Disha Jhamb, Author at GOQii

September 9, 2018 By Disha Jhamb Leave a Comment

5 steps to automatic Fitness

Healthy habits are foundation for healthy lives.Once you are healthy it’s hard to give up being so. It’s an automatic behavior that is tough to change.

Here are 5 steps to automatic fitness

Decide what you want to change about yourself: Every human has the ability to change something about his or her life by controlling the mind which only comes with practice. For example- if you want to change your binging habit, be 100 percent convinced that you can change it.
Cause of the habit: Once you have identified the cause of your habit you will be able to deal with it better. For example- binging throughout the day could be because of stress. So ‘stress’ is the cause. Now that you have identified stress start reasoning within your mind on how binging can lead to calorie over load and thereby affect your weight and health? So what is it that you can do to get rid of the stress levels that makes you binge? Once you are done with the reasoning, you will get a clearer picture on your areas of improvement.
Set short term goals: It’s taken several years for you to build on your bad habits. And, it’s going to be very difficult to get rid of them instantly.Hence decide on a realistic goal that will work for you. For instance –if you take the case of binging again then you can decide to binge on nuts, seeds, fruits as and when the urge arises. At this point in time you can also question yourself if it’s emotional eating or if you are actually hungry.
Value and appreciate every small change and don’t be disheartened with the occasional slips:Appreciate yourself as you are on your journey to improve yourself and doing your best to build on healthy habits. Occasional relapses are a part of this journeywhich is a natural phenomenon to take place …use these slip episode as a spring board of your fitness journey.
Seek additional support if your habits are proving harder to change: One of the best ways to build your inner resilience is by looking outward for support. If you’re having trouble making these changes on your own, reach out to your friends, family, or professionals to help you achieve the so called impossible.

August 27, 2018 By Disha Jhamb 8 Comments

CALORIE- a term that haunts many of us …And Counting Calories was one such thing that drove me crazy in the last 2 years. Somehow I always felt and many of you will agree, that, all the tasty and delicious food of the world has tons of calories, whereas the ones which we don’t find tasty, has fewer..

Two years back when I started my weight loss journey, my greatest difficulty was keeping a count of calories all the time. But then, it seemed to be the only option to lose weight. I was told that my calorie intake should be between 1200 cal- 1500 cal. Left with no choice, I did that for quite some time. Opting for low calorie food, staying hungry, doing cardio but sadly, the result was minor weight loss with pain in my knees, low energy levels and pale skin.

I was unable to understand the reason for so many health problems. I was eating a healthy low cal diet (which seemed to be healthy then), was doing 45 min of cardio followed by strength training. Hence, I started reading about calories and weight loss. But, all my reading led to more confusion and I finally decided to do a course in nutrition. And that is when my understanding about being fit and healthy started to evolve. My studies made me identify the areas where I was lacking. I was so conscious of calories but was not paying any attention to food and its quality.

Calorie is just a unit of measurement for energy content. It tells us how much energy we get by burning the food. And I realized that I should keep the definition of it as it is in my mind, and not make it the focal point of my fitness journey. Carbohydrates contain between 3 and 4 kcal per gram; proteins are about the same; fats contain approximately 9 kcal per gram. I was of the mindset that for weight loss to happen, I have to decrease the intake of calories and increase the output by staying physically active. But, things are not as simple as they appear. There is much more needed for correct weight loss to happen and to have a lean and fit body. And that much more is NUTRITION. From where these calories are coming is something that matters the most. For example – if a person consumes 1200 calories from processed food and the other consumes 1200 calories from balanced diet which has carbs, proteins , fats and fiber … which one do you think will experience weight gain ? The answer is known to all of us- obviously the one consuming calories from processed food. So yes, 1200 calories matters but, what matters the most is- what these calories do in and to our bodies and from where these calories are coming i.e. the quality of the food. Eating fewer and fewer calories does not result in better weight loss. When our body senses an energy deficit, it slows its metabolism by reducing the output of important hormones.

I have stopped counting calories now. My eating pattern has totally changed. My focus is in making my every meal more nutritious and balanced with the right combination of carbohydrates , fats , proteins and fiber.. I have been focusing on what my body tells me. I eat if I feel hungry because my body needs food then. I still want to look a certain way. I want to be healthy, lean and fit. But, at the same time, I do not want to harm myself in any way by not taking care of the nutrition part of food. I am confident about myself now, I know the weight loss is going to be slow but that does not matter to me anymore. Weight is just a number and no weighing scale can judge or tell me my fitness in terms of numbers. It’s me who can feel it. I know that what I am eating now is certainly having more number of calories than earlier but now, these calories are coming from the food that my body needs.

Thanks to my diet, I feel energetic throughout the day, my stamina for running has improved. I don’t feel any joint pain and I am sure I will soon be running a marathon, (something that I have always wanted to do)