GOQii

Blog

Search Results for: resolution

By Leave a Comment

HEALTHY FOOD TRENDS OF 2018

Healthy Food Trends 2018

Let me begin by wishing you Compliments of the Season!

The health food scenario evolves every year, with some trends becoming part of our daily diet, whilst others just being passing fads. Whether your goal was to lower risk of ailments, boost your overall wellbeing, or make mindful eating a priority, you would have undoubtedly run into some of 2018’s principal healthy food trends. So here’s a quick recap of what we relished while sailing through the food culture this year.

1. Plant-Based Diet:

plant based diet

Plant-based diet became increasingly popular, with an increase in the number of people turning Vegan, due to various reasons including health, ethics and the environment. In fact, a lot of meat eater turned towards a “Flexitarian diet” eating meat or fish occasionally, while primarily focusing on a Vegetarian diet.

2. Meat- Free Zone: Getting inspired by Vegans, Manufacturers started to offer meat-free options to those limiting meat products, or vegan lifestyle. Though one cannot match up to the protein intake of Meats, they almost gave their best to resemble the chewy consistency, flavours, and a convenient on-the-go snack option.

 

3. Healthy Fats:

healthy fats

Heart-healthy fats like olives, walnuts and avocados were immensely popular last year and continued to have the same place in everybody’s kitchen this year too. These healthy fats increase the chances to attain weight loss goals and let you stay fuller for longer. Keeping in mind, the health benefits of healthy fats and consciousness among people, it was one of the key trends of the year.

4. Medicinal Foods: In recent years, probiotics have been able to make a strong impression in the health world. Things such as Sauerkraut, and Kimchi, together with other picked vegetables became even more popular as more and more people wanted to rejuvenate their body from the very root of the system- The Stomach.

5. Superfood Powers:

super food powers

Superfoods have in hitting everyone’s kitchen this year as it healthy and super easy option to be added to any dish. Flaxseeds, chia seeds, matcha powder was seen added in healthy shakes and salads.

6. Floral Teas:

floral teas

The year 2018 is full proof to state that Flowers is not only for Valentine’s Day, but it also has some immersing health benefits too. Whether Lavender lattes or Hibiscus Teas, floral notes bloomed the evenings for many of us.

7. Golden Milk: If the year 2018 was a colour, it would surely be Golden….or at least if it is the colour of the milk. Also known as Turmeric Tea or Golden Milk has been traced back to the ancient Ayurvedic Times to treat many ailments, and often a combo of turmeric, pepper, coconut oil or milk.

The year 2018 has been great for India’s food culture where we not only saw varieties but most importantly, the awareness among all of Us for our Health. We now see everyone getting conscious about health by opting healthy options and joining some form of Fitness Club. But, if you still missed on adding any of these to your diet, then Get Ready…. New Year is coming soon… Time to take Resolutions and Achieve your Goals…..By then..…Stay Updated to know

“THE UPCOMING FOOD TRENDS OF 2019”

 

 

By Leave a Comment

“Good health is easily accomplished by just learning to live healthy and fit”

            Renu-2-years-aback

                     2 years back                    

Renu_Scan1

      As of Nov 2017

Like every other corporate professional, her excuse for not keeping fit and healthy was her busy schedule and family. She would go for a walk as and when she felt she had the time. It was clearly not a priority for her. Being a foodie she had no concept of portion controls. She ate to her heart’s content. The end result of all this Renu Rajani, 50, was 25 kgs on the heavier side along with low metabolism and thyroid. Her condition scared her to no end and she decided to take matters into her hand to rectify her habits and become healthy. One year of disciplined lifestyle change that included exercise, eating right and sleeping well has helped her shed over 12 kgs and she is still counting. Today, she walks 15-20 k steps on an average daily, apart from 45 minutes of Yoga every day. How has she been able to transform herself? Let’s hear Renu’s story in her own words

Until mid-2016, I used to pride myself with my busy schedule, international travels and when it came to my weight gains, justified it for lack of time, about being busy with growing children and time needed at home beyond my job. Also, being a foodie, I enjoyed the richness of food, at home as well as outside. I never believed in the concept of portions control. All my New Year resolutions were short-lived. Also, amount of catching up on work late in the evening made it just impossible to wake up the next morning for a fitness routine.

My idea of fitness was just about an easy walk if I found the time.  During the last 10 years, I was introduced to Fitbit and walkathons by my organizations, but I could not discipline myself.  I had stopped swimming due to lack of time and I had stopped using bicycle some 15 years back.  Over the last 10 years, my sedentary and unhealthy lifestyle had got me to acquire thyroid and I had to go on routine thyroid dosage. Doctors gave varied advice, some who took a view that since I had thyroid and started on medication, it should reduce my weight with some exercise. Some were of the view that given low metabolism with thyroid, it was difficult to reduce weight. I was then 25 kgs overweight.

It was difficult for me to take that 25 kgs and move around. I felt lethargy. Later in mid-2016, I started feeling stiffness in my knees, found it difficult to climb down stairs and felt swelling in my lower legs towards the evening. I found it difficult to drive back home from work. Initially, I thought it was temporary, but soon, it became a routine habit for me to come home and put my legs in the warm water to relax. My family and friends said I was ageing and that I should stop driving and have a driver. Not that I could not afford a driver, but I felt it would just make me more immobile and I would lose my freedom by restricting my activities.

I visited the doctor again and was suggested a full health examination. The examination revealed that apart from thyroid, I had borderline cholesterol, BP and Sugar. While I was thankful to god that I did not actually get into these health issues so deep, it was certainly a warning sign for me to rectify my lifestyle and in the process improve my health. I decided to accelerate my fitness journey as that was the only way to be healthy.

Soon my quest to my fitness journey started. I began with a regular walk every morning. In the process, I came across a group that performed Yoga and Pranayama in my neighbourhood. Doing Yoga at 6 am in morning meant I wake up at 5 am and walk/carry out my warm-ups. I took this seriously and had shed some 6 kgs with regular walk and yoga in about 4 months. I started to change my lifestyle influenced by my Yoga group. I started drinking water in the morning before warm-up, started carrying food from home to office, started to ensure, I slept on time to wake up for my fitness pursuits.

In the midst of my fitness journey, one day I came across GOQii in my office. It was being offered as a trial to all VPs in my organisation. I got one as well. Unlike other times where I have been introduced to a program and, I chose to not be active, this time around I took it very seriously. I thoroughly understood what GOQii does. I had an introductory call from my coach to set up goals for myself. I liked the discipline and methodical approach of GOQii. Some of my peers who were introduced to the same program used to joke about coach chasing them up for an appointment. But, having gone through a disease scare, I felt this was important and being pushed by a coach was needed. In fact, it’s the discipline and the routine set by my coach that helped me shed another 6 kgs within 6 months.

Although, I started slow. My initial goals were very basic – drink 3-litre water daily, walk 5000 steps a day, have minimum 6 hours of sleep, have smaller portions of meals more frequently (I started to have 5 smaller meals, rather than 3 big meals). I tried some simple changes – walk/cycle rather than using the car for short distances, climbing steps rather than taking the elevator, perform regular stretches to increase my activity levels. I started recording my Yoga sessions to be able to continue with Yoga during my official travels outside of Bengaluru. Food for me during international travels remained a challenge.  Each time I travelled overseas, I came back with 1 Kg added in 2 weeks trip.

GOQii coaches are well trained and I have been lucky to always get a good coach. I have been a unique case of having had 7 coaches in a span of a year. 3 coaches went on long leave and each time I felt very sad about losing a good coach.  On the positive note though, having the wisdom of more coaches is valuable as well. While I found one of them too easy on me and hence wanted a more pushy coach, there were two of them who pushed me beyond my stamina. Although one of my goals was weight reduction, my first priority was to get fit.   I realized despite my trying, body did not cooperate. I chose to ask for a coach who would have coached age group of 40-50 women. I then found the right coach as per my needs and goals set. I am happy with my current coach Pooja Rao now.

I feel very good about myself now. My coach has slowly made me realize that I could have the right nutrition I need and could have a balanced meal with low carbohydrates. She regularly looks at my logs, suggests me any changes to food if required, has advised me on sleep, water, exercises, nutrition, etc. I feel motivated to continue trying various activities.

Over the last year, I have reduced a total of 12 kgs.  Apart from my step count, Yoga/meditation and balanced food, I have been an active cyclist. I had discontinued music many years back and got back to practising music now.  A month back, I also joined Salsa to add a fun activity that can also contribute to fitness. I feel lighter and feel encouraged to try more activities. I have built my stamina over the last year. I walk 15-20k steps a day, apart from 45-60 minutes of Yoga every day.

3 months back I felt encouraged enough to start with high-intensity workouts. While my knees cooperated, I realised I needed 2 hours daytime sleep to cope with 30-45 minutes of high-intensity workout. I decided to take the advice of the GOQii doctor, who asked me to check on Vitamins B12, D3 levels as I felt fatigued.

Thanks to two consultations with GOQii doctor Viral Thakkar, which I found very helpful, I realized that I needed to first address my vitamin deficiency levels to be ready for more intensive workouts.

I am encouraged to see friends who have participated in marathons, given I am able to do 10-12 km fast walk, I am now feeling motivated to someday run a marathon. Given, I am an older age group and not an athlete in my early years, I am hoping will be able to make a beginning someday soon.

The best part of GOQii is that it not only gets you fit but also socially responsible. The karma points that we earn to be active can be donated to various causes listed on GOQii’s karma platform. To date, I have donated approximately 10000 Karma points (~1000 points earned every month based on my activity).

Health is wealth. In the busy lives that we lead, health keeps becoming a distant dream and ailments keep getting added. GOQii is leveraging simple tips combined with human connect from its coaches to help people be healthy. Good health is important and it is easily accomplished by making fitness a part of daily routine and learning to live healthily.

What does coach Pooja Rao think of her player Renu Rajani

Renu is a very focused and a determined player. Despite not having coached her from day one of she getting on to the platform, the one factor I realized about her is that she is extremely hardworking and puts in a lot of efforts to achieve her goals.

The main challenge with Renu is that she has a lot of travelling in her schedule it may be domestic or international due to which being on track with her exercise and food is always a challenge, never the less she tries to make it up once she is back by setting new targets for herself.

The best thing about Renu is, she understands the portion control of her meal very well which is a challenge with all new players and once that is understood then controlling food becomes easy.

When it comes to exercise, she is open to trying out new things like cycling, yoga, HIIT, salsa-dancing and now new challenge is to participate in a Marathon.

Having a history of thyroid losing weight is always a bigger challenge and despite her lifestyle, she has still managed to drop 10 kg by working twice as hard as a normal individual.

At 50, she epitomizes the adage- “It’s never too late to begin “ completely.

By 2 Comments

The Heart Truth: ‘Let heart disease be a new beginning’

dr_blogimg

Widely recognized as a pioneer of Cardiac rehabilitation in India, Dr Aashish Contractor is a valuable information resource for the layperson to understand the various dimensions of coronary complications, their prevention and resolution. He just does not believe in leading a sedentary lifestyle. He is a marathoner and was the medical director at Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon from 2004-14. In his book ‘The Heart Truth’, Dr Contractor has summed up his 18 years of medical experience to provide inputs and tips on how to take care of the heart. This is not a doctor prescribing from the pulpit but a heart expert sharing his knowledge as a friend would. The intention of the book is to spell things out with clarity. Anusha Subramanian met up with Dr Contractor to know all about ‘The Heart Truth’. Here are excerpts from the Interview.

  • What prompted you to write this book?

The Heart TruthHeart Disease is the leading cause of death among men and women worldwide and even in India. I have found that even among people who have suffered a heart disease, the lack of knowledge about the disease is astounding. With the amount of information we have today, I would expect people to be more aware but they aren’t. Funnily enough, there is lots of alternative information floating around and what’s app just amplifies it. Which is why I called the book- ‘The Heart Truth’ and decided let’s stick to facts and put it out. Secondly, I wanted to share a lot of real-life examples in order to show that after suffering a heart disease life does not end in fact in my opinion it begins. One starts a new chapter in life. My philosophy is one should get better than before and not just get back to where they were before. Through these real-life examples, many of whom have gone on to run marathons or climb mountains. One of them even had a turnaround just 200-300 meters from Mt Everest Summit only because of bad weather. Through the book, the idea was to showcase these real-life examples and inspire people to turn their lives and let heart disease be a new beginning.

  • What has led India to face this heart disease epidemic? We are already called the world Capital of Diabetes and we are not far from being called the World Capital of Heart Disease. Any particular reason why India’s are more prone to heart disease?

You are absolutely right, the trend of heart disease in India is rapidly on the increase. The statistics show that from 1990-2000 there has been a rapid upward curve for the disease and we are getting close to being called the world capital of heart disease and there are multifactorial reasons for this. According to me earlier many were dying of infectious diseases. I guess, the life expectancy during the early 50s and 60s was also less. Most were not living long enough to suffer from heart disease. As we are getting better and taking care of infectious diseases we are living longer. And with better diagnostic, we are understanding what the health issues are. Earlier, probably people were suffering heart diseases but one did not know or diagnosed and just died. Hence, we did not label it as dying of heart disease. There is a gross underestimation of the no. of heart disease deaths in the past. Now we are getting better in measuring this. Secondly, as we have got economically better off, our lifestyle has also changed. There is more processed food in our diet now than it was before, one is indulging in far less physical activity on a daily basis or there is no activity at all. Indian’s are genetically more prone to developing insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, and higher triglycerides and more prone to developing belly fat and all of these conditions are a boiling pot which makes Indians more susceptible to heart disease.

  • When you say Indians are more susceptible to insulin resistance, higher triglycerides and other areas of diseases.. is it because of our diet?

One aspect could be a diet but, we should not isolate genes. Genetics or family risk for heart disease is a potent risk factor.  How much would they affect, it is difficult to say. Some people’s genes are so ‘bad’ they may get it no matter what but there is a difference. If they take all the care, they may get an attack at 60, that too, a mild one than getting a fatal attack at 45. So it is not that if your genes are bad, you are doomed, there are a lot of other things that you can do. We are genetically prone and Indians are affected a decade earlier than our western counterparts.

  • What according to you is the best way to detect Cardiac Ailment? As a layperson, if I do not want to go to a doctor but yet know if have a cardiac ailment?

There is no best way to detect. Once you become an adult you should keep a track of your BMI, height, weight, waist circumference on a regular basis. Once a year you should get a medical checkup done to know your basic lipid, cholesterol, BP and blood sugar levels. If the values are normal then it’s very good and you should get your tests done regularly once a year and if they are not then you must take the necessary action and make sure you go for follow-ups. If you feel any sort of discomfort, heaviness, breathlessness, chest pain, pain in the arms, in the right, in the left, back, jaw, exhaustion related kind of pain could be related to heart disease, exhaustion in your daily activity which you were doing easily at one point in time could be a symptom. These are warning signs and in most cases, these symptoms do occur before the full-blown attack it’s just that people ignore these symptoms.

  • Are Bypass and Angioplasty the only cure or are there alternative therapies?

Talking about heart disease or blockages, depending on where and what type of blockages these are. The kind of risk profile and symptoms the patient has, the medical management the patient has undergone, whether it is a bypass surgery or angioplasty? Bypass and Angioplasty are not the only cure. All the above questions have to be built on good lifestyle management. Whether you do A B or C you still need to maintain a good lifestyle. In addition to all of this, you may be fine just taking medicines or you might need a surgery or an angioplasty. Considering avoiding bypass and telling will manage through good lifestyle is not an alternative therapy. It’s a misnomer. True alternative therapies are external counterpulsation (ECP). ECP is meant for a specific subset of patients who have had stable angina after best medical management and stable angina still remains then ECP might work on them. This is generally done over 35 sittings, for an hour each. The goal of the therapy is to create collateral circulation by opening up small channels of blood. ECP is a good therapy for some patients with angina and for patients with heart failure. However, it’s not appropriate for every person with heart disease.

  • Can we reverse heart disease without surgery?

The term reversal of heart disease needs to be understood properly. We think that there is an artery with 90% block and you do something and it reduces to 60% but, it doesn’t work that way. The block doesn’t shrink to 60%, the only thing that is reduced is the chance of an event. So it is a physiological reversal but it is not an anatomical reversal. When you take care of all these factors, a reversal is possible. That is what we also do in our cardiac rehab program. He has ‘a method’, we have ‘a method’ but the principles are the same

  • There is a huge confusion on the fact that fit people are succumbing to a heart attack. Case in point is Dr Rakesh Sinha who was fit and a marathoner and he suddenly one day had a heart attack and died. And on the other hand, you have people who are completely unfit and doing all sorts of vices and yet survive longer a with no ailments

This is a concept of Risk Factors. Different factors go into your risk to develop heart disease. My classic example is driving a car; there are many factors that are in consideration when making a car accident-free. You cannot just say that my breaks were running fine and still I had an accident. That is exactly like saying I am fit and I still got a heart attack. It is good that one is fit but it is just one factor, being fit doesn’t give you immunity against other factors.

  • Two things that women need to know about Heart Disease.

One of the main thing that women need to know is that heart disease is one of the main cause of deaths among women, not breast cancer. Secondly, awareness is important as women often do not get diagnosed and this is a fact world over which is they get less care than men. The symptoms such as breathlessness in women are never considered to be a risk towards heart disease and hence not be considered for diagnosis. Sadly, women’s health is the most neglected.

  • Dr Contractor how do you keep yourself fit

I run, cycle and gym at least four to 5 days a week. It’s a mix and match of all the activities during the week.

  • How do you keep yourself away from getting stress?

Stress is part of normal life. I do believe that exercising regularly is a great stress buster for me. I would like to think that I take on a fairly positive attitude and this helps. It’s about how you deal with it. Some people really react to it negatively while some people deal with it calmly.

  • What are the three main things that people should keep in mind?

1st thing- you do not have to run a marathon or climb a mountain to be healthy. That you should do for achievements and not for health. First thing is to build a good baseline. Basic routine for few months then after that you can go for your huge goal of running a marathon or other extreme activities.

2nd Make a good plan and 3rd stick to that plan and gradually build on it. Believe me, there is nothing that you cannot do. Everybody can do everything.

  • Your Parting comments

Overall take care of yourself. Nobody needs to do anything dramatic. Consistency gets people results. As supposed to doing a dramatic program… push hard for 3-6 months and then after that, the motivation fades away. Remember, always stick to your plan. 42-43 weeks out of 52 weeks in a year helps.

Follow the ABCD principle-A- active, B- Blood pressure, C-Cholesterol and D-Good balanced diet, take care of Diabetes and do not smoke and get adequate sleep daily.

It’s not the end of the road. After suffering a heart ailment you can still come back and live a good life.

By 3 Comments

“With my coach’s efforts and my determination, I have been able to quit smoking after 29 years”

stop-smoking-now

At some point in time, we have all come across people who smoke. You also know how often they make resolutions to quit smoking and never end up keeping up with it. Quitting smoking can be a long and hard process. But, staying tobacco-free is the longest and most important part of it. Every day you must decide not to smoke today. One needs to create new habits such as drink lots of water, eat well and sleep well. Now that is exactly what S Balakrishnan (name changed to protect identity) who quit smoking after 29 years of smoking. Let’s hear from him what exactly did he do and how he did it…

I have not been a fitness freak or had a regular fitness regime. But, I would go for my morning walks daily. I never missed it and that was my only exercise towards being health conscious. As for my job it largely involves sitting at my desk but it is stressful. It’s the stress that was an excuse for me to increase my smoking along with being a habitual smoker since my college days. Smoking led me to acidity and lack of sleep as well.

The turning point in my life came when around 5 months ago, I attended a program organised by my company. At the programme, they gave out a fitness tracker–GOQii to create awareness of health and fitness among us employees and we were also told that the tracker is accompanied by a coach who will help us decipher the data tracked and give us tips on health and nutrition and lead a healthy lifestyle.

Initial one month I procrastinated on wearing the band. Then I decided let me try it out. My coach Sweta Karia has helped me a lot in my lifestyle change. My first health goal was to quit my smoking and reduce my acidity.

And I am glad to say that I have been able to stop my smoking habit for the last 1 month and this is one of my major achievements. I have been smoking for almost 29 years. If it was not for my coach I do not think I would have ever been able to do this.

Sweta did not do anything drastic to get me out of the habit. Our target was to get me off smoking in 3 months It was a slow and steady process. I used to smoke on an average 10 cigarettes a day. My coach systematically cut down the smoking from 10 to 8 to 6 to 5 then 4, 3, 2, 1 and then a lot of struggle and she was constantly supporting me then finally I was able to stop it. I’ve had also been asked to go for a walk whenever I feel the urge of smoking. But, I do not have the urge anymore.

My second issue was with my food habits. I thought I ate healthy but obviously, I didn’t. I lacked understanding on what to eat, how much to eat, when to eat, what should be daily water intake. All these concepts were well defined and explained to me by my coach over these last few months. Being on GOQii has helped me get clarity on lots of aspects of health and nutrition. It has helped me understand what goals I need to achieve, quantification and how I can achieve them.

The one thing I have realised with GOQii is that one has, to be honest to oneself and your coach and follow the tips given to you diligently to get the best results.

My acidity was aggravated due my excess coffee drinking and smoking. I used to drink 5-6 cups daily. I was asked to bring it down slowly. Old habits die hard but I tried.  I knew if I did not, it could only get worse and that would be painful for me.  I bought it down to 4, but coach asked me to take just half a cup every time. So, then the frequency also came down from 4 to 2.

My water intake has also increased from 1.25 litres earlier to the current 2.75 litres of water every day. This has helped me a lot. I have also started having a lemon juice after my morning walks and then have my breakfast and bowl of fruits. My vegetable intake has increased and then the food intake has reduced. I have controlled my rice intake to a large extent. I go for a maximum of vegetables and salads, sprouts, carrots etc. These small habit changes have proved fruitful.

My activity levels have also seen a gradual increase. I also participated in a 21 km run and 10 km run and could do it easily. I clock around 13000 to 14000 steps a day which is quite normal for me nowadays. Along with all this, my coach has also advised me to do some breathing exercise at least twice in a day.

One more point what I’d like to mention is that there are 4 units of service that is followed in this industry. These are namely Design of service, Delivery mechanism, Passion, Touch and Feel and lastly building long term relationships.

GOQii follows these four essential aspects very well. The band is designed so well that there is clarity in the band usage. It links to the app easily without a cumbersome process and easy to operate. The charging mechanism is also simple. So the first aspect of design and quality is taken care of. GOQii’s delivery mechanism is also well taken care of in the form of their communication, the follow-ups that they do on a regular basis helping you keep your goals extended etc. The third thing I’d talk about is the passion, the touch and feel and emotion attached is well delivered. Each one at GOQii is a passionate about their roles and that is evident in various ways.The coach takes part in helping you as one of your own family members and she guides you properly.If your step count is down they motivate you to do more

Lastly, GOQii is trying to build long-term relationships by constantly seeking feedback from players on what sort of improvement we are able to do etc. That stems from the CEO who is in constant dialogue with his players trying to understand their needs.They not only take feedback but also try and implement and then they demonstrate to you without even saying explicitly. But, the effects are visible.

What does coach Sweta Kariahave to say about her players?

Initially, his meals were not well balanced and he used to smoke 10 cigarettes per day.
He was very dedicated towards his goal to quit smoking completely within a time span of 3 months and with all the efforts he made things possible. Not only that, we worked on his water intake, vitamin C intake as his immunity which was at risk due to smoking and unbalanced meals coupled with high stress levels..

I have never heard a NO from him for anything that I have asked him to do. We made things happen slowly. We started with initially bringing down his smoking to 2 cigarettes per week and slowly by the end of 3 months we came to 0..and is still at 0.

The other goals were given 100% attention too by him which makes him feel much better now and he is super active, healthy and happy too with the lifestyle changes he has made!!!

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

From Terminal Illness To Complete Wellness! Ananda Mukherjee Health Story

As we observe World Cancer Day under the powerful theme ‘United by Unique’ (2025-2027)**, we are reminded that every individual’s journey with cancer is distinct, yet united by shared resilience, hope, and the collective fight against this disease. This theme places people at the centre of care and their stories at the heart of the […]