Archives for February 2017

February 28, 2017 By Dr. Viral Thakkar Leave a Comment

Turmeric- ‘Haldi’- for Health

Bablu disliked ‘Haldi Dhoodh’ (Turmeric Milk) to no extent. He could endure anything but turmeric powder in his milk. But alas, his mother insisted and as a child he could not do much about it. Bablu’s mother believed that turmeric is a wonder ‘drug’ for numerous ailments. As he got a bit older he also got aware and realised during winters he never succumbed to common ailments like cough and cold. His immune system was stronger than many of his friends. He enjoyed his health! But, always wondered how!

Turmeric is derived from the rhizomes of the plant Curcuma longa, which is a member of the ginger family. It has the compounds with medicinal properties which is Curcumin. Even though Curcumin is 3% of turmeric, the use of turmeric is not lessened in anyway. Curcumin is the most active component of turmeric and has powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. This is precisely the reason that ‘Haldi’(turmeric) finds a special place in India (Ayurveda) for many ailments.

Turmeric is Anti- inflammatory

Turmeric contains more than two dozen anti-inflammatory compounds including six different COX-2-inhibitors (the COX-2 enzyme promotes pain, swelling and inflammation).
External application of turmeric is beneficial for sprains and swellings because of the Curcumin compound.
Due to its anti-inflammatory properties and pain relieving properties, Curcumin and turmeric is used for arthritic pain.
Because inflammation is closely linked to tumor promotion, Curcumin with its potent anti-inflammatory property is anticipated to exert chemopreventive effects on carcinogenesis. Hence, the past few decades have witnessed intense research devoted to the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of Curcumin.

Turmeric Prevents

The antibacterial and anti-viral action of curcumin makes it the best remedy to treat cough and cold naturally. The anti-inflammatory action of curcumin aids in relieving the chest congestion that develops in people suffering with chronic cough. It is advised to include turmeric in a daily diet during winters to prevent viral and bacterial infection. The dosage could be –one tsp turmeric with a glass of warm milk.One can also have a 1-2 tsps of turmeric powder without mixing it for the same effect.

Turmeric Heals

Curcuma has natural antiseptic and antibacterial properties and can be used as effective disinfectant in case of cuts and minor burns. Turmeric also helps repair damaged skin and may be used to treat psoriasis and other inflammatory skin conditions.
Turmeric with other constituents has a great effect- Having haldi (Turmeric) mixed with mustard oil and onion juice every hour stops rectal bleeding in piles in most of the cases.
As a rich source of iron, turmeric is valuable for anemia.
Curcuma has protective action on intestinal flora. Curcuma is beneficial in Crohn’s disease (an ailment that affects the digestive tract) and ulcerative colitis.

Turmeric Boosts General Health

Curcumin Detoxifies the liver- It helps in stimulating bile production in the liver and encouraging excretion of bile via the gallbladder, which improves the body’s ability to digest fats.
It balances cholesterol levels, fights allergies, stimulates digestion, boosts immunity and enhances the complexion.
Studies suggest that curcumin has several properties that could make it effective at preventing Alzheimer’s disease.

Turmeric is Anti- cancer

Curcumin powder mixed with pure cow’s ghee(Clarified Butter) might wade away cancer cells in most cases and also regenerates new cells in the body.
Curcuma has been demonstrated to inhibit tumor growth and stimulate apoptosis, an intracellular mechanism for cells of all types to “kill” themselves. It neutralizes those substances and conditions which can cause cancer.
It directly helps a cell retain its integrity if threatened by carcinogens.

Turmeric is an Effective Cosmetic

Turmeric paste mixed with aloe vera, water and milk will clear your skin as well. Turmeric mixed with gram flour (besan) is an effective & cheap scrub, and is known to clear tan.

So if you say yes to your health, haldi (Turmeric) has to find some space in your scheme of affairs!

February 26, 2017 By Tasneem Jawadwala 1 Comment

Healthy Weight Gain

Every time I visit the gym, I see a lot of people doing really well trying to lose weight. However, the real strugglers are those who are looking to build muscles. Unfortunately, most are unable to gain muscles as they indulge in variety of foods and workouts to increase their appetite and gain weight.

Let’s see what is it that most do wrong in a weight gain program?-

I) Proteins– Gym trainers and dieticians often suggest including more proteins, some in the form of powders and others suggest natural sources such as egg, sattu, curd, cottage cheese and the likes. However, calculating the right amount of protein required is often missed. One requires around 1.25g/kg ideal body weight proteins, to build up muscles. For example if you are 60 kgs then the required amount of protein required by you on a daily basis to build muscles is 75g.

If you aren’t having enough or the required amount of protein then you will not see a difference. Hence, take out time and consult professionals who can help you calculate.

For building muscles you also need to take care that you have enough carbs, antioxidants and workout properly.

(i) Carbohydrates- While focusing more on proteins, maximum people lose focus off carbs. Don’t forget if approx 60% of your diet isn’t from carbohydrate sources, your body will utilize proteins to supply energy, hence you will lack proteins for tissue building.

(ii) Antioxidants– Fruits and salads are often flawed to be used as a weight loss diet. Vegetables and fruits are the best source of antioxidants that help in tissue repairs, prevent injuries and inflammation. So include selenium, zinc, vitamin C and Vitamin E on a daily basis.

(iii) Workout- Your workout should focus more on strength training however,make sure you still do some amount of cardio for better functioning of your heart and lungs. This will prevent you from falling ill during your program.

Foods that will help in building muscles-

Dates – They are loaded with iron, natural sugar and antioxidants. Have 4-5 dates before the workout as datescan provide you with instant energy and prevent muscle damage.
Sweet Nuts or Pulse balls (Chikkis)- These is a sweet dish made up of pulses, nuts or seeds. It isnothing but roasted whole gram, peanuts or sesame seeds and jaggery. It’s a perfect combination of proteins and carbohydrates. Munching on them as mid meal snacks would be an energy booster.
Nut shakes – A big serving of dry fruits is difficult to consume at a time, hence having them in a powdered form with milk will help provide a large serving of proteins.
Fruit smoothie – Adding a fruit to curd will help add on some antioxidants to your protein dose.
Combination of cereal and pulse – Just having a pulse at a time will really not help as it doesn’t provide us with good quality proteins but, when combined with a cereal, it will not only help us with gaining the benefits of proteins but also supply the required carbohydrates. Hence, options like dal Paratha (Pulse Flat Breads), PuranPoli (Sweet Jaggery filled flat breads), khichdi (mix of pulses and rice and vegetables cooked together) and idli (steamed rice pan cakes) should be considered.
Adding vegetables to meat – Having a separate serving of vegetable becomes difficult .The meal size may exceed if we have 1 serving of vegetable for vitamins & minerals and 1 serving of non-veg preparation for proteins. The best option I feel is to combine a non-vegetarian source with vegetables. For instance, Spinach (Palak) chicken, tomato omelet and capsicum stuffed with mince.
Peanut butter- Many often overdo with regular butter and get major changes in lipid profile but no change in weight. Ideally one should apply peanut butter on their bread slice for the right fats and protein combination.

The key rule for healthy weight gain is to go fornutrient dense meals. These healthy compact meals do not require an extreme appetite boost. Focus on healthy weight gain and be patient while you are in a weight gain program as it’s easy to cut on fats but takes time to add on muscles.

Remember, it took 9 months to give you around 3 kgs of weight while birth.

February 24, 2017 By Anusha Subramanian 15 Comments

“#FitBy40: To lose 40 KGS by the time I turn 40 in Feb’2017”

He led a sedentary lifestyle for several years until one day he realized that he had crossed the barrier of being unhealthy. Here is Arjun Narayan’s inspirational story in his own words.

I couldn’t believe my ears when the guy at the Levi’s store said, “Sir, a 32” size jeans would be perfect for you”. I was shocked because I always wore a 44” jeans until recently!

My normal day would start pretty late. If early, I would begin my day at 8 AM or even 9 AM depending on how late I slept the previous night. I had absolutely no grip on my meals, the greasier and tastier the meal – the higher the chances that I would go for it. I led sedentary lifestyle and walked less than 2,000 steps a day. Dinner times would be erratic and could be as bad as 2 AM. Beer cans would get opened for the smallest event that called for a celebration. All in all, it was as bad as it could get. I also stated that I probably get a zero for a quiz about nutrition or what protein was, what carbohydrates are as my knowledge on this was absolute zilch.

Before a doctor could ask me to get the situation under control regarding my health, I wanted to take charge. Another thing that kept bothering me was, I could never purchase a ready to wear trouser from the market as most brands did not cater to a 44” waist size.

I decided to hire a personal gym trainer. My story was similar to many out there who join the gym to lose weight. I was regular at the gym for a period of three months, but I did not shed a single gram of weight.

When I analysed to check what was I doing wrong– I realised, despite working out in the gym there was absolutely no discipline on my diet. While, I was battling the dilemma on how to rectify the situation, I bumped into these two statements in an article – ‘Weight Loss is 80% diet and 20% exercise’ and ‘Abs are made in the kitchen’. These statements made me think about this entire weight loss program in a different way”. Now, I knew that I had to get a personal coach who can advise me on diet and be by my side if I wanted this weight loss exercise to get anywhere”.

I had been following Vishal Gondal on Twitter for about 2 years and I knew about GOQii. What made GOQii interesting was the ‘services’ component to the business in addition to the product. I never evaluated any other option as I knew it had to be GOQii. Any other band would not solve the problem as I would have the data – but the bigger concern was not knowing what to do with the data.

In Jan 2016, I took up GOQii and came up with a project for myself #FitBy40 and the goal of the project was to lose 40 KGS by the time I turn 40 (which is this month). By the 9^th month – 5th September to be precise, I had lost 36 KGS! I started my GOQii journey at 115.1 KGS and by September I was at 79 KGS.

Today, diet and exercising is my pet topic. I get up at 5:30 AM and on bad days it is not later than 7:15 AM.

I attribute my success to my GOQii coach Kruti Jain. While, I have been extremely sincere and diligent about the entire process, she is the one who gave me the direction.

In the beginning she started advising me on what kind of a meal would be ideal for me, and it gradually started building from there. As I started seeing the results, I was motivated to push harder.

Now I can hold fitness sessions for an hour to a group of people and tell them how they can get a grip on stuff and the best part is that it is practical and doable. A year ago, I would have felt that this would be impossible to achieve – but trust me it is very doable. Today, people come up to me and say that I am an inspiration to them and it feels so good and if I have to look back, I don’t think I could have achieved any of this without Kruti’s assistance.

A normal day in my life ‘today’ looks like this:

My day starts with 2 hours of tennis / an hour in the gym and then I go for a swim in the evenings or for a walk. A newly opened restaurant in town doesn’t excite me anymore. What excites me is going for a run on the treadmill and running for 45 minutes or playing tennis for 2 hours. What excites me even more is going to a readymade garment store and trying out new trousers as my waist size is now down to 32″ from 44″. The last I had worn a 32″ jeans was probably in 1999 or so or maybe even earlier.

What does Coach,Kruti Jain have to say about her player Arjun Narayan?

Arjun came on board with a goal of bringing his weight down to 70 kgs (ideal body weight). He further specified the goal by saying that he would like to get to a 2 digit weight, i.e, 99 kgs within 5-6 weeks (about 10 kg loss)

Achieving such a goal would’ve required drastic dietary modifications and intense workouts. I explained to him the challenges expected on this path and tried convincing him to choose a rather easier and sustainable path of correcting the lifestyle which will automatically lead him to his health goal. He did agree to this but, only in words (for the sake of it).

As a coach, I helped him understand the nature and the nutritive quality of different foods, the trick of balancing meals, healthy snacking, and the impact of foods or lack of food / nutrients on our behaviour and food choices (cravings). These are just a few points to mention but our discussions went beyond the basics.

On the workout front, he chose his activities on his own as doing something of your interest is what keeps you going. I only helped him change and modify the workouts when his body got used to these activities.

According to me, what helped in this case was the player’s strong determination to get to his goal. He was religious in monitoring his progress and kept revising his plans and targets. Not only that, if the progress wasn’t as expected for a particular week, he had me reason it out & find out the limiting factors.

If I asked him to slow down (workouts) or to not be so strict on the diet front (to avoid its negative impact on his health), he would try to understand the “Why?” in detail and argue if not convinced. You just couldn’t stop or slow him down because he could only see the goal and the distance in between them.

Lifestyle before I came on board as his coach:

Diet: He was already following a low fat, high protein diet which was helping him lose weight.

Workout: 1- 1.5 hr of Tennis/ walking everyday

How I helped?

Tried educating him about the negative impact of such diets on health (only proteins or only salads for meals)
Improve satiety quotient of the meals by adding fibre and complex carbs
Balance meals (right proportions of carbs, proteins, fibre& micro- nutrients)
Snacking on nutrient dense foods to avoid deficiencies
Satisfy taste buds without guilt (indulgence on a weekly basis, but in controlled portions)
Deal with cravings and avoiding them
Change the workout at the right time or modify them so that the rate of weight loss does not fall (combination of workouts like swimming/ tennis/ walking/ gym cardio).

These changes helped him sustain the diet and lose weight at such a rate (1.5 kgs/ week)

‘Want to get featured here? Click Here to tell us your story.’

February 21, 2017 By Anusha Subramanian Leave a Comment

Sports for Social Inclusion

“Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do”—– John Wooden

GOQii supports Social Premier League (SPL)

Sports they say is a great leveller. It can bring the privileged and the underprivileged on the same platform to compete with each other in true spirit. Sports can very well be used as a tool for social inclusion and to bring about a social change. Some anecdotal evidence suggests that when applied correctly, sport can create bridges where boundaries usually exist, giving participants a lesson in teamwork, empathy for their teammates and respect for their opponents. It helps develop a strong sense of morality; and the development of an appreciation of diversity.

Sport is clearly not just about competition and exercise, but also regulates behaviour and creates a feeling of belonging, which in turn leads to the strengthening of democracy.

Singing Footsteps Foundation (SFF), is one such organisation in Patna, Bihar that is trying to bring about a social change through sports. The organisation started by Toni Sharma, a professor at NIFT and currently pursuing PhD (ECONOMICS) at IIT aims at bringing about true equality in human lives as well as balance in the ecology, using sports as the driving force to bring together the youth and achieve the social balance.

Sharma is a strong proponent of an egalitarian society, a philanthropist and a social activist at heart. He also mentors startups and advises various incubation centres. His idea with SFF is to showcase and effectively address the most burning and plaguing issues of our society at a large scale, on a single platform.

He says, “Our vision is to bring about social change by harnessing the power of youth and sports. We are constantly focusing on social changes through innovative strategies. We believe in the intent backed by invention”.

So what does SFF do with sports? It has started a league cricket game called ‘Social Premier League’ (SPL), to bring together the virtues of sports to fight the inequities of the society.SPL is a cricket tournament involving the entire youth and corporate fraternity to effectively spread the message of social integration and awareness. It is an initiative that endeavours to bring together the youth from all backgrounds in a relaxed and natural environment that are ideal for harnessing the power of sports to engage communities and change lives.

This year’s SPL that was held at the beginning of this month included Autorickshaw drivers, slum children and, girls and boys of premier colleges.

By way of the cricket tournament, SFF has been able to bring about a behavioural change among the auto drivers such as being more responsible on the road, minimising honking etc. “We have seen a tremendous change in the attitude of the auto drivers since they have been playing this tournament. They have developed empathy and we realised that we can create awareness about lots of issues along with them. If we enable them with the right tools they can help us in disseminating information and creating awareness,” says Sharma.

As participation in the league tournament, each of the auto drivers teams was also asked to pick a social cause that they would like to create awareness about. The two issues that the auto drivers were keen on creating awareness about was Cancer and Malnutrition. They carried messages on these issues in their auto.

SFF is now working towards a financial inclusion of these auto drivers by opening bank accounts for them and after this, they will conduct health check-ups for their children and family as a whole.

According to Sharma, “Sports is the most powerful and the only stimulus in the world that can help build a positive attitude, instil fearlessness and leads to significant overall development.”

“We believe that to make a significant contribution we need to employ the best of youth to uplift those at the lowest rung of the society. We believe in concentrating on the weakest. We believe in mutually beneficial relations that help us raise resources in a way that others can’t. And yes, we don’t settle for the second spot, in order to give the best to those who need our help the most,” Sharma concludes.

As a company, GOQii has been supporting several causes through its Karma Platform. As part of our ongoing efforts to do good karma in the society and get our players to do the same. Supporting SPL and SFF is one such initiative in this direction. GOQii believes that giving to others gives an inner happiness to one while also improving one’s own health.