Got a big problem? Well, here’s a Tiny solution. The “world’s first curry-diet” promises no loss in taste while trimming the flab. So says its UK-based maker, Tiny Deol
Tiny Deol, creator of the Curryslim diet
By Nevin Rego in London
UK, like you are told, feast on the chicken-do-piza, relish your tikka dal, ignore your doctor or dietician who blame Indian dishes for those extra kilos around your waist. In fact, it’s time to fill those empty masala bottles again. Those curries, which you prepared for years and had high calories written all over them could be the same ones that now will get you back into shape. For somewhere in the north of England, in a quaint little picturesque town called Kirby Muxloe, an Indian woman has just launched Curryslim, the world’s first curry diet.
For millions of curry addicts around the world this could be more chicken makhani to the potbelly. The good news is that there are no restrictions on eating desi food at all. You can actually eat your three meals a day and even treat yourself to a chocolate while amazingly shed those extra pounds on your body. Sounds unbelievable? Not so. Just ask Tiny Deol, the woman behind what could be the most salubrious diet ever prepared in the cuisine world.
The Curryslim diet has the right spices to help you lose weight. It tastes good too, the Asian palate, and the ‘any other curry’. Yes, but does it work? Well, you just have to look at Tiny to believe it does. It was in 1997, some 11 years since she arrived as a young bride from Chandigarh, that Tiny Manvinder Deol first got this brainwave. She already had a degree in health and nutrition in India, and had represented the state of Punjab in athletics in the 100 metres sprint before arriving in the United Kingdom. But marriage, three children and time had taken its toll and Tiny was now wearing a 14-16 size salwar kameez. “I knew I had to do something about it,” she says, “but I kept putting it off. My youngest daughter was just six months old and besides I was also working at my husband’s garment manufacturing business which meant that I hardly found the time.”
It was her swimsuit pictures after she returned from her holiday in Paris one summer that was the turning point. “I was so fat in those pictures, I could not believe it,” she says. That was it. She did some research and found there was no single diet for desi food lovers. Fitness classes were of no help and there was no way she was giving up her makki-di-roti and sarson-ka-saag. Her background in nutrition came to the fore as Tiny began experimenting with the same food she cooked every evening but using ingredients carefully. “I started devising recipes that used little or no fat but plenty of spices. I knew chilli and cumin would speed up the metabolism which meant that you could lose weight faster,” she says enthusiastically.
The Deol household in the county of Leicestershire hardly noticed the changes in their chicken tikka curries even though it was now low in fat. “My family and in-laws just could not tell the difference,” says Tiny. Meanwhile she herself noticed drastic changes in her physical structure and was delighted. Soon she was friends and seeks advice from relatives and friends. At first they could not believe that a curry diet could do the trick, says Tiny, and adds quickly, “Once they tried it and it worked they were convinced.”
Tiny, however, was more than convinced that she had created a dietary revolution. But she was in no hurry. She knew that they would be few takers to an Indian housewife’s curry slimming diet. There was need to underline her credentials, as her Indian degree credentials, as her Indian degree hardly mattered. So she did a nutrition and weight management course, which she knew would prove handy in time to come.
But there was more. She decided to get recognition for her diet from the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Copenhagen. “I was determined to prove my curry-diet works,” says Tiny. And her efforts were rewarded over a year when she received a letter from WHO who termed her diet as a healthy eating plan rather than a dieting fad. It was a massive achievement for Tiny who was nicknamed thus by her dad since she was diminutive when she was born.
In February this year, without much fanfare, she launched her website www.curryslim.com. For a nominal fee, she has chosen to ignore fats and chips and make curry its official food, offering several sample menus, recipe cards and advice on local newspapers, magazines and television shows explaining the reasons for all those extra pounds.
