A Day In The Wellness Journey!

I have 5 hours to eat in a day, and here’s my broadcast message to the Intermittent Fasting Group that I mentor.

Broadcast on Intermittent Fasting:
I thought it might be a good idea to list my activities while on a strict intermittent fasting, to our group. Please give feedback, advices and any comments that you may have.
My Intermittent fasting starts with a Keto dinner at 6 pm and lasts for about 19 hours till a good lunch at 1 pm. I have only water during this 19 hours, no black coffee, no green tea.
Hopefully, autophagy is on work!
The lunch is mostly carbs with rice, vegetables, meat etc followed by liberal helping of papaya and mango. I go for a few blocks of Amul dark chocolate.
Snacks include good things like pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and not so good things like savouries and few bakery items. I have coffee with milk and no sugar and occasional green tea during the 5 eating hours. The Keto dinner at 6 pm could be quinoa with vegetables and eggs in butter with meat topping, the same with barley rice instead of quinoa, cream of mushroom soup, mushroom omelette cooked in butter, avocado, soup etc.
Now that I have stopped Diabetes medicines, I monitor blood sugar first in the morning, just before breaking fast with lunch, 2 hours after lunch and 2 hours after Keto dinner. The current readings could (I hope) lower HbA1c to six or even below that, in three months ( dream comes true)!
I have observed the following complications:

Dawns Phenomenon
Here sugar readings start low when fast begins and increases from 10, 12, 19 hours into fasting.
Apparently this is harmless and Dr Jason Fung even terms it a good thing as the explanation is that lever releases stored glycogen anticipating energy requirements for physical activity while fasting.

Gilbert’s Syndrome
Though harmless, this is a nuisance with possible side effects. The reason is limited gut action during fasting for liver to process excess bilirubin.
That’s why papaya and mango find a prominent place in diet. Plus drinking lots of water.

Now on my workout schedule, it starts with yoga in the morning. It takes over one and a half hours and burns about 500 calories.
The following are the items.

1. Pranayama

2. Breathing

3. Meditation ( for third eye)

4. Diaphragm breathing

5. Tree position on both legs

6. Suryanamaskar, 12 sets, 12 positions on either legs making a total of 288 positions.

7. Sarvangasana for 10 minutes

8. Matsyasana for 5 minutes
And another 30 stretching and breathing exercises including a few breaks with savasanas.
I do stationery swimming actions and abdominal crunches only occasionally now.
I do indoor running for about an hour on the terrace burning about 500 calories.
That’s total about 1000 calories burned on workout against the crazy 1700 when I was doing everything.
Sleep total meets the target 7 hours.
Of course, there were occasional injuries, especially with land swimming.
Six Packs are still on outline and hopefully will get firmed up when gym and pool are opened.
But following the guidances from wellness experts (videos shared here) belly fat has receded considerably which is a major wellness goal and key thing in reversing diabetes.
I hope these detailing will help those who are on Intermittent Fasting.

Stay at Home and Intermittent Fasting

We are in a different environment with ‘stay at home’ strategy to counter the spread of the dangerous virus.

For intermittent fasters, this has brought about some challenges with family being together all the time and the meal times.

There are indications that intermittent fasting boosts the immune system, which is a major plus in these difficult times. And of course there are numerous other benefits with intermittent fasting.

As a mentor to a small group of intermittent fasters, my advice is to stick to their usual schedule without making much of a change now.

An aggressive 3 day water only fast could reset the immune system quite positively. I have clearly advised the group not to try it now as it has to be done under proper supervision.

And if someone wishes to start intermittent fasting to gain it’s benefits now, here are some tips suggested by Max Lowery, personal trainer and intermittent fasting champion, who is the author of The 2 Meal Day fasting method,

1. First, eliminate snacking in between meals by eating three square meals a day. Once you are used to this, move onto step 2.
2. Finish consuming any calories by 8pm.
3. Try waiting an hour to break your fast in the morning.
4. Try extending your overnight fast to 12 hours.
5. If the first four steps go well, try upping your overnight fast to 14-16 hours.

Take care, stay safe!

Nature in Focus.

The ‘stay at home’, ‘lockdown’ etc have given us an opportunity to observe nature in a true and relaxed way.

The photo, taken just now is the tree at a handshaking distance outside our balcony in Jayanagar, Bangalore and another tree, of the similar size and age, but slightly away from the building.

The tree close to us is in full bloom, early, compared to some seven others in the vicinity. The other trees are just starting to flower while the one close to us has been with flowers for sometime now.

I am reminded of one of my friends telling me that the coconut trees around the empty house of theirs were bearing only few coconuts. But the bunches started growing in numbers ever since they moved into the house and now they are full of coconuts.

Nature wants to co-exist with us. It’s happy to be among us. We are ignoring it and worse hurting the nature by cutting the trees, littering rubbish all over the place and replacing forests.

This is an opportunity to think and do the sensible thing of agreeing to CO-exist with nature and other species.

The story about the swans and dolphins returning in large numbers to the Venice waters with the pollutant humans are staying away trying to protect themselves from the unfortunate virus threats is hitting headlines.

Let us be mindful of this once we become free of the forced confinement by God’s Grace.

Live and let live!

Nature provides the leveller.

Stay at home to prevent the virus spread is a noble thing for own and others safety. It’s actually not very easy. And that include us, having been sort of stuck in Bangalore, away from our usual home in Kochi.

With borders between Indian states getting closed, we may be staying in Bangalore for longer. And I took stock of the situation, briefly.

Bulk delete of group forwards resolves the ‘forwards’ attack along with losing some of the genuine communication. But the social and economic impact on daily wagers, street vendors and other marginal sectors is a concern. I hope some effective relief measures will be taken soon.

Apparently swans and dolphins returned to Venice waters, with humans confined to homes. Perhaps the nature is bringing in the equilibrium.

And I took a closer look at the nature as seen from our balcony. The greenery, flowers and the serenity are soothing to the eye. There’s even Bangalore’s own cherry blossom in the frame.

Beautiful nature.

A friend just forwarded this video. It’s very relevant and please watch. It’s priceless.

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0x5NIhIiJ5ETbhm1Ugwl47ZsQ#Bangalore_-Nimhans&_Mantri_Pride_Apartment

Project Polish!

In this time of ‘Stay at Home’ ‘Social Distancing’ ‘Frequent Hand Washing’ etc, there’s hardly anything one can do. Seeing my frustration at the gym and swimming pool closing, Sunu assigned a challenging work for me.

Though we normally live in Kochi, we came to Bangalore for a short stay, but sort of got stuck with all the travel restrictions and issues.

The home in Jayanagar is a beautiful one overlooking just greenery and flowering trees. But we never lived here, and the maximum previous stay at a time was less than 2 weeks. The original (14 years) furniture and polishing are still good but can do well with a makeover.

Hence the project to polish all wooden surfaces like doors, windows, wardrobes, table, frames and railings. I am not good in DIY and never done anything worthwhile before. But there’s always the first time and no time’s better than now.

Assembled the following: 1. Wood polish, 2. Thinner. 3. Hand gloves 4. Paint brush 5. Emery paper 6. Metallic scraper 7. Clothes 8. Squatting mat

Got up a little late. Did the full set of yoga. Just as a support to polishing, did a clean head shave also along with regular shave. And we even had a light moment when Sunu while arranging the stuff took a comb and gave it me. ‘For what’! I had to ask, feeling my smooth head.

Work has started. The first few items are looking good. It should take a couple of days to finish, or more.

Staying at Home

Most of us are now staying at home, voluntarily or otherwise. It’s an opportunity and at the same time a threat as to how everyone can be kept occupied.

The below social media post from writer friend Smitha got the attention. It describes the present situation correctly.

We all talked about spending time with the family and then suddenly the opportunity is thrust on us. But there are a few hiccups.

It’s not easy to keep the youngsters occupied. Of course they also welcome spending time together, but not confined to the boundaries of home, mostly. Their ideas are picnic, holidays, outdoors etc.

There’s an amount of fear prevailing, and it’s quite natural. But the combined efforts are to get over the situation, somehow.

Some of us are in whatsapp groups and everybody there is forwarding messages and videos and hardly anybody reads them. So the forwards start something like “this is the best I have seen on it. Don’t miss it”. And sometimes some people forward misinformation and spread fear.

There are some good ones also. An ex colleague Brinda has this on social media.

“Can’t help feeling that there is a message from the universe there somewhere! We all need to take stock and look at life a little differently – maybe?”

And a forward from Sheethal

Let’s support each other.

And here’s something entertaining

1000th Blog Post

This is my 1000th blog post. I am taking the liberty of just posting a blank page and request you to write something as comment in the comment box,which I will save, keep and cherish. Thank you all for the support and company