About Aqsa Shaikh

Aqsa Shaikh believes in being fit and healthy herself. A certified professional trainer from K-11 Academy she used to work with a reputed gym before joining GOQii. According to her gym workouts provide temporary solutions to individuals. At GOQii she aims to work towards changing people’s habits and motivate them towards being healthy. Aqsa herself is a true believer of a healthy lifestyle and is excited about wanting to bring a positive change in people. Passionate about food, Aqsa works out three days a week which is a combination of cardio and freestyle workout. Her mantra in life is eating healthy; staying fit and live life to the fullest.

September 4, 2015 By Aqsa Shaikh 16 Comments

Cold water vs Hot Water: Which is better?

After a tiring day, I always opt to drink water with no ice and more often than not people think I am crazy because largely when one tends to have cold water. But, honestly I am not crazy I have a strong reason for doing what I do.

Let us take a minute and close our eyes and picture the following situation: It is spring and you are standing on a wooden dock that extends into a high mountain lake. While the temperature in the air is fairly warm, the top layer of the lake has only recently melted and you can tell by the color of the crystal clear blue water that it is anything but warm. You close your eyes and dive in to in the lake.

What does your body do? What happens to your skin? Are you relaxed and open, or tight and constricted?

I am not sure how many actually know this fact that warm water opens your pores and makes your skin feel looser, while cold water closes your pores and constricts your skin. Guess what? Drinking cold water does the same thing to your digestive tract!

What Happens When You Drink Cold Water

– When you drink cold beverages your blood vessels shrink, your digestion becomes restricted and hydration is hindered.

– Instead of working to digest the food and absorb the nutrients to create energy, your body is expending energy to regulate your temperature. This can lead to water loss.

– Drinking cold water after a meal creates excess mucus in your body, which can lead to a decrease in immune system function, making it easier to catch colds and illnesses.

– If you eat food while drinking cold beverages or immediately after, the water temperature solidifies fats from the foods we’ve just eaten and the body in turn finds it hard to digest the unwanted fats from our bodies.

Some people say that drinking ice cold water is beneficial because it burns more calories. I argue that we do not want to make our digestive system work harder; we want to make things as easy on it as we can. There are many other ways to burn calories. And one of the best ways to burn calories is exercising.

Benefits to Drinking Warm Water

Here are some benefits to drinking water that is room temperature or warmer

– Faster + increased hydration

– Natural digestive enzymes are stimulated and therefore your digestion is enhanced

– Food breaks down more easily

– Your bowels move better (warm water with lemon in the morning is great for this)

– It purifies your blood and increases your bodies natural detoxification processes via your skin, kidneys and lymphatic system

Once you get into the habit of drinking water at room temperature or warm, you will notice a dramatic improvement in your digestion and the way your body feels while eating and after the meal. Some people have also reported reduction in sugar cravings.

So, the next time you eat out ask your server to “Hold the Ice!”

August 18, 2015 By Aqsa Shaikh Leave a Comment

Effects of Smoking on your Muscles

In my fitness carrier thus far, I have met many people with all kinds of obsessions. If I take the example of my closest friend who is a fitness and gym freak and wanted to develop muscles and also lose fats. But, he had this major misconception that cigarette smoking helps in fat loss and if he loses fats he will gain muscles automatically.

He then approached me to discuss the same and I started wondering? I wondered if fat loss was so simple why would people go for all kinds of diets and work outs ? They could just simply light a cigarette and lose those extra pounds in weeks. But, unfortunately this is not true.

Some people smoke to look cool or they are under the impression that this will help them to relieve stress and boost their happiness. But, the truth is that none of this happens and it only damages the lungs.

If you are a smoker not only that your lungs get damaged slowly and steadily smoking also affects your strength training? It also makes you lethargic. A smoker’s heart beats at an average 30 percent faster than that of a non-smoker this in turn significantly affects the outcome of any exercise that the smoker indulges in. Because, a smoker’s heart is working harder to achieve adequate circulation the individual uses more energy during his workouts.

This increase in heart rate and the resultant increase in blood pressure diminish blood flow and reduce the smoker’s overall performance while performing the same exercise routine as a non-smoker. When an individual’s exercise routine is designed to encourage muscle building, a smoker’s diminished performance will yield less muscle than that of a healthy non-smoker.

Testosterone level is also a thing which helps very much in muscle building. But, smoking may also damage the cells within the body which produces testosterones. Lack of testosterone levels will show a significant result in an individual’s muscle development. It can also sabotage one’s endurance level of your workouts and intensity of it. This may force you to cut down the workouts which will help you make progress in muscle building…

If you are planning to quit smoking there are many health benefits you will notice but, if you still want to continue it the result will be apparent to you sooner than later.

July 9, 2015 By Aqsa Shaikh Leave a Comment

How many cups of ‘Green Tea’ should you have daily

Green tea has become a household name today and is highly appreciated by all. People have started including a cup of steaming hot green tea to their daily routine to keep themselves active and fit.

Having a cup of green tea and exchanging it with your regular mug of coffee or tea will also reduce the amount of sugar that you have throughout the day.

However, there are several misconceptions that green tea will help us loose weight with one mug of tea daily. While, it’s true that green tea can help you shed your weight, it is not a magical mug that will shed off the fats and extra weight without being physically active and eating healthy.

Many come to me for advice saying I am having at least 3 to 4 cups of green tea yet not losing weight. Why? There was one such friend who was worried that despite having green tea she was not shedding weight.

I asked her about their meal pattern and her activities through the day. After listening to her I realised that her meals were hay wire and activity was very less. Her purpose behind having green tea was only for weight loss! Yes, Green tea helps you lose your weight but, at the same time we need to make sure that we are active and keeping our meals healthy.

Green tea is filled with POLYPHENOLS like flavanoids and catachin which act as powerful antioxidants in our body. Green tea has the power to fight with your fat-fighting metabolism and helps in shedding that extra fat from our body

Indeed Green tea is a super healthy drink but, we need to make sure that we do control its amount of intake, 2 to 3 medium cups of green tea in a day is good enough but try not to exceed it!

Green tea also contains minimum amount of tanins and caffeine and it can interfere with our iron absorption and decrease our folic acid absorption which is an important vitamin that helps decreases birth defects. So woman who consume green tea should be careful that they do not consume in excess.

Remember there are no short cuts of super foods to a great body and a healthy life. It’s simple: eat healthy, drink lots of water and keep yourself active.

March 25, 2015 By Aqsa Shaikh 7 Comments

Food Pyramid – Did you Know? A guide to healthy eating with the Food Pyramid

Good food after a day’s hard work is always a pleasure and there is no substitute to good wholesome and nutritious food. But, more often than not, we are so engrossed in our work that we fail to think about our health which in turn means that we neglect good food.

And most think it’s a cumbersome task to deal with all these nitty gritties, think about nutrition, good food etc.. It’s so complicated. The idea ultimately is to just eat whatever is available when hungry.

But, it’s not difficult as it seems. Well, while you are in a restaurant you always think about ordering something tasty and compromise often with the nutritional aspects, here is a simple food pyramid tips which can be followed easily without any complications. This can be followed in restaurants or while you are out and at home.

So in the food pyramid, there is a cereal and grains group, followed by fruits and vegetable group, dairy products and non-veg, and then oil fat and sugary foods,

1.Cereal and grains group.
These are mostly staple foods which is consist of nutrients like carbohydrates ( Complex carbs ), proteins, fibre, minerals, calcium and B-complex vitamins. An individual should have 6-11 servings of this portion in a day. Common food items in this group- Whole grain cereals, millets, rice, Jowar, Bajra, Makai (Corn), Barley Oats, Poha (Puffed Rice) and Upma. These foods are rich in nutrients and good to provide the necessary fuel for our body to run all day long

One serving of this equals
-1 cup of rice, Poha or Upma
-1 cup of oats
-1 Paratha
-2 Phulka
-1 Jowar, Bajra or Makai roti.

2.Vegetables and Fruits group (Protective Food Group)

These foods are a must eat and should be added to our food plate daily. A person should have at least 3-5 servings of vegetables and 2-4 servings of fruits each day. They contain vital nutrients like vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, folate, iron and potassium and many more nutrients. These foods consist fiber help our digestive system and also gives us different types of nutrients, phytochemicals and are also rich in antioxidants.

One serving of vegetables consists of:

1 cup of leafy vegetables ( Lettuce, spinach, Fenugreek, Dil, spring onions)
1 medium potato/yam, ½ medium sweet potato ( cooked )
1/2 cup of other vegetables, cooked or raw ( You can also include some of them as salads too )
3/4 cup of vegetable juice(vegetables like Bottle gourd, carrot, beetroot, French beans, green peas, are good to grind and have as smoothe with a pinch of salt and pepper)

In fruits one serving is:
One small apple, orange or banana or any other fruit
1/2 cup of chopped, cooked or canned fruit

3.Dairy products and non-veg food items

These foods are the main protein building group because it is important to maintain the strength of our bones and muscles. Apart from providing proteins these food items also provide B-complex vitamins, invisible fat, fibre, calcium, vitamin A, riboflavin, vitamin B12, iron and iodine. You should ideally have 4-6 servings of this group each day. These foods are mainly important to build up our muscles and help to recover the wear and tear that might occur during the hectic day

One serving of this group consists of:
1 cup of milk, curd
40g (2 slices) cheese, paneer
1 cup dal, pulses, sprouts
1 handful of dry fruits, nuts like groundnuts
1 Egg
65-100gm cooked meat/chicken (½ cup mince, 2 small chops, or 2 slices roast meat)
80-120g cooked fish fillet

4. Oils, fats and sugar:

There are certain good fats which are useful and beneficial for our body, as the cell membrane around our brain are made up of good fats, These are the foods which should be eaten by keeping the portion control in mind and even the time of the day should be noticed as its important.

Some good source of sweetners are Raw honey/Jaggery/Dates/Prunes, these are the healthy sweetners, But, because of today’s lifestyle some unhealthy sweetners have sadly become the staple diet in our lifestyle. Ideally this should not have happened. Choose Any of the junk food item and it will contain these ingredients – burgers, pizza, vada pav, samosa, fizzy drinks, alcohol, instant noodles, chips, frankies etc.

These are not bad to have but, at the same time we should keep our portion in control. We shouldn’t have more than 3-4 servings of these food items in a day. Some common basic sources are vegetable oils, butter, sugar, jaggery and honey.
One serving is defined as 1 tsp of oil, ghee or butter and also 1 tsp of sugar, jaggery and honey.

Now last but the least…WATER:. Water is one of the most important component that cannot be ignored in this entire pyramid. We should have at least 8 glasses of water, as it is very important to keep our cells well hydrated and alive. The above given quantity is for a non-active person, but an active person needs at least 10 to 12 glasses of water average..