Oftentimes, one of the most difficult things about sticking with a diet is staving off boredoms. Most diets designed to help you drop pounds or lose fat restrict processed, sugary foods and consist primarily of low-calorie foods that are rich in nutrients but aren’t always the most fun mealtime option. When you build a diet that you get tired of after a few days or weeks, you probably won’t stick with it for very long.

Making sure that you don’t get bored with the foods you eat every day is an essential part of developing a healthy, sustainable diet that doesn’t make you want to give up. You don’t have to choose between sticking with your diet and enjoying the foods you eat. Eating a healthy, balanced diet doesn’t have to bore you to tears. If you make an effort to keep your diet interesting and yummy, you’ll find that it’s much easier to stick with your healthy lifestyle long-term and make more progress toward your ultimate fitness goals.
1. Go Out More

Going out to eat more often is rarely a suggestion thrown at those who are trying to maintain a healthy diet. However, exploring healthy options at restaurants is a great way to put fun back into healthy eating. Check out places that are known for their healthy plates. Many restaurants have capitalized on the popularity of clean eating by adding flavorful meals that are low in calories, fat, and sugar to their menus.
Beware of giant restaurant portions. Most restaurants, even those that advertise healthy options, serve you way too much food on one plate. Always pay close attention to your body and stop eating when you start feeling full. If you have trouble listening to your body, divide your meal in half when it first arrives and set one half aside. After you eat half of your food, you’ll be forced to stop and reassess your hunger before reaching for the rest of your meal.
2. Use Substitutes

You can make diet-friendly versions of your favorite foods using healthier substitutes for standard ingredients. This way, you can still indulge in the meals you love to eat without completely breaking your diet.
Look into sugar substitutes if you’re missing homemade baked goods. Applesauce, maple syrup, honey, and coconut sugar can all be used in place of over-processed, refined white sugar in many recipes. When making substitutions in recipes, always do your research to figure out how much of the substitute you should add. Most ingredients and their substitutes are not perfectly interchangeable.
3. Get Into Meal Prep

There are tons of diet-friendly recipes out there that are exciting and filled with nutrients. Many of them just take a little more time and effort to prepare than a plain grilled chicken breast or a simple salad. Oftentimes, there just doesn’t seem to be enough time in the day to cook up meals that are more flavorful but more complex.
Meal prepping can help you keep your diet interesting without taking too much time out of your busy schedule. If you can carve out a couple of hours one day a week, you can prep a weeks’ worth of meals so you won’t have to choose between eating a boring lunch and being late to work. Separate the meals you prep into portions and store them in the fridge or freezer in individual containers. This way, you can easily take the food to work with you or just warm it up and eat it at home within minutes.
4. Keep Up With the Seasons

Nature provides you with a new variety of healthy, fresh fruits and vegetables on a seasonal basis. It’s hard to get bored of the fruits and veggies you can eat when different types become available every few months. Find a local farmer’s market near you and have fun exploring your produce choices there as they change with the seasons.
You can also freeze some of your favorite fruits or vegetables when they’re about to go out of season. Blend these frozen treats into a smoothie if you get bored of the produce selection in the market and find yourself longing for the fruits and veggies of seasons past.
5. Balance Wisely

Over-restrictive diets are almost never a good idea. Diets that don’t allow you to eat certain foods at all are not sustainable and get very boring very quickly. Focus on maintaining balance in your diet rather than cutting out food groups altogether.
When you’re feeling tired of eating the same bland, healthy foods over and over again, make a meal that includes a food you really love, like pasta or red meat. Keep your portion of not-so-healthy food small and supplement it with a larger amount of low-calorie, nutrient-rich sides like veggies or lentils. This way, you keep your meal interesting and delicious without sacrificing nutrition or gorging on empty calories.
6. Get Creative

There are many ways to make healthy diet staples more interesting and more fun to eat. Sources of lean protein like fish, lean meats like chicken, vegetables, and eggs all serve as healthy foundations which you can manipulate and add other ingredients to in order to make them less bland.
Try eating eggs every morning for a week, but cook them differently each day. Try out different spice blend recipes and sprinkle them over chicken or fish. Find or create natural salad dressing recipes low in sugar and calories and experiment with pairing them with a variety of salads and vegetables.
7. Look at Labels

You can find low-calorie, low-fat, and reduced sugar versions of many foods that are normally high in unhealthy ingredients. You can buy healthier versions of anything from cheese to bread to ice cream.
Beware of foods that are advertised as low-fat, low-calorie, or reduced sugar but also contain a bunch of unfamiliar chemicals. Steer clear of these artificial chemical-laden foods and opt for food products with more recognizable ingredients instead.
Healthy diets and boring food don’t have to be synonymous. With a little bit of creativity, you can devise a diet  that’s both nutritious and delicious to keep yourself on track toward your health goals without getting bored or discouraged.

Even though it’s 2021 and a universe of pop culture material is readily available at our fingertips to learn about the spectrum of sexuality and gender identities, it’s always a good idea to remove yourself from the realm of “palatable queer content” and traverse the arduous journeys made by the LGBTQ+ community through these award-winning documentaries. From chronicling the struggles faced by the community over the years to claim basic human rights, to moving stories of love and relationships, these documentary films are perfect to watch if you want to understand the simple power of love and how it transcends gender and societal constructs. Here we pick eight documentaries that delve into queer history and present an honest picture of the hurdles faced by the community, even in this day and age.State of Pride (2019)Raymond Braun started his YouTube channel to promote LGBTQ visibility online before partnering up with Oscar-winning filmmakers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman for this documentary. In the movie, Braun travels across different states in America to talk to queer people about what Pride Month means to them and explores the history of the LGBT rights movement in the country.Streaming on YouTubePurple Skies (2014)This movie, directed by Sridhar Rangayan, was the first documentary on LGBTQ issues to broadcast on national television in India. It features interviews shot between 2008, a year before the Delhi High Court’s historic ruling decriminalised same-sex relationships, and 2013, right after the Supreme Court overturned the decision. Through the movie, Rangayan explores what it means to be lesbian, bisexual or trans in the country and the struggles that the queer community has to go through every single day.

There could be many reasons behind those sleepless nights and groggy mornings. Besides extra screen time and stress, your diet too plays an important role in your night routine. “Inadequate diet may be associated with poor sleep quality. Studies show that a higher intake of processed food was associated with poor sleep quality, whereas a high intake of fish and vegetables was associated with good sleep quality. Our macronutrient intake also affects the sleep outcomes which was studied in non-shift workers showing that low protein intake (19% of energy from protein) was associated with difficulty maintaining sleep (Tanaka et al),” reveals celebrity nutritionist Ryan Fernando of QUA Nutrition. It is important to eat timely meals and keep a gap of at least 2-3 hours between the last meal and bedtime so that it does not interfere with your sleep. Increased caloric intake during the day is linked to daytime sleepiness. This may result in longer naps during the day thus affecting the night sleep cycle, explains Fernando. The glycemic index of the meal plays an important role in determining sleep onset.In one study, healthy men experienced a shortened sleep onset latency (slept faster) when they were provided with a high glycemic index (GI) meal that was consumed four hours before bedtime, compared with the consumption of a low GI meal, or a high GI meal one hour before bedtime.There is a concept called chrononutrition which combines the health, behaviour, and chronobiology to understand the optimum timing of food intake for health and wellbeing. Practicing regular meal timings tends to align with the circadian clock and prevents the development of metabolic conditions. On the contrary, eating at a time that contradicts our circadian system, such as late night snacking, can  disturb rhythms in clock tissues, such as the liver, and misalign metabolic processes, such as glucose homeostasis, gastrointestinal motility, and digestive processes. Does a high carb diet affect your sleep?A low carb diet and  high carb diet both have effects on sleep outcomes. Carbohydrate manipulation primarily affects REM and non-REM sleep. “This association is mediated by the quality of carbohydrate rather than its quantity of consumption. Poor sleepers with the highest carbohydrate intake consumed more processed, sugar-sweetened beverages and gluten rich foods as compared to good sleepers with a similar high carbohydrate intake,” says Fernando. Research proposes that the effect of a high carbohydrate diet on changes in sleep stages is related to increased serotonin synthesis. Thus it is important to  consume balanced meals with good protein intake to support good sleep quality. How do nutritional deficiencies impact your sleep? Micronutrients intake also affects sleep patterns. “Deficiency of vitamin B1, folate, magnesium, iron, zinc, and selenium is linked with shorter sleep duration. Difficulty falling asleep may be due to lack of micronutrients like vitamin D, alpha-carotene, selenium, and calcium. Scientific trials have shown that nightly intake of nutrients like melatonin, magnesium, or zinc improves sleep quality,” shares Fernando. He adds that consumption of alcohol negatively affects sleep latency and disrupts the normal REM/NREM cycle due to its ability to influence levels of serotonin and norepinephrine. What to eat for good sleep?Fernando says improvements in sleep outcomes are seen after consumption of tryptophan-rich foods, an amino acid present in foods such as milk. Lower tryptophan levels have shown to reduce sleep quality. “Tryptophan competes with other large amino acids to cross the blood brain barrier, where it is converted to serotonin, the precursor to melatonin which is a sleep-promoting hormone,” he says and shares a list of good sleep foods. Almond: Contains active components like melatonin and magnesium and consuming a handful of almonds before sleeping is ideal for a good night’s sleep.Walnut: They are rich in melatonin and about 7-10 walnut halves before bedtime can contribute to early onset of sleep.Kiwi: Contains precursor serotonin and consuming 2 kiwis one hour before bed is said to improve sleep quality.Milk: Contains sleep inducing agent tryptophan, so having a cup of warm milk before bed is associated with longer sleep duration.Chamomile tea: This magic tea has an active component apigenin which when consumed in the form of 1 cup before bed results in good sleep quality and duration.Also read:6 traditional diet rules that could actually be bad for your health7 food and produce businesses that will help you achieve your health goals9 energy-boosting foods and drinks to try when you’re feeling tired and sluggish 

Streaming on Netflix5. Bingo Hell (October 1)The first title in the Welcome to the Blumhouse horror anthology series, this film is set in Oak Springs, Arizona, where a resilient group of aged people does everything in its power to reject gentrification. Their head, Lupita, is the glue that binds them together as a community and a family. Unfortunately, the beloved Bingo Hall is sold to a powerful businessman, infuriating the locals. When Lupita leads a protest against this, her neighbours start turning up dead under mysterious circumstances, making her realise that something sinister is at play.Streaming on Amazon Prime Video6. Black As Night (October 1)Another entry into the Welcome to the Blumhouse anthology, Black As Night follows 15-year-old Shawna whose mother is killed by vampires that prey on the downtrodden in New Orleans. Desperate to even the score, she teams up with three friends, and the group sets out to eliminate the fanged menace in their city. In a twist of events, they find themselves entangled in a centuries-old battle between rival vampire factions, battling to assert control over the city limits.

Burning the midnight oil might help you meet your deadline but it can have a bad effect on everything from your skin and hair to your mental health. Sleep reduces inflammation in our body and it also produces cytokines that are signaling proteins that tell our immune system how to work, when we sleep. These inflammatory markers are not produced well when you lack sleep. A good night’s sleep is also important for maintaining immunity, energy restoration, and memory consolidation. While you might be determined to lose your sleep over your work, there are many other reasons which might be messing with your quality of sleep. And it’s not just revenge procrastination during the pandemic, but also hormonal changes, nutritional deficiencies, and lifestyle conditions such as diabetes that can wreck your sleep.“Our body has an internal clock called the circadian rhythm and is conditioned to function according to how we treat it and the schedule we follow. This circadian rhythm is affected by various factors such as hormones, light and darkness, which is also why it affects our sleep-wake cycle. We sleep in three phases and most sleep is in non-REM (rapid eye movement) stage which is the deep sleep stage. The REM stage is the first stage and lasts for 90 minutes. Adults have a short REM cycle and it reduces as we grow old,” explains Dr Samudrika Patil, clinical endocrinologist and CEO, Vedicure healthcare and wellness. Dr Patil adds that the rhythm is controlled by the suprachiasmatic nucleus in our hypothalamus. It generates many hormones in our body and is responsible for many bodily functions. “It stimulates the creation of the hormone melatonin, which controls our sleep. It affects the circadian rhythm. We need to be in a dark place for melatonin to be secreted,” she says. It then forms a vicious cycle, that is, if you attempt to sleep at the right time, your melatonin production is regularised but if you mess with it, it affects your sleep and other functions.Here’s what might be affecting your nightly Zzzs and why you need to correct it.1) Odd working hoursIf you felt that you could survive with just five hours of sleep and use all possible minutes of the day to finish your work, you can’t be more wrong. “When we stay up late, it causes a reverse melatonin and cortisol ribbon. Our body releases cortisol, adrenaline, and other hormones when we are active and working. Cortisol is released by the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA axis). When you stay up late, this cycle gets reversed, as the body releases cortisol when you are working at night, plus melatonin gets released when you try to sleep but by then it’s day. This eventually reduces the quality of sleep and you will sleep for fewer hours,” says Dr Patil. And since the HPA axis controls everything from digestion to your sex drive, losing sleep will have far reaching effects eventually.2) DiabeticsInsulin controls the blood glucose levels. When one has insulin resistance, our body cannot use the insulin by beta cells to control blood sugar. “Diabetics often suffer from polyuria which makes you want to pee often and lose sleep over it. Insulin sensitivity also lowers the blood glucose level, which means you can get hungry in the middle of the night and you wake up to eat. This also affects ghrelin or our hunger hormone, and if you eat food with low GI, it won’t keep you full for long,” says Dr Patil.3) Stimulants and eating before sleepIf you love your post-dinner coffee, chances are it might be running your sleep. Caffeine being a stimulant will keep you up even if it’s sleep time. “Eating just a few hours before sleep also causes acid reflux and affects your sleep. Also, alcohol consumption causes dehydration and makes you lose sleep. If you work out at night, do not have pre and post-workout supplements as many of them contain stimulants such as caffeine,” says Dr Patil. She adds that medicine for blood pressure contains beta blockers and that affects sleep too.4) DepressionWhen you sleep late and wake up late, you aren’t getting enough vitamin D which affects your sleep. Vitamin D deficiency also causes depression, which again affects the quality of sleep. “One of the first signs of depression is when you want to sleep even during the day. Anxiety and depression negatively impact our quality of sleep and anxiety in these times is specifically causing many people to lose sleep,” says Dr Patil. She adds that issues such as migraine, gout, and arthritis which cause chronic pain also affect the sleep cycle, as does sleep apnoea which makes one wake up due to difficulty in breathing.What you should do in such cases? Make it a habit to wake up at a certain time and voluntarily force yourself to sleep on time and your rhythm will settle in a couple of weeks. “Keep your phone aside as screen light will affect your sleep time and create a feel-good placebo environment. It’s safe to consume one to 10mg of melatonin supplement an hour before sleep. Any doses 25 to 30mg can cause trouble, headache, and depression because of drowsiness during the day because when you feel drowsy, you believe something is wrong,” says Dr Patil.Also read: Is tracking your sleep at night doing more harm than good?Why sleep is the most important thing for your immune system right now10 products that will help you sleep better and faster