About JYOTI SAWANT, GOQii Coach

A post graduate in clinical nutrition from SNDT, Mumbai, Jyoti Sawant has been working in the field of nutrition since 2007. Prior to joining GOQii she has worked with some leading hospital and also with various gyms in the city. Jyoti believes that fitness is about being disciplined in life which automatically leads one to greater success. Travelling to hill stations are good stress busters of her. Her mantra TRAIN LIKE AN ATHLETE, EAT LIKE A NUTRITIONIST, SLEEP LIKE A BABY, WIN LIKE A CHAMPION.

January 21, 2018 By JYOTI SAWANT, GOQii Coach 2 Comments

Eat Healthy Stop counting Calories

I used to count calories

It was part of my training as a dietitian – one of our homework assignments. It seemed everyone in my class was really good at it like they had memorized the calorie content of a bunch of foods. I treated the project as an experiment. What I mean by that is, if this is what we’re supposed to have our patients do, I should be able to do it well.

The funny thing however was, the more I counted calories and the less I was paying attention to the food in front of me. It was like looking at a spreadsheet on a plate. All you see is numbers.

I’d choose the less tasty entree because it was lower in calories, even if it didn’t sound appealing. If I got hungry after the meal, I’d second guess myself. “But I ate 700 calories!? That should be enough!”

It was like a battle between the calculator and my stomach. The calculations said I needed a certain amount of calories per day. If I went over, it was a “bad” day. If I went under, it was an excuse to eat junk food. I’d think to myself, “Well, these chocolates are only 90 calories…”

I’ll admit, I failed miserably at counting calories and gave up within a few weeks. I never really enjoyed it and I felt restricted, what I was going to develop is ordered eating.

Making good food choices is important for everyone. As a Nutritionist and Dietitian, I believe there are two important things you can do to achieve healthylifestyle—

# Make good food choices.

# Identify habits that you can keep doing over a long period of time, which fit easily into your daily routine, and can become a sustainable part of your life (what I mean by this is no fad diets!)

How else can you start making good food choices? Let’s start with the grocery store.

Here are some tips that may help you:

# Never shop when you are hungry. You will make much better choices if you shop after you’ve had a good breakfast or lunch, or when you’re not in a rush.

# Try to spend the most of the time while shopping in the fresh fruit and vegetable section. Most of us don’t eat enough vegetables, which offer many nutritional benefits and fill you up so you can better resist the temptation of unhealthy foods. Deeply colored fruits and vegetables provide more nutrients, so be sure to eat a variety of different color produce.

# Select whole grains instead of white flour, white pasta, and white rice. Quinoa is a great grain to try because it has a lot of protein, which is not the case for many grain products.

# Choose naturally low-fat and high-fiber foods (e.g., low-fat milk, yogurt, and cheese, whole grain cereals).

# Know that not all oils are bad for you. Look for nuts, seeds, avocados, olive oil and other healthy oils which can provide the fat you need in your diet.

# See if you can check out and exit the store without buying packaged and processed foods.

It’s simple to conclude that all you need to do is take in fewer calories than just count calories and make sure you are getting healthy fats into your diet each day.

December 23, 2017 By JYOTI SAWANT, GOQii Coach Leave a Comment

Healthy gifts you can give this Christmas

Its red and White, the colours of this festive season with lots of joy and gifts, Christmas is celebrated by all. It celebrates the birth of Jesus. The tradition of celebrating Christmas around the world differs from country to country but they all include a feast, giving of gifts to each other or cards, and enjoying church ceremony such as singing Christmas carols.

Here’s our list of Healthy Christmas gift ideas to help you fill the stockings with goodness, and inspire your family and friends to have greater health and happiness!

* GOQii Life:

Gift a GOQii band to your loved ones. GOQii band’s philosophy of adding a personal touch to the daily fitness tracking with lifestyle coach is unique. It plays a Lifestyle Coach fitness mentor for the user and they have a visual display of steps walked, active minutes, distance covered, calories burnt along with current time and date. The best of the band is the Karma points. GOQii’s philosophy has been to achieve the harmony between mind, body & soul. This gave birth to the concept of Karma, a point-based system that enables players to earn points based on the steps they walked daily and these points are then donated towards a good cause in the society. So while you get healthy and fit you also become a good human.

GOQii’s one-on-one mobile coaching and fitness tracking will help you make the shift to a healthier lifestyle. You get consistent support, motivation, focus, accountability, efficiency and expertise through unlimited text chats and scheduled video calls. So whether your goal is to feel better, have more energy, improve your diet, sleep better, or break a bad habit, be assured that your GOQii coach will help put you on your best path to success.

* Snack Smarter: Prepare your own healthy snack and organic food basket

Indian food is famous, delicious and so every day, we look forward to our three meals of the day. Something that keeps us alive and kicking, happy and curious, innovative and hence thinking- the in-between small meals that we call ‘snacks’. What if those just-filling munchies became our powerhouses? How about snacks that are delicious, nutritious and healthier and is loved by all? so now you can prepare your own snack box and give your loved ones!

* The Great Indian Diet Book:

This book tells you just how nutritious your locally grown and sourced ingredients are and that there is no need to look beyond borders to tailor that perfect diet. The book touches upon various food categories and not only tells you how to take care of your nutritional intake but also how to burn fat in the process. The combined experience of a professional nutritionist and an uber-fit celebrity who lives by the diet will open your eyes to why Indian food is the best in the world.

*Make Your Own Organic Gift Basket:

Look for inexpensive baskets and packaging materials at your local arts and crafts store and visit your local natural foods store for the following organic foods to add to your basket.

# Green tea: Antioxidant.

# Honey: Immune-boosting powers.

# Dark Chocolate: iron, magnesium, copper, potassium, zinc and selenium.

#Herbs & Spices: Is an excellent source of minerals like potassium, calcium, manganese, iron, and magnesium.

#Fruits and Nuts: Fiber + vitamin

#Flaxseeds & Mixed Seeds: omega 3 fatty acid.

So Enjoy your festive time on Christmas day and make the most of it. It is one day out of the year, and the food you eat is not going to massively impact your long-term progress. It is what you do the other 364 days that matters. So sit back, relax, eat with portion control of celebrations and have one or two glasses of wine. This is the time to enjoy good food with great company and make lasting memories. Don’t let your healthy lifestyle stop you from enjoying yourself.

Be the hit with your Secret Santa exchange this year with these above-mentioned gift ideas.

! Merry Christmas!

November 23, 2017 By JYOTI SAWANT, GOQii Coach Leave a Comment

Indulge and yet stay in shape

foods

Sounds surprising that you can indulge and yet stay in shape? It feels almost impossible? Believe me, it’s possible to achieve, only of course if you have the will to do so. No, we are not going to tell you to skip eating sweets and savouries altogether and indulge in salads alone. Festivals and family functions would not be half as much fun if they were devoid of those yummy goodies- sweets, snack platters, dry fruits and so on.

There is absolutely no need to feel deprived and skip them altogether. All you need to do is change your cooking habits and recipes a tad bit to make stuff that is low in fat, calories, salt and even sugar.

Here are a few simple tips that will help you eat the food you want and you won’t feel guilty binging on:

Use the god’s favourite sweetening agent- jaggery – to make sweets. Gurpaare (Shakkarpaare with a coating of jaggery) is one of the sweet snacks you can make easily. Gurkeladdoo is another option- mix any dal (pulses) with jaggery to make these yummy laddoos.
Use sugar-free along with skimmed milk to prepare delicious sweets such as Phirni, kalakand, Kheer, various Bengali sweets, Carrot halwa, Sooji halwa etc. The rest of the recipes remain the same; just use less oil and no sugar.
When guests come, don’t serve only sweets but, also serve some homemade chatpate snacks such as BhelPuri, Chaklis, MethiMathris, etc. Make it a point to add some pulses, spinach, chopped mint leaves and coriander to your snacks to give them the required nutritional value.
Get innovative with snacks. Who says you have to stick to the routine menu? Dare to do something different and instead of serving cutlets and chips each time, serve roasted Masala Papad, Dahi puri with sprout filling, Sprout Chaat, MoongDaal Chaat with onions, coriander, tomatoes and tamarind chutney and so on.
Make dry fruits and nuts a regular item in your menu for guests as well as for yourself but of course eat these in moderation. Consume them in their natural form instead of frying them or adding extra salt or sugar to them.
While making snacks that need to be made with maize flour (Maida), mix in some high fibre flour such as bajra or ragi or soy flour.
Roast the salted snacks in the oven with just a few drops of olive oil so that they do not stick to the baking dish, instead of frying them.
Again, grill kebabs and bake cutlets in the oven or even the microwave instead of frying them.
Some guests may even like a portion of garlic bread with cutlets instead of binging on heavy sweets. Do go ahead and ask them. And if they do want it, just peel and crush some garlic pods quickly and add them in butter melted in the microwave and spread on the bread slices evenly. Now grill in the oven for a minute or two and your garlic bread is ready to serve.
For sweets such as Rabdi and Phirni, use condensed milk for a richer taste instead of adding fattening and full of calories khoya or mava.

Go on… indulge!

March 18, 2016 By JYOTI SAWANT, GOQii Coach 2 Comments

Healthy office-time snacks

Snacking is an important part of our diet plan. But, when one talks about snacking in the office, we are often caught in front of the vending machine discussing what to eat and what not to eat. One of the reasons people don’t stick to their healthy eating resolutions of bringing their own homemade prepared food, rather than ordering or eating out, is because of a lack of time. In this fast-paced world, fast food comes as the optimum solution.

Luckily, there are plenty of quick, easy, and inexpensive healthy snack options.

#Fat Free Yogurt:

Greek yogurt is fulfilling and super yummy. An ideal office snack, you should go for low-fat or skimmed milk versions of yogurt. If you want, you can just add a dash of honey or jaggery to it. Best is to add some fresh berries, fine slice of apples and bananas to it. For all those who live outside of India Greek yogurt is also a good option.

#Whole wheat crackers and peanut butter:

Pack the nutritious snack of multigrain wheat crackers and peanut butter and your healthy office nutritious snack is ready. A super hunger-curbing option, it is a fine blend of complex carbohydrates and proteins, which helps in keeping you full for longer.

#Nuts:

Grabbing a handful of nuts from the little bag in your handbag saves you the inevitable regret later on when you realize that you have binged on something unhealthy and fattening. Nuts are packed with proteins. While most other snacks are packed with carbs and other empty calories, nuts are one of the few snack items that have proteins and fill you up for a very long time.

# Fruits: Fruits provide us with the best form of natural sugars, so they are good for a snack if you are feeling low on energy in the office. Strawberries, gooseberries, oranges, apples, bananas, melons they’re all packed with antioxidants and vitamins.

# Instant oatmeal:

A plain instant oatmeal packet is a great way to indulge in something comforting, yet healthy. You can add your own flavourings and keep a tab on the calorie and sugar content. Top it with raisins or add cinnamon and nutmeg to it and your powerful healthy office snack are ready. Oatmeal is low in cholesterol and is known to reduce the risk of heart diseases.

#Stir fried veggies:

Pack a foil tray of healthy stir-fried fresh veggies like baby tomatoes, celery, carrots, beans and whatever veggie you like. Stir fried vegetables are a great way to add the much needed doze of vitamins, minerals and fiber to your diet.

#Boiled Egg with chat masala:

This is an excellent source of protein, which will satisfy hunger and stabilize blood sugars. Eat your hard-boiled egg in the office kitchen, slice the egg in half and spread the chart masala and enjoy it.

#Low-fat Popcorn: This low-calorie snack will satisfy your craving for something salty and crunchy, and it’s also a good source of fiber.

#Protein Bar:

Be careful with these! Some protein bars are packed with calories. Check the ingredients and make sure the one you pick has fruit, nuts, and fewer than 200 calories.

The above list of healthy snacking options will help you pack one healthy office snack daily to work to keep you full and satisfied all day.

Enjoy it.