I don’t read book summaries. Neither should you. The following are mostly notes to myself, and are my interpretations.

I bought this book to learn about food and how it affects my body. Purely educational. And it helped. I don't overthink about my day-to-day diet and have, overtime, made a mental checklist of what I eat. The only major change I've done over the last few years is to be conscious about portion. That's it.

Some context for readers. I'm half-bengali, half-marwari. I have stayed in many states and have my favourites. I absolute love Bengali, Maharastrian, Andhra, Assamese, Rajasthani food. Given how I was raised, I love bitter food (drumstick flowers, bitter gourd, neem leaves). I love boiled food (aloo sheddo, any veggie or meat sheddo). I'm not fussy about food at all. I don't eat tinda because I hate it. I don't eat brinjal 'coz I'm allergic. I can eat any kind of meat except bat or lizard.

Some cool stuff I found in the book:

• We eat more in the presence of others. Meet people over non-eating activities

• When meeting friends or new people, a quick trick to control food by meeting over walks, movies, plays, concerts. Even meeting over tea/ coffee is great. Some other options are to meet over shopping, bowling, video games, museums, art galleries but I personally find them distracting esp. if it's just 1-2 hr meet.

• Eat these on a daily basis (I'm enlisting the ones that I eat; for the full list you should buy the book): Rice, roti, kurmura, dalia, poha, vegetables, potato, peas, chicken, fish, dal, moong, channa, grapes, mangoes, bananas, paneer, curd, egg white, momo

• Eat these once or twice a week (I'm enlisting the ones I eat): Fried food, prawns, cake, ice-cream, samosa, pakoda, jalebi

• Eat these once a month: Mutton, shellfish, anything else you want (I eat an unhealthy potion of mutton curry once a month)

• Pick an outfit that will help you track your progress. I have a favourite full-sleeve, dry-fit t-shirt. I wear it once a week to see how much more belly fat I have to reduce!

• Outside the main meals (breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack, and dinner), I keep some stuff handy to eat if I'm feeling it. The recommendations in the book for these filler food are: fistful of channa with chaas, 2 boiled eggs with a cracker, a bowl of skimmed-milk curd, 1 medium-sized apple/ orange, 2 biscuits, 1/2 bowl sprouts salad, 1/2 bowl vegetable poha amongst many other options

• Have rotis without ghee

• The book has specific recommendations for ordering from North Indian, Japanese, Italian, Chinese, Thai and more cuisines.

• I typically order the same stuff from the recommendations above at restaurants so didn't feel the need to jot the exhaustive list here. Some usual ones are below:

• South Indian: Idli, rava idli, sada dosa, rava dosa, avial, curd or tamarind rice

• North Indian: Roomali roti, naan, yellow dal, tandoori chicken or fish, masala chaas. Unfortunately, no gravy items.

• Thai: Chicken or fish satay, Potak soup, Dom yang gung soup

• Italian: Chicken marsala, grilled salmon, grilled or baked chicken or fish, pasta of any kind (my favourites are raviolis)

• Chinese: Prawn or chicken dimsum, steamed rice, steamed prawns in lemon sauce, chicken or prawns in hunan or oyster sauce