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January 3, 2025 By Tabassum Parveen 1 Comment

How to Burn Body Fat & Keep it Off!

body fatHow many times have we pushed ourselves to our physical limits in order to get rid of excess body fat, only to end up gaining it all over again? Keeping body fat off is a difficult task, but it is not impossible. All you need is the right knowledge and this article has it!

Need to Burn Body Fat

Many articles explain the need to burn body fat. However, they often overlook the fact that muscle behavior changes when body fat is burned. When you’re on a journey to lose weight, it is important to burn body fat as well as restore body muscles to gain control over important body functions.

How to Burn Body Fat

1. Increase Protein Intake:

The theory behind increasing protein intake is that more muscles result in more fat burning. It’s best to start your day with good carbs and proteins, as adding protein to breakfast works on hunger hormones, making you feel fuller for longer.

This is why including protein helps in losing weight and keeping it off. If you don’t have a good protein source, add it. But remember, only consuming protein without good carbs, fiber, vitamins, and minerals may result in weight gain, as extra protein will get deposited.

Sources of protein that can be included in your daily lifestyle are quinoa, moringa, peanut butter, almond butter, nuts, seeds, legumes, beans, lean meat, fish, eggs, and dairy products like curd, yogurt, cottage cheese, paneer, and soy products like tofu.

2. Water Intake:

The average water intake of a person is 2.17 liters. Water intake can be increased to 3 liters per day to prevent sunstroke and dehydration, especially in hot weather. Hydration is crucial because your body will not burn fat when it is dehydrated.

Drinking a glass of water before meals acts as an appetite suppressant, helping you keep extra fats from food at bay. Avoid sugary drinks like colas or other carbonated beverages. Instead, carry a chilled bottle of water containing chia seeds or basil seeds, mint leaves, a little salt, and a piece of jaggery to stay hydrated and refreshed!

3. Foods with Fiber:

Gut health is the key to maintaining body weight and shedding extra fat. Fiber helps in maintaining a healthy weight and reducing cholesterol and diabetes levels.

If you’re looking for low-calorie foods, try broccoli, lettuce, cabbage, cauliflower, mushrooms, green beans, zucchini, apples, popcorn, cucumber, spinach, oats, and brown rice. These are good sources of fiber and keep you full for longer.

Psyllium husk (Isapgol) is great for detoxing the system. It also helps eliminate cholesterol and fat globules from the body. However, it needs to be consumed in moderation—half a teaspoon or 2 grams per day is sufficient.

4. Cut down on Salt, Sugar and Refined Carbs:

Everything in excess is harmful. Salt and sugar are basic needs of our lifestyle as they help maintain the pH level of blood. Excess salt results in water retention and can make it difficult to lose weight. Similarly, excess sugar affects your metabolism and can cause joint pain and fatty liver problems.

This doesn’t mean you need to go tasteless! Moderation is the key to a healthier lifestyle. Avoid extra salts and sugars from processed food, junk food, and refined carbs like white bread, white flour, sweetened beverages, and bakery products. Instead, carry healthy snacks like fox nuts, goji berries, dry fruits, mixed seeds, and popcorn. Also, cut off any additional salt in your curds or salads.

Foods That Help in Burning Body Fat Faster

  • Apple Cider Vinegar: Mix 1 or 2 tsp of apple cider vinegar in lukewarm water for a healthy morning drink. It helps burn extra fats.
  • Extra Virgin Coconut Oil: Reducing normal oil intake while consuming extra virgin cold-pressed coconut oil benefits thyroid functioning and increases the body’s metabolic rate due to medium-chain triglycerides. This helps burn fat faster. Add it to your salads or cooked curry (avoid heating it to retain its nutrients).
  • Beverages: Green coffee, black coffee, oolong tea, green tea, chamomile tea, and goji berry tea all improve metabolism and help burn fat faster. However, 2-3 cups a day is advised, as anything in excess is harmful.

Stress and Lack of Sleep Can Result in Weight Gain

Stress and sleep are often neglected during fat-burning journeys. Overindulging in workouts can lead to stress and weight gain. Working out 3-4 times a week is sufficient. Jumping jacks, HIIT, planks, crunches, lunges with stretching, and yoga help maintain body shape without stress while promoting good-quality sleep.

If mediation or deep breathing dosen’t help you relax, try stress-busting foods like dark chocolate, nuts, seeds, bananas, and avocados. Ensure you get enough sleep. Lack of sleep and stress can slow down metabolism and cause weight gain. To sleep peacefully, keep your room dark, avoid heavy workouts before bedtime and stay off screens at least an hour before sleeping.

By working on these small lifestyle changes, you can effectively lose body fat and keep it off!

We hope this article helps you. For more information or tips on weight loss, check out Healthy Reads or speak to an expert by subscribing for GOQii’s Personalised Health Coaching here.

#BeTheForce

Disclaimer: The information provided in this blog is for general awareness and educational purposes only. It is not intended to replace professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider for personalised medical guidance or concerns related to your health.

December 5, 2024 By Divya Thampi 3 Comments

5 Hacks To Help You Achieve Your Goals

Hacks to achieve your goalsDespite knowing the importance of persistence, most people have trouble focusing single-mindedly and putting in efforts consistently in the area that they want to succeed in. Our good intentions or brilliant ideas don’t see the light of day, because of some of the habits we possess that seem insignificant and mundane.

More often than not, we find ourselves doing not what we wish to do but what we are accustomed to doing. For example, I had been thinking for months that I must wake up earlier by an hour each morning. Easy enough, right? But each night, I would find myself spending time on trivial things that I had not planned to do, like reading random articles, or surfing through emails or reflecting about some things that may have happened during the day.

These unplanned non-events led to late nights and consequently each morning I woke up no earlier than usual. Some of you may relate to this situation. Just replace ‘want to wake up early’ with ‘want to go for a walk’, ‘want to read every night’, ‘want to eat healthy’, ‘want to meditate’, ‘want to spend more time with my team’, ‘want to get to the office before time’, ‘want to learn a new skill’… by now you get the drift.

Perseverance is a trait that people with high emotional intelligence possess. As Daniel Goleman says in his book ‘Emotional Intelligence’ – “Studies of Olympic athletes, world-class musicians and Chess grand masters find their unifying trait is the ability to motivate themselves to pursue relentless training routine”. One would think that these people are wired differently. But they are not. Perseverance is not something that you either have or you don’t, it’s something that can be developed. Following are 5 simple yet highly effective ways to build perseverance and pave your path to success:

1. Start Small & Take Breaks

‘Many drops make an ocean’ is definitely something to think about. If we straight away start thinking about all the effort and resources that would be required to achieve something, the thought could promptly dissuade our minds from giving it a try, hence begin small.

If you want to run 5 km each morning, start with one or even half a km. The initial few days of trying something new can be stressful. It takes our body and mind, time, to get used to things. If eating healthy is your goal, start with one healthy meal a day. It takes a little less effort and helps you get used to the change. If you are working on a report, work in half-hour chunks with a five-minute break between every half an hour (check out the Pomodoro Technique)

positive day2. Celebrate Small Wins

Even if you have run just a kilometer on two consecutive days, while your aim may be to run 5, give yourself a pat. Well begun is half done. Reward yourself with something small. It could be listening to your favourite music, reading your favourite book or spending time on a call with your friend. The choice is yours but the celebration is a must to keep you motivated.

3. Surround Yourself  With Cheerleaders

Share your goal and efforts with people who care for you. Those people who would be excited and happy to see you do well. Enroll their help, let them check on your progress and remind you how well you are doing. They will become your support system and give you the much-needed boost when you feel like giving up. All of us need cheerleaders to cheer us on.

4. Watch Your Self-Talk

What do you tell yourself when you set out to run a mile but are tired and end up walking half the distance instead? Do you cut yourself some slack or beat yourself up? Do you think that you will rest a little and try again or do you say, “There I did it again! Why am I sloppy, slow and incapable?” Watch out, the one person whose words have a significant impact on you is YOU! Pay attention to your self-talk. Reframe the negative lines with positive ones. So instead of saying “I couldn’t even run 2 km”, say “I did 1.5 km, an improvement from yesterday”

5. The Last Stretch

Many years ago, as a hotelier, I was once asked to make 100 cold calls, to inform people about the upcoming New Year event. It wasn’t a very pleasant task because often people would hang up even before I completed my first sentence. Every time I was tempted to stop and take a break, I’d tell myself, “Just two more calls and then its break time”.

Consequently, I ended up doing those 2 calls more enthusiastically and I was done with all the 100, faster than expected. This strategy works really well. Stretch your limits, little at a time. If you have run a kilometer and want to stop, push yourself to run just another 100 meters more.

If you have written 600 words for the day, write just 50 more before you call it a day. Slowly but surely you will have a bigger appetite, higher capacity and things will get easier, not to mention that you will be getting closer to the win you have been looking forward to.

Little at a time, turn these pointers into habits and just like insignificant small habits can veer you away from your achievements, these small winning habits will steer you towards your big wins. Remember, nobody was born a winner or a loser, your thoughts and efforts make you so. Like Aristotle said “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit”.

We hope these tips help your form and achieve your goals for the coming year. Do let us know your thoughts in the comments below. For more articles like this, check out Healthy Reads. To get the right guidance and motivation from an expert, subscribe for GOQii’s Personalised Health Coaching here.

#BeTheForce

October 10, 2024 By GOQii Leave a Comment

Exhausted At Work? Here’s Everything You Need To Know About Burnout!

Everything You Need To Know About BurnoutHave you ever woken up on time and still felt tired? You reach work but can’t stop yawning. Random bouts of sleepiness take control as concentration slowly slips away! Ever wondered why even a short commute made you feel like you ran a 200m race? What you’re feeling might be more than just “because I slept late last night”. In fact, what you’re experiencing might be burnout. Not the tyre burnout, but a medical condition that many people face on a daily basis.

WHO recently has declared ‘Burnout’ as a medical condition.

What Is Burnout?

Burnout is a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. In simple words, burnout is a state of emotional or physical exhaustion at a workplace.

What Causes Burnout? What Can It Result In?

  • Stress due to the inability to meet demands
  • Lack of concentration due to the overwhelming amount of work
  • Performance issues due to the lack of control over tasks
  • Sleeping problems due to an imbalance of work and life
  • Mental problems due to a lack of social support at home or at the office

Even though these are just some of the causes and effects of burnout, what really matters is how we treat this occupational phenomenon.

Burnout Can Be Treated In Several Simple Ways

  • Take some time off work: You could use up your ‘sick days’ or simply ask for a ‘medical leave’. During your leave you shouldn’t have any contact with your workplace as the entire point of the leave is to relax and clear your mind.
  • Set aside time for relaxation: Certain techniques of relaxation like yoga, meditation, and deep breathing exercises are known to be de-stressing and can clear your mind of troubles.
  • Know your work-limits. Learn to say ‘no’ when you’re already burdened with work.
  • Most importantly, you must keep your cool by doing what relaxes you.
  • Remember, that burnout causes one to feel negativity, so always stay positive!

A Long-Term Solution

Alexander Den Heijer, an inspirational speaker who aims to help people flourish once said, “When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.” In this case, it is not the person that must be treated, but the workplace environment.

  • A workplace with a casual dress code, fun and positive environment can be a very effective in eliminating burnout.
  • Stress-busting activities are an easy way to create a feeling of positivity. These activities could be going for walks, having flexible schedules or laughing with your colleagues.

These types of environments are known to increase workplace efficiency and decrease stress and exhaustion. If the workplace can successfully be turned into a fun environment, it can reduce, if not completely eliminate burnout.

Your Health Is More Important Than Work

Even though burnout can lead to some serious emotional and physical conditions, it can, fortunately, be treated easily. With the right care and attention, your workplace can be swiftly converted from a place where you feel burdened with work, to a place that brings you positivity.

If you feel like you might be getting burned out, try these simple relaxation techniques. More so, you can also practice yoga to improve focus, build concentration and beat stress.

If nothing works and you need help, reach out to our experts by subscribing for Personalised Health Coaching here.

Was this article helpful? Let us know in the comments below!

#BeTheForce

September 18, 2024 By Gitanjali Bahl 2 Comments

Healthy Habits to Reduce Stress

stress reduction

Ever felt like you don’t have the time to eat, exercise, or interact with friends and family? Have deadlines and responsibilities chained you down in more ways than one? Do you spend most of your time at work with little activity? Are all these situations creating a stressful environment and draining your energy and mental health?

If your answer to the above was a yes, it is time you addressed these issues. Coping with expectations at work and at home can be taxing. While these are important, remember that nothing is worth sacrificing your health.

The simplest way to reduce stress is to keep your mind at ease and your body healthy with simple lifestyle changes and time management. Letting go of bad habits and introducing a few healthy tweaks can help you rekindle your relationship with your mind and body!

Here are a few changes you can make to reduce stress:

  • Start Your Day with Breathing Exercises or Meditation: Practicing different forms of Pranayama or  basic stretches can reduce stress and keep you energized throughout the day.
  • Plan Your Tasks: Spend some time planning your day to stay organized and avoid last-minute rushes that could lead to stress.
  • Limit Gadget Use: Use gadgets only for work or as and when necessary. Overindulgence in gadgets can lead to depression and cut you off from the real world. Set specific times for usage and avoid them at least an hour or two before sleep.
  • Set Alarms for Water Intake: Dehydration can affect cortisol levels, a stress hormone that impacts both mind and body. Staying hydrated can help reduce stress.
  • Walk Whenever Possible: If your workplace is within walking distance, opt to walk or cycle instead of driving. Walking releases endorphins, elevates your mood, and improves heart rate. Choose stairs over escalators or elevators as it is the best and easiest form of exercise!
  • Take Breaks: Spend time with family, friends and loved ones. A healthy social life fosters deeper connections and make life more meaningful.
  • Plan a Trip or Vacation: Whether with others or solo, a change in environment can boost creativity, positivity, and help you exchange new thoughts and ideas.
  • Eat Fruits Daily: Different fruits provide various nutrients that help reduce stress. For example, Bananas have Tryptophan, Avocados have Vitamin B, Sweet Potatoes have Potassium and Magnesium, all of which help lower stress levels.
  • Indulge in Hobbies: No matter how busy you are, hobbies help you relax. Whether it’s a sport, music, traveling, or painting, setting time aside for your passions will enrich your life.

Remember the old saying, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”? It’s true! Take time for yourself. If you’re only working and not playing, are you really living? Your work targets can be achieved, and your relationships with friends and family can be sustained—but only if you prioritize your health. Make your physical and mental well-being a priority!

Want to learn more about managing stress? Check out Healthy Reads or ask a GOQii Coach by subscribing for Personalised Health Coaching here.

#BeTheForce

Disclaimer: The information provided in this blog is for general awareness and educational purposes only. It is not intended to replace professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider for personalised medical guidance or concerns related to your health.

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