About Richa Sanghvi

Richa Sanghvi, holds a Master's degree in Foods and nutrition has over 3 years experience in the field. Being a lifestyle coach she firmly believes in changing a person's lifestyle to a healthy one through an all-round approach of diet and exercise. Her fitness mantra is "Good things come to those who sweat". According to her, a little push by the right person is all it requires to get on the ladder of healthy lifestyle.

July 26, 2022 By Richa Sanghvi 4 Comments

3 Easy Tips To Help Heal From Viral Fever & Dengue

No matter how much you try, getting caught in the rain or getting drenched cannot be avoided. This is often followed up by that dreaded sneeze that culminates into a fever which doesn’t leave your side for a few days. We’ve all been through this at some point or the other. Though there is something enchanting about the rainy season, it is also the time of the year when all the bacteria and viruses come out to play. These viruses and bacteria are responsible for problems like cold, cough, common flu, viral fever, and dengue, etc.

The most common fevers that can be seen during this season include dengue and viral fever. Some Symptoms include sudden spikes in body temperature, body pain, tonsillitis, reddening of the eyes, nausea and fatigue. If you have been experiencing this, it is time to take precautions!

3 Tips To Heal From Viral Fever & Dengue

If the above-mentioned issues have placed their grip on you, you can break free using these measures:

1. Cheers to Papaya Leaves Juice
For this kind of fever, your best bet is to drink Papaya leaf juice. Papaya leaves have organic compounds which help in increasing your platelet count – something that hits a low when you’re affected by dengue and malaria. It also has Vitamin C, which helps boost your immune system so you can heal from viral fever quickly!

How to prepare: Take few papaya leaves and crush them to remove the juice from it.

2. Watch Your Water Intake
Keep yourself hydrated if you’re suffering from a viral fever. Water is one of the simplest and easiest ways your body eliminates toxins. The more water you drink, the more toxins will be eliminated. Also, drinking more water can relieve common symptoms such as headache and muscle cramps.

3. Basil/Tulsi Leaves to the Rescue
This is your go-to if all else fails! One can chew on basil leaves or you can drink a concoction of it. Basil/Tulsi Leaves have antibacterial and antiviral properties which can help you heal from viral fever and bacterial infections. It also strengthens the immune system.

How to prepare the concoction: Add 10-15 Basil Leaves to 1L of water and boil until it becomes half. Filter it and keep to cool. Drink this every one hour to help alleviate any kind of fever.

If you don’t find any relief from the above tips, visit or consult your doctor to rule out any other possibility of a flu or something more severe. Avoid any self-medication, especially antibiotics. Stay safe during the rains! Hope you found these tips helpful. Do leave your thoughts in the comments below!

For more tips on staying healthy during the monsoon, check out Healthy Reads or ask an expert by subscribing for personalized health coaching here: https://goqiiapp.page.link/bsr

#BeTheForce

March 20, 2020 By Richa Sanghvi 2 Comments

What You Should Eat After a Workout

workout With the recent self-quarantine due to the coronavirus in full effect, most of us have been working out at home. We understand that exercise is important to keep ourselves fit, healthy and build immunity but one thing that we need to watch out for is what we eat after a workout. Eating the right food post workout is important for several reasons.

When you exercise your muscles use glycogen as a fuel to provide you optimum energy. This results in partial depletion of glycogen from your muscles. Some of the proteins in your muscles also get broken down and depleted, especially when you do strength training. After you workout, your muscles try to replenish these stores within 30-45 minutes of workout. That is the reason why you should eat after a workout so that muscle recovery happens quicker and less wear and tear of muscles occur. This ultimately leads to muscle growth, which is our main goal.

The Right Nutrition

Not only eating but also eating the right food is important. Proteins, as discussed above, get depleted. Thereby, eating the right amount of protein (0.3-05 gm/kg body weight) just after workout gives your body the amino acids required for muscle recovery and growth.

Glycogen is used as a fuel by body therefore eating carbohydrates (1.1 – 1.5 gm/kg body weight) within 30 minutes of workout helps in glycogen re-synthesis. A combination of both carbs and proteins helps in maximizing protein and glycogen synthesis.

Don’t shy away from including some fat in your meal as well. A little bit of it will not harm your recovery. In fact, fat is required by your body to absorb all the fat soluble vitamins.

Last but not the least, you should keep yourself hydrated always. As drinking enough water will help in better recovery and next day’s performance.

What Should You Eat After a Workout?

Brown bread and Peanut butter
Egg whites and toast
Chocolate milkshake (Avoid sugar if you are aiming at weight loss)
Chicken, brown rice and veggies
Quinoa with plenty of veggies or like a salad
Sweet potato
Cornflakes and milk
Banana milkshake
Fruit smoothie – Fruit of your favourite choice + Yogurt
Salad containing seeds like chia, sunflower and flax seeds

Don’t let social isolation or self-quarantine hamper your routine! Try these foods after a good home workout to strengthen your body and your immunity. If you need guidance for home workouts or more tips to build your immunity, tune in to LIVE classes on GOQii Play.

Let’s get stronger and #BeTheForce against COVID-19 together.

March 17, 2020 By Richa Sanghvi 10 Comments

The Correct Way to Use a Hand Sanitizer to Kill 99.9% Germs

Apply hand sanitizer to hands, rub quickly and 99.9% germs are gone, right? Wrong! With the Coronavirus pandemic hitting the streets, it is important to understand the correct way to use hand sanitizers to kill that 99.9 % of germs from your hands and avoid spreading it to others.

Raise your hands if you are among the ones who have used hand sanitizer in one of these ways, which are considered to be actually inappropriate:

Putting a drop on your hand and then doing a quick hand clap to apply.
Pouring it on the hand and just doing a random three-second rub.

The key thing for a hand sanitizer to be effective is to apply it thoroughly. It is friction which loosens the germs present on your hand and help you get rid of it.

Hand sanitizers are available in the form of liquids, gels and even foam. They are mainly an alcohol-based formula although some companies use alternatives to alcohol. Although it is an alternate for soap and water, if your hands are visibly dirty, do not use it unless necessary.

The Right Way to Apply Hand Sanitizer

Step 1: Take a coin-sized drop in your hand.

Step 2: Rub your hands palm to palm.

Step 3: Rub the back of each hand with the palm of the other hand.

Step 4: Rub your palms together with your fingers interlaced.

Step 5: Rub the back of your fingers with opposite palms.

Step 6: Rotate your thumbs on the other hand.

Step 7: Let your hands dry off in the air, do not use tissue/ napkin.

That’s all it takes to kill those 99.9% germs. It might look elaborate but it takes less than a minute. When you don’t have access to soap and water, let a hand sanitizer be your best friend!

For more tips, prevention methods, and help in understanding the Coronavirus, tune in to LIVE classes on GOQii Play. Spread the right information and not panic!

#BeTheForce

September 13, 2019 By Richa Sanghvi Leave a Comment

3 Must-Try Mini Meals For Good Health!

“Don’t ask why healthy food is expensive! Ask why junk food is so cheap!” It is that junk food which creates junk in our mind and body. We might have grown up eating all the fried and junk food we could but do we really want to continue with the same? I am sure the answer is no!

So, here are a few recipes and their benefits, which are a healthier version of junk food and much tastier too.

1. Fruity Appam

Ingredients for the batter:

Rava/ Semolina – ½ cup
Powdered sugar – 1 tbsp
Curd – ½ cup
Milk – ½ cup
Baking powder 1/4th tsp
Elaichi/ Cardamom
Banana – 1 no.
Salt to taste

Ingredients for the stuffing:

Kiwi – 1 no
Sugar – 2 or 2.5 tsp
Lemon juice – 1 tsp
Cinnamon powder – 1/4th tsp

Method for the batter:

In one bowl, mix all the above ingredients listed for batter, except banana.
Smash banana in another bowl and add it to the above mixture.
Let the batter rest for 10 minutes.

Method for the stuffing:

Add kiwi, sugar, lemon juice in a pan and cook till the sugar melts and the kiwi is cooked.
Add cinnamon powder to the mixture and mix well. Remove it in a bowl.
Add the water from the above mixture in the batter and mix the batter well.

Method for Combining the Two

Heat and grease the appam pan with oil.
Add a layer of batter, followed by stuffing, and then covered by another layer of batter.
Cook appam on both sides until golden brown.
Serve hot.

Note: You can use any other seasonal fruit apart from kiwi.

Benefits: This recipe is specially listed for kids as they generally do not like fruits. It is an easy way of at least including 2-3 fruits in their diet. Fruits are a storehouse of antioxidants, vitamins and minerals which help in their overall growth and development. They also strengthen the immune system to fight against any illness. Apart from fruits, this is a traditional recipe with a healthy twist enjoyed by all!

2. Cheesy Vegetable Cutlet

What better to find a healthy and nutritious way to eat the most relished dish! Roll up your sleeves as you are going to read a very tasty and easy recipe.

What you will need:

Oil – 1 tsp
Butter – 1 tsp
Chopped onion – ¼ cup
Chopped garlic – ¼ tsp
Chopped beans – 1 ½ tbsp
Grated carrot – 1 ½ tbsp
Boiled & grated corn – 1 ½ tbsp
Boiled & Mashed potatoes – 1 cup
Grated cheese – 1 no
Salt to taste
Coriander – 1 tbsp
Bread crumbs – 1 tbsp (keep extra for rolling)
Red chilly powder – ¼ tsp

How to Prepare:

Sauté onion and garlic in a pan.
Add beans, grated carrot and salt. Let it cook.
To the mixture, add corn and potatoes. Mix well.
Switch off the gas and add grated cheese, salt, coriander, red chilly and bread crumbs.
Mix well and let the mixture cool down.
Roll the mixture into small balls or if you have different shape molds, then cut using them.
Roll/ spread the balls over the bread crumbs until it is fully covered with it.
Take a pan and shallow fry the cutlets using oil until they are golden brown on both sides.
Serve hot, with ketchup or green chutney.

Note: If you wish to add any more vegetables to the above mixture you can feel free to do so. Using rava/ oats in place of breadcrumbs to roll the cutlets is also welcome.

Benefits: This recipe is a very easy and effective way to include vegetables in your kid’s meals. It is very common to see kids remove vegetables from their plate. Try this one and I’m sure your kids will relish eating it. Apart from vegetables, cheese is a special ingredient added to the above mixture, as kids and adults love the taste of it. Other than that, cheese is a good source of protein and calcium.

3. Pizza with a Twist

Ingredients for the dough:

Wheat flour – 1 cup
Baking soda – ½ tsp
Water – 1 cup
Dry yeast – ½ tsp
Sugar – ½ tsp
Salt – to taste
Oil – 2 tsp

For pesto sauce:

Fresh basil (tulsi) – 200 gm
Garlic – 3 cloves
Olive oil – 3 tsp
Salt – to taste
Water
Veggies: Onion; Green, Yellow and Red bell pepper; Jalapenos, Paneer; Cheese; Olives; Oregano; Chilli flakes.

Method for preparing the dough:

Heat some water in a sauce pan and add sugar and dry yeast.
Cook till it dissolves and let it cool.
In a bowl, take wheat flour, salt, oil and baking soda. Mix them.
Add yeast water and knead the dough.
Add some oil in the end and let it ferment for 2-3 hours.

After 2 hours:

Prepare the pizza base from the dough. Knead it with corn flour and give it shape by using your hands.
Make holes in pizza base with a fork.
Bake the base in a pre-heated oven at 260 degree Celsius for 4-5 minutes.

Method for pesto sauce:

In a mixture jar add basil, garlic, olive oil and salt.
Now add some water and prepare pesto sauce.

Method for Assembling:

After the pizza base is ready, apply pesto sauce over the base and add all the vegetables on it.
Now sprinkle cottage cheese, very little cheese, oregano and chilli flakes over the pizza.
Place the pizza in a pan, close it with a lid and cook it for 2-3 minutes.
Take the pizza on a serving plate and serve it hot.

Note: Making the dough is optional, you can even purchase a whole wheat pizza base. It is easily available in the market.

Benefits: Everyone likes pizza but the ones available in the market are unhealthy. Few benefits of this healthy pizza include the use of cottage cheese over normal cheese. Cottage cheese provides protein. More so, the pizza is a nutritious combination of carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins and minerals as it has veggies, dairy products and cereals.

We hope you enjoy eating these healthy mini meals as much as you’ll enjoy making them! How do you make your food healthy? Do you have a healthy twist to a traditional recipe? Let us know in the comments below!

#BeTheForce