Holistic Health Navigation for New Year 2021

2020, is the year to remember for lifetime by all of us . It taught us to get strengthen physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually and financially as well. Many started to adopt steps towards some of  these, and really got good at it....Now they must be on their path to get better at other areas. But,I also came across few who devastated completely in one area, but because of their other strong areas they could get hope to reboot themselves. WHO organization therefore defined HEALTH as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

      Now looking at this point from my professional experience. Most of the time people who comes to me for meal plan and nutrition coaching are looking at this from just physical health angle i.e weight loss/weight gain, diabetes management, hormonal balance digestive issue. Same applies with exercise training. But after understanding more about the person we come across that real problem lies in disturbance in sleep cycle, anxiety, low self esteem, stress, confusion. So they either give up quicklyquickly or are irregular or bounce back to original health issues. (This used to be a issues with me also, and still its a work in progress. So while writing its a reminder to me also.)

Below are the Daily Habits that I acquired over these years and helping me to keep on improving all areas of holistic health mentioned above. 

If you are the one who is looking to start diet disciplinary, exercise training, having any fitness goal, wanted to go one notch higher than current fitness or  confused where to start being fit and healthy, these steps can be your navigator.

1.Pranayama Practice at least once a day.

2.Meditation Every day.

3.Physical Exercise 150 minutes weekly (Aerobic + Anaerobic activity along with static and dynamic stretches)

4. Hydrate Body with plain water. (Recommendation varies, but t least 2 litre a day to start with)

5. Include all food groups daily.(Recommendation varies)

6. Taking organic nutrition supplement, especially antioxidant and essential nutrients. (Recommendation varies)

7.Keep away digital media (TV, Mobile, and Laptop) one hour before going to sleep and 1 hour after getting up. You can use this time to do pranayama practice and meditation.

8. Sleep max by 10.30-11pm. 6 to 8 hours deep sleep/ dreamless sleep is required.

9. Quality time along with positive discussion with your family and friends.

10. Review current day and plan next day considering meal and exercise routine. 

11. Listening to spiritual /+ life coach/+ health coach at least 15 minutes every day 

12. Reading self help/spiritual guru's/ life coach's book. At least 15 minute

13. Track monthly progress in terms of bowel movement, energy levels, peace of mind, sound sleep, body weight, body measurements, knee and lower back strength

14. Follow Daily Skin care routine of clean, hydrate and protect.

15. Do some nature trail. At least once in 2-3 months.

These steps are points. Navigation/Sequencing/Prioritization of these steps needs customized approach depending on where that person stands today and where he wants to go. 

Wishing you and your family to have healthier, happier and wealthier year 2021.

 

 

 

                              

Write up by  Aashish & Prachi Managute  

(Fitness and Nutrition Coach)

Email:amtopmfitness@gmail.com       

WhatsApp: 9869418158

 

 

 

 

 

 

Its a Party Time..but what about my Diet?

              

 

Its a Party Time..but what about my Diet?

Whenever any festival time comes or if there is any socializing / parties are planned among friends and family circle or whether its a wedding season, a common question is how to maintain weight or how to avoid over intake of calories and mainly how to keep digestion system healthy.

Before going into further guidance its important to understand the definition of Diet. It is the kind of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats. That means Diet is not like medication course which you are on for a certain period of time. It is what we eat and have been eating since the stone age. 

So don't think that diets can not be done while travelling or while enjoying party. You can chose between eating mindfully or just eating randomly on these occasions. 

So to correct the above question put it is as  

Its a Party Time..so how I can maintain my Healthy Diet?

Answers are…

# Balance is the key.

Planning our day/week - If any parties are scheduled in a day or on weekends, we should plan other meals accordingly to create balance in terms of calories, sugar, salad and proteins intake.

E.g. If there is a wedding lunch to attend, enjoy it. And then ask your stomach what it really needs in the evening. Maybe you can give full rest to your stomach then after. And if there is a dinner party, then don’t have your earlier meals as usual, you may consider lighter to digest food in smaller portions for day time.

# Do Sampling.

If there are more than 3 to 4 snacks, sweets and beverages on offer, take 1 to 2 spoons/sips of each delicacy rather than over stuffing our plate as well as our stomach.

 

# Chose Special.

This is my funda. What we don’t get every day, relish on those special items during special occasions. E.g. at restaurants, prefer to order starters and desserts, as we don’t eat grilled items and exotic desserts every day. Dal rice roti gravies are regular items which we can consider to skip at party time.

 

# Self Talk.

Ask ourselves that do we really need it, because most of the time we overeat in the feeling of that we never ever going to get that taste/food again. Our stomach and mind is our lifetime dietitian, get trained to listen them.

 

# Eat slowly.

While eating any food, enjoy its aroma, it's taste, identify all ingredients, discuss it's recipe and as we are with our friends and family, enjoy this time to chit chat (it is alright to talk during eating on a party. But have a positive and happy conversation). In short, take time to eat food slowly. Enjoy every bite of it because it takes 20+ minutes for our brain to get the signal that we are actually full.

 

# Follow the sequence.

Start with soups, salads....drink sips of water to reduce hunger which thereby helps to avoid overeating.

(e.g. after enjoying different salads, I sometimes go straight to the dessert counter and ditch other in-between courses)

 

# Avoid Repetition. 

Avoid every other day outside food, sweets, deep fry food, alcohol - it causes indigestion, gases, acidity and bloating.This is common during festivals and on four days big fat Indian wedding.

(So then we wonder why newly stitched blouse/trousers/lehenga are not fitting and why looking dull even after that facial and makeup. ) Again refer to the first point, balance is the key. Plan it out. If you are confused about priorities, nutrition coach can guide you.

 

# Sharing is the Key.

This is the time of coming together. So respect reason of occasion or an event, enjoy being together rather than keeping the whole purpose of attending parties, festival gatherings and wedding to just eat. Sharing a plate between dear ones is the best way to increase love and decrease (calories) load.

 

Few tips for Festival Snacks:

- Stay away from snacks with artificial colors and preservatives.

- Do not store excess sweets, chocolates at home to avoid in between temptation.

- Nutrition is the key over empty calories to make snacks and sweets:

a. Use dates, jaggery, cardamom powder, nutmeg powder, dry fruits powder, saffron, honey over refine sugar.

b. Use ragi, semolina, whole wheat flour, rice flour, shingada flour instead of the only maida.

c. Use milk powder/ chakka/ paneer instead of only khoa.

d. Use ghee instead of vanaspati/ dalda.

 

Follow Healthy Lifestyle Everyday

(Even if it's your wedding)

# Keep it up with daily physical exercise (just 5 to 15 minutes of static and dynamic stretches keeps you energetic full day)

# Stay well hydrated.

# Sleep well.

# Just 1 to 5 minutes of Pranayama and Meditation strengthens our mind for the whole day.

 

 

Write up by Dietitian Prachi M. 

I'm Postgraduate in Nutrition and Dietetics, working in the field of Nutrition Coaching and Diet Planning since year 2007. I also completed 220 hours teachers training in Yoga Philosophy and Practice.

 Contact 9969326096

 

Fat Loss फंडे

Fat Loss फंडे

The Title is very clear, everyone is having their fundas of fat loss. So many people are following some of the other strategies on their knowledge thanks to social media University. They do lose some extra weight initially but it surely gets back. And this yoyo effect is more harmful than actual overweight or obesity.

So in this blog, lets put some light on facts of fat loss.

Common Note: Body Weight is total of  Bones, Muscles, essential and non-essential Fats, water, organs and body fluid.
Calories are a unit of energy that a food provides and body used for it's functioning.

Some opinions or myths related to fat loss and it's facts:-

1. Weight training turns fats into muscles –
          Those who say this, my question is can bone turns into muscle. As given in common note fat tissues and muscle tissue are different components. There is a difference between Fats and Muscles properties. Muscles are having specific shape, Specific names, and fats are soft jellies like substance with no specific name and shape. Now the role of adipose tissue is to store the extra calories and the role of lean tissue is the consumption of calories.

Weight training or any exercise when done along with a healthy meal plan and healthy lifestyles routine, the body starts functioning at its optimum status. This increases energy demand. Energy is then sourced from stored fat.
Weight training along with a healthy meal plan also leads to an increase in muscle tissues which leads to increase muscle weight.
So these two processes, use of fat and increase in muscles are independent with its reason as well as mechanism.

Note: To avoid confusion, the right way to analyse right fat loss is inch loss.

2. Weight loss, do more cardio training.
     Cardio means its related to Heart. This type of Aerobic exercise helps us to improve the ability of our heart and lungs. So I can say, don’t undervalue of cardio exercises for doing it is for weight loss. This is one point.
Another point is when you do any activity for a longer duration, the body uses more calories. But only for that much duration. So it's not a strategy for fat loss process. Doing two hours, three hours of cardio may lead to weight loss but is usually a loss of water and muscle fatigue. This kind of prolonged cardio exercise starts putting pressure on the lower back, knees and ankles.
So in short it can make us happy at the beginning but later leads to complete exhaustion and even bone injuries.

3. Doing squats helps to lose lower body weight. Spot fat loss
This may come with the belief that if doing squats increases muscle tissues of the thigh muscle, so in turn, they must be burning fat cells around them. Unfortunately, it's not a fact. Exercise is not a cosmetology treatment procedure like botox, liposuction.
Let's understand the few theories associated with this.
During our physical development years, the number of fat cells and the size of fat cells get divided around the body depending on genes, gender and lifestyle. So when extra calories get stored as fat, increase in body size depends on this division. In some individuals, the size of fat cells at lower body increases more than upper body and at some in different proportions. We commonly call this as pear shape body or apple shape body types. Along with this theory, every body is different considering the metabolic rate.
When the body needs to use fat from these fat cells it entirely depends on that body type.
So doing squats will definitely increase metabolism and if we follow meal plan alongside can create a condition to use fat for increased demand for the body, but it could be from fat cells anywhere around the body.

4. More sweating means more fat loss –
    Few people switch off the fan and AC, just for more sweating. Of course, if you are doing exercise and you put it off AC or Fan you sweat more but this will not help you for more fat loss.
Sweat is produced by glands in your skin, it's a mechanism to maintain body temperature. With some water loss through sweating may show few grams less on weighing scale.
There are some weight loss/slimming centres who work on this belief. And this is absolutely no logical.
As we discussed earlier that when extra fat converts into energy requirements of the body and that is what we should focus on.
           Here let's understand one more point, most of the time water retention is a common problem especially during PMS or menopause in women. But this because of hormones and nutritional imbalance. It puts on some weight and shows swelling at some body parts. In such a case, a healthy lifestyle is helpful to get relief from water retention. This then shows some weight loss and inch loss. But again it's not fat loss.

5. Drinking hot water for fat loss –
There are some thermogenic foods like salad, protein-rich food and omega 3 fatty acids, for their digestion body needs to put extra efforts which thereby increases energy consumption. But water, not even hot water belongs to this.
Drinking  Lukewarm water in the morning can be helpful to initiate a bowel movement. It is also a safe way to drink water.
Water is helpful in different ways to maintain a healthy body weight. But hot water doesn't lead the body to convert extra body fat into energy. 
So it's time to get this point clear that fat loss is the process when the body uses stored extra fat (subcutaneous and visceral fat).

Healthy meal plan, fitness exercise pattern and active healthy lifestyle is the only strategy for maintaining a healthy body composition lifelong.
Also, make sure that we should not undervalue exercise to use for weight loss do exercise as a ritual to show gratitude towards the body.

In life there is no easy and quick way for success, if you get it, it's an an alarm to stay away from it. 

Same applies to fitness.

Write up By Dietitian Prachi M. 

9969326096