But what about us? Are we being good kids? I don’t think so.

As a society, we consume a woefully inadequate amount of vegetables. This leads to us being under-nourished, as a lot of valuable minerals and vitamins are in short supply. I don’t want to talk about protein, low-carb, high-carb, slow-carb, fat loss or anything of that sort. It’s just about vegetables, and how much are you really eating.

Where are the veggies in this? Comes to ~200g per day, maybe. There’s no way we can get the required nutrients in that much alone. Wanna see some numbers to figure out how much you might need? Personally, about 600-800g works well for me. For a predominantly vegetarian society, we do not seem to be eating too many vegetables. Even if you are a meat-eater, does this mean your vegetable intake is gonna increase? In fact, it could be reducing your veggie intake even further. You say you eat another way? Sure, you probably do. India is as culturally diverse as it gets. So, here’s some homework for you. Log one week of food intake, and see how much vegetables you are eating — will give you a benchmark.

Stating the obvious

We need to eat more vegetables. A common response I hear from clients, when they misunderstand this point is

Does this mean I should eat salads? — BORING! They don’t fill me up.

First up salads are not boring. Definitely not. But that’s missing the point. There’s so many delicious meals you can cook that are not salads. What’s the main difference between a salad and your current meal — grains. This is what is filling you up. Be it white rice/roti/pasta/bread or whatever, it forms the centrepiece of your plate. And this is not a good thing.

Grain dominance

Hey, this is how we’ve always eaten as a society, right

True, very true. For the most part. But let’s dive a bit deeper into this. Think about the life of a typical working male 50 years ago. A lot of back breaking work. A farmer was up at the crack of down, doing a lot of manual labour with very little machinery. Housewives had their hands full — washing dishes, washing clothes, pumping water, carrying water to the house — just to name a few. Phew! Their energy requirements was very high. And they had very little junk food. They did eat RealFood already. While they got a decent amount of vegetables and were not under-nourished, they still needed to make up the calorie deficit. And they did this by basing their meal on a calorie-rich food — grains. Today, our energy requirements are a lot lesser. But we still follow the same template for eating.

Basing our meals on grains is a solution to an age-old problem that does not exist today. We need to evolve to a new way of eating, based on our requirements today.

The action plan

The plate-inversion 4-week plan
This is strictly about getting you to eat more vegetables, and not about balancing your plate etc. One step at a time eh. Let’s pick a person — Anjali. She eats, say, 15 tablespoons of rice for lunch. One cup with sambar, one cup with curd. And she has 4 large tablespoons of vegetables along with this, and say some appalam/chips. For dinner, she has 5 rotis, along with some dal.

Week 1

Lunch: Cut 2 tbsp of rice. Replace with 4 tablespoons of another vegetable.

Dinner: Cut 1 roti. Add in a subzi along wtih the dal.

Week 2

Lunch: Cut 2 more tbsp of rice. Add in one more tbsp of each vegetable. We are at 67% the rice we used to eat, and about 250% the veggies we used to be at.

Dinner: Cut 1 more roti. Increase the amount of subzi you are eating.

Week 3

Lunch: Reduce the number of appalams by half. Time to drop 2 more tbsp of rice. Add in a fruit to consume post-lunch. Or have some carrots and cucumbers to munch on before lunch.

Dinner: Yep, you know the drill. Cut 1 more roti. And add in some raita with a different veggie each time.

Week 4

Lunch: Time to drop the appalam. And 2 more tbsp of rice. You are now at <50% of your original start. and let’s add one more vegetable, but in the form of keerai/kootu. This is not exactly in solid form, and much easier to consume than more solid food.

Dinner: You can stick at this amount of rotis, or eventually go down to zero. If you are trying to go gluten-free, definitely bring it to zero, and use rice as a filler if you need to. Increase the amount of veggies and raita, even if you are not dropping your rotis.

At the end of 4 weeks, we’ve come down from 15tbsp of rice and 4 tbsp of veggies to 7tbsp of rice and 5tbsp each of 2 veggies, plus one kootu/keerai. And for dinner, we are down to 20% of our roti consumption, and have added in two sources of vegetables. Pretty neat eh, for just one month of slow work.

Some caveats

Do this in whatever manner that makes sense to you. I recommend doing this gradually, rather than going cold turkey. While that might be easier, mentally, for some — it might not be the best method physiologically. You could face problems like bloating, feeling a bit more fatigued than usual, having digestive issues etc. Keep that in mind. Ask me more questions on this.

And try to buy organic fruits and vegetables. The amount of pesticide use in our country is crazy! If these are gonna be the main point of attention in your plate in the near future, you want to make sure there are no ill effects out of this.

Eat what is in season, and make sure you mix up the veggies you are eating. Don’t keep eating potatoes 5 days a week coz you love potatoes.

thinkRealFood

These are not the only ways to get more vegetables into your diet. The point of this post is to get you to think about why you aren’t eating enough vegetables and the need for you to fix this situation. For all other things about nutrition and my philosophy on it, attend thinkRealFood!

It is crazy at work. I will do something as soon as this project ends

Sure, understandable. But what’s next after this project? Another one. And how is that gonna be any different? It is not. Training right takes about 3 hours a week, and you can do that with no equipment. Not sure how — send me an email and consult. Or look up a couple of posts, this one for example. Don’t have 3 hours in a week? Well, think about it when you spend all those hours in bed when you are unwell, or after you tweak your back trying to lift that heavy suitcase. The emphasis (or lack of) that we place on preventive medicine is woefully inadequate.

I am gonna start next month (or next Monday)

Dude, seriously, the old proverb “Tomorrow never comes” comes to mind. Seriously!? Now — seize the day and get started.

My family’s visiting. I need to spend time with them, and eat out with them.

Again — don’t have 3 hours a week?! Get up one hour earlier than your family and train.

The time commitment is less. The know-how, well, talk to me or read my posts. You can figure it out. Or at the very least, just go on a long walk and get started already! And if you are in Madras, well, it is a no-brainer. Join The Quad!

I have a friend called R. She used to live in the first floor of an independent house in Madras, while her landlords lived downstairs. The folks downstairs were your regular people — no significant attention to nutrition or exercise, leading stressful lives — not too different from how I was a few years ago. And they were trying to have a baby, but not having much luck. Unfortunately, this definitely makes for a more stressful situation, which makes the entire process even more complex. If you recall, stress focuses our body on short-term processes and turns attention away from long-term stuff like fertility.

According to Chris Kresser,

The main causes of infertility from a nutritional perspective are A) not enough of the right foods/nutrients, and B) too much of the wrong foods/nutrients

So, fixing nutrition, and working on improving your fitness is the best long-term solution. And it is all the better for everyone involved, especially the baby. Back to our story — what did the couple do? Well, instead of fixing their health, they went to their astrologer, who advised them a change of location, and told them that they should “try again” in the first floor house. So, they asked R and her family to vacate and moved into the first floor. So, moving is easier than fixing your health and looking/feeling better?! At first I found this story quite amusing, but am quite annoyed by this actually.

Stop looking for the easy way out. It is totally in your hands — if you are not sure what to do, ask! Fixing your health is simple, but not easy.

Asterix and Obelix were a huge part of my childhood, and I always wanted some of that magic potion! And then, I grew up. But it looks like there’s still a bunch of folks around who think stuff like that exists. There are a plethora of products out there — fat burners, fat busters, fat blasters, mass gainers, energy bars, energy shots, growth hormone boosters etc. Almost all of these try to jumpstart something inside, and get your hormones working differently. Either increasing adrenalin to increase metabolism, or reducing estrogen — things that are not normal, and definitely things that have bad side-effects. From feeling jumpy to having heart palpitations, things can go downhill real fast. And don’t even think about stuff like steroids. That’s just incredulous, that regular gym-goers want to take steroids, see fast results. If you are a normal, healthy human being — you do not need any of these things. Again, side effects range from moderately to severely unhealthy.

If any trainer promises you “unbelievable results”, “20 kgs in 3 weeks” or whatever — stay well away. Barring exceptions, unless you chop off an arm or a leg, that’s just not possible in a healthy fashion.

There are no such things as magic potions. Stay committed, find a good place to workout with solid trainers, get on a solid nutrition plan, and do the work!

A common question a lot of readers and our clients at the gym have is — ” I get what you are trying to say. But how do I drop (or drastically reduce) a food item that has been a staple (rice/wheat etc) in every meal every day”. A very valid question! It can be a bit daunting to start off with, but once you get started it slowly gets easier, and then you wont even remember ‘the other way’ you used to be cooking and eating. Eat Real Food, a portal for recipes and nutrition, has been sorta neglected by us, and we hope to get that going — it will be a valuable resource for nutrition-related roadblocks.

Unflattering photo of a great lunch! And no, the peas pulao is not made with rice

For now, for people in Madras, there’s something we can offer right now — a workshop on cooking real food. My sister, who is slowly becoming a convert into the Eat Real Food way, surprised us a couple of weeks ago, with a pretty awesome spread for lunch, all cooked according to our guidelines. And she’s agreed to conduct a workshop, if we have some interest. Basically, she will guide us through cooking a sizable lunch, and we get to eat it at the end of it! The cost of the workshop is Rs. 750, the tentative date for it is Nov 6th (Sunday), and it will be in Besant Nagar — shoot me an email or leave me a message if you are interested. We are gonna keep the size of the workshop small — just 5 people — and based on interest, we will figure out future ones. Wanna get on the path to cooking healthier but dont want to compromise on tasty food — let us show you how!

Do share this post with friends and family in Madras — and get them started on the road to healthier eating!

We switched our oils, from butter, ghee, and coconut oil to vegetable oils. But are these oils that we use everyday — corn, safflower, soybean to name a few — the right oils to be using? And are our grandmoms wrong? The answer, as it turns out, is a resounding “no”. A lot of times, we had it right the first time around, but then screw up later, when these “pseudo-healthy” things crop up - whole wheatproducts, vegetable oils, ab workouts are three things that immediately come to mind. In this article, let’s find out what is in these vegetable oils, why they aren’t a good idea, and what “good oils” there are to use.

But before that, let’s understand “fat”. What is the role of dietary fat? From John Berardi’s Precision Nutrition,

• It provides an energy source, and is in fact the most energy-dense macronutrient
• it helps manufacture and balance hormones
• it forms our cell membranes
• it forms our brain and nervous system
• it helps transport the fat soluble vitamins A, D, E, K
• it provides two essential fatty acids that the body cannot make — linoleic acid and linolenic acid

So, fat is not a macronutrient to avoid (another common mistake that’s made — when on a diet, avoid all fat). There are two basic kinds of fats — saturated (ghee, butter) and unsaturated. Unsaturated fats are further split into monounsaturated and polyunsaturated (omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids). As a general rule, over-consumption of one kind of food is not beneficial. So, balancing saturated fat intake and unsaturated fat intake is a good benchmark, and more importantly, it is also necessary to balance omega-3 fatty acid intake and omega-6 fatty acid intake. We will see why this is, further into the article. With this basic idea, let’s go on to vegetable oils.

Industrial seed oils and vegetable oils

Oils like corn oil, soy bean oil are primarily composed of Omega-6 fatty acid, and have been part of our diet for only a relatively short period. While omega-6 fatty acids are necessary, over-consumption of these fatty acids leads to a wide variety of problems. The problem arises from an imbalance in omega-3 consumption to omega-6 consumption. Due to the prevalence of these oils, our ratio of consumption of these fatty acids is 20: 1 – from a ratio of 1:1 about hundred years ago. Anthropological research indicates that both ancient and modern hunter-gatherers were free from modern inflammatory diseases like heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. And if you are vegetarian, your consumption of omega-3 is even lower (as you do not eat fatty fish). And what does this lead to? According to Chris Kresser, elevated consumption of omega-6 fatty acids is associated with an increase in all inflammatory diseases, including

• Cardiovascular disease
• Type 2 diabetes
• Obesity
• Metabolic syndrome
• Irritable bowel syndrome
• Inflammatory bowel disease
• Macular degeneration
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Asthma
• Cancer
• Psychiatric disorders
• Autoimmune diseases

Uhh, then these might be the fats to be wary of, rather than saturated fats. If you recall my article about egg yolk, you should know by now that saturated fats is not something to be scared about. Again, we certainly need omega-6 fatty acids, but not at the crazy levels we are consuming them.

Clinical studies have shown that balancing the omega-3 to omega-6 ratio protects against degenerative diseases, and one particular study showed a 70% decrease in total mortality. Holy Wow! So, if you are vegetarian, you should definitely look at reducing omega-6 consumption, and increasing omega-3 consumption. Simple start – drop these oils, and look to supplement with fish oil or algae oil.

The reason vegetable oils and industrial seed oils cause so many issues is because, as polyunsaturated fats, they are inherently unstable. And thus, they get oxidized easily. This means they go rancid pretty easily too. This leads to an increase in free radical formation in our body. You must’ve heard the term “anti-oxidants” – well, these free radicals are what they are trying to counter. Much simpler to reduce the free radicals in your system. Plus, these oils undergo a crazy amount of refining and processing — why go through all that trouble when other, much healthier oils are available to cook!

What Oils Should You Be Using?

If vegetable oils are unstable, then what oils are stable, and what oils should we be consuming on a regular basis? The answer is oils that are composed of saturated fats, and monounsaturated fats. I recommend using coconut oil, butter, and ghee. While there are a lot more oils that are either saturated or monounsaturated, they are not controversy free. Heck, even these oils are not – hence this article. I wrote about the benefits of SaFas in an earlier article,

• Sat­u­rated fat reduces risk of stroke and heart dis­ease!
• Like I men­tioned ear­lier, along with cho­les­terol, they help give your cells their struc­tural integrity.
• Yes, it does pre­vent coro­nary artery dis­ease! Not cause it.
• It improves your lipid pro­file! Yes, your ‘good’ cho­les­terol is gonna go up coz of this post!
• Yes, there’s absolutely no con­nec­tion between con­sump­tion of sat­u­rated fats and heart dis­ease! Really!
• They play a huge role in cal­cium absorp­tion. So, yeah, your bone health depends on these fats.
• They improve your immune system
• Heck, your brain is made up of fats and cho­les­terol! So, yeah,keeps your brain healthy!
• Extremely impor­tant for kids, and a vital com­po­nent of human breast milk.

The awesomeness of coconut oil

From Mark Sisson,

coconut oil has been found to help normalize blood lipids and protect against damage to the liver by alcohol and other toxins, can play a role in preventing kidney and gall bladder diseases, and is associated with improved blood sugar and insulin control and therefore the prevention and management of diabetes. In addition, coconut oil has antiviral, antibacterial and anti-fungal properties. On a more superficial level, meanwhile, coconut oil is thought to help strengthen mineral absorption, which is important for healthy teeth and bones, and can also help improve the condition and appearance of the scalp, hair and skin when ingested or topically applied.

Buy unrefined virgin coconut oil, rather than any other versions of this oil.

Chris Kresser has a neat article about five oils you should be cooking with, of which two are butter and ghee. Again, both of these are mostly composed of saturated fats. In ghee, the milk solids have been removed, and it is very low in lactose. Butter has a lower smoke point — so use a low flame when cooking with butter.

In conclusion

From Real Food Digest

Saturated fat and monounsatured fats are not the demons they are touted out to be. And industrial seed oils are popular because of the food industry and not because they are “heart healthy”. The ideal way to consume your oils is to ensure a mixture of saturated fats, monounsaturated fats, and polyunsaturated fats (with a balanced omega-3 to omega-6 intake).

I apologize for the blog hiatus, but I’ve finally settled down in Madras, and The Quad is going great. I promise to get back to regular updates. Here’s some stuff am thinking about – exercise and kids, exercise and pregnancy, cheat meals – you guys got any suggestions?

For those with a geeky side to them, I used the random number generator on random.org to generate 5 numbers between 1 and n (n being the number of subscribers). That was pretty much it!

Thanks for the overwhelming response! For those who haven’t received an email, don’t lose heart. I’m glad you subscribed to my blog and now the onus is on me to keep my posts interesting and useful to you at all times.

With that, I’m closing my online consults until December 1st, 2011. Feel free to email me with a request to sign up with me, and I’ll put you on the wait-list for December. And of course, I’m always available to answer questions via my the comments section on the blog, or email, and let’s keep that conversation going!

Here’s what you need to do — enter your email address on the right side of this page and click “Subscribe”. If the “Subscribe” does not work, send me an email with your email address, and I will put you on the list. And,

1. You will receive my blog posts in your inbox! And I since I definitely hate spam more than you, you can be rest assured that you’ll only be notified when I post a new article.
2. I will choose 5 people from this list. The five of you, can sign up with me for a one-to-one consultation! You will be my client and your fitness goals are now mine. You also have the option of giving this away as a gift to someone, if you think they need it more.
3. I will contact you via email to get us started.

How does it work, and what’s in it for you?

• You will fill out a detailed assessment questionnaire, with your goals, constraints, and other details.
• Based on this questionnaire, and after a couple of email exchanges, I will design your new workout, nutrition, and lifestyle experience.
• It will be aimed at fulfilling your goals, whether it is to lose fat, put on muscle, get better at a specific sport, improve mobility etc. I can work with you to help determine your goals too.
• If you are driven and committed, there is NO DOUBT about you achieving your goals. I will constantly keep track of your workout and nutrition, via logs, and tweak your programme based on that.
• 10-weeks of email support — ask me a question anytime, and I will respond within a 24-hour window on most days.
• You don’t need to figure out the “what”, and the “why”. I will take care of that for you. You can do the hard work of applying them.
• You will be guided and motivated as much as you want.
• Did I mention that it is $150 Rs. 7000 value?

What’s in it for me?

A chance to work with more folks, before I get busy with the BootCamp. After the BootCamp starts, I will not be taking any new clients, and will work with just my existing clients.

If you are in Madras, you should just wait for the BootCamp. But if you are not, then this is your chance to work with me towards attaining your fitness goals!

Regardless of the give-away, you can send an email to fitness@arvindashok.com to sign up as a client. Subscribing to the blog gives you a chance to get your money back, if you win! Let me know if you have any questions.

I will announce the results on August 11. Share this post to anyone who you think will benefit from a redesign of their lifestyle!

I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine — Bruce Lee.

I am proud to have a wife, and family that supports me in my endeavours. For the past 3 years, I’ve been looking for the right reason to move back to India. I wasn’t sure what it was gonna be, but I knew I was gonna move back someday soon.

I wanna help people. I wanna make a difference in their lives. That’s how I got into User Experience Design, from being a programmer. Almost everyone uses technology — if I could make it easier for them to use, that’s a positive difference in their lives. But once in a while, there comes a new opportunity to do more. This post is about that.

I am gonna quit my six-figure paying job in the wonderful city of San Francisco, sell my awesome car, and say goodbye to all the wonderful friends I’ve made here. And move back to my hometown of Madras. And I am gonna start a gym. Not just any gym, and not just me. I got a partner-in-crime on this.

Couple of years ago, when I had the seeds of this idea, it was pretty vague — “I am gonna open a CrossFit box” — was as far as I had though. Then comes one of those random meetings that change things up, to say the least. Over the past year, the two of us have been developing our own training philosophy. I think building something big takes more than one person. And in Raj Ganpath, I met a guy supremely passionate about health and fitness, and hell-bent on helping people achieve their fitness goals. More importantly, I found a friend and a business partner.

Now to the “not just a gym” part. If you’ve been reading our blogs regularly, you know we don’t do the same-old things you see all around you.  We want to help change this field fundamentally, we wanna change the system, and help improve it. Why do we have to grow old without a fight? Why do we have to settle for sub-par fitness and nutrition advice?Even if it is just a weekend sport you are playing — wouldn’t you like to be better at it? Wouldn’t you just like everything to feel better?

It doesn’t stop just there. We have some great ideas, and long-term plans. We are here to stay, we are here to make a difference. The gym is the first step in what is gonna be an awesome journey. If you like what we are about — talk to us. We wanna talk to people. We wanna talk to you.

Welcome to The Quad

After all that talk — here it is — Welcome to The Quad.

Yeah right, who does all that work today?! No wonder we need these workouts eh ;)

The Profile

• You are around 35 years old.
• Presumably female, but hey, am not gonna exclude guys. Nothing wrong with being a “house-husband” — raising kids and running a household is no mean feat. There are just a few subtle differences between a person going to work, and a person not going to work — as far as their exercise, nutrition, and stress are concerned.
• Your stress levels are high in the morning, and in the night — with prepping everyone and kicking them out of the house, and the reverse in the night. But you have a good amount of free time in the afternoons.
• You sleep around 6–7 hours a night, and some supplement this with an afternoon nap.
• You go to the gym, and do some version of what everyone does. Or maybe you do aerobics or joined that fancy new yoga place — so many new things to try eh?!
• You probably don’t care much about strength — c’mon, muscles are for burly men, right?
• You might be reasonably flexible, but you have mobility and stability problems — can you stand on one leg, or hop, or squat, without any of it hurting?

This can apply to people who work as well — except the schedule’s different. In that case, I would recommend lighter workload, and more sleep. And an even more gradual process to get stronger.

The Plan

Exercise

The mobility drills you can do are shown in the video below. These mobility drills can be incorporated by anyone — start your day with these, or do them before your workout (see, I told you everyone would find this post useful).

Drill 1 — the knee-bending action is straight, then towards your little toe (harder), and then towards your big toe (easier). Do 5 for each one, and repeat on the other foot. You can slowly increase this number.

Drill 2 — lateral leg swings, the aim is to keep the heels parallel to each other, and swing well within your comfort zone. You should not feel a stretch at all — as you swing more, you will feel it opening up. Start with 10 on each side. And as you get better, you can increase the height, the number, and you can also slowly wean yourself away from the wall.

Drill 3 –The hip thrust — remember to keep your trunk stable, feet flat on the ground, and squeeze your butt. It shouldn’t hurt you at all — if it does, take it easy. Try to keep a 5-second hold at the top, and do 5 of these. And slowly increase it to a 10-second hold, and 20 of these.

Drill 4,5,6 — the three squats — split squat, lateral squat, and rotational squat. I would approach these with caution, as they are a bit more complex than the others. Be careful, and slowly try to get to the full range of motion. Do it slow, keeping your trunk stable to give you balance. Do 5 each to start off, and you can increase it to 10 as you get better.

Drill 7 — The wall slides are great for the joints around the shoulder — they provide your gleno-humeral joint mobility, and stability to the scapula (the bony bit that moves on your upper back. I think of them as the place the wings would attach). Your elbow and wrist should be touching the wall at all times, and you should pull your scapula back and down. If you cannot do this, turn around and face the wall — same deal — elbow and wrist touching, stand as close to the wall as possible and move the hands up and down.

Now, on to some strength and conditioning.This will aid in getting stronger, and burning fat.

Circuit A: Step-Up, Knee Pushups, Rear Lunge, One-arm DB Row

Circuit B: DB Step Down, T-Pushups, Front Squat, Lat Pulldown

• Repetitions — Start with 5 reps for each movement (on each side, where applicable), and work your way up to 10. That’s one set for that exercise.
• Sets — Start with 1 set, and increase by one set every week (or every two weeks), and aim for 5 sets (of each exercise) as a goal.
• Weight — Start the exercises with body-weight, and slowly start using weight once you are able to do the work prescribed (5 sets of 10 reps).
• Progression — Once you are able to do it with lighter weights, go up to the next level of dumbbells. Keep progressing, slowly!
• Rest 60 (start with 90) seconds between each exercise, and 2 minutes (start with 3 minutes) between each round.

Piecing the plan

• Do the mobility drills EVERYDAY — it should take only 5 minutes. Do them twice a day if you can.
• If you can workout 3 days a week — do circuit A on Monday, circuit B on Wednesday, A on Friday — and rest* on other days. Next week, it will be B-A-B.
• If you can workout 4 days a week — do A on Monday, B on Tuesday, and A on Thursday, B on Friday — rest* on other days. Start every workout with the mobility drill, and a light warmup.
• If you currently do yoga, or aerobics — incorporate the circuits once a week. For example, Circuit A on Monday, aerobics/yoga on Tuesday, Circuit B on Thursday, aerobics/yoga on Friday. Rest on other days. If your yoga is the peaceful type, you can definitely do it more often, and on your workout days.

* — On rest days, continue with your mobility drills. And take a long walk, if you are looking for some fat loss. Improving activity level will pay off. But don’t stress your body more than that. Recovering from the workouts is important.

Why are mobility, flexibility, and stability important and relevant?

And what’s mobility in the first place? And why is it grouped with stability? There’s is a very interesting approach called the Joint-by-Joint approach,

Our modern bodies have started developing tendencies. Those of us who are sedentary, as well as those of us who are active, seem to migrate to a group of similar mobility and stability problems. Of course you will find exceptions, but the more you work in exercise and rehabilitation, the more you will see these common tendencies, patterns and problems.

The body is a layer of joints — ankle, knee, hip and so on. Each joint has a specific function — mobility or stability, and correspondingly has a related issue — losing mobility or stability. The joints alternate in function — the ankle joint’s primary function is mobility, while the knee’s is stability, and the next joint up — the hip — you guessed it — mobility. And here’s why this is important —

Pain near one joint could be caused by a problem in the joint above or below.

That weird pain in your knee that just keeps coming back in spite of a massage — it could be because of a loss in ankle mobility! By working on your joint mobility, flexibility, and stability (the video above), you could see persistent pains — knee, or lower back for example — disappear and not come back.

The Nutrition

As you are scurrying around the house, packing lunch boxes for the kid, helping the husband locate his lucky tie, make sure you set aside 15 minutes to put together a wholesome, quick breakfast for you and your family.

So, what kinda stuff can you eat for breakfast?

• Some breakfast options — scrambled eggs with vegetables with a glass of milk and fruit, egg dosai with chutney, sambar and a small cup of fruits.
• Or maybe some pancakes?

Now that the storm is over, and you have some time for yourself. You decide to catch up on some email, get on facebook, watch some news on the telly. But hey — dont forget — it is time to workout! And you have that awesome post-workout lunch to look forward to. Like what?

• Baked Ajwaini paneer, with a side of veggies and rice.
• Honey drizzled chicken, potatoes, and cauliflower! throw in some rice if you want.

Finally, dinner time!

• If you wanna keep it light — try a salad of veggies and greens, throw in some cut fruits, spice it up with pepper, and squirt some lemon on it. Throw in some boiled eggs, and you have a meal.
• Or you can’t go wrong with some fake pasta!

Some basic “rules”. Start with looking at the nutrition template again. And ensure each meal has,

• a chunk of protein — like eggs, meat, seafood, paneer
• a healthy portion of vegetables — keep mixing it up
• a healthy portion of starchy vegetables — potatoes, beets, sweet potatoes are all tasty option
• throw in some grain, if you want. But only after satisfying the other criteria.
• And switching out your cooking oils — use coconut oil, butter, and ghee. Yes, that means dump the seed oils.

Putting it all together

• If you are looking to get pregnant — start cleaning up your diet, and your husband’s as well. The most important period of a human’s life, the one that has the most impact, is the many weeks spent in the womb.
• Supplement wisely. It is better to get your nutrients from food (eat real food!) but some supplementation could be useful. Magnesium, Vitamin D, Vitamin K2, Vitamin B-12, DHA and EPA (omega-3) — these are common nutrients that most of us fall short of, especially vegetarians. Vitamin A, and Vitamin C are two others to look into as well.
• The closer you get to menopause, the more important strength training is. Ladies don’t get big and muscular — they get fit and sexy when they lift weights!
• Sleep is important. Try to sleep for 8 hours every night. But if you cant, and compensate with an afternoon nap — here’s a suggestion. Workout early afternoon, go home, eat a big post-workout meal, and take your nap. The most healthy and stress-free organisms I see are dogs — they run around, and go wild, come back in and eat a large meal, and flop in bed. I always envy them, and I used to do this when I worked out late in the evening. Since yours is an afternoon nap, keep it short.
• Put up some black-out curtains to improve your sleep. And what else can you do, that’s easy?
• Stress levels — it is always important to keep stress low.
• Cut out sugar, in your foods, and in your family’s foods. The amount of sugar in common foods and snacks is crazy! Instead, try to give them healthier snacks — fruits instead of juice is a good start.
• Don’t be in a hurry, be patient, and give it an honest shot. You have the control over your family’s food supply — a change in your diet means a change in everyone’s diet — for the better!

Try it out, and let me know how it goes. In 6 months, you will be vastly stronger, and more mobile. Be patient, and be consistent.

If you have specific questions about how you can make it work — ask me in the comments section. Share this article to someone if you think it will be useful. Take care!