Archives for May 2017

May 23, 2017 By Azra Faizan 22 Comments

Why you need to strengthen your core?

‘You need to work on strengthening the core’

‘Why not start with some core strengthening exercises’

How often have you heard this line from a fitness trainer/doctor/health coach??

Now, how many of you know exactly what the core is?? My guess would be ‘we have a general idea, though not sure’

So let me try and explain first, what ‘the core’ is…

I do not want to bore you with the scientific names of the muscles consisting of the core, which I’m sure nobody would understand and everybody would just scroll over.

So to make it simple, the core of the body is broadly considered to be the torso.

It is a complex series of muscles, extending far beyond your abs, including everything besides your arms and legs. The major muscles of the core reside in the area of the belly and the mid and lower back, and peripherally include the hips, the shoulders and the neck.

It is incorporated in almost every movement of the human body. Functional movements are highly dependent on this part of the body, and lack of core muscular development can result in a predisposition to injury.

The core forms a sturdy central link between your upper and lower body. Much like the trunk of a tree, core muscles need to be strong yet flexible. A weak or inflexible core drains power from many movements and can make it downright difficult to do some.

Functions:

Contains and protects the internal organs –You will notice that this part of your body (core) doesn’t have many bones, except for the spine and some floating ribs, yet it contains many important internal organs that need to be kept safe and sound. Without the bony structure to rely on, the entire area needs to be wrapped up tightly to maintain the integrity of its contents. So I like to think of our core musculature as a tightly wrapped package protecting the internal organs.

Ensures greater mobility of the spine and trunk –Because of the way our core musculature is organized, it allows a great range of movement in the trunk. It allows us to bend forward, backwards, sideways, twist and do combinations of those.

Stabilizes the top part of the body over the bottom part- the core determines to a large part a person’s posture. In all, the human anatomy is built to take force upon the bones and direct autonomic force, through various joints, in the desired direction. The core muscles align the spine, ribs, and pelvis of a person to resist a specific force, whether static or dynamic.

Controls the pelvic-lumbar relationship – The core is used to stabilize the thorax and the pelvis during dynamic movement and it also provides internal pressure to expel substances such as urine (continence),feces, air, vomit and also for labor and childbirth in women,

Core Stability:

In essence, core stability means ‘stability of the spine’, ‘core strength’ is the ability to support your spine and keep your body stable and balanced. It is the strength that allows you to perform manual tasks safely and effectively in everyday life.

There are “five different components of core stability: strength, endurance, flexibility, motor control, and function”. Without motor control and function, the other three components are useless, like a fish flopping out of water no matter how strong you are or how much endurance you have.

I like to believe that core strength is as vital as most of the major organs in the body, let me tell you why –

Muscular tone helps blood circulate more effectively once it’s pumped from your heart. Core muscles are no exception, and when your core is strong you can notice an improvement in blood circulation.
Core stability promotes healthierdigestion. The digestive system contains a lot of blood vessels and when the core area is stagnant, the whole digestive system may feel more sluggish too. You may see increased bloating, discomfort, and indigestion associated with meals. The digestive system also contains a large and essential part of the immune system. Core strength can help support your body’s immunity too as it rounds out healthy digestion and circulation.

Because the diaphragm is located near the core, core strength promotes deeper and higher quality breathing.
Because the pelvis is located near the core, women may find relief from cramps and PMS around the menstrual cycle after strengthening core muscles. Women use their core muscles during labor and delivery too, and having a strong core, help in an easier labor.
Finally, the physical balance that comes from supporting your core can extend to yourmental-emotional health as well. Physical balance promotes a sense of calm, steadiness, and support.

How to Measure your core strength –

Let’s end with a fun activity!!

Let’s all of us measure our core strength, this way even people with regular exercise (including me) will know where we stand and how much further we need to work for a strong core..

Core Muscle Strength & Stability Test was designed by Brian Mackenzie, a senior athletics coach with UK Athletics, the United Kingdom’s National Governing body for Track and Field Athletics.

Preferably use a mat for performing this test, to get accurate results.

Position a stop watch where you can easily see it
Start in the Plank Exercise Position (elbows on the ground)
Hold for 60 seconds
Lift your right arm off the ground, Hold for 15 seconds
Return your right arm to the ground and lift the left arm off the ground, Hold for 15 seconds
Return your left arm to the ground and lift the right leg off the ground, Hold for 15 seconds
Return your right leg to the ground and lift the left leg off the ground, Hold for 15 seconds
Lift your left leg and right arm off the ground. Hold for 15 seconds
Return you left leg and right arm to the ground
Lift your right leg and left arm off the ground, Hold for 15 seconds
Return to the Plank Exercise Position (elbows on the ground), Hold this position for 30 seconds

Results

Good Core Strength
If you can complete the test fully, you have good core strength.

Poor Core Strength
if you cannot complete the test fully, your core strength needs improvement.
Poor core strength results in unnecessary torso movement and swaying during all other athletic movements. People with poor core strength are more likely to suffer from back injuries, and the likelihood of other peripheral injuries also increases in those with a weak core

This results in wasted energy and poor biomechanics.

If you are unable to complete the test practice the routine three or four times each week until you improve.

By comparing your results over time, you will note improvements or declines in core strength.

May 22, 2017 By Dr Ashwin Nanda 2 Comments

Tension or HYPERTENSION

I can’t count how many times in my 12 years of medical practice, a patient with just a headache has eventually been diagnosed with high blood pressure (hypertension). Whenever a patient complains of headache, I always make it a point to check his/her blood pressure (BP) as it is a very common symptom of fluctuating BP which presents usually around the temples but can also be on the back of the head (occipital region).

Do we know what’s blood pressure?

The pressure exerted by the column of blood flowing in the arteries once it has been pumped by the heart is called the systolic (higher value) blood pressure. Diastolic (lower value) BP is the resistance in the arteries which is always present due to the elastic tone of the arteries. A blood pressure of upto 120/80 is considered normal. Readings from 130/90 to 140/90 are the pre-hypertensive stage and above 140/90 is considered hypertension. If three readings on separate days are high, then the person is diagnosed with high BP.

If I have to look for, then the following symptoms should raise the suspicion of high blood pressure:

Headache
Feeling of tiredness.
Difficulty in breathing
Heaviness in the eyes / blurred vision.
Irritability
Irritability
In rare cases it may directly present as a complication of prolonged high BP like heart attack or hemorrhagic stroke.

High BP is a very common issue in adults over 50 years of age and is increasingly being diagnosed in younger age group due to bad lifestyle choices such as not getting adequate sleep on a regular basis, eating high salt content food, smoking, being overweight due to lack of exercise and eating junk food in excess. Extremely high stress levels arising from chaotic traffic in metros to financial strain and challenging deadlines set at workplace also contribute to high BP. Rarely, BP can be high due to secondary causes like thyroid disorders and narrowing of blood supply to the kidneys (Renal Artery Stenosis).

Why is it important to maintain your BP in the normal range?

Constantly high BP starts damaging the internal lining of blood vessels and gradually affects the brain, kidneys and eyes causing stroke, renal failure and hypertensive retinopathy respectively. All complications can be averted by controlling the BP.

How can one manage High BP?

Since lifestyle choices are the single most significant factor in controlling BP without medication, I will emphasize on them.

Sleeping regularly by 11 pm and waking up around 6 or 7 am is a habit, I can’t emphasize enough. Following the circadian rhythm (body clock) is an easy way to avoid raised BP.
Restrict salty foods such as chips, salted nuts, papad, pickles, processed sauces and dips.
Regular cardio exercise goes the longest way in keeping the heart healthy and preventing high BP. 45 minutes of brisk walking / 30 minutes of swimming or cycling or an aerobics session of 30 minutes suffice.
Weight reduction is essential for anyone with obesity and hypertension. The target should be 1 -2 kgs weight loss every month till BMI (body mass index) is 25.
Deep breathing /meditation helps negate mental stress. I strongly advise people to set realistic goals in personal and professional realms to avoid stress since unrealistic goals make life miserable.
Having a healthy social life is also necessary.

If the above non-pharmacological measures do not reduce BP at least in 6 months, one needs to consult a physician and explore the medication option. If the cause of hypertension is secondary (thyroid and renal artery stenosis) then treatment of the cause helps in correcting the raised BP.

Even the word hyperTENSION (high BP) has TENSION in it, so reduce Stress and start making your heart healthy today!

May 19, 2017 By Geetika Patni 2 Comments

Mindful Eating: Connect Back with your food – Part 5

I hope by now, you would all be well aware of the do’s and don’ts of Mindful Eating through the series of four blogs. I have talked of of the concept of Mindful eating and how mindless Eating can be harmful. I talked of why should you eat slowly to enjoy your meal (https://goqii.com/blog/mindful-eating-slow-down-and-enjoy-your-meal-2/) and shared some tips on how can you eat slowly. Then I took you through portion control and how to be wise (https://goqii.com/blog/mindful-eating-control-portions-and-be-wise-part-3/). In the fourth blog we talked of emotional eating and how it can be avoided (https://goqii.com/blog/mindful-eating-mind-your-mood-part-4/). In the last of the blog in this 5 Part series on Mindful Eating, I will talk of connecting back with food and how one can do that.

Mindful Eating is eating with attention and right intention. It is eating with the intention to care for yourself. It is also eating with the attention necessary for noticing and enjoying your food and its effects on your body.

If you choose to eat each and every thing that you can lay your hands on, you indeed are disconnected from your food-the very ingredient of life that keeps you alive and going. And, when you are disconnected from your nutrition, you make yourself vulnerable to host of illnesses, life threatening disorders and loss of longevity of life.

I was wondering-what makes us disconnected from our nutrition as we grow? For I am certain we were connected with our foods when we were a child (as that is how we learnt that seeds sitting in an apple core can grow into an entirely new apple tree! And, that the water we drink doesn’t come from tap but, from a faraway river channel).

So, I have come to conclude that with time, our body just repeats what it has done previously as trained by the mind. These are nothing but habits. And unless our mind makes a choice, body will not break the pattern even if it is a potentially harmful one. In terms of eating, since it’s the most repeated skill of all human behaviours, our mind has pretty much trained ourselves to ignore eating and be on an autopilot mode while grabbing a bite. Thus, we don’t ask ourselves any more now – where do these strawberries come from? Or what goes into making a Pizza?

If we can turn around our ways and connect back with our meals, learning about the foods which will help us and those that will not and, make a conscious choice to pick up right dish at the right time by breaking the habit of eating each and every thing at any time, a lot of our future troubles will get resolved. Turning into a mindful eater and making an informed choice-an intention to care for yourself- is what it will take.

To help you get connected, I am sharing some simple tips here with you today

1) Connect right from grocery shopping: Most of us go grocery shopping on weekends. And there is usually long queue at the billing counter. In a hurry to finish our job, we just throw in our cart, whatever is more attractive or convenient-which is mostly processed foods. To connect with your foods, shop smart at the store itself.

i) Fill up your cart from produce section first. Once you have half filled up your cart with fruits and veggies, you’ll be less tempted to shop for processed and ready-to-eat meals.

ii) Read ingredient list and nutritional labels. Choose food products with short ingredient list, ingredients that you can pronounce, with 0 trans fats, no sugar or if at all, appearing in last in the list, mentions whole grain composition, small per serving calories (and not per 100gm) and has fiber serving size >2 units. If a food product matches up this criteria, it is worthy to be nourishing you.

2) Be a food critique: You don’t need to write a review or become a fussy eater. But learn the art of analyzing your food dishes. What are you eating? What are the ingredients that go into this dish? How is it prepared? How’s the aroma, texture, color of the meal? How does it make you feel? Knowing answers to all of these questions will help you to know why you eat what you eat, and thus will help you turn into a mindful eater.

i) One of the player once mentioned to me he can’t stop eating ‘vada-pao’ the fried snack tucked between white flour bread. On my insistence, he made the attempt to analyze how he feels while having the snack. To his own surprise, he found out that it was only the act of tearing the bread apart and tucking in the fried snack, which appealed to him. He didn’t really enjoy the taste of the snack as much as he liked the procedure of eating it!

So to know yourself and your eating habits better, be a food critique.

3) Make an attempt to learn about your nutrition

# Know major food groups like carbs, proteins and fats and the minor but essential ones like vitamins and minerals. What all food dishes that you commonly eat fall in these categories and influence you.

# Know alkaline and acidic foods- because our blood Ph is slightly alkaline (7.3-7.4) and to keep our system running efficiently we need to maintain this alkaline Ph. Your food choices will play an important role in this physiological action.

# Know various benefits of different herbs-cinnamon, turmeric, coriander, cloves, ginger, garlic, fennel, cardamom, coriander, saffron, fenugreek, garam masala, varieties of pepper and so on. You have them in each and every single dish. They deserve your attention.

# Know how to eat your fruits right, what time of the day and how much and in what combination is good enough.

# Know combination of foods which can enhance each other’s nutritional values-like Vitamin C with Iron rich foods, Vitamin D and calcium rich foods and know what food combinations can interfere with each other’s absorption in the body like Iron and Calcium heavy foods don’t go well together.

# Know what meals are best options for pre and post workout nutrition

# Learn why you should not eat white sugar, white flour or white salt. Or have an aerated drink ever

# Know replacements for sugar and white salt and what you can do to beat down your sugar cravings.

# Or understand why dark chocolates or nuts are good for you inspite of being calorific or why eating a healthy ‘mukhwas’ (mouth freshner) after a meal can be a good habit.

And, there are many more such small and simple things to know about your everyday nutrition. Keep asking your coach or make an attempt to read and learn yourself.

Mindful eating is much more than learning your food or food choices alone or practicing slow eating, in the moment eating itself. It encompasses having a relationship with your food wherein you respect your meals and feel gratitude towards it.

To sum up, mindful eating is a way of nurturing your physical self, harmonizing your mental state and satisfying your soul.

If you have been missing out on it as yet, get on the mindful eating wagon now!

May 18, 2017 By Geetika Patni 3 Comments

Mindful Eating: Mind your Mood-part 4

My previous three blogs talked of the concept of Mindful eating and how mindless Eating can be harmful. In my second blog, I talked of why should you eat slowly to enjoy your meal ( https://goqii.com/blog/mindful-eating-slow-down-and-enjoy-your-meal-2/) and shared some tips on how can you eat slowly. The third blog talked of portion control and how to be wise ( https://goqii.com/blog/mindful-eating-control-portions-and-be-wise-part-3/). Continuing in this 5 Part series on Mindful Eating, Today, I will take you through how stress eating can be harmful and should be avoided.

Have you noticed why buttered popcorns are sold out quickly during a movie intermission break? Or why the entire packet of Oreos or chips is emptied when you are amidst a sea of emotions? That’s because certain foods can be emotionally comforting. In most cases these comfort foods have high fat and sugar and are low on nutrition. They are still comforting because they hit some neurons in the brain which can lead to false perception of well-being.

Turning to food to make you feel better is ‘Emotional eating’.

It is not necessarily a bad thing to eat food from time to time- as a pick me up meal or as a reward treat or as a celebration feast. But, if food becomes your primary coping mechanism to ward off your anxiety, loneliness, boredom, anger, frustration, exhaustion etc, and your first impulse, as soon as you are upset is to dig into a tub of ice-cream, it calls for your attention. Feeding your emotion with food may feel good for that moment but, doesn’t resolve the underlying problem. And, more often you may end up feeling worse later than you did before, because of the un-necessary calorie binge you undertook. Not to mention the physical havoc on your metabolism.

The guilt-feeling powerless over emotions and impulse eating leads to a very unhealthy vicious cycle, landing one up in physical and emotional misshape. So no matter how hard it looks to break this vicious cycle, it is still possible to make a positive change. All it requires is some effort by you.

To help you make the breakthrough out of this vicious cycle and this mindless eating habit, I am sharing few pointers which work best when you work on them in the listed order below:

Be Aware: and acknowledge your habit of emotional eating. If your near/dear ones have pointed out to you or you know it by yourself that you may eat out of emotional triggers, take it seriously! Being aware of your habits is the first positive step. Make a move ahead then and identify- what emotions can lead you to do binge eating. Is it some positive ones like exhilaration, victory, success? Or negative ones like frustration, loneliness, anxiety, depression, anger, boredom etc. Then know your comfort foods- is it sweets, chocolates, ice-creams or salty ones like chips, fries or some junk food like pizza, burger, maggi etc. that drive your emotional cravings. You may come up with multiple choices for multiple emotions and it is absolutely okay. You may also notice that your choice of comfort food is entirely different from others. So accept it.

# Maintain a food journal to help you identify your emotions and foods associated with it or use food log feature in GOQii app to get this task done.

Know your Hunger cues: Why you wish to eat. The hunger cue can be physical or emotional. So if your stomach is growling and it’s been few hours since your last meal-eating a salad or any other meal will be good enough for you in the immediate but, if there is no sense of emergency and you can postpone your hunger then you are then likely to stop once you feel full after eating. There are no traces of guilt, your hunger was driven by true physical cues.

Contrary to this, if your hunger is sudden and urgent and you crave for specific foods like cookies or chips, or specific types of foods like sweets and fried foods and you are likely to over consume, feeling guilty later, you are about to be snacking out of false hunger, then the head hunger is generated out of emotional cues.

# Next time you reach out for a snack, check in and see which type of hunger is driving you to have it.

Cross check: Your next task after you have identified your hunger cue is to ask yourself a question, and get a clear answer for it. This is another way to put a check before the binge. Most times, you may identify that you are about to eat the snack out of some emotions, but, your mind will trick you into believing you are not. So if you are heading for a snack, (and don’t know yet whether you are eating for emotions) just ask yourself – ‘Why I am eating this?’ and then take a deep breath. You’ll know your answer.

# If it’s justified hunger, grab something healthy-roasted or steamed. If not and you were eating only out of any emotional trigger-place the dish respectfully aside!

Distract: Next step is distract yourself. Once you have put the dish aside, change your location. Go to the next room (from where you can’t see the tempting dish) or head outdoors and distract your mind. This process is important because you need to find an alternative to food which will fulfil your emotions. If you are lonely talk to someone, if depressed or frustrated, watch some comic movie. If exhausted, get a foot massage or a warm soothing bath, if angry let it out or write it out, if you are anxious, listen to your favourite music and, if you are happy and feel like rewarding yourself, indulge in your hobby.

#You can also do some window shopping , reading, walking, exercising, meditating, or taking a nap which will give time to pass off the emotional storm and make you a stronger self- one who has more willpower to cope up with his/her feelings.

Giving In: Emotional eating is after all an automatic and virtually mindless eating habit. At times even before you can grab hold of yourself, you may polish off half of the tub of the ice-cream in that tornado of sentiments. But, then, if you can take a moment to pause now when you are hit with a craving, you’ll be equipped to make a different decision next time.

#When you are giving in, just pause for a minute and reflect back. Don’t shut out, wait. (Because forbidden is extremely tempting, shutting out will make you powerless to make a mindful decision later). While you are waiting, check upon yourself, what’s going on in your head? How are you feeling? Even if you eat after this reflection, you’ll have better understanding of why you did it. This will prepare you for a better response next time.

If you approach your feelings with kindness, reining in emotions is not a difficult task.

Listen to your emotions, accept them even if they are negative and when you do so, your body will understand that it doesn’t need to overeat to comfort itself and/or protect itself from powerful feelings.

Learning to mind your mood this way will enable you to repair your emotional responses and physical fitness and in this journey seeking help from experts or your personal coach may bring a turning point. So reach out if you need help and forever enjoy a better physical and mental health!

Tomorrow, in the last of the blogs in the 5 part series, I will tell you about connecting with your meals and will share tips on how you can transform and change your relationship with food for the better.

To be continued……………