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10 New Year workouts for 2016

Are you planning to have some great health-related New Year resolutions? Every Year we set some resolution for ourselves for the New Year and end up with no result because of inconsistency in fulfilling the tasks.

This year let’s set some realistic goals and give a blow to our hidden talents. We always think that we’ll start the New Year with some regular exercising but due to boredom we are   unable to continue. So try new things so as to make your workouts interesting.

The easiest is to start with remembering some of those childhood games and activities that you liked and played the most. Try them out again for a change. If you cannot remember them here are some exercises which will help you to stick to your routine and you will also enjoy achieving your fitness levels.

  1. Roller-skating: Roller-skating as an exercise provides a lot of health benefits. Skating offers an effective cardiovascular workout, endurance training and strength training to build strong muscles in the pelvis and legs. Balance and coordination can also be improved by regular skating.
  1. Hula hooping: Hula hoop is when you rotate your hip round and round. I am sure everyone heir childhood would have attempted this at least once. As an exercise, I can say that hula hoop is a bona fide piece of workout equipment that can tone your thighs, abdominals, gluteals, and arms. You barely feel like you’re working out while doing Hula hoop.
  1. Dancing: Whether you like to jump or jive, tap or tango, shake your belly or your booty, dancing is one of the most enjoyable ways to get some exercise. If you dance 30 min in a day you will enjoy your day and feel very fit without realizing that you have worked out. Also, there is no age limit for the dance, anyone can dance. Regular dancing is great for fitness, maintaining strong bones, improving posture and muscle strength, increasing balance and coordination, and beating stress.

To get more information about Dancing you can check another blog written by my colleague Shimpli Patil. Let’s dance… for a better health and a better you!!

http://goqii.com/blog/lets-dance-for-a-better-health-and-a-better-you/

  1. Trampolining: Everyone likes to jump. So we can relate this exercise to the above mentioned dancing exercise. If you know how to jump, you know dancing. Jumping itself is a great exercise but if you are jumping on a hard floor, you might hurt your legs, knees, so the best option is to use Trampoline. Jump workouts on Trampoline are not only a quick way to tighten, tone and build core strength, you can also shred calories and boost cardio as effectively as going for a run — without the stress on your joints.
  2. Water exercise: As a kid most of us enjoyed playing in the water, be it in bath tub at home or in the pool. Believe me that the water exercises is a great way to stay fit without hurting your body. Water workout burns tons of calories but feels like an easy play. To know more you can read from the following link:

One-Stop Shop Workout – Swimming:

http://goqii.com/blog/one-stop-shop-workout-swimming/

  1. Cycling: I still remember that my school was approximately 8 kms away from my home and I use to travel by cycle to school every day. It was fun and the same time kept me healthy. Cycling is indeed one of the best ways to be fit. My favourite weekend activity has always been cycling and every time I would pick a new route and end up exploring the place. Cycling is the easiest way of exercise because you can ride a bicycle almost anywhere, at any time of the year, and without spending a fortune. Cycling builds strength, muscle tone, builds stamina, improves your cardiovascular fitness, improves heart health and reduces stress. This also improves the mental health.

Cycling is good for your coordination: Moving both feet around in circles while steering with both your hands and your body’s own weight is good practice for your coordination skills.

  1. Skipping: How many of us remember our childhood, when we used to skip and even had challenges among ourselves to find out who could skip the fastest. Those memories of my childhood bring back a smile on my face. I used to enjoy those skipping moments. There were several games we could play with the skipping rope and it was one of the cheapest games that one could purchase. The best part of a skipping rope was that people of all ages could use it.

You can read more on skipping in my blog – Did you know how useful a ‘SKIPPING’ rope can be?

http://goqii.com/blog/did-you-know-how-useful-a-skipping-rope-can-be/

  1. Running: As a child all of us have ran so much while playing but as we grow older all these activities somehow comes to a halt thereby forcing many to lead an unhealthy life. Nowadays running is becoming a very popular sport and a craze among many. This in turn has also led to the number of marathons being organized in a year. According to me one of your New Year resolutions could be to take up running seriously and become a runner.

Here is another blog written by my colleague Mitali on how to prepare for a marathon- Are you running the Marathon? Here is your guide to training:

http://goqii.com/blog/are-you-running-the-marathon-here-is-your-guide-to-training/

  1. Outdoor Games:It’s always best to play outdoor games. If you remember most of us from our generation would remember their times of playing in the parks but sadly nowadays kids are seldom found playing outside and are found more busy with their X-Box, video games, Ipad etc, which lead them to the unhealthy lifestyle. I would suggest you start going to park or nearest ground to play outdoor games like cricket or Foot Ball, which will then encourage your kids also to play outside. For more information about Cricket and Foot Ball, you can read my following Blog – CRICKET and FOOT BALL—Your healthy path to fitness!:

http://goqii.com/blog/cricket-and-foot-ball-your-healthy-path-to-fitness/

  1. Hiking: Hiking especially with friends: If you like to explore new places, try to go Hiking, it will help you not only to explore new places but, also increase your strength and stamina, because you have to walk on the mountain which really needs balancing. Also, while doing Hiking, you are increasing your physical and mental health, because it will give you stress relieve from your whole week work burden.

Once you have decided the resolution for your new year, try to check on it in every interval of 15 days and ask yourself one question – are you following your Resolution? If No – get back on track and then enjoy your healthy lifestyle.

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Your Gut Health

 

You would have heard of the saying. ‘Almost all diseases begin in the gut’. Well it’s true and maintaining the right ‘microflora’ (balance of good bacteria) in the gut is crucial for great health, immunity and even, preventing, healing and recovery from serious diseases like cancer.

Your intestines (gut) contain pounds of good bacteria, whose job it is to help with the absorption of nutrients from the food you eat. The ‘good bacteria’ determines the strength of your immunity, regulates weight loss, recovery, healing, colon health, toxicity in the body and several other functions.

The gut also contains yeast (fungals) which if exceeds in numbers compared to the good bacteria, causes serious digestive issues, affects assimilation of nutrients, and can cause leaky gut, vaginal rashes, IBS and several other bowel and GI tract disorders. It is extremely important that the proportion of good bacteria is maintained at all times, especially in children.

A shortage of these bacteria can also be the leading cause of allergies, skin problems, headaches, migraines, in ability to lose weight and even contribute towards piling on fat. Energy levels of the person fall when there is an imbalance.

Everything we eat and drink passes through the gut along the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. It seems simple enough, but the tube like GI tract, lined with a thin, sticky mucous, is embedded with millions of bacteria that live, grow, and metabolize (digesting and absorbing) in what’s considered a complex ecosystem comprised of both beneficial and harmful bacteria.

I would say maintaining gut health is one of the most important and least looked into things. Many lifestyles that we adopt deplete the gut of the ‘ good’ bacteria’ and that’s where all health problems begin, something as small as acne to something as deadly as cancer.

If you have more bad bacteria (fungus) than good bacteria in your gut, even the healthy food you eat will not be assimilated the right way. Whether you choose to eat clean, organic or expensive foods, it does not matter if your gut microflora is out of balance.

That’s where probiotics come in.

Probiotic bacteria do several things that contribute to good health and immunity.
Their most basic function is to fight harmful foreign substances that enter the body by detoxifying them and easing their elimination. Probiotics can prevent the growth of harmful bacteria, which thrive and grow within a neutral pH environment, by producing organic acids such as acetic and lactic acids that, in turn, lower the pH of the large intestine.

This lower pH also prevents the metabolism of cholesterol and bile acids in the colon. Since cholesterol and bile metabolites act as cancer-causing agents, they can play an important role in the prevention of cancers of the GI tract and other organs as well. These helpful bacteria can even lower serum cholesterol levels along with cardiovascular disease risk by preventing the activity of an enzyme involved in the synthesis of cholesterol.

Inside the gut are about 100 trillion live microorganisms that promote normal GI ( gastro intestinal tracts) function, protect the body from infection, and regulate metabolism and the mucosal immune system. In fact, they comprise more than 75% of the immune system.

Also important is their role in maintaining and protecting the GI barrier. An intact GI barrier maintains gut health, while a problem with its microbiota composition will affect the body’s defense systems and can create a condition known as leaky gut syndrome, which can compromise gut health and lead to diseases such as inflammatory breast cancer, obesity, chronic fatigue syndrome, and depression.

Your diet is the most important element when it comes to building gut health and I cannot emphasise how important it is to do this.

Make sure your diet contain curds or take a probiotic supplement if you are vegan or cannot have yogurt. Here are some top natural probiotic rich foods

  • Yogurt ( plain kind)
  • Miso
  • Sauekraut
  • Kimchi
  • Kefir
  • Kombucha tea
  • Pickled gherkins
  • Spirulina
  • Chlorella

Your diet should be rich in complex carbs, fiber, fruits, vegetables, omega – 3 and you should have a healthy water intake and low intake of sugar, processed foods and red meat.

Sodas, processed foods and sugar quickly depletes the gut of good bacteria, dropping immunity almost instantly, making it the worst thing your child or you can consume.
I constantly tell parents that giving your child aerated drinks is worse than drugs.

 

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The Best Post-Run Recovery Foods

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All athletes plan their routine, in terms of their exercise, nutrition; practice sessions all of this is done to get the best results from his/her body. While you might get the expected results with your performance but, that certainly does not mean that your body is also getting the expected nutrition. In fact, some of the best athletes and more recently we have come across cases of regular marathon runners fainting or blacking out during the run or after the run. This situation occurs due to nutrition imbalance in body.

To be healthy we have to take care of our meals throughout the day. Similarly, we have to take care of our post run meals as well to recover our body. By eating the right foods at right times your body will recover and be able to perform the way you want it to. So if you are a runner or planning to run you need to be aware of what exactly you should be eating before, during and after your running events. This is important so that you are able to keep your body in optimal condition.

So let’s understand more about this.

  1. Some basics before your run: If you are planning to jog no longer than 40 or 50 minutes at a relaxed pace, a glass of water might be all that’s needed ahead of time—provided you have had a decent dinner the night before. But, if the previous night’s meal wasn’t filling or if you ate it early, downing some orange juice or a banana will replace glycogen stores in your muscles to wave off sluggishness. If you’re heading out in the afternoon, have a snack with about 50 grams of carbs in it—like yogurt and a granola bar—an hour or two before hand
  2. Post run, our body requires lot of different nutrition, so let’s divide into different category – PROTEIN, CARBS, ELECTROLYTES AND ANTIOXIDANTS.
  • Protein: Protein is the best resource to repair your body. It repairs muscle damage, diminishes the effects of cortisol—the so-called “stress” hormone that breaks down muscle—and, when taken with carbohydrates it speeds your body’s ability to replenish its glycogen stores, your all-important energy source for those long runs during marathon season. So post run your Protein ratio should be 1:4 which means 1 gram of protein for every 4 gram of CARBS
  • Carbs: Carbohydrates or carbs as is known commonly are body’s main fuel source, and are stored as glycogen in the muscles and liver, so eating carbs shortly after your workout helps optimize your body’s recovery. And it is during this time that your muscles are most receptive to rebuilding your glycogen reserves.
  • Electrolytes and Antioxidants: Electrolytes are minerals in our blood and other body fluids like Calcium, Chloride, Magnesium, Phosphorous, Potassium, Sodium, etc that carry an electric charge. It also affects the percentage of water in our body, the acidity of our blood (pH), our muscle functionality, and other important processes. While running, we sweat a lot and we lose electrolytes when we sweat. So we really have to replace our sweat by drinking fluids that contain electrolytes.

The techniques we can use

The fastest recovery techniques post training is rehydration, glycogen resynthesis and protein and antioxidant supplementation. These techniques replenish our muscle fuel supplies, hasten the repair of muscle damage and combat free radical formation in our cells.

Having said all of the above now it’s time for me to provide you with some resources for the post recovery foods that can help to replenish your body with the vital nutrients discussed above.

At first you start restoring the fluids in the body after your long run – the quick fixes for this are sports drink, lemon water or some plain water. However, the recovery process does not stop here so we have some specific foods that can help you to restore your body in recovery.

  • Salmon
  • Cherries
  • Kale
  • Oatmeal
  • Greek yogurt
  • Banana
  • Skim Milk
  • Chicken
  • Hummus
  • Green Tea
  • Tomatoes
  • Lean beef
  • Turkey breast
  • Sports/Energy bar
  • Whole-Wheat Pasta
  • Berries
  • Fruit Juice
  • Low-fat cottage cheese
  • Eggs
  • Almonds or other nuts
  • Vegetables

Its recommended to have your post run meal within an hour or so, but incase if it is not possible then you can go for the following options, which will help you to sustain for some time:

  • Have an apple which will give you some energy and raise your glucose level to sustain.
  • Protein bars, Protein shake with the combination of milk or water, whatever is convenient for you.
  • Banana is really good option to get quick energy.
  • Have Bread with some peanut butter.
  • My Favorite – Chocolate Milkshake.
  • Hummus and carrots
  • Some Greek yogurt.

As we love running and it’s a part of our lifestyle, routine and our health journey, so we really need to take care of the hard impact of it on our body. To continue our journey with running and healthy lifestyle we need to give appropriate rest and relaxation after every run and make sure that our body recovers completely after a every rigorous workout/running.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Meditation and it’s healing powers

meditation-pose

Meditation as we all know is one of the most ancient stress relieving and healing techniques used in India and now even in the Western world. It however has its roots buried in the centuries old science of medicine in India. Now one may think, meditation is only to sit with eyes closed and breathe, to be practiced by saints and yogis.

MEDITATION- the true meaning is to make peace with oneself mentally and physically.But, this is not easy as one may think and needs practice or even training for some period.

The term meditation refers to a variety of practices, such as techniques designed to promote relaxation and build internal energy or life force which is also PRANA in Sanskrit. This enables the individuals to develop love, compassion, patience, effortless single pointed concentration, thus enabling the person to enjoy the well being while engaging in any life activity.

In the recent times meditation is often suggested as a treatment to ease health concerns such as hypertension/ blood pressure, depression, anxiety, insomnia, fear and phobias, control emotions such as anger or hatred. Meditation has a calming effect on the body as well as mind. It directs awareness inward until pure awareness is achieved which is rightly described as “Being awake inside without being aware of anything except awareness itself”

Now one may ask how to achieve the state of awareness and peace? Here is how you can.

  • Sit comfortably wearing comfortable clothes.
  • Starting with your head working downwards feel the vibrations in your body.
  • Focus on your breath; follow the sensation of inhaling and exhaling. With each inhalation the tummy will blow out and with each exhalation the tummy will go back in.
  • Once you achieve this state, you will face thoughts, the key here is to not hold on to any thought. Instead make it a slide show, let all the thoughts come and go as if it is a photo gallery.
  • Once you are able to achieve this, you can begin with mantra repetition such as OM for 5- 6 times.

It has been proven that practicing meditation; has numerous benefits and accelerates the process of healing of many health conditions, as well as delay the ageing.

To highlight a few prominent benefits, let’s look further.

  • Increase immunity:

Relaxation appears to boost the immunity in recovering cancer patients. Progressive muscular relaxation when practiced daily has shown to reduce the risk of breast cancer and its recurrence. A study at Ohio state university has shown that practicing meditation and relaxation for a month boosted the immunity cells in the elderly giving them more resistance to viruses.

  • Emotional Balance:

As we discussed earlier, meditation helps to achieve control over emotions such as anger, hatred.

Emotional balance means to be free of ego. Though this is very difficult to achieve fully, meditation does help to lessen the outbursts due to ego. As the consciousness is cleansed of emotions and memories, one not only achieves a full freedom but also great balance in actions and words.

  • Increases fertility:

It has been found that women are more likely to conceive when emotionally balanced and stress free. Being stress free also helps improve male fertility in many ways.

  • Relieves Digestive ailments:

People who suffer anxiety related acidity, or other digestive complaints get great relief with regular meditation and breathing exercises.

Hence, it is widely recommended as an effective treatment.

  • Lowers blood pressure:

Similar to exercise meditation also helps to secrete “happiness hormones such as endorphins”, making the body less responsive to stress hormones. These effects are also seen with regular cardio exercise and blood pressure lowering medications as well.

  • Inflammation:

Stress; of all kinds’ leads to inflammation, which is widely related to heart disease, arthritis, asthma and many skin conditions. Practicing regular meditation can prevent and help in treating these conditions by reducing the stress response.

  • Calmness and sleep:

The simple difference between the people who meditate and those who do not, is that for a meditative mind the thought occurs is witnessed, while for an ordinary mind, the thought occurs and is governed by ego. In case in both minds, an upsetting thought occurs, but for those who meditate it is just another thought which is seen, allowed to blossom, and let go, while in a non meditating mind, such thoughts can instigates a storm which rages on and on. This can lead to sleep disturbances. Hence meditation helps to improve sleep.

In short, Meditation is a way to celebrate being at peace with oneself and celebrating it with silence.

Happy Meditating!

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