2018 — The year that was and what I learnt :)

2018 will always be remembered as a bittersweet year in its truest sense — an year where I lost pieces and parts of myself, but gained so much experience, that I am nothing less but thankful.

2018 taught me that sometimes in life you are literally split & torn between decisions, and if you want to move forward, you have to choose one. It’s extremely stressful, but that’s what life is all about.

2018 also taught me that many times, later on, a decision may feel wrong. Have faith and try to remind yourself of why you took that decision. Things will start falling in place.

2018 showed completely opposite faces of some people who were very close to me. They just lost the respect I had for them. I am still struggling to reason their behavior, but maybe that’s how we all are — selfish.

2018 proved that making a change (of any kind) is in your hands, and there is no substitute for hard work.

2018 gave me new friends, new goals and new aspirations. 5 years back, I would have never imagined the life am living right now! This year taught me to be open to changes, and Life will never stop surprising you.

2018 was an year of personal challenges. And while going through these, I realized that every single person you know is going through a unique challenge of their own. We don’t know their story, and so it doesn’t hurt to be kind and generous. You may end up brightening somebody’s day unknowingly.

2018 reinforced my belief in the power of “karma”. My deeds ( both good and bad ) came back to me in mysterious ways and forms unknown.

I learnt ~ Be good, do good. And in a world where you can be anything ~ be kind!
Don’t worry if somebody else is playing games with you, you show your class by taking the high road. Biggest revenge is moving on.

2018 taught me to ‘let go’.
Let go & forgive people ~ because you inner peace is more important.
Let go ~ while practicing Yoga and meditation — because unless you do that, you won’t see the benefits.
Let go ~ if things don’t go your way ~ trust the universe and its interesting turn of events.
This year took away in heaps, but showered me with other things that I didn’t know I needed!

In 2018 ~ I loved & I was loved back. I cried, I was heartbroken, I was shattered — but I gathered & picked myself up every single time.

I laughed, I danced, I did things I could never imagine myself doing.
I also said ‘No’ more often. Some friendships were rekindled, some were put on the back burner.

Undoubtedly the longest year of my life — NO, the days did not go by quickly this year.

Here is my quick tip to go through an year like this — be tenacious, trust the universe, never shy away from hard work, and be a good person from the bottom of your heart.

Good Bye 2018!

2017 – What it taught me :)

Following my year end tradition – only that this time my yearly learnings are condensed in a single post.

2017 saw me turn 30. It was a mixed feeling – but I finally understood what everyone meant when they said that age is just a number. It all depends on how you decide to live it. One important promise I made to myself on my birthday was to take extra care of my physical and mental health.

2017 taught me the importance of putting yourself first before anyone else – help yourself before you help others. Don’t go out of your way for every single person you meet. Not everyone values your effort, nor do they need it.

2017 made me believe that universe finds sneaky ways to take care of you. Believe in the Universe’s masterplan and have faith. This year people walked in my life (and went out of my life for that matter) with such great timing that now when I retrospect, I am nothing less than awed.

2017 helped me learn the importance of forgiving people for your own peace. But that does not mean that you forget how they made you feel – learn your lesson, remember it for the rest of your life and move on.

2017 reinforced this fact that it takes years to build trust, and a moment to break it. One has to be really careful with relations as it takes a second to ruin them. Major learning for this year and a lesson for life!

2017 established it for me that when it comes to your health goals consistency is the key. I achieved my goal of “#60at30” – well almost, but I will take full credit for this one. I dropped ~12kgs of weight in a completely healthy way! If you ask me one great tip to achieve this – I will have to say meditation and sustainable healthy lifestyle.

I laughed like a maniac, cried like crazy, enjoyed my time to the fullest, learnt new stuff, made amazing new friends while my old friends stood by me like a rock, partied the most, chilled out like never before, fought like never before – all in all a wholesome year! 2017 – you were good to me, but would I want to relive you all over again? Well, thats a question I am scared to ask myself!

#3 – Take your own decisions, and be ready to live them.

Life is made up of decisions. Especially at this critical point in life where I am approaching my 30s, every little thing requires a concrete and well thought step to be taken.

But the fear of the results is so big that we often seek  external confirmation.

Or so we think.

We sometimes are so used to asking for advice, that we unknowingly start depending on them for our decisions. But we should not forget that advice is an advice after all. Nobody can take a decision for you, they can only tell you their perspective or experience. We cannot base our decisions completely on advice of the people who do not have to face the results.

Be logical, own up your decisions. Think them through. Also, after weighing in everything, be ready to face those decisions. They may go wrong, but let’s be prepared to face the results. Let’s be prepared to face the consequences without complaining. It’s easy to blame others’ advice for a decision you took, or start regretting for that matter. But the bottomline is, just be prepared with a Plan B/C/D . . . Always!

#2 – Don’t let anyone make u feel worthless or not worthy enough.

You know how people pull you down sometimes. I have heard these, a lot!
“Such a dumb person you are! This is a basic concept” , “How can you not work this out?” , “You really need to work at being smart”.
Smallest of things pull me back ~ “he didn’t reply back to my text – maybe he is not interested” , “Nobody flirts with me ~ obviously I don’t look that great”.

Now, I may not be the smartest person around, but I work hard. I may not know basic concepts, but hey! Am trying to learn. I maybe overweight and not that beautiful, but am working at it!

Being self critical has its own consequence. You not only tend to underestimate yourself, but you also unknowingly start seek external validation.  External validations are important, they provide you a different perspective about yourself, but they are good enough only if its coming from a trustworthy source. People sometime tend to make you feel as if you are not worthy enough, because you let them make you feel that way. Don’t let them do that at any point of time. If they do not get you maybe you don’t need them around.

At the same time, I have learnt to be careful before passing any such comments on others. In between fun conversations, we forget how our single comment can ruin others’ day. Everyone is fighting their own battle, and it takes just a little effort to be compassionate.

Learnings 2016 – #1 – Your Life stops for no one.

At the start of this year, I had this really cool GOAL – shortlist a guy from the list of guys that my Mom has prepared, get married and just get over with it. Well everyone around me is getting married and I wanted the same.

I was in conversation with a guy who pretty much fulfilled all my basic criteria and I was excited about taking it forward. But as it turned out, it just didn’t click – for him. I obsessed over this fake heart break for days ~ thinking maybe am not worthy enough. But slowly came to understand a few things about myself. I get emotionally attached to people so easily, that I forget myself sometimes. And all this was not even a Date-Love-getMarried scenario – it was a typical arranged marriage setup.

That was a real big learning for me – stop giving unnecessary attention to people who do not even matter in the long run. Respectfully accept other people’s decisions about you. Your life stops for no one. Had a heart break – get over with it. Something is not making you happy – change it or move away from it. Obviously as an emotional person, I still take time to overcome even the tiniest harsh behaviour from people, but I have realised this, that it wouldn’t matter after a few days. Its your life, and you must enjoy it, be happy and content. Work hard but party harder. Try new things – do not judge others’ choices before going through them yourself. Enjoy your own company, because You have only yourself as a constant for the rest of your life! ❤

Wrap up – 2015

Days crawl through, and years are over in a flash!

2015 is ending and this post is a recap of everything I went through this year, new things I learnt and some random blabbering 😀

Top highlights / Things I learnt.

New Job, New Workplace – This was a long overdue change that was required in my career and though the offer was extended in late 2014, I finally joined in Jan 2015.

Getting better at Driving – This was a major milestone for me. I finally learnt to drive effortlessly in any kind of traffic. To all women out there – LEARN to drive. This feeling of independence is second to none. 🙂

Crochet – Crochet is a needle & thread work, which I learnt by myself – after being given a head start by my Mom, off course. I started enjoying it – its intricate, and helps me focus and unwind. I want to continue learning new patterns, and knit something bigger this coming year.

 

Chose Yoga over gym – For the simple fact that I was bored of Gym. I have a detailed post on this one here.

3 month rule – I came up with this new rule this year. Any new thing brings with itself uncertainty. Give yourself a 3 month window to get into the habit and adjust. 95% times you will end up thinking, I was unnecessarily worrying back then. Tried and tested 🙂

Its totally possible that you be utterly mad at someone, but still love them to the moon – I did not believe this until I went through the feeling myself.

You are your best friend  –  N.O.B.O.D.Y – nobody in this world can help you unless you help yourself. Listen to your heart and mind. 99% of the time they are ready with a solution. You just need tune to their frequency. You know the ‘gut feeling’ of something that feels right, just feels right. Its TRUE! This feeling does exists.

If you don’t like it, SAY it – and vice-versa. I don’t think I have done this before. But this year, multiple instances, I have spoken my heart out. And I learnt, until you say it, nobody is going to understand it.

2015 would be remembered as a low key year in my life. While I have been through some really bad turn of events, I now feel it could have been worse. What matters at the end is that the people you trusted, are still besides you, and will always be 🙂
I will call 2015 as the year that laid some solid foundations (both sweet & bitter) for my coming life,career and family!

Thank you 2015 – you were kind to me _/\_

And last but not the least  🙂   🙂

❤

 

 

Calorie counting and why it doesn’t work for me

Hello there!

This post idea had been lingering around in my mind for quite sometime now, and it finally took shape. Let’s talk calorie counting today.

Fitness is the new IN thing these days. Every second person I know is training for long distance running, or at least talking about it. People have become more focused towards eating right, which is a good given our sedentary lifestyles.

But how much is too much? I have come across people who are like, “This chapati is 80 calories, I can eat only 2, if I want to have that samosa later” Or “I drink tea without any sugar, that way I can eat that chocolate in the evening.”

Do you see the problem here? While calorie counting is a good way to keep a rough tab on your food intake especially when you are trying to lose weight, making your food completely about calories is a really bad idea, and here’s why!

1. All the calories are not same : A bowl of dal rice and sabzi is equivalent to 2 slices of pizza – but both are consumed differently by the body. Dal rice is a far more balanced meal in terms of nutrients.
   Similarly, if you think that eating a roti less in lunch will help you in maintaining the calorie bar, so that you can have that fried mixture in the evening, think again. Its better to eat that extra roti , it will help you feel more full till the evening.
2. It stresses you out : There are 2 kinds of people – one who eat to live and others who live to eat. If you are anywhere near me, you fall in the latter category. Counting calories simply takes the ‘JOY’ out of eating. Food nurtures our body – it gives it energy to function properly and tirelessly. Calorie counting makes food sound like enemy – and you are constantly stressed about the fact that you ate 100 calories more today. C’mon , food is our friend.
3. You lose the connect with your body : There are days when you are more hungry, because maybe you are stressed out, or overcoming a sickness – body is asking for more fuel, so that it can recover faster. If you chain yourself to counting calories and eating, you are snatching away body’s chance to recover fast. When your body gets used to such Ignorance , it gives up on you. And you definitely don’t want that.

 

HOWEVER . . . . .
not counting calories does not mean that you can eat whatever you want. Its more about mindful eating, and eating whats right. Everybody knows the basics that we must eat more fiber, workout, eat less of fast foods – so I won’t be going into more gyaan in that domain.

But, be friends with food. Think in terms of nutrients than calories. Eat that khichdi at night instead of only a bowl of plain raw salad, just because we must not eat rice at night. A complete and nutrient rich meal will give you a good night’s sleep, and help you workout much better the next morning.

If you don’t know how much food is enough for you or if you want to check if you are over eating , go ahead , try the calorie counting for 2-3 days. It will give you a rough idea of your intake and help you plan your meals. But, for rest of the days, listen to your body. And give it the love it deserves 🙂

 

*Disclaimer : All views expressed are my own. Use your own discretion in following any idea mentioned.

I have decided to take a break from GYM !

“Yup! You heard that right! Am breaking up with you Gym, it just does not feel the same anymore. I think I need some time away from you to set my priorities straight, and to figure out what actually I feel about you.”

Pretty classy, right? 😛

Jokes apart, Yes!  I decided to discontinue gym about a couple of months back, and am not regretting the decision a bit till now. Fasten you seat belts, looks like this is going to be a long post.

Why I took this decision?

My interest into fitness grew ~ 3.5 years back, when I started attending Zumba classes at my workplace. 2 years later, since there was a shift in office campus, I could not attend the classes regularly, so decided to hit the office gym instead. Its around that time, I tried my hands into running. So far so good.
About an year back, I knew that my career needed a change, and so I switched jobs. This new workplace is a startup and does not have a gym of its own. So I joined a local gym near my home, in Jan’15.

That’s when the problem started. Firstly, my new work schedule demanded that I could go to the gym only in mornings . I was conditioned to workout in evenings mostly, so this was a big change for a ‘non-morning’ person like me. I still tried to fit in into the schedule as much as I could. But something was not working. I had no friends, no motivation in the gym, which I had previously. My ex-colleagues were very enthusiastic about working out, and that made push me one step ahead, and made me workout pretty regularly.
Before long, I started skipping my morning workouts, and I was realizing it. I was unable to be consistent.
I still tried, but the trainers weren’t motivating enough. I was also starting to develop a lower back pain, which was worsening day by day. More reasons to skip the gym.

The last straw was a day about 2 months back, when I was in so much pain, that I could not get up from bed! I was scared as hell that day, and immediately thought I had slip disc. (Result of googling your medical conditions too much! 😛 )
Anyways it was not anything major, and looked like a muscle pull.

I rested for 2 days, and came to a decision that now is time to take a step back. I am not enjoying gym at all, and made no sense for me to continue. I have always had an inclination towards yoga, and thought this was the right time.

 

What I decided instead?

With a weakened lower back, and a job that demands sitting most part of the day, I had to devise a plan to strengthen my back muscles.
I started off by walking 30 mins every day, and did this for about a week. I also did very basic leg stretches in this period. Once the pain lessened, I decided to increase the intensity and duration of my exercise.
This is what I do most of my days :
6:50 am – 7:55 am : Brisk walking. I am gradually working on increasing pace. I am able to walk about 6.08 kms in this time duration now, and working towards ~7kms in 1hr 5mins. I have started squeezing in 30 sec fast jog in between for HIIT affect.
8am – 8:30 : Yoga sequences, that typically aim at strengthening lower body. Focus on core strength. Suryanamaskars are a must. I aim at doing at least 10 each day. I browse and try out different yoga videos from youtube. My current favourite is :

Priya, creator of this video,  is a friend of mine, who is one of the fittest people I know! Make sure you give this 15min workout a spin!

 

How has this helped?

• Consistency : I am much more consistent with my workouts now. I do not feel bored or lazy to get up in the mornings now, as I know how much fresh I will feel after I step out for a walk.
• Time Flexibility : Even if am not feeling up to it someday, I reschedule it to evenings. I feel less stressed because I know am not being controlled by gym timings.
• Stronger & Calmer : I am definitely feeling more stronger, lighter and more flexible because my workouts are becoming consistent. Also added to it is the inner calmness I feel, which could be attributed to the focused breathing in yoga sequences, and the crisp fresh morning air.
• Clearer skin : I have a super oily, acne prone skin, that looks tired pretty much within couple of hours. However, I have seen a lot of difference in my skin texture in last 2 months.
• Eating right : Starting the day on a voluntary healthier note sets the tone right for the day, and I end up eating right most of time. I am struggling with my sugar intake still, but it has reduced a lot. Eating right keeps my metabolism up and running. This is really helpful, since am trying to lose weight, which does not happen easily for my body type.

Do you have any such experiences, where you decided to leave what everyone is following, and you followed your heart? Do let me know !

Keep Smiling, Cheers!

OM! 🙂

The Healthy habits wishlist!

Cant imagine how busy work has been keeping me.Or I am just cribbing about it? People are a lot more busier than me, so I think I need to set my priorities right! I just love the way how writing for this blog,leads to self-realizations and giving a nice advise to myself 😀

How have you guys been? Long gap from my side. Now that am back to routine ( I sneaked a couple of days between last week,to visit my hometown) , here’s what on my mind. You know some days,where your appetite is on a rocket ride? Well,I am experiencing such days. And am really really really hungry these days, and nothing seems to satisfy my hunger pangs! Am trying to eat as healthy as possible, but last night I broke into a bag of chips (guilty!!). I was hoping that this satisfies my cravings,but failed. Anyways, maybe its just those days when you are hungry, you ARE hungry! Do you have any suggestions to tackle such times? I have been thinking about certain good healthy habits I have been trying to inculcate in me. I decided to list them here –

1. Drinking lemon water every single morning – I have heard doing this has super affects in cleansing you body system, and makes you face glowing,pimple marks free.It also helps in symptoms of Hyperacidity. I so yearn for a clear,fresh face. Maybe this will help.

2. Suryanamaskars – Apart from my daily workouts, I want to squeeze in a ritual of doing at least 20 suryanamaskars every morning/evening. So that even if I miss my regular ones,I don’t feel ‘less accomplished’ at the end of the day. My workout schedule has now shifted to mornings, but I have been irregular on those sessions. This goal will at least keep me going.

3. Green tea – I have box of green tea bags in office, I force myself to drink at least 2 cups everyday. Am unsuccessful, because the taste is just not growing on me. Any suggestions of brand or how one can start liking green tea for that matter?

4. Detox once a week – Eating only raw fruits/vegetables and their juices once a week. For a foodie like me, this one is tough!

5.Cut down on Sugar – I seriously need to work on this one. I love sweets, and I also believe that people who do not like sweets are missing out on so much goodness of life. Anyhow, what I want to work on is the sugar cravings that I sometimes feel,and it usually leads to eating a lot more than required.

What are the habits you guys wish to add to your daily health routine? Do let me know!

Till the next time, Cheers! 🙂

Randomness in life & trying to be fit

I am in a state of confusion these days. . . .so many things are happening so suddenly that I don’t have the time to sit at a place for sometime with my cup of Chai, and think  “My life is sooo boring. . . . .”   😉

Am a laid back person, like to stay at home, travel minimal and basically just spend time with myself (My SOLITUDE and stuff like that! ) . . . . but last whole month I have been everywhere over the globe (Literally!)

Throw in a super sudden super short trip to Chicago for a training I had to attend. I was told that I’ll need to travel on a Thursday, I booked my tickets on Friday, and Saturday early morning I was on the flight. 😀 I was super excited as it was my first trip to the US. I landed in Chicago on a saturday evening, and after checking in my hotel, me and my colleagues stepped out for dinner. After a quick dinner, I came back and crashed in the bed (No jet lag,Yeyyy!)

Next morning I woke up at 6am,and saw it was snowing!!!!! First snowfall experience for me…and it was so awesome! 🙂

1 week in Chicago, and apart from my official training, I made most of it. I was staying in downtown, so I checked out Navy Pier, Michigan Lake, Sears Towers. We walked around everywhere, so no particular workouts happened. Well,walking is a workout,right? 🙂 I also indulged in a bit of retail therapy, and amongst all my buys, my favorite are these awesome black heels I found @ dirt cheap price.

I also had awesome food, special mentions to ‘Noodles & Company’ for an amazing Pasta and Salad , Ben & Jerry’s cookie dough Icecream.

 

I came back within a week, from -8 degrees celcius to 40 degree celcius in 18 hours! Talk about shocking my body with temperature differences 😛

In another week, I was Kolkata bound – again for 7 days. I was @ Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta – to attend classes and lectures for a General Business Management certification am doing. Kolkata weather killed me, literally! It was 42 degrees and add high levels of humidity to it! I was constantly sweating. Taking a shower twice a day became mandatory! I anyways had a great time attending classes and making new friends.

Calcutta is known as foodie paradise, and I made it a point to try out their famous ‘Rolls’ , Fuchkas (Paani Puri as we normally know it), Kulfis, Rasgulla’s – AMAZING!

 

And now am back to my normal routine, and am pretty happy about it. Back to my boring schedule – wake up , go to work, workout , come back, go to sleep. 😀

Weight scales do not seem to budge at all! So am planning on taking a ‘sugar’ break – or let me rephrase it – taking a ‘added sugar’ break. Lets see how it goes.

 

How have you guys been?

What do you do when the weight scales do not budge? Any tips?

 

Cheers!