Search Results for: diabetes

May 11, 2022 By Anusha Subramanian Leave a Comment

Why Self Care Is Important While Managing Diabetes

How often have we come across friends or family members with diabetes, taking the condition lightly, being happily dependent on prescribed medications? But, the fact is that diabetes can be controlled or reversed if adhered to self care along with the prescribed medications.

There have been many cases of individuals managing diabetes well by participating in their own care along with lifestyle modifications. Despite this fact, compliance or adherence to these activities has been found to be low, especially when looking at long-term changes.

Some Interesting Statistics on Diabetes

According to the most recent International Diabetes Federation (IDF) data, 537 million people, approximately 10% of all people aged 20-79% in the world, were living with diabetes as of 2021.

Statistics show that while the world diabetes rate is growing at 57%, India is leaping ahead at 74%. In India, 10.4% of the adult population has diabetes. India has a diabetic population of 85 million and almost 49% of the population go undetected. Another 50 million are in the developing stage of diabetes. The country’s national average of HbA1c stands at an alarming rate of 8.5%. Given all these statistics, no wonder India has been labelled as the Diabetes Capital of the World.

As per GOQii’s latest IndiaFit Report, Over the last 5 years, people suffering from lifestyle diseases, namely Diabetes, have seen an increase from 7.9% in 2017 to 13.2% in 2021. The Report indicates that men have greater rates of diabetes at 14.5% vs Women. The study was done among over 5 million users.

Diabetes is influenced by a number of variables which include a bad diet, stress, and lack of physical exercise and quality sleep. Obesity, advancing age, and a poor diet are all factors that contribute to Diabetes. Given the above data, and the fact that self care along with guidance and holistic lifestyle modification are key for managing diabetes, GOQii has launched this Diabetes Care programme.

What Is the GOQii Diabetes Care Program?

The GOQii Diabetes Care Program aims at helping people with Diabetes take ownership of their health. For instance, monitoring blood glucose levels regularly helps people with Diabetes adapt their diet and exercise, monitor the effects of Diabetes medications & understand the impact of stress & illness on blood sugar levels. The patients will be handheld on their journey with personalised advice by a GOQii Coach on Nutrition, Physical Activity, Medication compliance by Nutritionists and Regular Diagnostics – all leading towards helping the patients reduce their HbA1C levels.

The programme is priced at Rs 6999/- and comes with the offering of a GOQii Smart Vital Plus device, a connected Glucometer – Contour Plus One with 10 test strips, doctor consultation, 2 HbA1c tests and 6 months of personalised diabetes coaching. The price of the programme is extremely affordable, given that if one has to buy these various components separately, it will cost an individual Rs 14,999/-

Once enrolled into the Diabetes Care Programme, the patient gets trusted and trained assistance for the Diabetes Journey to improve diabetes outcomes i.e. lower blood sugar levels, HbA1c and lipid levels, among other metabolic parameters which include losing weight, reducing BMI and improving energy levels.

Our Founder & CEO Vishal Gondal says, “We are elated to launch the first of its kind ‘Diabetes Care programme’. GOQii is integrating personalised, real-time and actionable insights into the daily lives of people living with Diabetes, enabling improved quality of life and clinical outcomes. Our collaborations across the healthcare spectrum will help people with Diabetes access our self-care solution wherever they are; at home, chemist, medical clinic or at a diagnostic centre. This programme is a unique gamified approach to diabetes care. The concept of incentivising with gold to sustain lifestyle modification and adherence in managing chronic conditions such as diabetes is a novel patient centric approach.”

GOQii’s vision is to help people with diabetes manage it better and take accountability of their health with external help and expert guidance to improve their quality of life and outcomes

As part of digital therapeutics, GOQii is closely working with various Pharmaceutical Companies, Hospitals, Medical Device Providers such as Ascensia Diabetes Care India, SRL Diagnostics, Pharmarack Technologies – Pharmacy availability facilitators, to provide Integrated Digital Therapeutics solutions in Diabetes Management and also across therapy areas like NAFLD, GERD, Diabetes, Obesity, Gastrointestinal Disorders, Mental health, Stroke management, Cardiac Care, DVT, Long Covid Care, Cancer Care. All these programs are delivered in partnership with the Healthcare Providers via doctors and are monitored closely for patient engagement and clinical outcomes.

GOQii gains an upper edge in digital therapeutics as our smart wearable devices also have a CDSCO (Indian FDA) registration as a medical device and all data generated by GOQii devices is acceptable for clinical needs. Furthermore, GOQii data collection is subjected to HIPAA, GDPR and other relevant data protection regulation, as well as ISO 27799 – the foremost standard for information security management in health.

Managing Diabetes by yourself can be extremely difficult because of the many factors it involves. But with expert guidance, motivation and monitoring, you could not only manage diabetes but reverse it as well! It’s all about adherence to your Coach’s advice, compliance with your medication and your sheer determination to defeat diabetes!

You can sign up for the GOQii Diabetes Care Program here: https://store.goqii.com/diabetescare

Together, let’s #BeTheForce & #DefeatDiabetes!

May 4, 2022 By Megha Mahajan 1 Comment

10 Dietary Changes That Can Help Manage Diabetes

Diabetes – the one word that makes your mind wander in so many directions! You find yourself asking questions like: Will this last for ever? Will I ever get better? How can I manage my diabetes? Well, these are smart questions that anyone should ask. And, yes, you can and will get better! You just need to make a few tweaks in your lifestyle and you should be fine.

While it may seem like an insurmountable hurdle or a wall that cannot be breached, there are thousands of diabetics with good testimonies. Aged people who have lived with diabetes so much so that they sometimes forget that they have diabetes. How can this be your testimony? Well, the pointers below show some of the things you can do to kickstart your own journey to overcome diabetes.

Of course it’s not going to be easy to let go of all your favorite meals. But, no one is saying you have to get rid of them all at once. You’ve just got to be smart about it. Do not make diabetes “complex”, make eating “complex” to keep diabetes “simple”. Just as in everything else, a lot of effort has to go into your overall lifestyle if you are to conquer diabetes. Just be conscious and you’ll make headway. To eliminate diabetes, take a step towards improving your eating habits and you’ll feel a lot better generally.

Some Dietary Changes To Help You Manage Diabetes

1. Eat Complex To Live Simple: Eating complex doesn’t mean you have to stop eating everything. It simply means you have to make your carbs complex over simple ones, as these are the best type of carbohydrates for diabetics. Complex carbohydrates digest slowly and maintain steady glucose levels in the body.

2. Make fiber an important part of your diet: Fiber refers to plant-based food that slows down the breaking of carbohydrates and keeps you full for longer periods of time. Yes, fiber can go a long way in improving your situation. You don’t have to go over and under in search of fiber rich foods. You can get your fiber fix by following these simple tips:

Do not sieve the flour
Eat whole fruits over a glass of juice
Choose whole grains and whole pulses
Eat more vegetables
Do not peel the edible portion of the fruit for example – apple, guava, pear, peaches
Make soups and salads your best friends

3. Choose healthier versions of your favorite food

Instead of these	Choose these
White bread	Brown bread
Normal roti	Bran roti/multigrain roti
Meat	Fish
Normal rice/parboiled rice	Brown rice
Sugary or flavored cornflakes	Plain cornflakes/oats
Sugar	Jaggery/honey
Mayonnaise veg sandwich	Hungcurd vegetable sandwich
Normal chocolate	Dark chocolate
Creamy cheesy dip	Salsa dip
Whole milk	Skimmed milk
Salted nuts	Unsalted nuts
Soda	Salted fresh lime
Potato sticks	Raw veggie sticks
Fried chicken	Grilled chicken
White pasta	Whole wheat pasta
Fruit juices	Whole fruits

It surely can be very difficult to do away with all your favorite meals. Instead of doing away totally, you can instead opt for close alternatives as shown above. Choose the healthier version of your favorite meals and you’ll thank yourself for it.

4. Say “NEVER AGAIN” to Trans-fat: Trans-fat is basically obtained chemically by the hydrogenation of oils. It will make your condition worse! To avoid trans-fats, avoid chips, cookies, pastries and margarine. Incorporate healthy fats by following these simple methods:

Introduce olive oil or rice bran over butter or ghee
Remove the skin from chicken before cooking it
Prefer healthy ways of cooking such as grilling, baking and roasting over frying
Enhance flavour of food by using more of herbs and spices instead of oil. It will not only give you good taste but also prevent you from consuming extra oil as well as provide you the benefits of antioxidants
Prefer fish over red meat as it is full of good fat
Eat fish 2 or 3 times week instead of red meat.
Use hung curd as dressing instead of mayonnaise
Prefer baked chips over fried ones

5. Choose Low-glycemic index foods: Glycemic Index refers to the rate at which a particular food raises our blood glucose levels. Foods with high GI spike our blood glucose level and vice-a-versa. Again, fiber is your hero! Fiber rich foods have lower glycemic index – another reason why you should take them.

Some Low GI Sources include whole nuts , whole cereals, cherries, oatmeal, apple, vermicelli, whole dals, prunes, plain yoghurt, soymilk, whole milk, peaches, channa dal and peanuts.

6. Eat small but frequently: The logic here is, heavy meals spike our glucose levels. So small frequent meals will keep our metabolism high, while maintaining glucose levels.

7. Walking and Exercise are your best friends: Exercise is important as it helps to maintain your Ideal Body Weight which is very important for diabetics. Exercising helps your weight loss efforts, and is especially important in maintaining an ideal body weight.

8. Limit only high caloric fruits: Except for some fruits like mango, banana and chikoo, one can eat any fruit but in prescribed amounts only.

9. Use functional foods in the diet: These foods provide “extra benefits” to your diet. Apart from nutrition, it provides you a number of benefits. Functional foods are full of antioxidants, unsaturated fatty acids and are also rich in fiber. Some of them include mustard seeds, flax seeds, fenugreek seeds, curry leaves, cinnamon, cloves and chia seeds.

10. Before sleeping ask yourself the following questions:

Am I taking too much of alcohol? If the answer is no, then you are okay
Am I taking medication properly? If yes, give yourself a pat on the back
My feet are clean? No? Then rush to the bathroom!
Am I feeling stressed? If your answer is yes? Chill with music and take deep breaths. Remember nothing comes at the cost of your health and ensure you feel some relief.
Have I checked my weight?
Did I walk for 45 minutes today? If yes, you’ve done well. Feel good about it because you are on track to manage diabetes
Now, time for sleep… Proper timing is essential. Get good sleep.

You can manage diabetes by living healthy. Eating in moderation and eating healthy can go a long way in giving you really good results!

We hope this article helps you manage diabetes effectively. For more help to manage diabetes, get the right guidance and motivation by certified experts, join the GOQii Diabetes Care program. It’s India’s only diabetes program that is driven by Smart Science and Personal Coaching to improve Fasting Blood Sugar (FBS), Postprandial Blood Sugar (PP), reduce HbA1c levels and let you win gold! You can subscribe here: https://store.goqii.com/diabetescare.

To read more on how to manage Diabetes, check out Healthy Reads.

Let’s #DefeatDiabetes and #BeTheForce!

April 27, 2022 By Komal Mehta Leave a Comment

Prediabetes, Its Risks & How You Can Manage It

Getting tired easily, fatigue, black patches around the neck, elbows, knees, knuckles, arm pits or blurred vision, increased thirst, frequent urination, losing weight in spite of eating more, etc. are all signs associated with Diabetes. While this disease develops gradually, Prediabetes is pre-diagnosed diabetes, wherein, the blood glucose levels are higher than normal but not as high to be classified as Type 2 Diabetes.

Glucose is required to give energy for various activities. Insulin is the key which allows this glucose to go in the cells. When the body does not produce enough insulin or insulin is not able to enter the cells because of excess fat around cells, the glucose in the blood rises.

It puts you at risk when:

One is overweight or have high BMI of more than 25
Sedentary lifestyle- desk job
Age above 45 years
Family history of diabetes
Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome
High blood pressure
Abnormal lipid profile

Can You Prevent Prediabetes?

Prediabetes can be prevented and your lifestyle plays an important role. This has been proven time and again by many of our Players. Simple changes can lead to big results. Here are a few simple points which can delay the process of Type 2 Diabetes and have a positive impact on overall health.

Weight loss: Reducing 5 to 10% of body weight can cut down the risk of developing diabetes
Eat healthy: Include soluble and insoluble fiber rich food with low glycemic index like whole grains, whole pulses, dals, beans, vegetables, oats, whole fruits, and nuts, etc. Fiber controls blood glucose spikes and also improves insulin resistance. Protein helps control sugars as well.
Get active: Exercise can lower blood glucose levels. 150 minutes of moderate activity per week i.e. 30 minutes 5 days a week, is recommended. It could be walking, swimming, cycling or jogging. One can split the exercise through the day. Moreover, exercise will help reach desirable weight, it is healthy for the heart, controls lipids and blood pressure as well.

These 3 simple changes can go long way. As Prediabetes is more of a lifestyle related condition, consistent lifestyle modification can help delay and prevent Type 2 diabetes.

We hope this article helps you. For more on Diabetes, check out Healthy Reads. You can also get the right guidance for managing diabetes by opting for the GOQii Diabetes Care Program here: https://store.goqii.com/diabetescare

#BeTheForce

November 13, 2021 By GOQii 3 Comments

Diet & Exercise: How Timanna Gudi Battled Diabetes

Access to medication is easy! We live in a day and age where even a sneeze can be seen as a good enough reason to swallow a pill. The number of those pills only increase with time as health deteriorates. The more pills you swallow, the more you realize that they aren’t working. Without intervention, without data or without trying, you never realize that a pill is not the answer, it is your lifestyle! In the face of adversity, change is imperative. Here’s how 49 yr old Timanna Gudi made a positive U-turn!

Hailing from Hubli, Karnataka, this mechanical engineer by qualification worked with an MNC as a managing director. His job responsibilities and efforts placed immense stress on his wellbeing. Realizing this, he knew he had to quit. He did so 5 years back and started his own business. However, this did not change anything and his health problems continued.

Battling Diabetes

In 2008, Timanna Gudi was diagnosed with Diabetes. This was just one part of his struggle. Along with diabetes, he had to face hypertension and high cholesterol as well! He was immediately put on medication and with every visit to the doctor, his dosage only seemed to increase. He would have to get tests and visit the doctor every 3 months while his doctor only increased the number of medicines. With no concrete solution in sight, Timanna was only confused.

Making Lifestyle Modifications to Fight Diabetes

He happened to come across a talk by B M Hedge, Dean of Manipal Medical College and a renowned doctor. He said that people shouldn’t be visiting doctors for lifestyle diseases like diabetes and cholesterol. The medicines they need are available in their kitchens. Of course, medical assistance is required in case of an emergency but it must be supplemented by a healthy lifestyle. This got Timanna thinking…

He had lost his Dad and his elder sister to diabetes in spite of them being on heavy medications like him. He told himself that if his condition is a disorder, there should be a way to bring it in order! This very thought became the turning point which would pivot his life to balance and wellbeing.

He came to Pune in 2011 and joined a therapy called Freedom from Diabetes. He managed to get rid of all his medicines in a matter of 40 days through diet control and some light exercise. From then on, he began advocating his approach to everyone who was affected by the same medical condition as his. He gave them hope that they too could change!

Joining GOQii and Being the Force

In 2018, he bought some equipment to perform exercises at home. He followed YouTube channels and performed his routine accordingly. However, he ended up with a frozen shoulder due to an incorrect position. This kept him from exercising for about 8-9 months.

In March 2019, a friend introduced him to GOQii. He was intrigued with the idea of coaches demonstrating exercises LIVE on the app. The GOQii app solved two of his needs i.e. exercise and nutrition. He was getting expert advice from topics relating to a healthy diet, lifestyle, meditation and so on. He saw GOQii as an opportunity to get back into routine!

He joined during the India Steps Challenge and began competing, clocking in 6000 steps a day. He initially started with basic walking and increased his target to 12,000 steps after he invited a few of his friends. Due to walking too much, he began losing a lot of weight and was underweight by 7kg. He was asked to stop walking and jogging completely. To keep the momentum of his physical activity going, he began strength training in order to build muscle mass.

He is a regular on GOQii Play. He watches Coach Tufail Qureshi, Coach Alistrair Fernandes and Coach Shweta Kariya, following the workout routines demonstrated by them on a daily basis. As his work requires him to travel often, he carries a resistance band in his luggage as suggested by Play Coaches. He feels that a resistance band is a handy equipment that can be used to target any body part!

Being lactose intolerant, he shifted to a vegan diet. This essentially means that he avoids milk, curd and cheese. He avoids processed foods like bread, biscuits, etc. He begins his day with a glass of green smoothie which is a wholesome blend of raw Spinach (Palak) or any other leafy vegetable coupled with Betel leaf, Pudina (Mint), Tulsi (Holy Basil), Curry Leaves, Cinnamon Powder, Black Pepper and one fruit along with soaked nuts and seeds.

He follows this up with 45mins to an hour of exercise. His breakfast is more protein-based which includes a dal-based Cheela or sprouts and salad. In between meals, he grabs a spoonful of any seeds or a cup of green tea. His Lunch includes a Roti, one bowl each of dal, vegetable and raw salad. He also drinks Apple Cider Vinegar, which he believes has helped in keeping his body more alkaline. His family mostly uses cold pressed virgin coconut oil instead of refined oil.

Opting For Natural Methods Instead of Medicines

Timanna Gudi reiterates that commitment is absolutely necessary. There is no way you can cheat or give in to temptations. He strongly believes that Diabetes is a medical condition which should be eradicated from India.

He says, “The medicines never stop and you just keep losing your vital organs to it slowly. However, everybody is different and not all solutions suit everyone. You need to go test and try before settling down with what suits you.”

He in fact, also got rid of his Acute Bronchitis, something which he suffered from since childhood which required him to use inhalers. He did so by practicing Pranayama (You too can reap the benefits of this wonderful practice. Here are 6 Variations of Pranayama and their Benefits)

In the course of his time fighting diabetes, he has also helped his younger brother reduce his sugar levels. He feels it is his duty to share the knowledge he has gained from his experience combating lifestyle disorders.

Timanna feels GOQii is a fantastic platform with lot of resources that can benefit anyone and everyone. He regularly shops on the GOQii Health Store and advocates the fact that you get good options at competitive rates.

We wish Timanna Gudi the best for his journey. If this story inspired you or if you are fighting your own uphill battle against a lifestyle disease, share your thoughts in the comments below! To help you manage diabetes effectively, reach out to our experts by subscribing for GOQii’s Diabetes Care Program here: https://store.goqii.com/diabetescare