Search Results for: acidity

April 12, 2016 By Anusha Subramanian Leave a Comment

“100 KM trail walk was a personality altering, life changing experience for me”

Vandana with her team after the successful completion of her 2nd 100 Km trail walk in Nov 2015.

Nobody better than her can prove that small steps can have a big impact. From being a bookworm all her life to walking 100 km for charity was the biggest high in her life. And since then it has been long before she has been walking her way to health and fitness. As of now Vandana Trivedi has completed two trail walks, has a regular fitness regime, treks regularly and also is going for a seven-day climbing course to the Himalayas. While someone who is as active as Vandana would seem a perfect match for a GOQii device, she didn’t start wearing one until a year ago. Vandana’s story in her own words.

I metamorphosed just a couple of years ago from being extremely inactive to becoming active. I was introduced to GOQii by my friend Harpreet and I did my first 100 Km trail walk when she suggested we walk one for charity. Initially, GOQii for me was my gateway to this 100 Km charity walk in December 2014. To my utter amazement, I successfully completed the 100 Km. I just loved it—the atmosphere, people cheering for you, and crossing the finish line felt so great. I was so sore after that I could barely walk the next day, but I loved the way I felt.

That was the start of me believing that I can do much more than just gym training. The success of the 100 KM led to a clear shift in my overall confidence and I felt nothing was impossible. GOQii has brought about a major transformation in me, from the perspective of being fit and healthy.

Prior to GOQii, I was happily inactive. As a child, I would never like to step out of my home. Given a choice between playing a game in the outdoor and reading a book. I would choose the latter without a second thought. I would dread the PT (Physical Training) period in school for the simple reason that they would make you run and do exercises.

But then, all this changed for me for the better. 100 KM trail walk was a personality altering, life changing experience for me, and has been a means to prove to myself that someone who had nothing to do with fitness /physical activity as a child can end up being called an Ultra Marathoner if you want it badly enough.

During my first 100 Km trail walk, I saw immense value in one- to-one coaching. I also had this huge issue of acidity. While I was aware of my problem, for some reason the issue was not getting solved. My GOQii coach then recommended that I have plain lime juice 3 times a day. Lime is also acidic and when that gets into the body it becomes alkaline. That was a good advice I got from my coach and it has helped me immensely. I have gotten over my acidity problem. Now when I go for meetings I order a plain lime juice. I also got help in improving my nutrition and sleep.

Ever since I came on the GOQii platform, I have become a great advocate of GOQii. I lead a sales team in an asset management company. Rather than taking clients on foreign junkets as client engagement, I decided to follow the health route and gifted everyone a GOQii band. We engage with our clients through active Sundays. We do small things to keep them active and the feedback I have got from my clients is that it has made a significant difference to their lives. In fact 11 of them even participated in the 100 km trail walk in 2015. For me, this is like a payback to good health. My ambition is to get more people on GOQii platform.

Personally, I have become so active that today I climb 10 floors daily and three days a week I have a personal trainer with whom I work out. Two Saturdays a month I go trekking as I am part of a trekking group.

Without having something to work towards, you can’t plan or dream of what you’re going to accomplish. As my activities slowly and steadily increased I realized I wanted to aim for something big. I wanted to push myself further. So why not test my mettle with a climbing course in the Himalayas. I have signed up for a seven-day climbing course in Himachal and currently, I have been training for it. I will be leaving for my course soon. But, I would say, the goal doesn’t have to be huge, it can be to walk 10 km a week, start small but, stay focused.

What does Coach TejalGupte have to say about Vandana Trivedi?

Vandana has been my player since May 2015. She has always been a self-motivated and determined person. When she joined GOQii, I could see her as a person who knew the importance of workouts and balanced diet for good health and was leading a quite healthy lifestyle to achieve this. She has always been an adventurous person who loves trekking. According to her trekking is her motivation to stay fit and be regular with workouts. Her only major concern when she joined GOQii was stress and long term acidity. And hence, we started working on these goals immediately. Meditative yoga and deep breathing were incorporated to the routine to help knock off the stress and small frequents meal along with lemon water post lunch and dinner was basically targeted to help curb the acidity. She was very open to adding healthy changes in her existing routine and adapted to them very well. Along with this, we also focused on daily workouts, for which I also threw a couple of workout challenges to her. Then November 2015 she did her 2^nd 100 KM trail walk and successfully completed the walk in 39 hours.

You can read more about Vandana’s experience of her First 100 Km Trail Walk here

http://goqii.com/blog/5-lessons-learnt-from-100-km-trail-walk/

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January 11, 2016 By Hetal Chheda Leave a Comment

Mother Earth’s miraculous produce-Wood Apple

Bael fruit also known as wood apple, elephant fruit, Monkey fruit, curd fruit or limonia acidissima is yet another miraculous produce by our mother earth.

This fruit is native to India, Bangladesh, Srilanka, Pakistan, Java and South East Asia. It is called as Elephant fruit because it is elephant’s favourite fruit. It tastes sour, sweet and bitter. The fruits grow between the months of October and March.

The reason I call it miraculous fruit is because it is the most sacred fruit. Ayurveda refers to the fruit of the bael as the fruit of nectar (amrutphal). It is believed that all the diseases can be cured using bael. It has its significance in spiritual (leaves offered to Lord Shiva) and Ritual purposes too.

Almost all the parts of the tree like roots, leaves, seeds, the branches are utilized for medicinal purposes. I have some memories of this fruits as a child,’ Every time I saw this fruit I would ask my mom to buy it for me, because it tastes very sbenefits our at times she would deny.’ Little did we both know about the benefits this fruit has in curing day to day ailments and it is the best home remedy for almost all ailments? It is meant for all can cure all age groups ranging from children to geriatrics.

What are the benefits of eating this fruit (Roots, leaves, stem)

Diabetes

Juice from the leaves of this tree helps in managing the blood sugar level as well as urination among diabetic person.

Hypertension

Bael leaf juice (boil dried bael leaves in water) helps in managing the hypertension.

Appetite enhancer

It enhances the appetite if bael leaves powder is taken continuous for some days.

Indigestion and Constipation

Wood apple cures the problem of indigestion and constipation if it is consumed daily (not more than a cup) with jaggery for 2-3 months.

Removes toxins

Bael when consumed with black pepper and salt regularly will help in removing toxins from the body. This cleanses the colon.

Prevents breast cancer in women

Bael is anti-proliferative and inhibits the growth of cancer cells.

Regularizes Progesterone hormone

Eating Bael fruit helps the secretion of progesterone hormone.

Increases breast milk production

It is very beneficial for lactating mother as this helps increase the milk production when combined with dry Giner and Jaggery.

Apart from these many other benefits have been noted. It helps in keeping the skin and hair healthy. It is anti-inflammatory, cures acidity and respiratory disease. The benefits are endless.

What are you waiting for, just grab this green coloured magic and see it work on you.

December 13, 2015 By Parwage Alam 2 Comments

The Best Post-Run Recovery Foods

All athletes plan their routine, in terms of their exercise, nutrition; practice sessions all of this is done to get the best results from his/her body. While you might get the expected results with your performance but, that certainly does not mean that your body is also getting the expected nutrition. In fact, some of the best athletes and more recently we have come across cases of regular marathon runners fainting or blacking out during the run or after the run. This situation occurs due to nutrition imbalance in body.

To be healthy we have to take care of our meals throughout the day. Similarly, we have to take care of our post run meals as well to recover our body. By eating the right foods at right times your body will recover and be able to perform the way you want it to. So if you are a runner or planning to run you need to be aware of what exactly you should be eating before, during and after your running events. This is important so that you are able to keep your body in optimal condition.

So let’s understand more about this.

Some basics before your run: If you are planning to jog no longer than 40 or 50 minutes at a relaxed pace, a glass of water might be all that’s needed ahead of time—provided you have had a decent dinner the night before. But, if the previous night’s meal wasn’t filling or if you ate it early, downing some orange juice or a banana will replace glycogen stores in your muscles to wave off sluggishness. If you’re heading out in the afternoon, have a snack with about 50 grams of carbs in it—like yogurt and a granola bar—an hour or two before hand
Post run, our body requires lot of different nutrition, so let’s divide into different category – PROTEIN, CARBS, ELECTROLYTES AND ANTIOXIDANTS.

Protein: Protein is the best resource to repair your body. It repairs muscle damage, diminishes the effects of cortisol—the so-called “stress” hormone that breaks down muscle—and, when taken with carbohydrates it speeds your body’s ability to replenish its glycogen stores, your all-important energy source for those long runs during marathon season. So post run your Protein ratio should be 1:4 which means 1 gram of protein for every 4 gram of CARBS
Carbs: Carbohydrates or carbs as is known commonly are body’s main fuel source, and are stored as glycogen in the muscles and liver, so eating carbs shortly after your workout helps optimize your body’s recovery. And it is during this time that your muscles are most receptive to rebuilding your glycogen reserves.
Electrolytes and Antioxidants: Electrolytes are minerals in our blood and other body fluids like Calcium, Chloride, Magnesium, Phosphorous, Potassium, Sodium, etc that carry an electric charge. It also affects the percentage of water in our body, the acidity of our blood (pH), our muscle functionality, and other important processes. While running, we sweat a lot and we lose electrolytes when we sweat. So we really have to replace our sweat by drinking fluids that contain electrolytes.

The techniques we can use

The fastest recovery techniques post training is rehydration, glycogen resynthesis and protein and antioxidant supplementation. These techniques replenish our muscle fuel supplies, hasten the repair of muscle damage and combat free radical formation in our cells.

Having said all of the above now it’s time for me to provide you with some resources for the post recovery foods that can help to replenish your body with the vital nutrients discussed above.

At first you start restoring the fluids in the body after your long run – the quick fixes for this are sports drink, lemon water or some plain water. However, the recovery process does not stop here so we have some specific foods that can help you to restore your body in recovery.

Salmon
Cherries
Kale
Oatmeal
Greek yogurt
Banana
Skim Milk
Chicken
Hummus
Green Tea
Tomatoes
Lean beef
Turkey breast
Sports/Energy bar
Whole-Wheat Pasta
Berries
Fruit Juice
Low-fat cottage cheese
Eggs
Almonds or other nuts
Vegetables

Its recommended to have your post run meal within an hour or so, but incase if it is not possible then you can go for the following options, which will help you to sustain for some time:

Have an apple which will give you some energy and raise your glucose level to sustain.
Protein bars, Protein shake with the combination of milk or water, whatever is convenient for you.
Banana is really good option to get quick energy.
Have Bread with some peanut butter.
My Favorite – Chocolate Milkshake.
Hummus and carrots
Some Greek yogurt.

As we love running and it’s a part of our lifestyle, routine and our health journey, so we really need to take care of the hard impact of it on our body. To continue our journey with running and healthy lifestyle we need to give appropriate rest and relaxation after every run and make sure that our body recovers completely after a every rigorous workout/running.

May 25, 2015 By Anushree Ashtekar Leave a Comment

Red Signal to Excess-Part 2 – Moderation is key to Good health

In Part 1, we saw how good things in excess can adversely affect our health. In this follow up blog, I talk of bad things in excess, which is also not right.

Let’s take a look at some of these bad things in excess and how it could be detrimental to our health.

1) Excessive consumption of junk/processed foods: Fast food means food that can be made and served quickly. These junk foods are mostly processed, containing large amounts of refined carbohydrates, added refined sugars, added salt (sodium) and bad quality fats. They are high on calories but, minimal on nutritional value. Eating junk/processed foods instead of fresh, whole, nutritious food has many adverse effects on the body. Junk foods and drinks are packed with refined sugars which cause insulin spike gradually leading to insulin resistance and Type- 2 diabetes.

The empty calories just go easily go into the body fat store leading to obesity which can further give rise to severe health issues like heart problems, respiratory problems, etc. The trans fats in the junk foods, increase the LDL cholesterol levels and subsequently decrease the HDL cholesterol levels. Lot of salt (sodium) causes water retention, high blood pressure and enlarged heart muscle. Too much sugars cause acidity which destroy the tooth enamel causing dental cavities. MSG (Monosodium Glutamate) found in processed foods create stomach distress. Some of the artificial colors and preservatives used in processed foods are found to be carcinogenic (cancer causing). Drinking too much of soda can leach calcium out of the bones making them soft and brittle. Also, the aluminium soda cans are inwardly lined with an epoxy resin called bisphenol A (BPA) which protects the metal can from the reaction of acids in the sodas. This BPA is found to be disrupting normal hormone functioning that can lead to obesity, diabetes and reproductive cancers.

2) Excessive alcohol consumption: It is no big secret that alcohol consumption has no good effects but, chronic heavy drinking has many bad effects. Researchers have found alcohol to be linked to more than 60 diseases. Alcohol can cause liver cirrhosis. Alcohol is empty calories so, can cause unwanted fat storage in the body. Alcohol disturbs the working of the sympathetic nervous system leading to high blood pressure, heart problems, stroke and kidney disease. Heavy drinking can cause gastritis (stomach irritation), inflammation of pancreas, decrease in immunity, nerve damage (alcoholic neuropathy). As people age, their brains shrink but, heavy drinking can cause faster brain shrinking leading to memory loss and other symptoms of dementia. Depressed people drink to ‘feel good’ but, in fact, drinking leads to further depression. Alcohol can aggravate the condition of gout. It can worsen the condition of an epileptic and cause seizures even in non-epileptic individuals. Chronic heavy drinking can lead to cancer of the mouth, esophagus, liver, breast, and colorectal region.

3) Excessive cigarette smoking/tobacco chewing: Nicotine is a highly addictive drug that alters the brain chemistry making it both, physically and psychologically addictive. According to AHA (American Heart Association), nicotine causes short-term rise in heart-rate, blood flow and blood pressure which, in a long term, can cause cardiovascular complications. Carbon monoxide in cigarette smoke causes fat buildup in arteries leading to hardening of the arterial walls (atherosclerosis). Tobacco smoking and chewing, both, can lead to oral and lung cancers. Smoking/chewing tobacco can also cause tissue damage in various organs of the body and dental diseases.

4) Excessive Tea/Coffee drinking: We all wish to have a cup of tea/coffee to kick-start our day. It’s not too bad to drink tea and coffee. It is the too much drinking that is the concern.

Caffeine is a natural stimulant found in coffee, tea, chocolate, yerba mate and certain herbal teas. Caffeine is generally a very safe stimulant. It improves alertness and is a mood enhancer. Usually, it is 200-300 mg of coffee that can be safely consumed per day (roughly 3 cups) but, this differs from person to person, depending on their own ‘caffeine sensitivity’. Too much coffee consumption can lead to symptoms like irritability, nervousness, headache, dizziness, insomnia, fever, increased heart-rate, increased thirst, stomach upset and muscle tremors. Same is the case with teas. A cup of hot tea in the morning will boost your energy for the day where as a cup of herbal tea at night will help you relax. Tea contains lesser amount of caffeine than coffee but, there are side effects of having too much of it.

Drinking too many cups of tea in a day can lead to symptoms like restlessness, anxiety, disturbed sleep, skeletal fluorosis (a painful bone condition), yellow pigmentation of the teeth. Green tea is no less. Though healthy, if had too much, it can worsen the condition in people suffering from high blood pressure, anxiety and stomach ulcers.

5) Excessive stress: In this fast paced world, stress is become an inevitable part of our lifestyle. Our body reacts/adjusts to outward changes with physical, mental and emotional responses. This response amounts to stress. Stress is a part of our daily, normal lives. Our body is designed to feel and react to 2 kinds of stress; positive and negative stress. Positive stress is the one where the body prepares itself for a ‘fight or flight’ mode. Negative stress is the one in which the body is continuously facing challenges, without time for rest and recovery. As a result, stress related tensions build up. A person going through stress for a very long time without relief, can enter a stage called as ‘distress’. This distress is indicated by many physical symptoms like fatigue, headache, dizziness, disturbed sleep patterns, high blood pressure, stomach upsets. Stress plays a role in aggravating medical conditions like diabetes, blood pressure, heart problems, depression, asthma, anxiety, skin problems, gastrointestinal disorders, Obesity, Alzheimer’s disease. In many cases, chronic, untreated stress can also lead to accelerated ageing and premature death.

Lastly, I would like to end by saying, “too much of anything, is good for nothing”.

“100 KM trail walk was a personality altering, life changing experience for me”

‘Want to get featured here? Click Here to tell us your story.’

Mother Earth’s miraculous produce-Wood Apple

The Best Post-Run Recovery Foods

Red Signal to Excess-Part 2 – Moderation is key to Good health

From Shimla’s Slopes to Chandigarh’s Sidewalks: Surinder Kaur Bhalla’s Journey from Chaos to Control

From “Laddu Nawin” to Fit and Fierce: How a 25-Year-Old Insurance Advisor Shed 20 Kilos and Gained His Life Back

From Burnout to Balance: How Dr. Ranjit Reclaimed His Health

From Terminal Illness To Complete Wellness! Ananda Mukherjee Health Story