitching, jiggling flesh. The timely intervention of friends saved me from becoming the butt of peer ridicule, although I must admit, for those few days, I did feel taut, tight and, well, a little drafty.

Things sailed along smoothly enough through my first job, where the pressures of work far outweighed any pressure to look good. And yet the late hours and killer deadlines eventually did a number on my digestion which went from a super-performer Punjabi grade A variety to a zero tolerance strain, found abundantly in most publishing houses. My husband of a few months, who had yet to meet my obsessive nature, innocently presented me with a copy of Fit for Life, the ’80s precursor to the South Beach and Atkins diets. Mortifying and utterly démodé though it is to admit any association with it these days, I have to confess that I was hooked. It turned my life, not to mention my kitchen, inside out.

Having been brought up like all good Indians to believe that a glass of hot milk could, short of reviving the dead, solve all of life’s other problems, I was suddenly and vehemently convinced that dairy was the cause of all my ills. So, with book in one hand and garbage bag in the other, I rampaged through my pantry, trashing any and all offenders. Take no prisoners, was my policy. Cheese, yogurt, chocolates, crackers, anything with a hint of skim milk, a dash of whey protein or any association with a ‘facility that processed dairy’ – all went out the door and out of my life.

My family begged, my friends pleaded, but I would not relent. Needless to say, while my digestion improved dramatically, my social life plunged just as obviously. No more cold-coffee-and-grilled-cheese-sandwiches-at-the-club invites; no more illicit late night jaunts for ice cream with the husband; even my mum’s yogurt-based Lucknowi biryani fell victim to my new found faith.

Then came Baby No 1 and the doctor, hearing of my restrictive diet and correctly suspecting a calcium deficiency, packed me off for a bone density test. The low numbers there served to bring some normalcy back into my life and consigned my beloved book to the bottom of my book chest. Although – and this my husband would never forgive – I still swear by it for occasional, short-term, quick-weight-loss emergencies.

Pummelling my post-partum self back into a svelte silhouette took priority over all else and promising to help me do this were the Ayurvedic Cookbook, Ayurvedic Healing, Ayurveda for Women…you get the drift. They slyly elbowed Baby’s First Year and Penelope Leach’s treatises off my nightstand.

After the fascism that Fit for Life had induced in me, incorporating the Ayurvedic guidelines into my daily routine was, literally, a piece of cake. Which latter, incidentally, I now started wolfing down before my meals rather than after as, I was now informed, sweet tastes are digested before the salty, sour, pungent and astringent. That I never had to pass up dessert because I was too full, having gone for seconds of the fish, was just the icing on the cake. And never mind the inevitable teasing that followed, my newly trim bod was solace enough.

What slowed me down a bit was the old-woman smell that seemed to follow me around, till I figured that the culprit was the raw, cold-pressed sesame oil that was being slathered onto Baby and me by the maalishwali. Traditional baby oil, said Ayurveda, being a mineral oil and having been massaged into the body via the skin, was virtually impossible for the human digestive system to process. Adding a few drops of lavender and geranium essential oils (I’d added practical aromatherapy by now to my list of daily required reading) not only helped me relax and deal with my stretch marks, but also masked the smell of the sesame oil. My dalliance with aromatherapy ended rather early, though, as the heavily floral overtones gave the nursery a rather brothel-ish air!

The final straw, however, came when I decided to turn my Ayurvedic eye on my husband’s diet. His Pitta constitution, I was firmly admonished, could do without tasty food, since that was sure to cause overindulgence and consequently throw his entire system out of sync. Accordingly, the next meal we sat down to was devoid of all the masalas that usually net me compliments on my cooking. As I explained why, from now on, food would taste like boiled cardboard, his expression went from incomprehension to disbelief. Pushing his plate aside, he went to the fridge to rummage for a snack, only to find (ha ha!) that I had emptied it again. He’ll come around to it, I told myself. After all, wasn’t I doing this for his benefit?

How badly he took the new diet I learned soon after our move to Singapore. With Baby No 2 distracting me, I left all the packing to him and, surprise, surprise, none of my books made it across the Indian Ocean. He’d won the battle, but the war rages silently on. Three years and yet another move – this time to Miami – later, not only do I have all my old favourites back, but have gathered a few more. And if he says the cereal feels a little heavy, I just shrug: it could be the bran, I say. Or, it could be the flax oil I’m adding, I think to myself.

Miami-based columnist, Alka Bhardwaj Ahuja, is a much-relocated mother of two, who has written extensively for a gamut of magazines, newspapers and even television. She brings a fresh perspective to the age-old quest for perfect beauty and health.