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How To Stay Healthy On A Vacation!

how to stay healthy on a vacationA vacation is a good time to enjoy and stay carefree but it can certainly take you a step back in your health and fitness journey, if you are not mindful. There’s no need to panic! We’ve got you covered with few effective yet practical things you can do to stay healthy on a vacation.

Tips To Stay Healthy On A Vacation 

  1. Hydrate: The most neglected part of your vacation routine is your water intake. When you are low on hydration, you can take your body’s thirst urge as a hunger urge. This can make you snack more often and your portion control will vanish. So always keep a water bottle in your handbag or in your backpack and keep sipping every hour. This will avoid your hands on chips, and at the same time, will keep your stomach at its best.
  2. Carry your snacks: Never forget to carry simple homemade snacks. They are half the calories you are going to consume from chips, chocolates, cold drinks, etc. for sure. Pack almonds, walnuts, dates, raisins and at the same time some makhana, roasted peanuts, roasted chana, khakhra, homemade chivda, popcorn, etc. This will help you avoid unhealthy snacking and fueling the fat cells.
  3. Walk everywhere: Yes, your step counts should not fall while on vacation. Explore the place on your feet, take an opportunity to walk around and enjoy the serenity. Swim in the hotel pool, go hiking, walk around the market – indulge in everything which will pump up your metabolism. This way, you will avoid putting on extra weight even while vacationing.
  4. Eat only until 80% full: Understand your hunger cues even while on vacation. Do not overfeed yourself to get the goodness of food. For main meals, take only one main plate (avoid using quarter plates) and portion the food you like in a controlled manner and eat it very slowly. Be practical while choosing your food, do not keep impractical expectations of avoiding desserts/sweets. Eat, but in moderation and eat only until 80% full. Stop when you are uncomfortable. 
  5. Eat your breakfast: Do not skip your first meal of the day! Enjoy a healthy and heavy breakfast so you can keep your hands away from unhealthy snacks till late noon. This will satisfy your hunger hormones in the morning and will help you control your portions for later in the day. 
  6. Only one treat a day: How can you keep your hands off desserts, hot gulab jamuns, ice creams, etc. while vacationing? The truth is you really cannot but you should. Keep a rule of only 1 portion of any treat per day and not more. This will avoid the unnecessary sugar rush in your body, which will in turn spike your hunger hormones, which will lead to overeating even during your main meals. 

We hope these useful and doable tips and tricks will help you stay healthy on a vacation. Do let us know how you manage to stay healthy on a vacation in the comments below! You can find more tips such as this one, here. You can also get these healthy tips directly from a GOQii Coach by subscribing for Personalised Health Coaching here. 

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How Chronic Cardio Could be Making You Fat

chronic cardioHow often do you hit the gym and go ballistic on the treadmill? Quite often? We perfectly understand the need to run! Whether you’re running to train for a marathon, to reach a goal, chase a finish line, catch a departing train or bus, we understand how crucial running is… especially to stay fit!

But what happens when you go overboard? Do you actually cause more harm than good? You can literally run for your life and not even see an inch of a difference and sometimes, even the opposite – you’ve gained weight instead of losing it!

This can be a total nightmare for someone trying to lose weight. There’s a perfect explanation for it.

How Chronic Cardio Might be Making You Fat

1. Excessive cardio can increase stress in the body and increase your heart rate to increase blood flow to your muscles. When you do too much cardio, your stress hormones stay elevated. Some amount of stress can be good for the body, but when cortisol i.e. our stress hormone stays consistently high, it can create a lot of issues.

  • Stress can cause insulin resistance to circulate more glucose in the blood to supply energy for stress management. Insulin resistance not only means that you have more sugar in your blood than required, it also means that you store fat more easily as insulin promotes fat storage.
  • In stress, your body shuts down or slows down to fight stress effectively. Your thyroid function slows down, the levels of TSH is reduced in the body, which again promotes weight gain.
  • In women, stress can also disturb the menstruation cycle. Thus creating hormone imbalances in the body, thus promoting weight gain.
  • Chronic stress also promotes the storage of fat in the linings of our organs i.e. visceral fat, as a protection to our organs from stress. This again starts a vicious cycle of excess belly fat, insulin resistance, and more fat storage.

2. Chronic cardio can take a toll on our muscles. Chronic cardio not only burns fat, it burns muscle as well. Your muscle mass determines your metabolism and Basal Metabolic Rate. If you have more muscle, you burn more fat. So when you lose muscle, your metabolism drops and you do not burn as much fat anymore.

So, how do we get the most of our workout? Do a combination of cardio and weight training to promote muscle growth and fat burn. Also indulge in yoga and meditation on a regular basis for better stress management, better sleep and preventing the issues listed above.

We hope this article helps you and keeps you from going overboard. Remember that anything in excess is bad! Stay moderate and stay healthy!

If this information helped, let us know in the comments below. You can find more articles on fitness here. To level up your workouts and get the right guidance and motivation, you can join live, interactive sessions conducted by experts on GOQii PRO. Book a class via the GOQii App now.

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Healthy Eating: The Ultimate Satiety Milkshake Recipe

Ultimate Satiety Milkshake RecipeIf you’re looking for a snack or something to fill in your mid meals or the perfect way to start your day, look no further! Here’s a healthy and delicious ultimate satiety milkshake recipe, loaded with all the essential nutrients in one power-packed glass! The best part of this recipe is that there is “no added sugar” – so you can enjoy this treat completely guilt-free during summer. 

What You Will Need:

  • Milk – 200 ml
  • Dates – 3
  • Anjeer – 2
  • Almonds – 5
  • Walnuts – 5
  • Chia seeds – 1 tsp
  • Cinnamon powder – ¼ tsp

Note: You can use basil seeds (soaked for 30 min) instead of chia seeds or 1 tsp of roasted flax seeds (add this while you blend the shake and not after).

How To Prepare:

  1. Add chia seeds In a glass of water and allow this to soak overnight or for 5-7 hours. While making the milkshake, strain the excess water and keep the soaked chia seeds aside. Also soak the anjeer, walnuts and almonds overnight or for 2-3 hours.
  2. In a mixer jar, add dates, walnuts, almonds and anjeer – blend them finely. Slowly add the milk and give it a blend.
  3. In a glass, pour the dry fruit milkshake, add the soaked chia seeds on top and sprinkle the cinnamon powder.

Highlights of the Ultimate Satiety Milkshake:

  • The seeds provide the required healthy fats and a lot of fiber. These components keep you fuller for longer. 
  • Rich in protein and good carbs.
  • A glass can keep you full for 2 hours minimum.
  • You can also add fruits to up the nutritional value of this milkshake. Albeit, diabetics should avoid adding fruits. 

We hope you enjoy this ultimate satiety milkshake recipe. Do leave your thoughts in the comments below! Check out more healthy recipes here or speak to a GOQii Coach by subscribing to Personalised Health Coaching here. 

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How Ahmad Najib Controlled His Diabetes & Lost Weight With GOQii

Ahmad Najib

It’s a well-established fact that unhealthy eating, lack of physical activity and an overall unhealthy lifestyle can lead to many health issues. To begin with, it is the biggest cause of being overweight, which comes with other issues such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure and even diabetes. While well known, people tend to overlook these aspects. Our Player Ahmad Najib had also found himself in this predicament and when things started to slip, he decided he needed to change his lifestyle. How did he bring about this change? Read on to find out. 

Before Joining GOQii

“My lifestyle was all over the place. There was no routine, I ate an unhealthy diet and ate whenever I wanted and ate whatever I wanted. I never even exercised,” says Ahmad Najib. Owing to his poor eating habits and lack of physical activity, his weight shot up to 108kg. 

His HbA1c levels were as high as 6.7. After his regular yearly checkup, he found that his triglyceride and cholesterol levels were high as well. The problem with sugar and being overweight is hereditary in his family. Keeping this in mind, Ahmad Najib wanted to change his lifestyle for the better.

One day while checking the internet for a solution along with a friend, he came across GOQii. After going through the features, he was attracted by the 3 month coaching subscription and decided this was the way to go! 

Interacting With The Coach & Adopting Healthy Habits 

When he began his coaching subscription, he said that he really liked the way the instructions were simplified for him and the communication was easy. “The interaction was so smooth and easy that I could follow everything my coach shared with me,” he said. The flow of information was continuous between him and his coach. 

6 months before beginning his journey with GOQii, Ahmad Najib said that he had completely cut off from sweets and oily food due to his Diabetes issue. But the daily workout he was doing wasn’t helping him at all. His weight would not budge.

After speaking with his GOQii Coach Farhat Khan, he got a better understanding of his diet and what he should be eating as well as avoiding. His coach suggested some fruits he could eat – which he says benefited him immensely. She also helped him clear any doubts he had regarding his meals and helped him balance them.

He was asked to stay off maida and wheat chapatis. These were replaced with jowar or bajra rotis. He was also instructed to stay off junk food and eating out.  Apart from this, Coach Farhat Khan also introduced him to portion control. She also asked him to take frequent walks – which included walking for 5-7 minutes post a meal. His workout routines were also shuffled frequently. 

Even during the holy month of Ramzan, Ahmad Najib did his best to follow the morning routine, exercises and diet suggested by his coach and avoided eating oily food or ordering in. He says that he has completely stopped eating out. 

How Did These Changes Impact Ahmad Najib? 

The biggest change he witnessed was that his weight was reduced from 108kg to 91kg. Furthermore, his HbA1c levels have reduced from 6.7 to 5.5. “I don’t need tablets for high sugar anymore,” he says. Even his triglycerides and cholesterol levels are now under control.

His Coach Farhat Khan says, “His fat loss is amazing, sugar readings are now under control and his fitness and stamina have also improved.” She further added that, “Ahmad is really dedicated. He never said ‘ye nahin kar paunga’, and was always ready for the tasks given to him – whether it was physical or diet related.” Before, he couldn’t walk even half a km in one go but now, he can cover 3km without feeling tired. 

Looking at his transformation, the people he meets wonder how he pulled it off. With the changes he saw within himself, he recommended GOQii to 2-3 of his acquaintances. He also gifted a GOQii Smartwatch to his sister who has benefited greatly from it. She too lost weight by following instructions from her GOQii Coach.

Overall, he says it’s been a life-changing experience! Currently, along with his coach, he plans on reducing another 8-9kg.

Was this story inspiring? Do you or someone you know wants to make a lifestyle change? Share this article with them and subscribe for GOQii’s Personalised Health Coaching here. 

You can find more inspiring health stories here.

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