Shimpli Patil, Author at GOQii

She is passionate about Nutrition and that explains Shimpli’s Master’s degree in Foods, Nutrition and Dietetics. This topper from Mumbai University also has a certification in Food Processing and Preservation and in Nutrition and Exercise for Fitness. That’s not all; she has a keen interest in the area of product development and has worked on the development of protein fortified chocolates in collaboration with Cadbury India Pvt Ltd, as a part of MSc. RnD. For over 3 years now she has been practicing as a clinical nutrition consultant. Shimpli is also a trained dancer from Shiamak Davar Institute of Performing Arts and strongly believes that dance is the best exercise for Mind and Body and when dance is combined with the right nutrition it is the correct recipe for a healthier and fitter lifestyle.

May 11, 2015 By Shimpli Patil 10 Comments

Kick your bad cholesterol with the top 10 cholesterol lowering foods

In my previous blog on Cholesterol, I had talked about the different kinds of cholesterol, including the good and bad cholesterol and the vital functions that it performs in our body (Refer-https://goqii.com/blog/the-truth-about-cholesterol/).

In this blog I am listing out a few foods which overstep the rest in lowering the bad cholesterol (LDL), out of which a few also help in increasing the good one (HDL).

A few key things that we need to look at when we are aiming at cholesterol reduction:

*A high fiber diet: Adding vegetable salads in the meals, having unstrained vegetable juices and soups, consuming whole fruits, choosing whole flour over the refined one etc. Fiber binds with the cholesterol and removes it out of the system through stools.

*An Omega 3 intake- Omega 3 has a wonder effect of reducing the LDL, total cholesterol, triglycerides and increasing HDL.

*Reduction of red meat consumption- Eggs, chicken and fish are a better choice.

*An overall low fat intake- Choosing a good quality fat and staying away from saturated and trans-fat. Full fat dairy products, red meat and some oils contain saturated fats which raise the total cholesterol level. Trans-fats found in bakery items (cookies, biscuits, cakes and crackers) increase the bad cholesterol and lower the good one.

Check out the list-

1) Omega 3 Containing foods-

This category includes flaxseeds, walnuts, fatty fish like salmon, sardine, tuna, mackerel, herring and halibut.

As per the American Heart Association guidelines, we need to eat minimum 2 servings of fish a week to get maximum Omega 3 for healthy cholesterol levels. Since Omega 3 is heat susceptible, make sure you do not overcook the fish, you can simply bake it or grill it.

If you do not eat fish, you can get your Omega 3 dose from 1 tbsp flaxseed once a day OR a handful of walnuts on a regular basis.

2) Lycopene-
Lycopene is a carotenoid pigment responsible for giving fruits and vegetables their red color. It’s seen in tomatoes, watermelon, guava, etc.

An intake of 25 mg of lycopene on a regular basis helps knock off 10% of LDL. It not only stops the LDL synthesis but also helps break down the existing LDL in the body.

1 cup of tomatoes provides us with 5 mg of lycopene, so imagine how many tomatoes we need to eat every day to get the 25 mg lycopene dose (Do the math)! One more interesting fact about lycopene is, it gets activated only when heat is applied to it. Thus, a raw tomato salad is good, but a better choice would be a tomato soup or a ravishing red tomato base in your meal preparations.

3) Green Tea

This antioxidant packed herbal beverage does good to our body in multiple ways. A regular intake of sugarless green tea has been shown to reduce cholesterol by 2-5% keeping the HDL levels untouched.

To make the cholesterol reducing efficacy of green tea even better (and to enhance its flavor), we can add half a tsp of cinnamon into it which has also shown to reduce triglycerides, LDL and total cholesterol levels.

4) Almonds

They are not only packed with good quality fat but also with fiber and Vitamin E which prevent LDL from getting oxidized. Now this is an interesting trait because once LDL is oxidized, it tends to choke the arteries, which restricts the blood flow to heart, leading to heart attacks and stroke. Almonds prevent all of it! Snack on it more often, mix them with walnuts to reap most benefits.

5) Olive Oil

It tops among all the oils in terms of fatty acid profile. Being rich in MUFA (heart healthy fat), antioxidants and phenolics, it lowers the LDL, increases the HDL and makes blood less likely to clot. 2 tbsp a day can be used for shallow frying or salad dressing purpose.

6) Oats and barley

They are rich soluble fiber, called beta-glucan which forms a gel in the intestine and prevents cholesterol from being absorbed into the bloodstream. 5-10 gm of soluble fiber a day is good enough to take care of the cholesterol levels. One and half cup of cooked oatmeal supplies 6 gm of fiber, top it with an apple or a banana to get the extra 3-4 gm of fiber and we are sorted.

7) Unstrained bottle guard juice with a dash of crushed garlic-

It’s the perfect mix for cholesterol reduction. Rich in soluble and highly alkaline in nature, bottle guard is very well appreciated in the weight loss segment. However, regular consumption of bottle guard also helps keeping the lipid profile in check. Adding crushed garlic while juicing this fiber rich veggie enhances the cholesterol reducing properties to a great extent.

8) Avocados

Generally, fruits do not contain fat. But, this is one peculiar fruit that is full of fat, but thankfully, a good quality fat- MUFA that helps kick off LDL and triglyceride and boosts up the HDL. You can snack on avocado, add it in the salads or sandwiches or make a spread out of it to smear on a whole wheat bread slice. Definitely, it’s the best substitute to butter and cheese.

9) Dark chocolate-

For all the chocolate lovers! Since it is rich in flavanoids and oleic acid, dark chocolate does good to our lipid profile. We can nibble on 2 pieces of 70-80% dark to get the most of its benefits.

10) Fenugreek seeds-

They provide a 3 way benefit- They contain saponins that reduce body’s absorption of cholesterol. These saponins also reduce cholesterol synthesis in the body. Apart from saponins, the fiber component of fenugreek also helps fight cholesterol in all the ways.

The best way to incorporate fenugreek is: To consume 1 tbsp of seeds soaked in 1 cup water overnight on an empty stomach in the morning OR you can dry roast 1 tbsp of seeds until they turn brown, powder it and add it in our meal preparations.

That was a comprehensive list of cholesterol lowering foods, however, for any of these foods to work, it’s necessary we make other lifestyle changes too, including a regular physical activity, adequate water intake and balanced meals.Now you know which foods to fill up your cart with, the next time you are at the grocery store.

April 27, 2015 By Shimpli Patil 38 Comments

Should we brisk walk before the meal or after?

As an adolescent, I was a victim of this common misconception that brisk walking immediately post meal helps burn calories. It’s quite natural to think that once we eat a meal and walk it out quickly, it will burn the calories that we just consumed. But hey! For that food to get converted into calories it requires a long process, which is called nothing but digestion. Unless and until we don’t let the food to get digested thoroughly, are we going to burn the calories? Obviously not!

Brisk walking post meal is a not a very good idea. It may cause acid reflux, ingestion or stomach upset. The reason is very simple- after the meal, our digestion process is all ready to go. Digestive juices are released in the stomach and intestine. This is the time when the stomach and intestine need most blood supply to carry on this process smoothly. Hence, the blood flow needs to be directed to this area for better digestion. If we perform any vigorous activity as simple as brisk walking after the meal, the blood circulation gets directed to our extremities which compromises the blood flow to the core region of the body, thus hampering the digestive processes.

Working out especially post dinner not only affects our digestion but may also postpone our sleep time. Workouts are a stress buster. Our body experiences an endorphin rush (feel good factor) after a nice cardio/strengthening session. Once we are on an endorphin high, we feel extremely elated and energized which tends to delay our sleep.

So what’s best for us? It’s always best to go for a brisk walk or any other workout before the meal (30 minutes prior or so). It exhausts our body’s energy stores which is then all set to fill up the stores again with a good meal. This reduces the chances of fat conversion during the meal as whatever we consume is utilized by the body cells for energy which leaves least for fat storage. In short, a pre meal workout fires up our body’s metabolism which therefore ensures better burn up of calories after we consume and digest the meal.

A similar point was proven by a 2006 study published in “Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism,” which says that people who walked prior to putting any food in their stomach and who walked hard enough to perspire burnt more fat than those who walked after eating.

Thus, it’s quite clear that in order to reap most benefits of brisk walking or other workouts, we need to schedule it prior to our meal. However, we can certainly go for a leisurely walk post meal, but again, not immediately. We can go after a 45 minutes gap. That is just to get over the bloat of eating way too much or to give your muscles a good stretch and it’s anytime a better option than promoting fat deposition by lying on the sofa watching TV. But remember, this should be a short 10-15 minute walk and not a long one.

Now that we have blown away the misconceptions, let’s implement the right thing and experience the change! Let’s Rock the pre-meal walk!

April 16, 2015 By Shimpli Patil Leave a Comment

Play smart with your insulin to maintain your weight!

Most often we have heard about insulin only in the context of diabetes. That’s because diabetes is a condition characterized by insulin deficiency. Insulin is a hormone secreted by the beta cells of Pancreas in response to glucose released in the blood after the carbohydrate breakdown in the body. Insulin’s role is to pick up the glucose from blood and take it to the cells to feed them. Since there’s lack of insulin in a diabetic situation, the blood glucose isn’t drawn from blood to cells and therefore its levels remain high.

Insulin is barely talked about in the weight loss/weight gain segment despite it playing a huge role in it.

To understand the link between insulin and weight, we first need to understand the relationship between carbs, blood sugar and insulin. It is this connection that has massive bearing on weight loss.

There are 2 kinds of carbs- Simple and Complex. Simple carbs are the ones which are quickly broken down to glucose and result in rapid spike in blood sugar, whereas complex carbs are the slow glucose releasing carbs (do not cause blood sugar spike unlike the simple ones)

Let’s check out the mechanism of insulin and weight gain:

Simple carbs cause a prompt response of insulin which takes care of the sugar spike and restores the blood sugar levels. It carries the glucose to the cells where it is used for energy (fuel), and the extra is stored as glycogen in the liver (storage form of glucose). The excess glucose, over and above, gets converted into FAT!
When we eat a lot of simple carbs at a time, our pancreas tries its best to keep up with the massive surges in blood glucose by producing large amounts of insulin, resulting in a quick drop in blood glucose levels (i.e. hypoglycemia). This is then followed by a feeling of dizziness and weakness. It doesn’t end here, it further leads to hunger pangs and crazy cravings for sweets/refined carbs in an attempt to normalize the blood glucose level. This eventually leads to a vicious circle of eating foods high in sugar, which ultimately end up getting converted into fat.
If the above cycle continues for a prolonged period, and our pancreas repeatedly and constantly produces insulin in huge amounts, there will be a point when our cells start getting immune or insensitive to insulin, this state is called Insulin Resistance. The cells no longer accept glucose that insulin carries along with it. Hence, the glucose levels in the blood stay up, ultimately leading to fat storage. This fat storage mainly occurs because insulin also activates a fat storage enzyme called lipoprotein lipase.

These are exactly the reasons why Insulin is tagged as a “Lipogenic Hormone”- One that results in fat gain!

If you are keen on preventing yourself from the not-so-appealing weight/fat gain, then it’s important for you to play wisely with your insulin by doing the right thing when it comes to carb consumption.

How can we assure this? All that we have to take care is that we keep the refined and simple carb intake on the lower side. This category includes bread and bakery stuff, pizzas, burgers, sweets and desserts, polished rice and noodles, etc. Believe me, when you are busy enjoying these foods, your body is getting ready to store it as fat.

Focus more on complex carbs which include the whole grain based stuff like oatmeal, whole wheat bread, whole wheat pasta, brown/red rice, fibrous green vegetables, starchy vegetables such as potatoes, beans, peas and lentils, etc.

As the complex carbs are slow moving, they lead to slow secretion of insulin which does its job at its own sweet pace, hence there’s no issue of fat storage in this case. This allows you to feel fuller for a longer period of time, typically for up to 3 hours and thereby preventing hunger pangs and unnecessary binging.

The overall connection is a bit tricky but, once we decode this puzzle, we are sorted!

April 7, 2015 By Shimpli Patil 4 Comments

Body cleansers: Liv-kid!

Our body is well-equipped with 2 sturdy cleansers which work day in and day out to clean the dirt that we pollute our body with- Liver and Kidney! They are like colonial cousins, having one function common- body detoxification.

Liver and kidney are our body’s ‘care-takers’ who constantly strive towards keeping the body healthy by protecting it from the external invaders that intoxicate our body and make sure our body runs smoothly. Instead of reciprocating the good things they do for us, we end up troubling them even more by loading our body with more and more toxins.

Liver is the second largest organ of the body (after skin) and its primary function is body detoxification and secondary is fat metabolism. It keeps the body clear of junk which can otherwise pose a risk of diseases. Little do we think about liver’s state when we gorge on that pizza/burger or any other refined food and drinks (including alcohol). Sugar is the top most useless substance that is known to slow down the liver. Continuous exposure to junk/alcohol/drugs and medicines, makes our liver appear like a terrible porous sponge that needs to be wrung out.

You probably have a burdened liver if you have –

*A frequent headache

*Fatigue

*Poor concentration

*Allergies and rashes

*Itchy eyes,

*A bitter taste in the mouth.

While liver ensures effective excavation of toxins, kidney ensures efficient filtration of the by- products of the proteins and some minerals like sodium, potassium, etc which otherwise can pose a toxic threat to the body. Any glitches in kidney can affect its function of filtration, causing these substances to build up in body. Uric acid, creatinine, urea are few of these by-products which when accumulated in body can hamper our health.

Few early symptoms of a troubled kidney include-

*Blood pressure fluctuations

*Water retention (edema)

*Urinary problems

*Fatigue

*Skin rashes/itching

*Metallic taste in mouth (due to urea build up)

*Nausea and Vomiting

This requires a fix! Rather than wait for these symptoms to proceed into a full blown disease, we need to take some preventive measures to halt the progression.

A liver and kidney cleanse can sort it all out. A regular cleansing of the two will not even let you go through these off-putting symptoms, but in fact will make sure we keep these organs hail and hearty.

To flush these organs-

Stay off from animal products twice a week including eggs, chicken, red meat, seafood.
Up the fiber content of your meals through green veggies, nuts, whole grains- Ragi/ jowar/ whole wheat/ bajra/ brown rice and legumes.
Go fruity- Enjoy the natural colours through oranges, sweet lime, guava, pear, papaya, berries, etc. Cranberry, pomegranate, and blueberry juices are known to enhance kidney function.
Enjoy vegetable smoothies made out of beetroot, celery, carrots, cucumber.
Keep the enemies away- Saturated fats (bakery items, red meat, butter, mayonnaise, etc.), refined sugar and alcohol.
Go easy with caffeine (tea/coffee) as that’s another toxin liver and kidneys have to deal with.

Water is their best friend! 2 liters or 8 glasses are not enough to cleanse these burdened organs. 3-3.5 liters of water (12-14 glasses) is what we need to keep them sparkling fresh.

Regular flush out of liver and kidney will not only treat but, will also keep us miles away from headache, fatigue, abdominal discomforts, skin problems, etc. An added advantage of cleansing is, when the liver is freed of toxins, it reduces its efforts of detoxifying the body and it can then focus better on its next function of fat metabolism, resulting in a faster breakdown of fat.

Don’t just keep your body clean from the outside; take care of it from within too.