Aakriti Arora, Nutritionist

Craving for mango, the king of fruits 😍❤? But worried about your fitness journey? Worry not, let's break your myth 🤩😋

Let's compare your favourite "healthy" snack - Digestive Biscuits with my favourite healthy snack - Mango

Mangoes have almost half the calories of your favourite digestive cookies but also have less fat and carbs too. Mango has just 60 calories with 0.4gm of fat whereas digestive cookies have 489 Kcal and 21gms of fat.

However, what is wrong with today's Digestive Cookies?

1 - Most of the digestive cookies available in the market are full of maida. You don't see that clearly on the pack - but see your pack and check if it has refined wheat flour (which is maida).

2 - They are full of unhealthy oil. Almost all the packs I checked had a lot of edible vegetable oil/palm oil. It is used to form the dough.

3 - They are full of sugar. Digestive Cookies contain 20-30% sugar.

4 - They hardly have any fibre. Most of these cookies are sold to you by convincing you that these cookies are a great source of fibre. You will be shocked to know - in 100 gms of these cookies, the fibre content is hardly 4-8%. A bowl of mango can have up to 20 grams of fibre which might be more than 2 packs of these cookies.

BOTTOMLINE

We are often fooled by big corporates and they convince us that whatever they are promoting is healthy for us. We consume such highly marketed products over the things we crave like mangoes and ignore them because eating the same makes us guilty.

So ditch those unhealthy cookies & relish the juicy mangoes this summer to gain health and achieve your health goals in a healthy and sustainable manner.

'Send Message' to get in touch with me for customised diet plans which will include tasty and healthy foods!

Client Wins 🥰 Agila lost 8 kgs with our healthy and sustainable diet plans and an easy exercise schedule. From 91 kgs to 82.3 kgs, her story is truly inspiring for all of us!

You can reach your health goals, just like Agila did!

DM me today to get your personalised meal plan and exercise schedule and kick start your weight loss journey.

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Legs-Up-the-Wall Pose or Inverted leg pose is a restorative yoga posture that offers a wealth of benefits, making it a popular choice among people wishing to relax.

These are the health benefits that it provides:
✅ Relaxes your mind
✅ Provides sciatica pain relief
✅ Improves thyroid function
✅ Relieve headache and migraine
✅ Increase energy
✅ Alleviate low back tightness and discomfort
✅ Relieves leg and feet cramps
✅ Promotes lymph flow
✅ Manages varicose veins
✅ Gently stretch the backs of your legs
improve circulation
✅ Alleviates mild depression
✅ Improves digestion
✅ Improves sleep patterns
✅ Balances blood pressure

🍋 Lemon water is all the rage these days.
There are no doubt lemons are delicious, but does adding them to water make you healthier?

1. It promotes hydration - Water is the best beverage for hydration, but some people don’t like the taste of it on its own. Adding lemon enhances water’s flavor, which may help you drink more.

2. It’s a good source of vitamin C - Lemons are high in vitamin C, a primary antioxidant that helps protect cells from damaging free radicals. Vitamin C may reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke, and lower blood pressure.

3. It supports weight loss - Lemon water can help promote satiety and fullness, which may decrease calorie intake and lead to weight loss.

4. It improves your skin quality - Vitamin C found in lemons may help reduce skin wrinkling, dry skin from aging, and damage from the sun

5. It aids digestion - Drinking lemon water as a daily morning laxative to help prevent constipation. Drinking warm or hot lemon water when you wake up may help get your digestive system moving.

6. It freshens breath - You might avoid bad breath by drinking a glass of lemon water after meals and first thing in the morning. Lemon is thought to stimulate saliva and water also helps prevent a dry mouth, which can lead to bad breath caused by bacteria.

7. It helps prevent kidney stones - The citric acid in lemons may help prevent kidney stones. Citrate, a component of citric acid, paradoxically makes urine less acidic and may even break up small stones. Drinking lemon water not only gets you citrate, but also the water you need to help prevent or flush out stones.

We don’t always eat just to satisfy physical hunger. Many of us also turn to food for comfort, stress relief, or to reward ourselves. And when we do, we tend to reach for junk food, sweets, and other comforting but unhealthy foods. You might reach for a pint of ice cream when you’re feeling down, order a pizza if you’re bored or lonely, or swing by the drive-through after a stressful day at work.

Emotional eating is using food to make yourself feel better—to fill emotional needs, rather than your stomach. Unfortunately, emotional eating doesn’t fix emotional problems. In fact, it usually makes you feel worse. Afterward, not only does the original emotional issue remain, but you also feel guilty for overeating.

These are some ways to avoid emotional eating and remain heathy-
✅ Be conscious of your thoughts : Constiously breath and let the negative thought pass .
✅ Keep yourself busy : Keep your hands and mind occupied by doing tasks.
✅ Avoid triggers : Minimise contact with negative people .
✅ Get rest : Lack of sleep can greatly affect your mood.
✅ Listen to music : Listen to your favourite music for 25mins everyday can bring a great mood change.

Pistachios, in particular, are often touted as a natural sleep aid, thanks to their purported melatonin content.
Melatonin is a hormone that your body produces to signal that it’s time to go to sleep . Eating pistachios before bed will contribute to a natural rise in your melatonin levels.
Pistachios contain a high level of protein, as do most nuts. This can help you feel fuller for longer, and stop you from craving unhealthy foods later.
Eating a small amount of pistachios before bed can improve sleep by making you feel comfortable, and less likely to wake up hungry. Evidence shows that protein before bed can help you sleep quicker, and help you sleep better. 🌿

All the nutrients are vital for the body, and they should be consumed every day in an adequate amount to boost our health and immunity.
However, due to biological differences, there are some nutrients women require more than men.
Pregnancy, menstruation, menopause—all these events put a heavy toll on women's health. Thus, to stay healthy they need to be careful about the intake of certain vitamins in foods.

✅ Vitamin C : Fights wrinkles, aids in heart and prenatal health.
✅ Vitamin B6 : Boosts immune system, regulates mood and sleep.
✅ Vitamin B12 : Regulates metabolism and maintains nervous system.
✅ Omega-3 : For healthy heart, skin, bone and hair, helps in fertility.
✅ Folic Acid : Reduces risk of birth defects ; lower risk of hypertension.

Losing body fat can be a challenging task, often requiring hard work, patience, and dedication. All you need to do is start eating the right food. Now, this can feel like an insurmountable challenge, given our food culture and dietary habits. For instance, a typical Indian meal is high in carbohydrates and sugar – we eat a lot of potatoes, rice, and sweets.
We also love our snacks and can’t imagine a day without our fix of namkeens and bhajis.

But if you want to lose body fat here are some super simple fat loss plans:
✅ Drink more water every day
✅ Keep tempting foods out of the house
✅ Limit snacking to 1-2 times a day
✅ Stop drinking high sugar beverages like colddrinks.
✅ Use low or zero calorie sauces
✅ Aim to eat more protein.

Hormones act as messengers for our bodies, regulating everything from our physical functioning to our emotional well-being.
Whether you're suffering from COVID fatigue or feeling blue due to dreary weather, there are plenty of ways to cultivate more happiness in your daily life. The key is figuring out which activities boost your body's natural feel-good hormones and doing more of them.

The four, key happiness-boosting hormones include:

🔹Dopamine: Often called the "happy hormone," dopamine results in feelings of well-being. A primary driver of the brain's reward system, it spikes when we experience something pleasurable.

🔹Serotonin: Dubbed the "feel-good hormone," serotonin plays a key role in staving off anxiety and depression. Exercise, spending time outdoors and getting a good night's sleep can help boost serotonin.

🔹Endorphins: Most commonly linked with exercise, endorphins are associated with "runner's high". These powerful hormones act as natural pain killers, minimizing discomfort and maximizing pleasure.

🔹Oxytocin: Best known for its role in bonding and attachment, oxytocin floods a woman's system during childbirth and while nursing. But delivering a baby isn't the only way to get a rush of oxytocin. This "love hormone" also spikes with any sort of intimate touch.

You already know that exercise is good for your body. But did you know it can also boost your mood, improve your sleep, and help you deal with depression, anxiety, stress, and more?
Exercise improves mental health by reducing anxiety, depression, and negative mood and by improving self-esteem and cognitive function. Regular exercise can have a profoundly positive impact on ADHD.
Exercise has also been found to alleviate symptoms such as low self-esteem and social withdrawal.

It also relieves stress, improves memory, helps you sleep better, and boosts your overall mood. And you don’t have to be a fitness fanatic to reap the benefits. Research indicates that modest amounts of exercise can make a real difference. No matter your age or fitness level, you can learn to use exercise as a powerful tool to deal with mental health problems, improve your energy and outlook, and get more out of life.
It gives benefits like-
✅ Sharper memory and thinking.
✅ Higher self-esteem.
✅ Better sleep.
✅ More energy.
✅ Stronger resilience.
***de ***deprevention

Sleeping difficulty is when you have trouble sleeping at night. It may be hard for you to fall asleep, or you may wake up several times throughout the night.

It may affect your physical and mental health. Lack of sleep may also cause you to have frequent headaches or trouble concentrating.

Signs of sleeping difficulty may include an inability to focus during the day, frequent headaches, irritability, daytime fatigue, waking up too early, waking up throughout the night, or taking several hours to fall asleep.

You may also experience low energy during the day or have noticeably dark circles under your eyes.

These may be the reasons of troubles in sleeping -
🔺Obesity
🔺Lack of physical activity
🔺Medication
🔺Lack of good nutrition
🔺Irregular sleep patterns
🔺Excess alcohol and caffeine intake

When you lose weight, your body fights back. You may be able to lose quite a lot of weight at first, without much effort. However, weight loss may slow down or stop altogether after a while.

Or maybe you are doing these mistakes :
🔺Maybe you are eating healthy but you are eating big portions of this healthy food.
🔺You are off track on weekends - May be you follow your healthy diet strictly on weekdays but on weekends you end up consuming too many calories which disbalances it.
🔺You keep a track of the calories that you consume during a meal but forget to keep count of the calories of the snacking you do many times between the meals.

Avoid these common mistakes and see the positive results for yourself! 🌿

The key to a healthy diet is to eat the right amount of calories for how active you are so you balance the energy you consume with the energy you use. You should also eat a wide range of foods to make sure you're getting a balanced diet and your body is receiving all the nutrients it needs.

💁‍♀️ These 10 practical tips cover the basics of healthy eating and can help you make healthier choices :
1) Include a lot of fiber in your diet.
2) Include white lean meat instead of red.
3) Drink a lot of water.
4) Always include salad before your meals.
5) Limit the sugar in your meal.
6) Keep a check on portion control
7) Try to have home-cooked food more and avoid eating out.
8) Include fruits and vegetables in your diet.
9) Choose healthy snacks for snacking.
10) Cut out 'bad' fats from your diet.

🍍Consuming pineapple can improve your memory. Along with Vitamin B1 and manganese naturally found within the fruit, research shows the enzyme “bromelain” can play a key role in promoting cognitive functions.
Bromelain is known to stimulate blood flow to the brain and make one more alert.

🔸Pineapple is a great source of vitamin C, antioxidants, enzymes, and fiber.
🔸The presence of vitamin C helps in fighting cell damage and prevents joint pain and coronary diseases.
🔸It helps in improving bone mineral density and strengthens the bones.
🔸It helps in preventing osteoporosis in women.
🔸Due to its anti-inflammatory properties, it helps in curing colds and cough.
🔸The presence of bromelain helps in reducing swelling and helps reduce loss of blood by promoting coagulation of the blood.
🔸Not only is this fruit delicious, but at the same time, it can lift your mood with its taste and aroma. Moreover, they contain a good level of B vitamins which improve your brain health.
# vegetable

When someone you care about is depressed, offering advice or wisdom may be something you do with only good intentions in mind.
However, the words you use may not convey the message you want to send—especially if you don't understand the nature of depression and mental illness.
It's important to remember that depression is a medical condition that requires treatment, be it with medication, therapy, or both. When you're talking to a loved one about their depression, repeating platitudes can make someone feel that you're minimizing their feelings.

Avoid saying these things :
❌ Just snap out of it, it's all in your mind.
❌ Lighten up, just be positive.
❌ Stop feeling sorry for yourself.
❌ Okay, but so many people have off worse than you.
❌ Just stop thinking about it.
❌ Your problems aren't even that serious
Okay, but you don't look / sound depressed

***de ***de

A crash diet is essentially any type of weight loss diet undertaken on a short-term basis to exclude some (or all!) major food groups to achieve rapid weight loss results.

Rapid weight loss can slow your metabolism, leading to future weight gain, and depriving your body of essential nutrients. What's more, crash diets can weaken your immune system and increase your risk of dehydration, heart palpitations, and cardiac stress.
They're not going to help you burn calories or fat in the long run. You may see a decrease in the number on the scale, but it won't improve your overall health outcomes. Weight lost during a crash diet is likely from lean muscle and water, not body fat.

So it seems like you have lost weight but instead -
🔺You will feel tired and weak
🔺You will feel hungry
🔺You will gain the weight back after you are done.

Maintaining a trim midsection does more than make you look great—it can help you live longer. Larger waistlines are linked to a higher risk of heart disease, diabetes, and even cancer. Losing weight, especially belly fat, also improves blood vessel functioning and also improves sleep quality.

Here are some ways to lose belly fat :
✅ Decrease bloating - Stay properly hydrated.
✅ Skip the Soda - The gas can puff out your stomach.
✅ Eat slower - Properly chewing food can speed up digestion.
✅ Minimise fiber - It can minimize short-term bloating.
✅ Avoid irritants - The 2 common irritants are lactose and gluten.

This whole-grain powerhouse has been packing serious nutrition and hearty flavor into breakfast for generations.
🔸Oats provide fiber that can stabilize your blood sugar levels and boost your mood. They're also high in iron, which may improve mood symptoms in those with iron deficiency anemia.
🔸Oats are among the healthiest grains on earth. Eating oats is linked to an average 7% drop in LDL cholesterol. It may lower the risk of heart disease by reducing both total and LDL cholesterol and protecting LDL cholesterol from oxidation. Oatmeal is a simple heart-smart start.
🔸They’re a gluten-free whole grain and a great source of important vitamins, minerals, fiber and antioxidants.
🔸They helps in weight loss, lower blood sugar levels and a reduced risk of heart disease.
🔸They are a good source of carbs and fiber, including the powerful fiber beta-glucan.
🔸Oats are loaded with important vitamins, minerals and antioxidant plant compounds. It helps reduce cholesterol and blood sugar levels, promotes healthy gut bacteria and increases feelings of fullness.
🔸Oatmeal may help you lose weight by making you feel more full.
🔸Colloidal oatmeal (finely ground oats) has long been used to help treat dry and itchy skin. It may help relieve symptoms of various skin conditions, including eczema
may help prevent asthma in children when fed to young infants.

Are you a glass half-empty or half-full sort of person?
Studies have demonstrated that both can impact your physical and mental health and that being a positive thinker is the better of the two.
Positive thinking isn’t magic and it won’t make all of your problems disappear. What it will do is make problems seem more manageable and help you approach hardships in a more positive and productive way.
💁 Here are 5 ways to develop a positive mindset :
✅ Its okay to not be okay - Try to remember everyone has their own struggles, so sometimes it's okay if you are not feeling good.
✅ Be proactive - Take charge of your mental and physical health.
✅ Remain hopeful - Remind yourself and everyone around you that we can do it.
✅ Letting go things - Accept that you can't control everything.
✅ Keep an open mind : Be prepared to be adapt and evolve with the situation.

Did you gain 2 pounds of weight overnight?
No, it’s impossible to gain 2 pounds of fat overnight. To gain that much fat, you would have to eat 7,000 calories more than your body burns in a single day. That said, it is possible for your weight to increase from other sources such as water, food, and even stress. Most times when the scale goes up it’s due to water retention.

Here's what could have happened instead of gaining 2-5 lbs of pure fat :
🔺You have used a different scale.
🔺You weighed yourself at a different time.
🔺You are retaining more water.
🔺You haven't pooped.

🌿So, next time keep these things in mind before panicking over your sudden rise in weight!

If a hot shower is what your body craves in the morning, you’re not alone. The majority of people crank the handle all the way up in order to feel the warm water all over their body.

But did you know that cold showers should also have a place in your daily routine?

That’s right — cold showers. The ones you dread to take when you’re the last person to get up in the morning. But if you give them a fair chance, you might find that you actually like how you feel after taking one.

Both hot and cold showers have health benefits you should be aware of:
🚿Cold Shower -
🔹It prevents cold
🔹Tightens skin
🔹Reduces tension in mind
🔹Stimulates the immune system
🔹Accelerates metabolism

🚿Hot shower -
🔸Reduces tiredness
🔸Reduces headache
🔸Relaxes muscles
🔸Relieves of nasal congestion
🔸Opens pores and cleanses the skin

🍒 Dubbed as one of the healthiest superfoods, cherries have the highest medicinal value because they are rich in antioxidants, are anti-inflammatory, and are useful in the prevention and treatment of gout.
Cherries are one of the most beloved fruits and for good reason.

They’re not only delicious but also packed with vitamins, minerals, and plant compounds with powerful health effects.
Cherries are alkaline. Whenever there is an increase in the acidic content of the body, cherries can come in handy to balance the Ph levels by neutralizing them and preventing stomach problems like acidity or indigestion. These are natural chemicals that can help your body deal with day-to-day damage to your cells. The havoc may come from normal metabolism, inflammation, exercise, smoking, pollution, or radiation.

🚶Getting up and heading out for a morning walk is great for your mental health. Most studies show that walking 20 to 30 minutes or more has the best results. Walking also helps you get better sleep, which results in an overall better mood the next morning.
Walking for 30 minutes per day can reduce your risk for heart disease by 19 percent. If you live with diabetes, walking may also help lower your blood sugar levels. It can even help increase your life span and reduce your risk for cardiovascular disease and certain cancers.

✅ Improves heart health
✅ Aids weight loss
✅ Regulates blood pressure
✅ Improves circulation
✅ Reduces risk of diabetes
✅ Strengthens bones and muscles
✅ Reduces stress
✅ Uplifts mood
✅ Improves memory

In winters we often fail to drink enough water that is essential for our skin, But there are some fruits and vegetables that may hydrate our bodies twice as effectively as a glass of water! 😍

To tackle skin dehydration from the inside out, make sure there is enough water in your diet.
When eating for skin health, there are a few vitamins, nutrients, and ingredients to keep in mind, such as vitamin C, vitamin A, vitamin E, vitamin D, Collagen, and omega-3 fatty acids.

The food items which provide them along with the percentage of water, are:
✅ Watermelon - 92%
✅ Strawberries - 90%
✅ Tomato - 94%
✅ Cucumber - 97%
✅ Celery - 95%
✅ Orange - 87%
✅ Grapefruit - 91%
✅ Apple - 84%
✅ Spinach - 96%