Bottle gourd (Lauki/ Gheeya): Benefits and how to incorporate it in your diet

This week, let's take a look at Bottle Gourd (Lauki/ Gheeya)... ya I know, not the most popular vegetable! My son used to start dialing Dominos as soon as he would hear that we were making Gheeya for dinner.

This made me think, how should I get my family to consume Bottle gourd and that too in a way that it's tasty! Here are some of the ways that finally worked for me and my family...

Lauki - Pudina Juice (Bottle Gourd - Mint Juice)

Ingredients (for 1 - 2 glasses of juice)
1. 1/4th of a medium size bottle gourd
2. 4-5 mint leaves
3. Small piece of ginger
4. Juice of 1/2 lemon
5. Salt and cumin powder as per taste

Method:
Blend all the ingredients except the lemon juice in a blender. Add lemon juice, salt and cumin powder to the juice.
Note: Don't strain the juice as you would lose the fiber content. For maximum benefits, have this juice first thing in the morning on an empty stomach.


Lauki Raita (Bottle Gourd Yogurt)
Ingredients: (serves 2 - 3 people)
1. 1 bowl of curd
2. 1/4th of a medium size bottle gourd
3. Salt, pepper and red chilli powder as per taste

Method:
Beat the curd in a bowl. Grate the bottle gourd and steam cook it for 5 minutes. Add the steamed bottle gourd to the curd. Add the salt, pepper and chilli powder to the curd as per taste.

These are some of the healthier ways of incorporating Gheeya in your diet. Some other ways would be to make Gheeya/ Bottle gourd halwa, stuffed Gheeya parathas, Gheeya-Tomata-Carrot soup. For recipes, please get in touch with me.

Oh by the way, here are some of the health benefits of bottle gourd:

• It's 96% water! 
• Low in calories and high in fiber
• Helps you with weight loss
• Cools the body
• Easy to digest and helps in dealing with constipation
• Excellent for diabetes and hypertension patients

Hopefully that's motivation enough for you to try out these recipes. If you have any other interesting recipes of incorporating Gheeya in your diet, would love to hear them. Comment to my post or send me an email!

Have a good weekend! See you on Monday.

Recharge your mind and soul

A healthy mind is of utmost importance for a healthy body. We all spend hours to take care of our body, skin, hair and all external factors related to our body in order to look good. But how many of us take care of our mind and soul?

It is most essential to have a positive mind. A lot of negativity gets collected in our minds on a day to day basis due to the situations we face. Feelings like depression, anger, stress, jealousy keep piling up in our minds. What can we do to cleanse ourselves of such feelings? If we have trash collecting in our house, it's very obvious that we must throw it all out. Simple right? But what do you do when you have such junk collecting inside you? Not as easy as simply throwing it out right? That's why it's necessary for us refresh our minds and fill it with positivity instead of the negativity.

Here are some simple tips of recharging your mind and soul:

• Any form of physical exercise
• Yoga
• Pranayam
• Meditation
• Spend some time with small children. They are great stress busters!

But do remember to take out some time for refreshing your mind on a daily basis! Next time you reach out for the remote to watch tv, think to yourself, did I give myself at least 15 to 20 minutes to refresh my mind and soul today? If not, get to it right then! After all, we are responsible for our own happiness!

Having a Healthy Balanced Diet

We have all heard the following phrase:

" Eat breakfast like a King,

Lunch like a Prince,

& Dinner like a Pauper!"

But how many of us follow this? Despite of the fact that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, many people skip this meal and are likely to suffer from lack of energy during the course of the day. This often leads to irritability and headaches, not to mention some serious growling in your stomach by mid-day!

It's important to understand that to have a balanced diet, we need to focus on not only what we are eating during the day but also on when we eat and how much! For example, a healthy breakfast kick starts your metabolism, while the night is the worst time of the day to eat a big meal as your body metabolism would have slowed down.

Here's a sample easy-to-follow balanced diet plan:

Early morning (6 to 7am): 

1 glass of warm water, with lemon (optional)

Breakfast (9 to 10am): 

Veg options: Wheat flakes with milk/ Vegetable Poha/ Brown bread vegetable sandwich/ Idly samabar

Non Veg options: 1 boiled egg/ Scrambled egg/ 2 egg white omlette and 2 slices of whole wheat bread

Mid-morning snack: (11 - 11.30am)

Fruit/ Vegetable/ Sprout salad and coconut water

Lunch (1.30pm):

2 to 3 chappatis without ghee

1 cup dal, 

1 to 2 pieces of grilled chicken or fish 

1 bowl of vegetable,

1 glass of buttermilk

Tea time (4.30 to 5.30pm): 

Tea and snack like Bhelpuri/ Dhokla/ Marie biscuits/ Roasted channa

Dinner (7.30 to 8.30pm): 

2 chapathi without ghee,

1 bowl of vegetable 

Vegetable raita

Bed time (optional): 1 cup milk or buttermilk

Fruits

Sprouts: The Miracle Food!

 Did you know that sprouts are rich in vitamins, minerals, proteins, fibre and active antioxidants which prevent DNA destruction and aging! Incentive enough for you to eat sprouts?

Here are some easy and tasty ways of incorporating this wonder food into your diet:

1. As breakfast:

Sprout Paratha Filling

Sprouts Paratha
Ingredients: (for 4 - 5 parathas)
1. 1 cup sprouts (green gram)
2. 1 onion (finely chopped)
3. 1 green chilly
4. 1 piece ginger
5. Mint and coriander leaves
6. 1/2 teaspoon ajwain
7. Salt and red chilli powder as per taste
8. Wheatflour dough to make paratha


Method:
Mix all the ingredients in a bowl. Make small balls out of the wheat flour dough and fill the sprouts mixture in the ball. Roll into a paratha. Cook the paratha on a tawa by using few drops of olive oil (preferably).
Serve hot with coriander mint green chutney and/or curd.

Sprout Paratha

2. As a healthy snack:

Sprouts Salad

Sprouts Salad

Ingredients:
1. 1 cup sprouts
2. 1/4 cup fresh pomogrenate
3. 1 unpeeled cucumber (chopped into small cubes)
4. 1 peeled carrot (chopped into small pieces)
5. Mint and coriander leaves
6. Juice of half a lemon
7. Salt, pepper and chat masala as per taste

Method:
Mix all the ingredients and it's ready to eat!

Give it a try this weekend! Your family will enjoy the taste and will also thank you in the long run for making them healthier!

Skin care - the easy way

We all know that it's important to consider our skin type while buying skin products (and not just blindly buy a product because an actress is advertising the product and saying it's done wonders for her skin! Your skin types might be completely different)

However, what's common across skin types is the type of care you need to take of it. Irrespective of whether you have dry skin, oily skin, combination skin or normal skin, it's important to follow this regular skin care routine at home:

Daily (Twice a day - morning and evening)

Cleanse

Tone
Moisturize
&
very importantly apply sunscreen while going out in the sun

Twice a week
Face scrub to exfoliate the skin

Once a week
Apply Face Pack for glowing skin

Home Remedies
Here's a face scrub and face pack which can easily be made at home:

Face scrub:
Mix lemon juice and sugar. Apply this mixture on the face and neck region avoiding the eyes. After 10 mins, gently massage your face and neck with your finger tips in circular motion and then wash your face with warm water.

Face pack:
Mix water melon juice and multani mithti. Apply the mixture on the face and neck region avoiding the eyes. After 10 mins, wash your face with warm water.

By the way, watermelon is great for the skin! It's rich in vitamin A, B and C which keeps the skin radiant and hydrated.

Watermelon juice is a natural toner and also helps in removing blemishes from the skin - just dip a cotton pad in the juice and apply it over your face and neck after cleansing. This will help your skin exfoliate and will also tighten it.

Incorporating exercises in your everyday life!

Today, we'll just touch upon why we need to exercise. We all know that it's necessary to exercise to stay fit but why and how does it help?

• Did you know that exercise helps you burn calories not only when you are working out but also during the rest of the day. 
• If you don't exercise, your body metabolism will slow down over the years. This is one of the main reasons for putting on weight even though our eating habits don't change. 
• In order to boost up your metabolism rate, your muscle tissues must be active which can be achieved by exercising and by having a well balanced diet. More on balanced diet in my next Monday's blog!

Here are some easy ways of exercising which don't need any fancy gym equipment or a specific place to be carried out:

1. Brisk walking (20 to 30 mins) - can even be done in the comfort of your home in front of the TV!
2. Using staircases instead of lifts or escalators
3. Skipping or spot jogging (you can start with 50 counts and gradually increase the counts)
4. Dancing to fast music
5. Using public transportation like buses rather than travelling by car (it forces you to walk and is also good for the environment!)
6. Cycling - helps tone and shape up your thighs and hips
7. Play your favorite sport instead of just watching it on TV like cricket, tennis or badminton
8. Last but not least, if you have children, spend some time playing with them outdoors. Not only will it help you work out but it's fun and a great way to bond with children. 

Any activity that increases your heart rate, rate of respiration and/or makes you sweat ;) usually is an effective exercise. 

Please note before starting any new exercise routine, please consider your medical background and your age and plan your exercise schedule accordingly. If you want a personal exercise schedule, please email me.

Jeeyo Healthy with Nalini's tips and tricks :)

With over 25 years of experience in the field of health, beauty and nutritional counselling, I have successfully helped a large number of clients to shed excess weight and lead a healthier life. This interaction has given me rich real life experience in transforming lifestyles. Over the years, I used this experience to set up a chain of health and beauty clinics spread across India. 

Now through this blog, I wish to widen my reach and share my experience with people all over the world who wish to know more about how to lead a healthy lifestyle. You might be wondering how Jeeyo Healthy is different from any other blogs or articles on health and nutrition. Well, firstly my recommendations are going to be such that can easily be incorporated in your daily lifestyles (and won't demand you to do crazy things like starve yourself or using passive methods such as sticking heat pads on your tummy!). Also I will ensure that you get the necessary motivation to follow through!

Do remember, a healthy lifestyle can only be achieved if one has a positive mindset and healthy body & soul. My blogs will talk about these different aspects and how to achieve this harmony.

Here's how I intend to cover different topics related to healthy lifestyle over each week:

• Monday: Focus on Fitness, Health and Nutrition
• Wednesday: Since beauty isn't just skin deep, we'll talk about how to beautify our mind, body and soul
• Saturday: Easy DIY healthy recipes for you to try out over the weekend!

Follow my blog to get weekly information on these topics.

Hope you benefit from my experience. If you wish to get personal guidance on a one to one basis, please send me an email.