You might have noticed that you don’t go to the loo as often as usual. And some weight gain can be due to constipation which is another common problem at that time of month and again the reason for that is hormones because of these hormones, muscles of digestive system tend to relax causing conditions like bloating, constipation, production of gas etc.

Once the period gets under way, all these problems mentioned below, vanish within hours

• The fluid or water is excreted in the urine.
• Constipation and bloating disappears
• Intestinal muscles function well again and there is no abdominal pains and
• You weight comes down again to original i.e. 1 to 2 kilos less

If you weight doesn’t come back to normal by the end of period, don’t be disheartened you have NidSun… if you remember!  You can always come to us for therapies and get that extra layer of fat removed anyways!

NOTE:

If you have a little extra food in pre-menstrual period, you won’t put on weight because your body’s metabolism is faster at this time. And please don’t weigh yourself at this time, Why? Because those 2 kilos weight gain would make you depressed even if you knew that it was water retention.

Eat Good Live Happy

Let’s explore the answer to this itchy question by assuming  that you are trying to squeeze in 30-60 minutes of exercise most days of the week. Obviously this question pops in one’s mind “Do I have to be careful about what I eat before and after my workouts?

If you ask me to give you a candid answer it will be “NO”, you don’t have to be so specific about eating before or after workout. If you’re eating a healthy diet and getting enough calories to support your activity levels you don’t have to worry about pre and post workout food at all, Having said that it is also true that, whether you need to eat anything before or after exercise depends on individual. Confusing…Buy the time you have read this blog, you will have your answer!

Interesting story of your body is that Most of the energy that you use during exercise doesn’t come from the food you’ve recently eaten! It actually comes from the carbohydrates (called “glycogen”) and fat that’s stored in your muscles, liver, and fat cells. That’s enough to get you going for 1 to 2 hours of very intense exercise such as spinning or cycling at speeds more than 17 km/hr or running continuously above 10 km/hr or 3 to 4 hours of moderate intensity exercise like jogging or running on a treadmill and weight training.

This means that if your overall diet is adequate to keep your fuel tanks topped off, technically or scientifically you don’t need to eat anything before you work out.

But BUT like everyone else you are different from other human beings, so I will divide you into 2 types of individuals, for simplification purpose:

         1.    Food before exercise drains me:

If eating before exercise upsets your stomach or you like to exercise first thing in the morning or at a time when eating first isn’t convenient, don’t feel like eating first is a must. Then you fall in this category.

2.    Food before exercise makes me, workout better:

If you are someone who has a hard time exercising without eating first, especially if it’s been a long time since their last meal or snack then you fall in this category. Because  my friend, you are more sensitive to changes in your blood sugar levels, which fall during the first 15-20 minutes of workout. That drop in blood sugar can cause tiredness, mild dizziness, or even faintness especially if your blood sugar was already low, but eating something beforehand can help prevent this.

NOTE:  If you have health issues like diabetes or hypoglycemia that can cause low blood sugar, you’ll probably want to eat before your workout consider yourself as category 2. If you get very hungry during a workout and you feel that it interferes with your energy levels or focus, or if after an exercise session you end up overeating, try eating before you hit the treadmill or cross trainer to avoid these problems.

For those of you who fall in 2^nd category, our suggestion at NidSun will be to eat a small snack about 30 minutes before you work-outs.

This small snack should include fast-digesting (high glycemic index) carbohydrates and very little fat (which digests slowly), so that you digest the meal quickly and the needed energy is available during your exercise session. Here are some ideas:

• Sports drinks
• Energy bars
• Fruit juice
• Fruit smoothie
• Fruits like pineapple, apricots, banana, mango, and watermelon
• Non fiber Biscuits like Parle G!!
• Corn flakes with low fat milk

And if you want to have more filling foods such as Hard boiled eggs (or egg whites), Oatmeal, Cereals (with more than 3 grams of fiber) and milk, chicken sandwich on whole grain bread, chocolate milk, Most protein/energy bars and crackers with peanut butter or cheese, then consume them at least 1 hour before workout. At least 50-60% of these calories should come from carbohydrates, which should keep your blood sugar and energy levels fairly stable during your exercise session. Include some protein and little bit of fat to help prevent the breakdown of muscle for fuel and give your muscles a good recovery after exercise. In one line “it should be a nutritionally balanced meal”.

Eat Good Live lite

Tyra’s mom Carolyn London, was a professional photographer, and worked as her manager for a long time till she became absolutely independent.

Banks dealt with her weight issues all her life:              Growing up in California, Tyra quickly gained a height of 5’10″ and weighed only 49kilos during her adolescence, prompting schoolmates to tease her by calling her “Ethiopian.” Being tall and thin, she wanted to be a model but was denied a number of times because of lack of interest in black models.

When she finally got the opportunity to model in Europe, she decided to put college on hold to move to Milan.

At age 20, she signed with Cover Girl, becoming one of only a handful of African-American women to land a coveted cosmetics contract. Her BMI was only 16.2 at the time of modeling.  Everything was going good in her life but by 1993 she began to have problems with modeling carrier because of some rift with fellow models. During that time a particularly painful moment came when, during a fitting for a show in Milan, she heard two seamstresses calling her “grasso” (fat).  She recalled “I was 57 kilos, at the time!”  By age 22, “the agency wanted her to lose 5 kilos.

In 1995 Banks went home to L.A. after rejection from Milan, and started her struggle. In 2 years’ time at age 24 she became the first-ever African American chosen for the cover of the Victoria’s Secret catalog.

Banks was the hostess; judge and executive producer of The CW Television Network show America’s Next Top Model in 2005, and ran until 2010. She did 2 Reality TV Series in 2012.

Few years back she had gained some weight because of which she was badly criticized and the maximum weight she had gained was 72 kilos.  Media was calling her fat when her BMI was 22! This is a healthy range.  Her weight had become a much-buzzed-about weight gain!!  She said “It was really hurtful to me.” She was worried about the effect, such reports would have on her fans. “I get so much mail from young girls who say, ‘I look up to you, you’re not as skinny as everyone else, I think you’re beautiful,’” Banks said “So when they say that my body is ‘ugly’ and ‘disgusting,’ what does that make those girls feel like?”

At age 34 she decided to lose weight again and lost 13 kilos in 6 months to shut up the critics. She had dropped 4 dress sizes and was feeling better than she had in years. She enrolled with weight loss clinic and came down to 59 kilos now, at age 38. It seems that she is getting ready for ramp modeling again!

As is customary for us at NidSun to give you the insight to diet of celebrities we talk about, Tyra’s typical diet menu for the day as told to the media is as follows:

Breakfast:                 2 egg whites, 1 cup papaya and, occasionally, a small portion of turkey sausage.

Lunch:                      Crystal Light or green tea, braised veal or fish and a salad.

Snack:                       Vegetables and onion dip

Dinner:                      100 grams roasted Fish and boiled veggies

She does not drink alcohol at all. She hired a part time personal chef who cooks her healthy food of her choice.

Exercise:                

She does 5 kilometers of running every day on the treadmill. She says “Now I’m much more diligent,” Tyra does treadmill intervals by mixing walking & running. Or she just runs outside.

She works out for 1 to 2 hours, 3 days a week and keeps her routine ever changing so as to avoid boredom. Some of her unique and seemingly difficult routines involve swinging a sledgehammer, running with an open parachute around her waist, chasing after medicine balls that are thrown in all different directions, using kettle balls and boxing routines.

Eat Good Live Lite and Happy:)

For a lot of us, one-liner definition of stress is    “when you wake up screaming and realize you haven’t fallen asleep yet.”

Most of you have answered the option “NO, it does not make me fat’’ And when the majority of you are with 1 option, democratically this option is right because it’s got the maximum votes but I am a Doctor and I have to tell you the truth,  BUT hay don’t worry, you were right when you chose that option and the right answer is No, it does not  AND Yes, it does, is also not wrong, Actually it Depends on person and the situation.  Richa from Delhi and Rupan from Mohali are 2 NidSuners who have given completely right answer and rest of you have given Half right answer, here is how?

I’ll recommend you read the whole blog first and then reconsider your valuable opinions with the new enriched knowledge that makes you the NidSuners, smarter than others!

Food for your Mind:       To simplify this complicated affair of Stress & fat, I am dividing stress in 2 types:

• Acute short term stress examples are examination time, first few days of severe injury and illness, giving public speech for the first time, death of loved one, divorce hearing, first day of breakup!       And then is
• Chronic stress examples are every day stress of city life, time pressure, job pressure, family pressure, relationship pressure, business pressure etc. basically chronic pressures are never ending

In acute stress, it’s very common for people to lose weight. This type of Stress can easily reduce your appetite for a short term.  You might have noticed, for people under severe stress to lose up to 5 kilos in a week or 2 is no big deal like in illness!. Acute Stress can increase metabolic rate “as you might have observed in you exams if you remember those dreadful days”. Remember the day When you were going to examination hall , Your heart was pounding as if it would burst out of your cavity, you were so impatient and incredibly nervous.

Acute stress also makes the food that you eat; move faster in your intestine thus less food is absorbed.   So under these circumstances of acute stress “NO, stress doesn’t make me fat” is the right answer.

However, long term stress can make you fat!!

Long stress of everyday life or after few days of acute stress if prolonged, releases a hormone called cortisol released in your circulation by adrenal glands. Cortisol increases fat storage in your stomach region because in deeper parts of your abdominal area, there are maximum number of cortisol receiving gates what we call “cortisol receptors” in medical language. So you can say that cortisol is concentrated around your tummy more than any other region of body. One of the key functions of Cortisol is to increases blood sugar in your body which is converted into fats for later use, the reason for extra layer of tummy fat in stressful situations. The other reason for a lot of people to gain weight in stress is that they eat comfort food to reduce it. A lot of times when something is not going the way we want to, opening a packet of chips or chocolate or few shots at local pub to distress makes a lot of sense ….so Yes Stress can make you fat  is also true                       Basically  “ it DEPENDS “ is just a bit more appropriate answer.

See I told you that being a NidSuner you are becoming smarter day by day )

A Non Resident Indian weight loss patient asked me this candid question for which I had to give a candid answer but before I tell you what I told her let’s see what pro Sweat suit people have to say about it

How Does Sweat suit help lose weight?

According to the promoters of Sweat Suits the Claim that they make is that “it uses natural body heat that is generated from exercise to increase your sweating during your workout. This increase in your body temperature due to the sauna effect the Sweat Suit will increase your metabolism and calorie burning whilst ridding your body of unwanted toxins. This enables you to maximize the weight loss in your workout and in certain circumstances doubling or tripling your workout results”

What do experts in the field of weight loss have to say, and what NidSun has to say about Sweat suit?

No, Sweat Suit does not burn twice the calories from same workout at all because if that was the case every Doctor in the world and every gym would have given sweat suits free when you enrolled there membership!!! Sweat suit doesn’t work at all here is how?

As the promoters of sweat suit say, it’s true that sweat suit will make you hotter and increase your sweating and you will lose around 1 kilo by the end of workout.  The moment you will have water to quench your thirst you will gain back that water loss from your body and if you don’t gain back in 24 hours, then there is a problem! You could be dehydrated, wearing it in Indian heat; you would be severely dehydrated and might have to be hospitalized to replenish those lost fluids. In other words sweat suit is waste of time and really dangerous to your health on top of that has no effect on your waist!

I am afraid that good diet, therapies, some exercise and life threatening painful surgeries are the only permanent options available for reaching weight and physique you desire…:)

Then she asked If He could go with her to the gym for weight training?

Answer to this question is YES and a big NO…and both the answers are absolutely right, here is how?

Number of Overweight and Obese children in our area is on a sharp rise for last 3 years not only Chandigarh but this phenomena is a pan India and across the Globe  now. So I thought of sharing this common yet important question that might be sprouting somewhere in your mind.

Weight training is the only exercise that kids should do under strict supervision, other than that they can do parity much anything.

According to experts:  Most international organizations and sports medicine experts strongly recommend that it’s not a good idea for very young children below 16 years of age to perform resistance exercises with weights Because most of the muscle insertions are close to growth plates in bones and kids bodies are growing rapidly, so  recovery from an injury caused by weight bearing exercises especially around bone’s growth plates, sometimes become impossible. In severe cases bone lengthening can cease because of damage to growth plate.

I strongly discourage parents to send their children to gym if the age is below 14 because trainers at gyms are not trained enough to handle special exercises for kids less than 16.

I do however recommend light resistance exercises and controlled slow movements if a kid wishes to do resistance exercise. Problem with weight training is that it is to be done in a controlled way with special emphasis on proper technique and safety And children dislike being controlled be it a school or gym …LOL .

We at NidSun strongly encourage you the parents to enroll your children into exercises where they can have natural physical expression, is a lot of fun and Sociable and not lonely focused workout like weight training…Cherries on top…weight training is dangerous if done without your supervision even for adults.

Strength training is good for children but you should not confuse strength training with weightlifting or bodybuilding and most of your gym trainers are ex weight lifters and ex bodybuilders…To train children the training mindset or training module has to be absolutely different!!!

If you want your children to do weight training Keep these things in your mind:

• Your child can do many strength training exercises with his or her own body weight or inexpensive resistance tubing like push-ups, pull ups, squatting without weights etc.
•  Free weights and machine weights are other options BUT and this is a Big BUT if your gym has provision of scaled down equipment for children (and in my 10 years of experience in almost all metros in India, I haven’t Seen It anywhere!).
• Keep in mind that if children do weight training without supervision, it can put too much strain on young muscles, tendons and Growth Plate areas (cartilage that haven’t yet turned to bone is growth plates, kids bones lengthen from this area) These Growth plates are especially damaged when proper technique is sacrificed in favor of lifting larger amounts of weight….and any child will inevitably lift heavier looking at other adults unless someone guides them…. And children dislike being controlled as you know!.
• If you want your child to begin strength training sessions, they should begin with 5 to 10 minutes of light aerobic activity, such as walking, jogging in place or jumping rope. This warms the muscles and prepares them for more vigorous activity. One set of around 20 repetitions is all they need and muscle pumping should be avoided at all costs lifting weight till failure is ony for Adults (A). The resistance doesn’t have to come from weights, either. Resistance tubing and body-weight exercises, such as push-ups, are other effective options and the safest for your children.
•  Rather than focusing on the amount of weight your child lifts, stress proper form and technique during each exercise. Your child can gradually increase the resistance or number of repetitions as he or she gets older and by older I mean more than 16 years of age

Adult supervision is an important in weight training; don’t let your child do it alone.

Make sure your child rests at least 1 full day between exercising each specific muscle group. 2 strength training sessions in a week is more than enough.

Moral Of the Story:       For your Children the mantra is Workout Right and make sure the weights are light:)

It’s shocking truth…. that these days girls even in their 30′s don’t know, how to cook !! They are not even aware of the basic ingredeints in cooking. This reminds me of the movie Sex and the City 2 where Mr. Big is put off on Carrie’s takeaway dinner. And she argues saying “You knew when I married you I was more Coco Chanel than coq au vin.”…..Girl’s that was a movie…..So, Carrie could look fantastic in her 40′s living on take aways…..Trust me in real life if you did that I bet you’d look worse than Aishwarya Rai does these days…lol.

So, Why should I learn to Cook ???

• Basic Idea – You would be able to feed yourself…So, there would not be depending on others for food
• You’ll be thinner - 90% of your looks depend on your diet..and 90% diet is how you cook it….So, if you do the maths 80% of your looks are make in the kitchen. Cooking well would improve your looks by 80 % (How’s that for an incentive to learn cooking?)
• You’ll make healthy choices eating out too – If you are aware of all the ingredients used in cooking, you would know the unhealthy ones and….gradually you would deveop the skill of knowing the ingredients by tasting food…….that means you would know if food is good for you or not simply by tasting….Our observation says people who know how to cook have a 80% more chance of doing better in a weight loss program.

Coming back to Sofia, this is not the first time she has been ranked by any magazine, she was voted 23rd in Maxim’s “100 Sexiest Women” in 2002, 30th in Askmen’s “Most Desirable Woman” again in 2002 And she has a handsome son “Manolo” who is 20 years old!! I won’t give you any points to guess that Ms. Vergara is the envy of most women of any age.

Like most of us her life was not bed of roses as it seems. Sofia was raised both conservatively and religiously. According to media Vergara was “apprehensive about doing her first television commercial—until her Catholic schoolteachers gave her their personal permission to take the assignment.” Then she had her divorce, following early marriage. After her divorce she attended a private bilingual Spanish/English school and then went on to study pre-dentistry at a university in Colombia for 3 years. During this time she was perusing her modeling but like most of us she reached a fork in her life where she had to make a decision, could either become a Doctor or a Model and actress and she chose the latter one, just 2 semesters shy of her graduation!.

Soon another tragedy stuck and her elder brother was murdered in 1998 in an attempt of kidnaping him, as they where from well of family. After all this she decided to move away from the unrest in Colombia so she move to Miami, Florida to pursue her acting carrier further and rest as they say is history!!.

I have a lot of respect for this woman as she has fought back strongly whenever life gave her a strong shove so many times. Even in 2000 Sofia was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, but after treatment has had a full recovery. I was also interested in her diet to know her secret, which she sums up as “Not too much food, not too much exercise, not too much anything. Everything in moderation” She says.

As is customary at NidSun we had to know her diet and exercise but before I Discuss that let’s find out her BMI. Vergara is 5’ 7’’ tall and her weight is around 55 to 57 kgs so her BMI comes out to be around 19.3 which is perfect for her height.

About her diet she says “Everything is organic and you don’t even have to think about it”.  She avoids alcohol and sugar. Her menu for the day as told to the media is as follows:

Breakfast:       1 omelet with vegetables along with 2 slices of whole wheat bread and 1 cup of coffee

Snacks:            1 small fruit

Lunch:             1 bowl of boiled rice along with 100 grams of chicken and some steamed vegetables

Dinner:            1 slice of homemade pizza   or   salad and chicken along with fonuts (she claims to have cake almost every day but no one has ever seen her having it!)

She carries few Lollipops in her bag because she feels that it helps her sugar cravings!

Exercise:

Sofia hates doing exercise but says that she knows that at her age she has no choice BUT to work harder to keep her fabulous figure and she also gets weight loss therapies regularly before major shoots.

“When I can, I try to do Latin dancing for exercise because it’s so much fun and I just love the music,” she told once.Sofia does cardio and toning/strength-training program 2 times in a week.

Eat Good   Live Lite   and you will never look Old

Health club or gym is a healthy place to be in. After all, working out boosts your immune system makes you fit, burns calories, builds strength and helps you feel good

I noticed this in one of my patient who had fungal infection in both feet  which we commonly refer to as athlete’s foot   and every time she came for therapy we had to sanitize everything her feet touched and then we thought of finding the cause and source of infection as every time she got the anti fungal treatment done up she was again infected.  We would have never been able to detect the source of infection if she didn’t brought her friend for inch loss therapy 2 days back. When we were about to start her friend’s therapy…. had the same problem so we had to do the same procedure in her case as well we even sanitized the slippers they used  and we also found that  they both were going to the same gym and their gym is one of the costliest in Chandigarh with one of the best facilities that money can buy. So let me assure you that you guys are not immune to this problem because it is universal in every gym. Hygiene and prevention is the only permanent cure.

We told them  to wear slippers in the shower at gym and locker room area to prevent picking up foot fungus which was the sourse of infection in there case but did you know that even bacteria is present on almost all floor areas of the locker room floor whether it is tiled or carpeted.  Even if your health club looks immaculate and well maintained, Infections like athlete’s foot  which is called as tinea pedis, Onychomycosis another strange soundind infection causes yellow and brittle nails is also common and then there are human papillomavirus, which causes plantar warts, can also be on the floor of locker room. More popular is the gym higher are the chances of getting these infections.

Unless the owner of  your gym is a Doctor, there are some thing that you can do to Protect Yourself, here is How

 Don’t let your bare feet hit the ground at the health club that’s it.

Keep wearing those slippers in the shower and all around the locker room. Always wash and dry your feet thoroughly, consider using anti-fungal powder in your workout shoes if you have athlete’s foot and wear synthetic socks that you change often. Also, be sure not to dry off with a towel that dropped on the floor, especially if you have an open cut. Just a brief bit of contact can transfer bacteria to you!!! So don’t use it if you dropped it… PERIOD… Doesn’t apply on spouse…LOL

Infection can also be transmitted by sharing footwear with an infected person, or less commonly, by sharing towels with an infected person so carry your own towels and your own slippers.

All health clubs and gyms should have a disinfecting spray or wipes and they should use it. We at NidSun sanitize every equipment immediately after therapy sessions, every single time and I think it is necessary for every ones safety.

Eat Good Live Good and Stay Protected

A lot of people say that Indian women can’t maintain good looks after they have children But Tara Sharma is probably the one who defies these laws and is envy of most new mothers in India. Not only does she look slim and beautiful as she always was, she’s also lost her baby fat even after giving birth to 2 children. Motherhood It seems has no effect on her looks. BUT she says it’s not genetics It’s hard work and dedication that has given results.

Both the times after delivery, she had put on 8-12 kilo weight which she lost because of her fitness, healthy food habits and 1 to 2 therapies of radiofrequency (secret, told to me by her Weight loss doctor unofficially). She says “Exercise is a big part of my life. Because I’ve been doing it so often, my metabolism has increased over the years and I’m sure that helped,”

There is no doubt however, that she is a fitness freak…I mean who else in this sane world will start walking on her feet during and immediately after giving birth. Sharma, who has been doing yoga for many years now, continued doing light asanas during both of her pregnancies. “It’s important not to shock your body during pregnancy, so I would do yoga positions that did not twist the stomach. These would revolve around bending my knees,” she says. She was even doing light suryanamaskar movements in the hospital room almost immediately after birth…She is an absolute nerd!!… I must say, she wasn’t content with only yoga during pregnancy, so she started taking a gentle 1/2 hour walk to keep fit.

“2 hours after giving birth, I was walking around the room,” she said in an interview. A week later after giving birth to her 1^st baby, she was back in the gym. She also went for these secret radiotherapies because she was aware of all the horror stories about women who couldn’t lose weight after giving birth. With help of her weight loss Clinic, in just 3 weeks post-delivery after leaving the hospital she was already doing a photo shoot for her movie, “Dulha Mil Gaya” that released in 2010.

Sharma’s diet has also played a big role in keeping her trim.
Since she got back into shape, Sharma has been busy juggling work, home life and now 2 children.  But she says that her kids are her number one priority.

Her typical daily diet plan is as follows:

• Breakfast:                                                1 strong cup of Coffee and a small fruits.
• After Morning Exercise:                Milk shake or smoothie.
• Lunch:                                                        Dal and steamed vegetables for lunch, mostly she is shooting that time
• Dinner:                                                       Roasted  meat along with boiled beans  fruit and steamed mixed  vegetables.

She opts for olive oil, whole wheat breads( like you have Nidsun’s Slimmer whole wheat bread:))) and grains and she makes sure to have good quantity of water throughout the day.

Exercise:

Exercise is a form of meditation for her. “I have an addiction. I have to exercise, it gives me peace of mind.” She laughs as says she even went for her daily run during her honeymoon!!! I told you she is a freak.
When she is in Mumbai she either runs at the race course for 40 minutes 3 times a week or practice yoga 4 times a week which is the reason Why she has been running the 7kms dream marathon regularly in Mumbai every year without fail. For the marathon, she claims that she doesn’t do any special preparation because she runs throughout the year.

Eat Good Live Young for ever…:)