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Basic guide to stay healthy and fit

Getting-Fit-and-Healthy

In the light of the universal health coverage launched by the WHO, here are some of the basics that you can follow to stay healthy and fit:

eating healthy

  1. Eating Healthy Is Important: What you eat, is who you are. Eating simple, cooked meals instead of packed or readymade food will keep you away from the unhealthy elements such as bad cholesterol and extra calories. Including a lot of vegetables and fruits and ensuring a balanced meal every day, is crucial for a healthy life. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and should never be skipped. Skipping breakfast can make you crave for food, thus leading to consuming more calories than required. Starting your day with a power-packed breakfast is the first step towards a healthy life. As a bonus, your day turns out to be more productive as well.

active sunday picture                                                                    Picture Source: Active Sunday 

  1. Exercising Regularly Is A Must: Exercise and food are like two sides of a coin, and if you want good health, you can ignore neither. A minimum of 30 minutes of physical activity three times a week is a must to keep your spirits high and body healthy.

no-smoking-3. Get Rid Of Your Vices: Smoking causes significant harm to your lungs and can result in several lung diseases including Lung Cancer. Hence, quitting is a necessity for a healthy and disease-free life. Alcohol abuse is another problem that you need to get rid of, as it increases the risk of problems such as liver disease, high blood pressure and in the worst case stroke & heart failure.

stress

4.Stress Needs To Be Managed: In the 21st century where the world is highly competitive than ever, stress has become the new enemy of both mental and physical health. Everyone experiences the stress of some kind day in and out, therefore it is essential to learn how it can be managed. Yoga and meditation can help in relieving stress. Also, indulging in hobbies and sharing a laugh with your loved ones are great stress busters as well.

2014-06-30-sleep

  1. Sleep Is Crucial: Your job may not allow you to follow the circadian rhythm. Never mind, but at least, you must allow yourself a sound sleep of 6-7 hours. Sleep is crucial for your body parts to rejuvenate themselves and prepare for another 16 hours of efficient work.

health check

6. Health Check-ups should be a priority:‘Prevention is better than cure’ and that is exactly the reason why regular health check-ups are most important. As they do not just help you stay up-to-date with your daily health issues, they will also alert you to any future health risks. These check-ups will also enable your doctor to plan your treatment better in case of any health issues. Some common tests that you can go for our blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose level, body mass index, dental check and cleaning, self-check for changes in breasts in women and others.

As an individual, take a pledge to follow these steps and start living a healthy & happy life.

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Best fat loss exercise for Indian women

In India, most women have only one fitness goal – WEIGHT LOSS.

From my experience as a fitness coach, most young girls/women have similar goals – flat stomach or that thigh gap or those toned arms.

One of the biggest mistake women make in their fitness pursuit is that they are chasing “weight loss” when they really should be chasing “fat loss”.

Young girls and women have a very clear picture of their fitness targets. But, too many women are misinformed about the CORRECT way of achieving those targets.

KEY: CARDIO will not get you to your goals fast.

Losing WEIGHT by purely starving yourself and doing exhaustive cardio workouts, but neither is good for your overall well being, nor is it the most effective means of burning fat.

Let’s break it down. When you do any form of CARDIO exercise. Running, jogging, even some hipster cardio exercise like some form of dance or martial arts, you’re burning calories. You’re burning off the fat that is stored in your body and using it for energy.

So it is burning fat but, keep in mind that the fat burns only WHILE you’re doing that particular exercise. Once you go home, your body enters a period of rest and things are normal.

Now let’s consider what happens to your body during and after WEIGHT TRAINING.  So weight training is like any other EXERCISE. In order to go through with it you need to exert your body. You need to spend calories.

While you’ve undergone resistance training, while you’ve done squats or push ups or a bicep curl, your muscles are made to fight against that resistance. In doing so, your muscles undergo a number of minute tears.

After your exercise, when you go home, and you’re resting, these tears in your muscles are repaired by your body. In order to repair them, your body spends calories, and continues to burn fat even when you’re on your couch, watching TV and even when you’re asleep.

SIMPLE CARDIO – Burn calories only while you exercise.

RESISTANCE TRAINING – You’re burning calories while you exercise AND you’re burning calories even after the exercise, while you’re chilling at home.

The added advantage of resistance training is the lean muscle you put on in the long term. The more muscle you put on, as a woman, the more fat you’ll burn.

The other big issue I’ve seen in India, is that many women are afraid to take up weight training because they think they’ll end up looking like a “bulked up bodybuilder”. They don’t wanna get “Bulky”. You need to know that these overly bulky women have taken a LOT of steroid injections to make their bodies turn into THAT.

Many of them have used testosterone, the male hormone. The testosterone is what makes those women bulky and it’s also what makes mens’ muscles bigger.

Rest assured you won’t become like that UNLESS you take testosterone injections. As a woman, your natural biological make up will make you look beautiful always, it will make you look “girly”, unless YOU mess around with it.

Priyanka chopra, Bipasha Basu, Alia Bhatt. All these women lift weights and have been lifting weights for a long time. They aren’t bulky by any means.

If you still aren’t convinced about this, I urge you to at least try it out for a couple of months. Go to a good gym, get a good trainer, see the results for yourself. As a woman, especially if you’re someone who has never tried resistance training, you owe it to your body to give it a shot. You have only one body, its time to maximize its potential.

THIS IS THE FASTEST WAY TO BURN FAT.

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 ‘It is not about losing weight but, it is how you manage it’

Shobha Kunju                                                                                             Shobha Kunju

We are celebrating Women’s month and also women’s health. Here is another inspiring story of a woman who with her sheer grit and determination has been able to reverse her illnesses and get on a health path never to turn back.

It is said that it’s never too late to start if you have the right intent and the determination to do it. Shobha Kunju, 58, a mother of two grown-up children is a fine example of the above statement.

Shobha underwent several health issues between 2010 and 2015. She was first diagnosed with thyroid then she had a hysterectomy, and finally diagnosed with diabetes and put on a very high dosage of medications for both thyroid and diabetes. Apart from illnesses, she was also battling weight issues being on the heavier side. No amount of regular walks and exercises helped but, she was active. A ray of hope knocked on her door when her son introduced her to GOQii in 2015. Her eating and exercise habits bettered and she started targeting her step counts. On an average, she started clocking 10000-13000 steps daily. On weekends she goes for long walks -10 km. with better eating habits, exercise and sleeping better helped her in resolving her weight issues. Her weight reduced from 86 kgs 2 years ago to the present 78 kgs, in addition, she has also witnessed drastic inch loss around her waist. Shobha’s determination, self-motivation and discipline have helped her immensely to reverse her ailments and reduce medications. She is free from all medical issues thanks to her active lifestyle. She finds the idea of exercising on a Sunday morning together with other like-minded and motivated individuals very interesting and fun. Currently, she follows a regime of regular 5km walk in the morning with alternate day’s strength training and HIIT workout. Her message to one and all is: “Be disciplined and self-motivated to achieve your health goals”.

 

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Are Fats the only culprit behind those flabs?

 

 

obesity

Many times I have come across people saying, ‘I have been avoiding all kind of fats such as ghee, oil, fried foods, cream, cheese since a long time but, I am just been unable to get rid of all the flab’.

If you ask me I would say that there are mistakes people make in the process of burning all those fatty bags. Let’s see what these mistakes are

Mistake 1-CUTTING DOWN ALL KIND OF FATS: The first mistake most make is avoiding fats completely.Fat is the 3rd major nutrient needed by the body for the optimal functioning of various vital systems like cardiovascular system, skeletal system (bones and joints), and neurological system.If you don’t provide the required amount of fat to the body, it will start storing other nutrients like carbohydrates in the form of fat in fear of an emergency.

The key is to avoid bad fats (the fat which is saturated at room temperature like ghee, butter) and opt for good fat(the fat which is liquid at room temperature like vegetable oils and also the fat from nuts and seeds) and have it in moderation.

Mistake 2-HAVING INVISIBLE FATS: Look for the invisible fats which you might be consuming unknowingly.You might be providing invisible bad fats to your body in the form of all kind of processed foods like biscuits, cookies, fast foods, cakes, pastries, ice creams, chocolates etc.

Mistake 3-INACTIVITY: If you are sitting all day in front of the computer, then there is no need for the body to burn the calories and chances are the bodies are storing all kinds of excess calories coming from carbohydrates and proteins in the form of fat.So, do make a habit of getting up from your work seat and walking in the corridor, doing some office desk exercises, just to provide an excuse to your cells to burn the calories consumed during meals.

Mistake 4-SKIPPING MEALS: When you are avoiding your breakfast or lunch, the body goes into the fat-preserving mode in fear of a deadly situation. So keep providing some nutritious food in the form of meals or snacks, at least, every 3 hours to keep your metabolism running.

Mistake 5-STRESS: Stress is an integral part of our lifestyle nowadays and yes, in acute situation, it does reduce the appetite because of the secretion of stress hormone, but a persistent stressed out situation maintains a higher level of cortisol hormones for a longer time, whose job is to replenish the body even after the stress has passed out and this increases your appetite and makes you crave for your favorite desserts. So do try to include some relaxation technique in your day to day life to soothe your body and keep the hormones under control during the stressed out situations.

Mistake 6-SLEEP DEPRIVATION: Here is how disturbed sleeping hours affects your waistline badly-Lack of sleep makes you feel exhausted, makes you skip your workout, makes you crave for some brain stimulant like coffee, tea, and makes you binge on some bad calories while being awake for more hours than sleeping.

Mistake 7- HAVING A HEAVY DINNER: Dinner has always been considered as the only family meal which we have all together. But do you know, at that time, your body is preparing itself for a slowdown at night, your metabolism is at it’s lowest.So anything in excess, especially carbohydrates, which body is unable to digest at that time is getting collected in the central area of your body.That doesn’t mean that you go to bed feeling hungry.Plan it wisely. Have a heavy nutritious evening snack and a light dinner which is low in carbohydrates, moderate in proteins and high in fibres.

Mistake 8-HAVING FRUITS AT WRONG TIME: Combining your fruits with meals and having them post-sunset or at bedtime is a sure way to get those flags on your waistline, as they are again a form of instant carbohydrates.Have them as individual meals or snacks instead.

And if you still feel that you are guilty of none of these mistakes and stuck with these flaws, do consult your doctor. There might be an underlying medical condition like hypothyroid or other hormonal imbalances which is keeping your metabolism disturbed and maintaining all the fatty bags despite your efforts to be healthy and fit.

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