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“Little changes in lifestyle will help you live smart “

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He is part of the senior management in an automotive company. He travels 14 days a month and his works long hours that sometimes stretches into late nights. He tried to manage and fit into a workout regime twice or three a week but could not be regular. At 52, he wanted to change his lifestyle but ,was unable to do it on his own. He needed an external stimuli……and guess what he found it and today he is active and has learnt to eat and live smart……let us hear Bharatendu Kapoor’s story in his own words….

I head the spare parts business of a Mumbai-based automotive company and my job involves procurement of spare parts for all our projects and supply spare parts to all the auto divisions including truck and buses division. My work also involves travel for about 12 to 14 days in a month and long hours on a daily basis.

This daily routine and constant travel led him to adopt irregular food habits. I would never have food at the right time. However, I would try and work out twice or thrice a week for about half hour to 40 minutes. I was not regular though with the workouts and the days were not fixed.Sometimes I would go for walks but again it was not very regular.

Such was my irregular routine for several years. Then one day in November 2015, through an engagement program my company bought 200 GOQii bands. I was one among the 200 employees who got the band and my journey with GOQii started.

GOQii was a boon in disguise. I am 52 years old and I was going through this thought process of wanting to change my lifestyle, considering the job I do. Given my age and lack of understanding about exercise and nutrition, I sure needed an external stimulus to help me through this. And, GOQii was the answer.

The best part of GOQii is the coach who you can interact with on a daily basis. The coach is the external stimuli that helped me. The coach guided me on my lifestyle, nutrition, sleep etc. Sheetal, helped me make small changes and disciplined me in my eating habits. I am very conscious now of what I eat, how much I eat. It has been a wonderful experience for me in the last 5 months .

Lots of other improvements also came within me. My water intake that was very less has increased considerably. I have an alarm system that reminds me to drink water every hour.

Initially, when I started, the first month was tough and tiring for me to adjust to the new kind of fitness regime and making lifestyle changes. Eventually, as days passed I got used to it, I diligently started following the routine. I went for my regular daily walks, met my daily step target, slept well and hydrated well.

The most interesting aspect is that the results are evident and the changes were visible. I lost 6 kgs and about 3 inches. Such positive results keep you motivated. The result prompted me to refrain from using the elevator and instead take the flight of steps in Office and this has become a daily habit for me.

Believe me, when I say this that I have never been happier with myself. My main health goal when I started on GOQii was to lose 8 kgs and after 5 months I lost 6 kgs which are a great achievement for me and my coach.

If I reflect back into the 6 months prior to GOQii, the changes are very little. I have not done anything drastic. But, I have learnt how to live smart and eat smart and become more energetic. Instead of sitting on the chair throughout the day like I used to do earlier while in Office, I started walking after every two hours. So just change a little and that’s the trick.

Before using GOQii band I was barely walking 2500 to 3000 steps after I got the band I set for myself a goal of 10000 steps daily and in the last three months, I have been easily crossing 15K steps on a daily basis.  Walking and exercises have become part of daily routine. People around me are noticing the change in me and that makes me feel good.

What does coach Sheetal Shah have to say about Bharatendu?

Bharatendu’s job involves a lot of travelling at least 10 – 15 days a month. Due to his work schedules, he was unable to dedicate time daily for workouts etc .  When he joined GOQii in November 2015, his long-term goal set is to lose weight. His smart goal was a brisk walk of 45 minutes initially and 30 minutes normal walk in the evening.   In the second month, I shared some strength training workout videos with him. Now he does Brisk and Strength training workout regularly. His water intake was pretty low..but that has also improved now and has increased to approx 2.5 liters in a day.

Bharatendu does not have any medical conditions nor he is on any medication. He is very much dedicated to the planned goals and follows them consistently.He logs the food data and syncs the band religiously. He has lost 6 kgs in the last 5 months. In Nov 2015, he weighed 78 kgs and as of April 2016, he weighs 72.1 Kg. His target is to reach 68 Kg. He has lost inches around his waist. We are now concentrating on fat loss rather than weight Loss. I monitor his meals and other data on a regular basis and suggest him dos and don’ts about healthy meal pattern.

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‘GOQii has been a great enabler for me to get back to an active lifestyle and I am enjoying this positive change”

Oxfam trail Walk

Ashwani Sood and his Oxfam trail Walk experience captured beautifully

He is lively and young at 55 and can put any youngster half his age to shame with his enthusiasm and zeal for life. From being an inactive person to a completely super active in one year is worthy. Despite being a member of the senior management he finds time on a daily basis to do his workout no matter where he is. He is a great advocate of Active Sunday and does not miss it irrespective of which city he is in. If he is in Delhi he attends the active Sunday’s in Delhi. 

Let’s hear Ashwani Sood’s story in his own words.

I work with a French multinational Pharma Giant Sanofi. I am on the board of management of Sanofi India and part of the senior management team. Until one year ago my life was that of a boring corporate professional without any physical activity whatsoever. I would come back from work and feel exhausted so much so that it left me no energy to do anything. So I would just lie around on the couch and watch TV.

Prior to that life wasn’t any good either. For 15 years I was based in Gujarat and 400 people were working under me and we used to have these annual health check-ups. I was declared overweight and I was asked to reduce 5-6 kg. I tried but nothing worked.

2014, I got posted to Mumbai. Here I was staying in a gated community and the environment was conducive for me to work out. The environment was a booster in the sense that I would see so many people exercising and going for runs or walks and that interested me in working out or exercising. It came as a big game changer in my life.

Just as I was getting used to the idea of getting fit and changing my lifestyle for the better, GOQii band came as a boon. We were given the band in office and asked to try it out and give feedback. What started with trying out the fitness band, has today become a part of me. GOQii has changed my lifestyle for the better. I came on board GOQii in March 2015. My health goal was to get a disciplined routine in my life and reduce weight and also I would like to run a marathon. Clearly, I was confident of achieving the first goal to begin with.

My coach NahidKhilji, gave me my first challenge which was to start with clocking 8000 to 10000 steps daily. Initially, it was a tough task. But, soon I was able to achieve this goal. I had stopped taking the elevator to the office and also started taking small walks. I would try and see to it that I complete the required amount of steps daily. This eventually led to increasing my activities. I started swimming regularly, playing badminton. From being sluggish, I was back to being active.  “If there is a will there is a way.’  I had only one motive when I started on GOQii to clock 10,000 steps.

I used to also get constant reminders for ‘Active Sundays’ but I never went for it. Then one day I decided to go and since that day, there is no turning back. I try and attend every Active Sunday when I am in town and if I am in Delhi I go for Active Sunday’s even there.

Just as I started doing all of these, my coach then threw another googly at me and told me why not do the 100KM trail walk challenge and I was all game for it. I wasn’t sure I would be able to do it but, my coach was confident and that gave me confidence in myself. I went for a practice session in Mumbai. It was a 25 Km walk to Haji Ali. We started the walk at 10.30 pm and I was among the first few to complete the walk.  It was an amazing experience. The walk was brilliant I could easily manage it and above all having been in Mumbai I had never experienced the city in thick of the night and believe me it was beautiful and an eye opener.

This boosted my confidence and thereafter I went for all Oxfam Practice sessions.  I participated in Oxfam Trailwalker- Team GOQii Yankee. We completed the 100 Kms within 48 hours. It was challenging but mentally we were all strong to be able to push ourselves, motivate each other and go forward. The trail walker I realized it was a ‘game of mind over body’. After Oxfam, I upped my target to 12000 steps daily.

GOQii has been a great enabler for me to get back to an active lifestyle and I am enjoying this positive change.  I have lost 3 kgs and I am drinking 2 liters of water daily. My wife has also been very supportive in helping me follow my diet plan. In fact, I have learned a lot in terms of diet. What to eat, when to eat etc. I have, in fact, removed all items that had sugar in them.

My biggest achievement apart from my goals has been that I have also been able to inspire a lot of my colleagues. Many of them have now become part of GOQii family.

And last but not the least I would like to say the karma points is another big motivator. The whole aspect of Karma brings unique positivity to help the society.

I have so far donated about 11000 points to about 9 causes, walked 4.5 million steps and 2800 plus KMs.

What does Coach Nahid Khilji have to say about Ashwani Sood

Ashwani is one the most amazing persons I’ve come across. He started with a sedentary lifestyle and today, I am proud to say he is more active than even few of our health coaches. It’s purely his enthusiasm, dedication, and discipline towards fitness that has got him to the spot that he is in currently. I remember from 5-7k steps to 10K steps its 12k steps in a day currently! Now most of his Sundays are spent in super active Sundays. They say age is not a barrier; he has proved it and is much agiler than people half his age. And, trust me when I say this, he doesn’t say no for any kind of challenges. Right from going off sweet for a month, to just have fruits a day to the interval training and super awesome step count. I feel so proud today to be his coach. I have faith too.

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“My dream project has been to trek to EBC”

Jitu Arora with several of his Marathon medals

Jitu Arora with several of his Marathon medals

From running marathons and half marathons for several years and then suddenly becoming inactive, to weighing 95 kgs and not being able to walk even 10000 steps is scary isn’t it? Jitender Arora has been through this scary phase until one day when he realized being scared is doing no good to him. And rest, as they say, is history…. Let’s here from Jitender how he brought about a healthy change in himself and getting back to being his old fit self. Jitender’s story in his own words.

For almost a decade I stayed in the US and the UK till about 2011.  During, my days abroad I was extremely fit. I indulged in a lot of outdoor activities and ran marathons and half marathons regularly. I had finished 3 full marathons and a dozen half marathons. My downfall started when I shifted back to India. I got huge responsibilities at work. I was looking at functions with multiple geographies and too much traveling and erratic eating habits took a toll on me. Due to lack of any physical activity, I had also cultivated a few habits that I should not have. All this led me to put on weight and my lifestyle was also very stressful. Overall, very unhealthy. I weighed 95 kgs and wasn’t even able to complete 10,000 steps in a day it used to be a very tough task.

I joined GOQii in May 2014. The band was a gift from my wife on my birthday. She watched the review by Rajeev Makhani on NDTV and thought I needed it. She was right, I definitely needed it because I was overweight and was not really into fitness.

But, to be honest I started using it seriously only when Shimpli my coach told me about the 100 Km trail walk to be held in December 2014. I thought that is a good challenge to give myself and I started training for it. I had decided I will walk and see if I can complete it. If not, it would just be about meeting few other like-minded people and that will give me an extra dose of motivation. I seriously trained for the trail walk.

I also started with yoga and strength training because I felt just cardio was not working for me and I wanted more of a complete turnaround. I got back to my running and back to running Marathons.

On the day of the trail walk, I was confident I could do this walk within 48 hours and do it in a pretty decent time. I was only hopeful because of the training, the coaching support and the device itself helped me kind of understand my goals better and I started pushing myself a little bit more in terms of being more active by changing my lifestyle, changing my eating habits, hydrating better. A lot of these small suggestions by my coach has helped a great deal in the   past one and a half years.

Ever since I got back to my healthy self, I have been challenging myself to do various things. I did the 100 KM trail walk twice in two consecutive years, I have done 12-13 half marathons in last few months, I have done the devil’s circuit in Gurgaon. My next big challenge is to trek the Everest Base Camp. And, I am going this May. I have always loved the mountains. I have done a couple of small treks. I guess for every individual who loves the mountains’ their dream is always to get close to Mount Everest. So my dream project has been to trek to EBC. It’s going to be challenging for me but, more than anything I think I am going to come back more knowledgeable and fitter and perhaps be more appreciative of the nature.

I am looking forward to my EBC trek as I am going with few other GOQii players. I treat them as my second family so that’s again a comfort factor for me.

What does Coach Shimpli Patil have to say about Jitender Arora?  

Jitender is one of the most vibrant and cheerful people I have ever known. He became a part of the GOQii ecosystem in the very initial days of GOQii. When I spoke to him for the first time, he expressed that he was a very active person while in the US, but lost track of any kind of physical activity once he came back to India. He was thus aiming to get back to his fitness again. We started with some simple cardio exercises and later moved on to interval training with intense core strengthening. The best aspect was even though we wouldn’t communicate every single day, he made sure he caught up with his workouts and astounded me by sharing his workout summary at the end of the week.

We also focused on his eating habits, especially his pre and post workout meals. After a few months of coming on board the GOQii platform, Jitender registered himself for the 100 km Mumbai Oxfam Trail walk, we teamed up together. At no point in time, did I see Jitu losing his motivation to complete the walk? His energy levels started dipping, his feet started giving up, his body started aching but, his willpower was strong and that kept him going and he successfully completed the trail walk.

It did not stop here. Soon after he got himself into various activities including 10 k run (TCS Bangalore), 10 Half Marathons- including Standard Chartered, One 15 KM trail Run, 100 km Mumbai Oxfam Trail walk once again, one 30 Km Road Run (Gurgaon) and one Devils Circuit (NCR 2016) and the list continues!…he is currently preparing for his big Everest Base Camp. Jitu is a great inspiration to many, and is a perfect example of how to reconnect to the disconnected path, and stay up to it!

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“I have been able to improve my half marathon timing by improving my overall fitness”

Last year Thane Half Marathon clocked a timing of 2:43:45

Last year Thane Half Marathon clocked a timing of 2:43:45

For individuals working in corporate, the story is pretty much the same and the reasons for a sedentary lifestyle is also no different. Aasish Kumar’s story hence was no different. On and off he would try his hand at a physical activity like playing a sport, go for a jog but it was not consistent and there was no discipline maintained. But, one fine day he realized let’s try and make a change. Since that day and today, life has a come a full circle for Aasish. He has lost about 9 kgs from 83+kgs to about 75Kgs in just about 6 months and is much fitter and agile. Aasish’s story in his own words….

I work for a corporate and my job is a desk job. It does not require me to move too much. In other words, it’s predominantly sedentary work as far as my job is concerned. Given that work was stationary, my lifestyle was also inactive with no physical activity whatsoever. I tried playing a sport, go for a jog sometimes, and went to a gym but only for few days. Secondly, my food habits were also erratic. I never monitored or bothered much about what I ate. I was not consistent and disciplined in anything I was doing. And all of this was eventually affecting my health. I was aware of my problem but, did not know where to start and how to rectify the problem.

Sometime last year during the first half of the year, I attended a conference organized by my organization. At the conference, as a part of promoting healthy lifestyle we all were given a GOQii band. I did not use the band for quite some time. Then one day, I decided to pick the box and read about GOQii and its offerings. I decided to give it a try. I registered on the app and I got Amee Chandarana as my coach.

I started with setting 2-3 health goals to achieve. One of the most important health goals was to reduce my weight but the same time I wanted to do it in a healthy way. I wanted to improve my eating habits and get more disciplined. I was looking for professional guidance with respect to how to integrate various aspects of lifestyle i.e. food, water, exercise, various forms of physical activity that you can take on and start off gradually your path to health and fitness.

Starting month was difficult for me to suddenly make changes to my lifestyle and adjust to all the exercising etc. But, once I got used to it, I got hooked on to GOQii. I got into a rhythm of using the device and the coach. I wanted to ensure that I stick to my plans and bring about a positive change in me that will in return make a real difference to my lifestyle. Today, I have a regular workout regime wherein I train in the gym with my personal trainer with one day of rest. I supplement the gym training with the information that I get from my GOQii coach.

GOQii has helped me both on the app front as well as on the coaching front. On the app front, I am able to track my fitness, food, water, sleep progress on a daily basis. This is helping me to self-regulate myself and have a disciplined life. I started my coaching some 3 weeks after I started using the app.

With regard to coaching 2-3 things come to my mind. Firstly, there is someone who is keeping a track of what you are doing and equally interested in what you want to achieve as an individual with respect to lifestyle.

Secondly, you are getting important tips from your coach on how you can change your diet by reducing sugar, increasing the water intake, a mix of food that you can have and lastly, your coach also motivates you to clock your 10,000 steps daily. After being able to clock 10,000 steps easily on a daily basis you are motivated to go to the next level. For instance, I started with 10,000 steps initially today, I am easily able to clock 12,000 to 15,000 steps daily.

The coaching does not end with just this, you also get tips on various forms of exercises, yoga, food, etc. It’s a holistic approach with respect to all aspects of lifestyle. It focuses a lot on your health goals and how to achieve this is in a said period of time that you have set for yourself. Thanks to the coaching I have been able to shed about 9 kgs in the last 6 months. I was at 83+ kgs when I came on board the GOQii platform and now my weight is around 75 kgs. My target is to reach 70kgs and I am moving towards this target.

People around me have also seen the change in me. They find me energetic and positive now and are surprised with my change. They are surprised about the disciplined lifestyle that I follow. The time I got the GOQii band, a lot of my colleagues also got but nobody was using it the way I am and now they are surprised at the outcome.

The best part of the GOQii training is that I have been able to run half marathons without putting in any extra efforts to train. I have been able to do it with my regular workout regime. My overall fitness has improved drastically and that has helped me improve my half marathon time. I have cut down my time by half hour. I finished the half marathon in February in 2:12:50 seconds. That according to me is a super cool improvement.

This year's Thane Half Marathon improved timing of 2:12:50

This year Aasish completes half Marathon with an improved timing of 2:12:50

What does Coach Amee Chandrana have to say about

The journey from the start has been remarkable. With small healthy changes like improving water intake to eating in intervals have been finely adapted by Aasish. He is very enthusiastic and determined towards his goals. We also together worked towards running the half-marathon and he successfully completed in 2:12:50 as against his last year’s timing of 2:43:45. The next 10 km run for a cause he targeted to finish in1:10 but nailed it in 1:4 without any injuries. Overall, Aasish makes sure he follows the healthy routine to keep him fit and going.

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