Veto the Keto

Juveria Tabassum explores the highs and lows of a skinny lifestyle with Keerthi Yella

Name of the Book: Ten Things Your Skinny Friends Don’t Tell You

Author: Keerthi Yella

Price: ₹199

On the bottomless list of things that the pandemic-enforced lockdown this year have played havoc with, issues with the weighing machine feature quite prominently for a lot of folks. Increasingly stationary lifestyles, and the work-from-home phenomenon together have made it hard for people to prevent those extra layers of fat from setting up shop on their bodies. Hard on the heels of lockdown in India comes first-time author Keerthi Yella’s book, Ten Things Your Skinny Friends Don’t Tell You (Fingerprint! Publishing). Keerthi, an IT professional on a career break, lays down an action plan of sorts for those looking to watch their weight, and follow in the footsteps of their “skinny” counterparts. Juveria Tabassum gives you the full scoop on the latest read!

Infused with a generous amount of humour, the book aims to tackle some sensitive issues such as body-shaming, unhealthy dieting, and the stereotypes and presumptions people hold about body shapes of all sorts. Keerthi, who in conversation with Hashtag claimed that she the genesis of this book came from her observation of “skinny” friends, colleagues and family, writes in the book that making peace with the weighing machine will take us a long way in understanding our bodies and working towards keeping it healthy and in shape. That is perhaps one of the strongpoints of the book—the fact that it does not at any point insist that one needs to go out of their way to lose weight.

Being present in the current moment and being mindful of the food you eat instead of being engrossed in screens or conversations during mealtimes plays a huge part in helping us eat healthy.

Keerthi herself believes in healthy and conscious eating instead of maintaining strict diets, which is what she writes in the final chapter of the book. “Being present in the current moment and being mindful of the food you eat instead of being engrossed in screens or conversations during mealtimes plays a huge part in helping us eat healthy,” says Keerthi. One can conclude from the book that rigid diets and vigorous exercise are not the game “skinny” people play. It’s by negotiating the nitty-gritties of daily life that they stay in fine fettle.

When asked why she chose humour as a vehicle to talk about a rather sensitive issue, Keerthi confesses her love for clean humour. Life, she says is serious and sad more often than not, and a spark of well-done humour makes her extremely happy. The tone of the book makes the exhaustive list of suggestions easy to digest. The generous peppering of anecdotes throughout the work, often drawn from Keerthi’s experiences, also add to the approachable atmosphere in the book, putting readers at ease, and making Keerthi’s debut work a chipper read.