Science and poetry

Science and poetry is one thing! They are not separate things. Prof. Richard Dawkins says that "Science is poetry of reality!". Jitendra Joshi (a Marathi poet, actor and artist in fact) says in his poem that when scientists go behind words, they make some inventions and when poets go behind them, they keep going behind words.... Its a beautiful poem. I will find it out and will share it soon. 

Doing science needs instruments. These instruments are costly and are rare. People who have got these instruments are fortunate. They have option to use or not to use them. But what about people who have not got these instruments! Poetry is their only solace! They have no other option left but to take help of poetry to express themselves or to search something if they don't have instruments of science. (Specific degrees or specific training or education is also a kind of instrument in my opinion in this context!)

Hence poetry is a field where one might find many potential scientists! Their name is unknown to science. Their language is different and sometimes even difficult to understand unless you are in that plane of mind. But still they are scientists who can see truth. At least I respect these poets like scientists!

My experiments with Dixit diet

Dr. Jagannath Dixit gave a talk about effortless weigh-loss at Balgandharva Rangamandir on 9th December 2018 and since then I have started following his diet plan / lifestyle as told by him in his that talk and other talks on YouTube. I went to listen to this lecture with Mr. Shekhar Inamdar who is my uncle and Mr. Ashutosh Zambre who is my jiju. 

What is that diet plan is not the topic of this blog post. He has spoken extensively about it in many lectures which are available freely on YouTube and one should listen to those lectures to understand the importance of this blog post. If someone has not done that till now, they must do it after reading this blog post at least. But in anyway, this blog will not give information about what that diet plan is because that is not my authority. He is a professor of community medicine for 28 years in government medical college and also he is a researcher. So its always better to listen what the plan is from his own words. So people who are interested in knowing what this plan is, should listen to his lectures and should not expect that they will get answer here. I am doing this deliberately because as mentioned by him in the lecture dated 9 December 2018 (I have audio recording of this lecture and one can get it upon request), while giving some message for community, it gets diluted and it has got diluted a lot in my opinion already. I do not want to dilute it further and propagate the diluted form in addition. 

This blog post will enlist some points about my experiences with this diet plan / lifestyle and it might help people who are interested in following it. I will also try to answer some of the questions and will try to counter some of the criticisms in a logical and constructive way as per my understanding. He himself says that we should look at the motive of the people who are trying to oppose this plan but let's give benefit of doubt to them and let's consider that they have good motive or genuine queries because as shared by Amrut (Amrut Bang), in a good debate, we should not doubt the motives of the other person. 

Firstly I will share some of the interesting things about this diet plan and then I will try to answer the criticisms / possible criticisms.

One should take a note that I have already reduced my weight by about 18 kg with the help of calorie restriction and without following this diet plan.

Interesting things I have found about this plan: 

1. I am continually trying to understand what he is doing by making these changes in our lifestyle. He is trying to achieve many things. Even he might be unaware of some of the things he is doing, but still he is generating that benefit unknowingly. Hence we should have this attitude to understand what he is trying to do exactly by asking us to make these changes. If we will be observant enough, we will be able to observe these things. 
2. He is trying to connect people to their families in my opinion. When you are eating two times a day, the time of your meal is fixed and the amount of food is also fixed and the place of taking food is also fixed in a way. As this place is fixed and planned, chances are more that one will have these meals with the family. So in this way he is trying to connect us to our families.
3. I can sustain hunger for more time. Earlier, I was not sure if I will be able to sustain my hunger, so I used to eat anything available the moment I used to get hungry. Now, I can wait till the meal gets ready. 
4. Now I know how much food I need. Earlier when dietitian asked me how much I eat in a day, my answer was I don't know. When they asked when (how frequently) I eat, my answer was I don't know. When they asked me what do I eat, my answer was again I don't know. After following Dixit diet, I know how many times I eat  (2 times), what I eat and how much I eat. As these variables are getting fixed, it is easier now to solve this problem of over eating.
5. An obese person never thinks that he eats much. If he will find out that he eats too much, he will reduce the amount and will no longer remain obese. So lets accept that this awareness is lacking in obese people about food. Dixit diet / lifestyle helps to regain this awareness. 
6. My sleep cycle is restored. As I eat around 6 o' clock, I feel sleepy in 2-3 hours and then I sleep. As I sleep early, I wake up early and in this way my sleep cycle is restored in my opinion. If one is hungry in the night, he cannot sleep easily is my observation. I have spent many such sleepless nights in this way in past for reducing weight but now I need not disturb my sleep cycle for reducing weight because of this plan.
7. It helped me tremendously to sustain social pressure to eat with others when I don't need to in fact. When you tell that you are on this diet plan / lifestyle, people may oppose you for a week or so but once they will see the genuineness, they stop opposing you. I had problems about how to say that I do not want to eat when people keep offering some or other stuff out of love. Use the name of Dr. Dixit and it is a magic trick to sustain this social pressure!
8. I could increase my protein intake. I do not find protein tasty sometimes so I would not have eaten it otherwise on my own but as it comes with the meal now, I can increase the protein content and can monitor it in a better way. We can monitor many things like this in the diet once we reduce the frequency of the meals.
9. It's not much difficult to follow this plan. I still sometimes find myself struggling last 1-2 hours before the second meal but apart from that, there is no problem in this plan at all for me! I even don't realize that I am on this plan otherwise nowadays. This struggle was more in the beginning but now it is reduced to a great extent. Also sometimes little irritation can be found at the level of mind in the beginning but that is anyways present when we do calorie restriction. So that issue is not with this plan but with the calorie reduction itself.
10. I have started realizing that I do not need this much food. I had never witnessed my refusal for food for many years! I was thinking that I will never be able to say something like "I am full now and I cannot eat further" as other people around me say! I am able to say these words willingly and that is the real happiness! 
11. Lot of time is saved. As I know now that I am going to get meal at a fixed time, I need not worry about when I will get it and when I can eat it. Also the issues of where and how and with whom and with what speed are solved! The whole issue about eating seems fixed once and for all! Now we can focus on our study / work and utilize the time there or even for our own entertainment and relaxation and creativity! 
12. I enjoy freedom and control over my own self! I am finding weight reduction is much more easier now! I was determined to do it and was sure that I am going to achieve it and I have achieved great success too in the past without this diet plan as I was not aware of this but with the addition of this plan, I am able to see that the target is under control and feel that it is manageable. I was not this much sure about it before understanding this plan / lifestyle. Who does not enjoy freedom? In fact the purpose of life is liberation according to Indian philosophy. So in that sense Dr. Dixit is helping us to get liberated!
13. This is a an evidence based experiment! There are many research papers on this subject and many of them are freely available. So willingness to do some efforts and reading these papers are the only barriers for the knowledge about it. When people are otherwise ready to do experiments only based on some anecdotes, there should be no reason to not to believe on this plan which is evidence based for starting this experiment.  
14. It's a great feeling to be part of this revolution. Yes, I am using that word! revolution! This plan is a revolutionary thing and I am sure it will reduce as well as prevent many diseases (mainly NCDs) dramatically. 

Answers to some questions and criticisms / possible criticisms 

1. One need not do this plan as a revenge against Dr. Dixit. He is not our enemy. He is our friend if we can see it. If one cannot understand or like what he is doing, no one is forcing them to change their habits. We must understand that this diet plan will bring awareness about food and that awareness will help us to plan further to reduce weight. This is not a magical trick to reduce weight if we decide to have revenge against him by trying to prove him wrong. We can always prove him wrong if we cheat in this plan by taking too many calories which we were not taking earlier. But if we can understand this much, we should be able to understand further what he is trying to do. If we will decide to take revenge of Dr. Dixit, people will doubt our intentions for sure. Hence this plan must be followed as an aid for weight reduction and not to prove him wrong. 
2. This plan is not for healthy individuals. I mean one can always follow this if they like it but no one is asking healthy or normal people to follow this as a part of fun! Obesity is a disease and reason of many other diseases and hence this plan is to be followed by obese people for weight reduction.
3. This is not some fad. This diet plan is based on carbo-insulin connection theory as I understand. It was shared by late Dr. Shrikant Jichkar and Dr. Dixit tells more about it in his lecture. People interested in understanding what it is should try to study from medical textbooks and research papers and need not ask to the people who are following it. If they are doctors or researchers themselves then they should try to share the logical flaws in it (if they can find any) in medical journals and not in some blog posts or other discussion forums. It is fine to ask queries about the plan but when one decides to criticize it, people should know better forums which are medical journals. 
4. Lets not spread lies about the plan. I would not like to name the person and place where it is written but in one of the posts it is written that Dr. Dixit asks people having diabetes to eat sweet foods in his English lecture. I had not listened to this English lecture so I kept quiet then when I read it, but when I listened to it, I found that he actually talks the opposite. When I shared this fact to the person who had published it, they did not answer to my comment. We can imagine by this incident that people can and are spreading lies about the plan. Or they are making up their minds without understanding it. Study, study and study is the solution to these kinds of problems. We cannot study for others. They have to study on their own and have to find out the answers to the problems on their own. We can help them by telling them to study properly if they have not but we need not listen to the people who have some agenda while criticizing this plan and are criticizing it without studying.
5. Its okay to not to understand everything about the plan. We do not understand everything about our body. We do not understand everything about the world. So what's the big deal if we do not understand everything about the theories behind the plan? It is enough if we understand what the plan is and work on it. We still will get benefits. I do not understand the mechanics of the car but I still can drive it and can reach where I want to reach. So we must understand that lack of understanding of some people and their unfulfilled curiosity is not the proof against the plan! 
6. This plan is not against common sense. We know that calorie restriction and burning of calories is the ultimate solution to the problem of obesity. This plan does not tell against it hence this plan is not against common sense. This plan shows us a way as how to achieve it. Some people might like it and some people might not but there is nothing against common sense in this plan is what I can tell you after studying  this subject for hundreds of hours! 
7. There is no craving for food in between the meals for me. Let's  not ask hypothetical questions and waste our and other's time! At least I did not experience any craving of food in between the two meals till date after starting the diet on 9th December 2018. I will see what to do if I will have it in future. But it is not there now and there is no point in asking and answering hypothetical questions because they will be unending and we might enter into a 'paralysis by analysis' loop. If we are convinced a little, it is enough to start this plan as we always have overeaten at some point of time in life, so eating it once while starting this plan won't be a big harm and human body can surely survive for about 3 days without any food! So no emergency is likely to take place if there is fasting in between two meals for the first time! 
8. Are you eligible to criticize this plan? Please see if you are really eligible to criticize this well thought plan before criticizing this! The first requirement will be to listen to and to understand to what the plan / lifestyle Dr. Dixit is proposing. The second stage will be having the ability to understand the implications of this plan meaning the ability to imagine the changes in physiology this plan will bring. For that, one needs to be the student of physiology, so they should have read the physiology at least once in their life. The third criteria is little difficult and that is having the authority like that of Dr. Dixit by way of qualifications and experience and training. I have no issues if people having more qualifications and understanding in this field than him criticize him because that constructive criticism is also necessary but at least I will not listen to people who have some agenda and negligible qualifications in comparison to him! 
9. Don't forget 45 minutes walk! Please note that in his plan / lifestyle, Dr. Dixit mentions about 45 minutes of walk daily. Many people who criticize this plan forget this fact. Once they are made aware of this, they take their words back but its not his fault if we do not listen to him carefully. He himself tells to listen carefully what he is saying in his talk but for that we will need to listen to him.
10. Study, study, study and study We intuitively know there is no substitute for study but we try to find out shortcuts by gaining knowledge in discussion. My suggestion is not to do so about this plan especially if you are daring to criticize it. Even he will like if you criticize his sayings by studying I guess but no one will and should listen to you if you just criticize for the sake of it. Please be aware that you are being laughed at and your intentions are questioned when you challenge the plan without study and educational qualifications!

(Please feel free to share if there are any spelling mistakes or grammatical mistakes in this post so that they can be corrected immediately).

Thanks for reading this long blog post.

- Dr. Abhijeet Safai

The risk of solving a problem by means of violence

Problems can be solved my multiple ways. One of the ways to solve them is by temporary violence or by threat of violence. It is said that, in democracy, the right of violence is only with the police. They do solve certain problems as well. We can't deny that. Even the threat of violence is a big thing and many problems can be solved by this way. If the threat is created by a good person and if it is used for a good purpose, against the bad people, it is justified in our minds up to great extent. As we subconsciously justify it, it is used by good people in certain instances to keep bad behavior under control and to keep bad people under control!

However, there is a risk with this approach. The risk is little subtle and hence is not recognized or is not understood in most of the cases. The risk is that, while using the violence to solve a problem, the solver might get the 'taste' of violence! He might start liking it in fact! The person who came to solve the problem created by violence, might end up getting trapped in the vicious circle of violence himself! He might justify it too. He will show the inevitability of violence if he is very intelligent. So he might be able to justify it. So no action can be initiated against him at least at that point but in the process he has in fact damaged himself because he has started liking violence and feels that it is the only way to solve the problem. So in fact he is increasing the extent of problem.

That is the risk we take when we try to solve a problem by means of violence.

So, what is the solution? Should violence not be tolerated at all at any level? How we define violence?

I think that when we will come to this question of definition of violence, we are in the process of making some progress. The value of nonviolence is to be followed at the level of 'mind' hence there is no point in saying that psychological violence is not real violence. In fact, the level at which we need to practice non violence according to Indian philosophy is at the level of mind and not that of body! Hence classifying violence as physical and psychological is wrong in my opinion! We need to understand that violence is always at the level of mind! What we see at the physical level is the consequences of such violence. Hence though we might not be able to understand this subtle thing all the times, we must recognize that the seat of the violence we see is at the level of mind!

- Dr. Abhijeet Safai