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February 22, 2020 By GOQii 1 Comment

The Secret To Good Health Which Helped Vijay Prabudevan Make a Positive Change

Working towards good health is never a one-off affair. It’s an ongoing journey. As the saying goes, “Being healthy isn’t a race, it’s a marathon” and quite rightly so. In a world where we get everything quickly at the click of a button, we expect the same while recovering our health as well but that is never the case. The key is consistency and patience – qualities that our player Vijay Prabudevan uncovered for himself.

Before joining GOQii

Vijay Prabudevan, a 48 year old working professional from Bangalore, joined GOQii in 2015. Before that, his food habits and lifestyle choices had remained more or less the same – which included veg food, unabated consumption of oily food, frequently eating out and surrendering himself to the joy of eating.

His activity levels were quite low with inconsistent minimal walking. His sleep routine was marred by television and his mobile phone. This hampered his sleep time and quality. Stress levels were high and all of this took a toll on his health. He was diagnosed with high cholesterol. This was the moment he knew he had to change.

Getting Introduced to a Lifestyle Change

During his fight against his rising cholesterol levels, Vijay’s boss, who is an active user, recommended GOQii. His boss and a few of his friends were exploring different wearable in the market and had found GOQii to be the best. Although not convinced at first, Vijay Prabudevan was curious about the personalized coaching featured. He initially doubted the effectiveness of this model as he wondered how a coach, who hasn’t even seen him, will be able to help him with his health issues. His qualms about credibility were quelled once he came on board.

Beginning The Journey Towards Good Health

The first year with GOQii was tough for Vijay Prabudevan. There was no change in his cholesterol levels which only seemed to frustrate him. Change was difficult especially when it came to his meal patterns and their timings. He blames himself for this lapse as he was still not completely convinced with the concept and wasn’t consistent with his habits. He was trying to do too many things at the same time which ended in failure. In 2016, his coach guided him on the importance of introducing one habit at a time. His coach told him that it is an ongoing process and sustainable results will come slowly and steadily.

Making a Positive Shift

He began streamlining his meal plate. For instance, he reduced the amount of rice and substituted that quantity with salads. His plate now has 30% proteins, 30% fiber and 40% carbs. He also began adding fruits and nuts, which were non-existent in his diet before.

As of now, his breakfast is heavy, followed by a moderate lunch and a light dinner which used to be the opposite before. To keep his body active, he either incorporates 1 hour of walking, jogging or visits the gym 4 days a week. He has regularized his sleep timing as well. He ensures that he sleeps by 10 pm and wakes up at 6 am.

He has planned his work calls in a way that he winds up all his work before 10 pm. He has also begun Pranayama and meditation as recommended by his coach to work on his stress levels.

Vijay Prabudevan Makes The Shift!

His cholesterol level which was at 400 mg/dL in 2015 before joining GOQii has now reduced to 200 mg/dL has been stable for the past 2 years. He is completely off medication. His weight has reduced from 84kg in 2016 to 73kg in 2020. His energy levels have tremendously improved. Thanks to this, he can work tirelessly and is more energetic than before.

Before, the word marathon or run used to scare him. Now, he has successfully completed around 6-7 5k runs in the last 2 years and aims to complete a 10k run before the end of this year.

He regularly uses GOQii to log his data and has explored the GOQii Health Store as well as purchased products during flash sales. He also enjoys reading the blogs within the app.

He says that one should believe in the GOQii ecosystem, follow the habits set by the GOQii Coach and be patient enough to see results. He firmly believes that if he can achieve his health goals, then anyone can. He had joined GOQii in 2015 and since then has renewed his subscription every year. Now he says that it is going to be a lifelong association.

Vijay Prabudevan is elated that he made the right choice with GOQii. What’s stopping you from making the shift?

Download the app now and #LevelUp your lifestyle!

#BeTheForce

February 8, 2020 By GOQii Leave a Comment

How Akhil Minocha Made a Positive U-Turn!

We have always advocated that inculcating small healthy habits into your lifestyle can yield big results! There are so many stories of individuals who were fit during their childhood but as soon as they hit adulthood, their health and fitness took a turn for the worse. While most people continue living with illnesses and refuse to make changes, Akhil Minocha stepped up and turned his life around for the best!

Before Joining GOQii

Akhil Minocha, now 47, works for a corporate based out of Gurugram which requires frequent traveling. As a child, he was always lean. As he is from a Defence background, he was well involved in all kinds of sports and physical activities including horse riding. Even during his MBA days, he managed to stay lean and fit.

Akhil’s struggle with weight began right after he got married in 2001. By the time he moved to Gurugram in 2005, he was fairly obese. His entire focus during this time was work and being a complete foodie. He indulged in all sorts of unhealthy food. Frequent travels for work added to his appetite, driving him further into an unhealthy lifestyle.

Joining GOQii and Making the Change

As he had interacted with our founder and CEO Vishal Gondal during his IndiaGames days and was actively in touch with him via social media, he had joined GOQii in 2015 and had a coach assigned to him. However, due to his work and his own personal lack of interest, he did not take it seriously.

Around July 2019, everything changed for him. He was diagnosed as a pre-diabetic. Akhil Minocha was clear from the start that he did not want to start with allopathy. Instead, he opted for Ayurveda which wasn’t helping him at all. His family suggested that he switch to Allopathy before it gets worse.

All of this coincided with a change of his GOQii Coach. His new GOQii Coach was a blessing in disguise for him. She gave him an expert’s perspective on various ideas related to diet, fitness and lifestyle. He had done some studies on diet and she validated whether it was worth incorporating or not. For instance, he had started with the keto diet which clearly did not benefit him but made things worse as his LDL shot up due to increase in fat intake. His GOQii Coach discouraged him against going for such diets and rather focus on a balanced diet.

He began exercising regularly and now works out 6 times a week on an average even on his travelling days. As for his diet, he almost stopped the consumption of rice and wheat and substituted them with alternative grains such as Amaranth, Ragi, Bajra, Quinoa and sometimes a mix of any 2 of these. Recently, he modified his diet further by including greens.

He has also started including different varieties of millets. He basically changed the way his meal plate looked like – increasing the amount of salads and vegetables, increasing protein and reducing carbs. He also began eating a fruit every day along with a light dinner. Short walks after meals have become his favorite activity.

Akhil Minocha’s GOQii Coach also introduced him to intermittent fasting and asked him to follow the guidelines set by Master Coach Luke Coutinho for maximum benefit. By following this, he has cleared a lot of his misconceptions.

As of now, his vitals are in the normal range especially his HBA1C which has dropped to 5.6. Also, his postprandial blood sugar stands at 130mg/dL. He has reduced his weight from 87kg to 77kg in a period of 5 months which is remarkable. Since then, he has participated in a few marathons and has completed a 10k run.

How Akhil Minocha uses GOQii

He regularly messages his coach though he does miss updating logs. He also watches GOQii Play videos of Heena, Dr. Paramjeet and couple of other coaches as and when he finds the time. He actively buys products from the GOQii Health Store and recently ordered some supplements for himself and family which he claims to be very useful.

He firmly believes that you can make a difference if you take care of your diet and have a supportive coach to handhold you through the journey. He says you can benefit immensely from this platform if you are focused on your end goal. Akhil Minocha says GOQii is the most cost effective platform delivering value for money through its various features & services.

We hope Akhil continues on this journey to good health as you know, a healthy lifestyle is not a race, it is a marathon! Even you can make a positive U-turn in your life and change things for the better. For more inspiring stories, visit the Healthy Reads section within the GOQii App!

#LevelUp and #BeTheForce

January 25, 2020 By GOQii Leave a Comment

GOQii Trail Challenge Heroes: Pooja Behuria Achieves the Impossible

Fitness is not a race and it is true that you can’t get active overnight. It is a gradual process which takes time – something which today’s erratic work hours and busy schedules don’t offer. Pooja Behuria learned about this when she decided to take the GOQii Trail Challenge in 2019. But, that wasn’t the only thing she learned. She also realized that GOQii was more than just a company or a group of individuals trying to get fit… GOQii is a family!

Before the GOQii Trail Challenge

Like most people, the concept of fitness and a healthy lifestyle were alien to the 23-year-old Pooja Behuria from Mumbai. The banes of erratic work hours coupled with living alone in the city compelled her to live a sedentary lifestyle. But all that was about to change!

She learned about GOQii and the Trail Challenge through Genesis-BCW, an agency associated with GOQii since the past 4 months. Since then, she has been watching LIVE videos on GOQii Play.

Pooja Behuria had never been on a trek before. When the registrations for GTC began, she thought that it seemed like an adventure – considering the terrain for the trail. What drove her to register was that she saw it as a challenge as none of her friends or colleagues believed that she would be able to complete it. In fact, they were certain she wouldn’t even reach halfway. She decided to prove them wrong!

Training and Preparation

As she had never attended an endurance trail such as GTC, she browsed through the website to gain more insight into what to expect and how to prepare herself. However, due to time constraints and partly due to her own laziness, she did not begin her preparations until 20 days before the event.

If she was going to do the trail, she had to prepare! With new motivation, she made some changes in her eating habits and began doing a little bit of exercise to prepare her body. She began including more proteins, complex carbs and most importantly, drinking more water on a daily basis which she wasn’t doing until now. Pooja began drinking coconut water and eating seeds and nuts between meals instead of junk food.

On the first day when she decided to go for a walk, she covered 20km and ended up feeling sore and tired. She couldn’t move her legs for 2 days. She then realized it was a mistake and decided to gradually increase the level to get her body conditioned. She began taking short walks and using the stairs while going to the office and back home as stair climbing is good for building endurance. She still felt she wasn’t prepared enough.

Walking the Trail and Persisting

Pooja Behuria partnered with one of her office colleagues Jisha, when she began walking on the 7th morning. She and her partner were all geared and excited when the trail was flagged off at 5:30 in the morning. They managed to reach the 1st checkpoint in just 1.5 hrs. Both seemed to think it was no big deal and they should be able to complete it easily within 9-10 hrs.

As they left the 1st checkpoint, her partner started feeling unwell. Jisha had developed a fever but still persisted and continued. By the time they reached the 3rd Checkpoint, Jisha was shivering and on the verge of passing out. Before the 3rd checkpoint, she had fallen in water which only aggravated her condition. Jisha thought it was best to give up. From there on, Pooja was by herself.

But it is the GOQii Trail Challenge and we are all a family. No one is ever alone on the trail. Another participant, Girish Narang who had been walking solo became her partner for the rest of her journey. Pooja says that if it wasn’t for her new partner, she wouldn’t have completed the trail. Girish Narang kept pushing her and motivating her to continue. She was already halfway through and giving up wouldn’t make sense – is what he kept telling her.

After every decline down a mountain, when she said she couldn’t go any further, her partner motivated her to take another step. The last 10km were the hardest where every step seemed strenuous. Her legs were giving up and the pain was unbearable. All she wanted to do was sit and not move.

After 16 long hours, when she finally saw the finish line, she was filled with mixed emotions – exhilaration, shock, awe, relief and complete joy all rolled into one! She couldn’t believe her eyes! That unexplainable feeling of achieving something she thought wasn’t possible for someone like her was unparalleled.

Now, when she looks back she’s still surprised that she didn’t give up. It has filled her with a sense of pride and confidence. The trail does change you in one of the most beautiful ways. She now believes that it is all a mind game. If you persist, you can achieve the impossible.

She says there were participants who were twice her age and yet completed the trail in half the time she did. This hasn’t demotivated her but has only inspired her to prepare thoroughly and participate in GTC 2020. She says that though she didn’t know anybody at the trail, each and every participant she met along the way encouraged and motivated her to move ahead. It was like one big family, joining hands and motivating each other to complete the trail!

Want to know what the trail looked like? Watch the GOQii Trail Challenge 2019 Movie.

Want to share your experience at the trail. Write to us!

We look forward to seeing you for the next GOQii Trail Challenge!

#BeTheForce

January 22, 2020 By Anusha Subramanian Leave a Comment

India’s Ikigai: Centennials know the secret sauce to Longevity

It is not just about staying physically healthy-it is also about mental, emotional and social health

Mishrilal Jain, 92 years lives in Bareli in a Madhya Pradesh and still sits in their family cloth store. He totally defies age by being active, healthy and social. Every day, he makes it a point to chat with his friends. He walks on his own with a stick and has no medical conditions or lifestyle diseases. A freedom fighter who has even been to jail in 1947, Jain has a very positive outlook towards life. His granddaughter reiterates his secret to longevity is that fact he has been active throughout his life, eats only homecooked food and is happy and content.

Dr Narsingh Gulvady, 90, lives in Navi Mumbai and is a retired MBBS doctor. He says, “do not do anything to live long. I did nothing”. Born in 1929, in then Madras, Dr Gulvady is active and spends a lot of time with his books apart from enjoying his beloved wife’s company who is also 86 years of age. Dr Gulvady attributes his longevity also to people’s love all along that has kept him happy and healthy. He also does not forget to credit his gene pool for longevity. Both he and his wife have led a very active and simple life. He maintains a diary on a daily basis and does not have any medical issues.

The above stories are just two of the examples of the many 90 plus people GOQii interviewed for their longevity study. Aging is a natural process and it is inevitable It is precisely the impermanence of life that renders it so precious. But, how about aging gracefully and disease-free? Is this even possible? Are some of the questions we asked and the answers we found were positive. Yes, it is very possible according to the latest India fit Report 2020 titled –– India’s Ikigai: The Old Know Better but the Young Don’t Care’.

As per the report, the above examples highlighted, the 90 plus years and above people attribute their longevity to simple living, being active, eating home-cooked nutritious food and to being socially active with friends and family. For many their years of living have been happy and content.

The India Fit report 2020 is in its 6^th edition and it is a result of a year-long study of 5 million GOQii users. The report presents a holistic overview on the health and lifestyle of Indians across different parameters such as steps taken, lifestyle diseases (Diabetes, Cardiac and Hypertension), BMI (Body Mass Index), nutrition, water, stress, sleep, gut health and immunity, allergies, smoking and alcohol consumption; all of which are classified according to gender and key cities. This year India Fit report went a step further and decoded the secret to ‘India’s Ikigai-longevity of life’ from 90 years old and above across the country

Most of the centennials also lead a disease-free life while the younger age groups demonstrated a higher risk profile for lifestyle diseases, the study indicates. As per the health risk assessment (HRA) (framework of the study, 62% of people are either high risk or borderline on the Health-Risk Assessment spectrum. Only 38% of people are healthy. Young adults in the 19-30 age group have the unhealthiest habits and demonstrate a high propensity to be afflicted by lifestyle diseases.

The study indicates that people who report being happy and satisfied with their lives are more likely to enjoy a longer life span with good health and fewer long-term limiting health concerns. Bonding with family and friends appears to enhance health, and even increase longevity. At GOQii, our endeavour is to create awareness about preventive health while providing people with a platform to improve their health and fitness and move a step ahead to increase India’s average lifespan to 80 years and above.

ALARMING RISE IN LIFESTYLE DISEASES

The report indicates that Diabetes has increased from 7.1% to 12% this year. The incidence of diabetes is highest among older adults at 23.81% and seniors at 36.82%. As per the report, 13.5% of Indians have Cholesterol issues. High Cholesterol can even occur among people who are underweight, or overweight, thin or fat thus regular monitoring is key in keeping cholesterol in check. Currently, 36% of the people who have high cholesterol have heart issues too while 51.7% of the people who have diabetes have abnormal cholesterol too. This past year Thyroid issues have increased from 6.8 to 10.7 %. The report also suggests that 13.4% of the people in India have high blood pressure.

SOME SURPRISES: Healthiest City is Chandigarh and Mumba slips to rank 15 in the list of healthy cities

The survey deep dives into city-wise parameters and has recorded Chandigarh to be the healthiest city in India while Mumbai slips far down in the list of healthiest cities, ranking 15^th overall. Kolkata is at the lowest end of the spectrum. 18% of people in Kolkata are diabetic followed by Surat and Bhopal. In terms of allergies, Pune ranks lowest on the allergy index having the least amount of people suffering from allergies. Chennai has the worst BMI rank across all cities, Kolkata has the largest aging population in the country and the highest incidence of lifestyle diseases like diabetes, cholesterol, blood pressure and thyroid. About 60% of people in Lucknow fall in the unhealthy bracket which is just 2 % below the country’s average. Ahmedabad ranks 10th in the overall ranking, manages stress better than many other cities. Bhopal has overtaken all other major cities, having the highest percentage of people who consume alcohol.

The GOQii India Fit Report has been administered across 16 cities in the country and data has been collected from a cross-section of 5 million GOQii app users. The study evaluates the health of users basis the Health Risk Assessment that take and also the data recorded on a daily basis that is tracked by users on the App. HRA considers factors such as current body statistics, medical parameters, current nutrition, physical activity, stress, sleep, alcohol, smoking, current illness, lifestyle diseases, immunity levels, symptoms or health indicators. The data that is tracked by the users on a daily basis is their steps clocked, food logs, sleep, water intake and their vital parameters. This edition of the report has focused on doing in-depth interviews with India’s oldest citizens. Over 100 respondents across the length and breadth of India, between 90 and 100 plus years of age were an integral part of the study.

Download the full report from www.indiafit.org

For more topics on the health benefits of foods, check out our Healthy Reads section within the GOQii App or simply tune in to GOQii Play for LIVE sessions by experts.

#LevelUp your winter and #BeTheForce