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  Pic: Gajanan Dudhalkar

Rujuta Diwekar gives a new spin to the term 'celebrity nutritionist'. She arrives along with superstar Kareena Kapoor Khan, who's a walking advertisement for Diwekar's way of staying healthy, fit and slim. Says Kareena: 'The best thing about Rujuta is that she's the most chilled-out dietician I have ever come across. She also allows me to do a cheat diet once in a week that consists of pastries, cupcakes and a packet of chips.'

But, you could say that Diwekar has, from the first forkful, been a nutritionist who steered clear of the hot-selling fads of the moment. For instance, she gives the thumbs-up to eating cashew nuts for good bone health. She even believes that a little ghee is better than olive oil. And no, the paratha that you love so much is not an absolute no-no. Her bottom line has always been about 'eating all you want and yet staying healthy' and the most famous examples of how it has worked are Kareena and industrialist Anil Ambani.

Diwekar challenged what she felt were ill-informed notions about weight-loss in her earlier two bestselling books Don't Lose your Mind, Lose Your Weight and Women & the Weight Loss Tamasha. Now, her latest book Don't Lose Out, Work Out deals with the science behind exercise. She says: 'I wrote this book because there is a complete lack of understanding about exercise, how it works and how to make it work for you.'

But she throws in a word of caution about the book and points out that just reading the book won't make people healthy. She says: 'The book talks about how to optimally invest time in exercise.' So it delves deeply into strength training, cardio and Yoga along with pre- and post-workout meals.

Diwekar describes her style of writing 'as very easy to read so that everybody can understand.' A typical day for her starts early at 5.30am with a session of Yoga. She's in office by 9am, which is in walking distance from her residence in Khar. Her day consists mostly of meeting clients and when she is not busy, she likes to pen down her thoughts.

FITNESS MANTRA

Most crucially, Diwekar is not into quick-fix and fad diets. On the contrary, her mantra for staying healthy is 'eat seasonal, fresh and local food'. She says that her ideas are deep-rooted in Indian food wisdom ('the wisdom of our grandparents', she calls it), which allowed us to eat well and stay fit. 'I am not for the borrowed food wisdom of the West but all for respective food cultures of a region. Depriving the body of nutrients like vitamins, protein, minerals, carbohydrates and fats will create major imbalances,' she says.

So just like a standardised diet won't work for everyone, similarly, a standardised exercise plan is not the best idea, she feels. 'There's nothing called a best exercise. It takes as little as 150 minutes of exercise per week but the trick is to learn how to plan those 150 minutes,' she says. The best way to work out, she feels, is to hire a qualified trainer to learn the right technique.

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INITIAL YEARS

Diwekar is from a middle-class Maharashtrian family who lives in Mumbai. Her father's an engineer, her mother, a college professor and her sister graduated from IIM, Ahmedabad. She says: 'I wasn't an academic kind and was always interested in sports.' She joined as an aerobics instructor at a local gym while doing her graduation in industrial chemistry in 1995. In 1998, she signed on for the postgraduate programme in sports science and nutrition at SNDT College, Mumbai. Besides that, she has done an upgradation course recently from Australian Institute of Sport, Canberra, Australia. She's also a Yoga practitioner trained at the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta academy in Uttarkashi.

SIZE ZERO OR CURVY? — CELEBRITY MUSE SPEAK

Diwekar's moment of reckoning came in 2007 when she famously helped Kareena to become Size Zero. But the journey from 68kg to 49kg consisted mainly of eating right and at small intervals. Today, Kareena is still her most famous client but Diwekar also now has a steady stream of other celebrity customers.

Kareena laughs: 'She is now on speed dial with Saif and even my sister Karisma, who lost 29kg after childbirth in two-and-a-half months flat. She gives us meal plans wherever we go fitted for that region and climate.' In her early days, Diwekar's first celebrity client was Laaly Dhawan (director David Dhawan's wife), who introduced her to many other Bollywood clients.

The duo first met in 2007 when Kareena was desperately looking for a nutritionist to help her lose weight for Tashan. 'The film required me to look leaner. She put me on a plan which required me to eat every two hours in small portions without giving up on my favourites like paneer, paratha and chips,' says Kareena. She was even allowed to eat fried momos and thukpa while shooting in Ladakh.

Diwekar's approach to weight loss appealed to Kareena and the two became good friends. Today, Kareena follows the dietician's rule book and never follows any health trends blindly.

But both Kareena and husband Saif Ali Khan have an extremely disciplined lifestyle. They start their day as early at 5.30 am with suryanamaskars and Iyengar Yoga sessions. Says Kareena: 'Earlier I used to do 50 suryanamaskars but Rujuta has taught me that it's not the numbers that matter but it's all about getting the technique and alignment correct.'

ROAD AHEAD

When Diwekar is not meeting clients and giving talks in corporate offices, she takes time out to go trekking and mountaineering twice a year with her husband Gaurav Punj, who runs Connect With Himalaya, a mountaineering group in Mumbai. 'I strongly believe that fitness should be practised beyond the four walls of a gymnasium,' she says.

What will her next book be about? She says, 'There are many ideas bubbling in my head but my next one will definitely be on children. They need to be taught about taking time out to eat proper food.'