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How Akhil Minocha Made a Positive U-Turn!

Akhil MinochaWe 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 

 

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Catalysing Social Change through Karma

Catalyzing-Social-Change-through-Karma

How often do we all do Charity?

Whether it is monetary or just about helping somebody out. How often have we helped someone with their studies? When was the last time we spent time playing with underprivileged kids? We seldom do it. Unless some friend actually points to a particular cause that he or she is related to. Let’s accept the fact that Philanthropy does not come to us easily. While globalization is increasingly making us aware of all the problems faced by humanity today, we aren’t doing much to bring about social change.

Everywhere around us, there is hunger, unemployment, lack of medical facilities and education. Not much has been done to eradicate poverty from every corner of this country, extend health care, provide basic education to one and all and protect our environment. Anyone who’s studied emerging markets talks about the opportunities the BoP offers. Especially in South Asia and more importantly in India. It’s a well-known fact how 70% of the population lives in rural areas and 75.6% live on less than $2 a day.

People below the poverty line all around the world are not asking for the moon or any aspiration goods and services. They are asking for basics such as infrastructure, water, energy, education, and employment to be able to live a decent and sustainable life.

Be The Change!

There may not be one resolution to all the problems. Non-profits for decades have been working for the betterment of the lives of the people at the bottom of the pyramid. But, there is only so much they can do. There is a new breed of young social entrepreneurs (Socents) who have sprung up in the last decade or so and are doing their best to bring about a social change. For instance, GreenSole, a social venture by Shreyans Bhandari and Ramesh Dhami, collects discarded shoes, refurbishes them and makes comfortable footwear for the underprivileged. You can know more about them by visiting their website: www.greensole.in.

Step Towards a Brighter Future

Apart from NGOs and the Social entrepreneurs, the opportunity to do Karma or good to others awaits all of us. There is an opportunity for us, as individuals, to be bold and use our unique role as philanthropists to spark, and drive large-scale social change. Whether as a social entrepreneur or by supporting a social cause, each one us has the opportunity to participate and do ‘Karma’(Doing good to others). GOQii, provides the opportunity to do Karma and this can be done by being healthy, fit and earning Karma Points.

At GOQii, our philosophy has been to achieve harmony between mind, body & soul. Inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s journey of 390 KM, which he started today, for every 390 steps tracked through your activity tracker, you earn 1 Karma Point. These points then get converted into monetary donations by our donor partners.

With the India Steps Challenge, you’re not only walking and earning big rewards but you’re also collecting Karma Points which you can donate to a charity/cause of your choice in the GOQii app! Currently, there are two causes in the GOQii app:

1. Upcycling to Slippers for Children in Need

This cause enables the collection of old shoes and Rs. 199/pair to upcycle them to slippers and donate to children in need. Greensole’s vision is to contribute to social good, by creating a self-sustaining infrastructure that facilitates the provision of the basic necessity of footwear to everyone. Environmental good by refurbishing discarded shoes with zero carbon footprint and economic good by giving employment to refurbish shoes.

2. Trees for Rural Communities, Chintamani, Karnataka

Grow-Trees.com wants to  allow users to satisfy a private purpose of greeting someone through an eTreeCertificate, while doing social good by planting trees. With Grow-Trees you can plant trees with just a few clicks and gift them to celebrate festivals, birthdays, anniversaries or other special occasions using their personalized e-certificate. The cost of each tree is INR 85.

Believe me, I can say this from my own experience, doing Karma will only help bring a positive change in your life – a change for the better.

Who knows? One day, you may look back and say, “I was there at the beginning and I made a difference!”

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