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Wellness

How to detox after Diwali binge eating

Sweets, colas, staying up late…all of these combine to wreak havoc on your system. Here’s how you detox and cleanse.
by Reyna Mathur

Diwali is a time for revelry, for meeting up with friends and eating sweets and namkeen food. We tell ourselves that the festival comes by just once a year, so it’s okay to let go and indulge our taste buds. While that is certainly fine once a year, your body needs some help cleansing itself once the festivities are over.

An excess of sugar may cause a hormonal imbalance, spike your blood sugar and blood pressure, cause mood swings and mess up your digestion. It further causes more cravings for sweet and fried food. Some people continue binging on sweets way after Diwali is over. It is time to rid the body of the excess sugar and regain good health. Here’s how:

1. Tank up on fluids.

Water is your #1 rescuer in these situations. It flushes out excess toxins and helps the kidneys eliminate sugar from the system. Start the day with a glass of warm water, mix the juice of half a lemon in it. Have this on an empty stomach. Have another glass after lunch and dinner. Additionally, keep sipping water throughout the day. Even green tea will work wonders in flushing out sugar.

2. Go raw.

Help your system relax by giving it a break from fried, processed food. Instead, stock up on raw fruit and vegetables. These will provide essential nutrients and fibre to aid the digestive process. Any metabolic disorders caused by excess sugar will also be balanced with this diet. The key is to include a variety of coloured vegetables in your diet for at least two consecutive days. Stay away from white rice, colas, maida and other processed foods.

3. Go for a walk.

Walking or any other physical exercise will make you sweat, get your heart racing and increase blood flow to the organs. In turn, this will the digestive system working better to eliminate sugars and toxins. Sugar also tends to harm the skin and hair – brisk exercise will correct these problems.

4. Nap less.

The idea is to rev up your metabolism, so avoid activities that make you sluggish. The excess sugar in your system will make you sleepy, but avoid taking naps right after eating or while sitting at your desk. Similarly, satisfy a sugar craving with a sweet fruit such as date or grapes. Walk around the neighbourhood after a meal to keep your brain alert.

5. Go for a body massage.

A trained masseur can help the body flush out toxins through a combination of acupressure and essential oil massage. It will also help calm your nerves after hectic partying and put you in a better frame of mind to adopt a healthier diet and exercise in your daily regimen.

(Picture courtesy www.bbcgoodfood.com. Image is used for representational purpose only)

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Deal with it

City police chief unveils security gadget for women journos

Zicom has created an alert that the user can press, generating real time location info and photos that will be immediately analysed.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Women journalists face many threats in the line of duty. Added to the list of late nights, rounds of courts and police stations, going to unsafe places to report a news item is the threat of predators. In the recent past, there have been incidents of women journalists in Mumbai being targeted and attacked while on duty.

The electronics security company Zicom has now launched a security alert system, Ziman, that acts like a ‘personal bodyguard’. The device was launched at the hands of Mumbai Police chief Javed Ahmed in the city yesterday.

Explaining the need for the device, Zicom’s Managing Director Pramoud Rao said, “The job of a journalist is really commendable. They accept great risk to unravel the truth and get the story for people. But they need to travel at odd hours and go to unsafe places to cover a story, which puts their life at risk. There have been several unfortunate incidents of attacks on in the recent past. The device gets to work when there is a risk. All the journalist needs to do is trigger the alert installed in her mobile phone and our response team gets in action.”

When the trigger is activated, the mobile phone starts sending pictures and videos to the Zicom Command Centre which is immediately analysed. “We alert the family at once and even contact the authorities and the emergency services if needed,” Rao adds.

Javed Ahmed added, “On several occasions, even if we catch the culprits, there is no proof against them. With this device, the pictures and videos of the attack taking place are immediately captured. Not only can the attack be prevented but immediate action can also be taken.

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Deal with it

Resolution for Diwali: Stop preparing for imaginary guests

We have so many items stashed away for ‘when guests will come’ that we have forgotten to enjoy our own possessions.
Pooja Birwatkarby Dr Pooja Birwatkar

The pre Diwali mood has already set in all over the city. Everyone is busy sprucing up their homes, cleaning out their wardrobes, throwing out broken items and washing their curtains.

Cleaning is therapeutic for many of us. It is an amusing activity that makes us see how much stuff we have hoarded all year, how many items we had misplaced and overlooked. Diwali cleaning is especially disturbing to those who are compulsive hoarders. Most of us cannot resist sales and bargains, where we buy things in bulk and never even use them.

We also have a strange habit of buying things and then packing them away for ‘future use’. Be it beautiful crockery, bed sheets, towels, carpets, glassware, perfumes, silverware…we don’t use them, but preserve them. Rooted deep in our psyche is the philosophy that all expensive items must be used only for special occasions, when guests arrive. This means that we wait our entire lives for ‘important guests’ to arrive and give us the chance to use our cherished possessions. In the meantime, we sleep on ragged linen, eat in old plates, drink juice in steel containers and use threadbare towels…despite all the excellent stuff we have hidden away, unused.

Then Diwali comes and we realise that our expensive leather bags have wrinkled away, we are too large to fit into that costly dress, mould has gotten into the bedsheets we bought. Life has passed us by while we waited for people to show up.

Our desire to show off to our guests stops us from living for ourselves. We spend all our lives working hard – what stops us from enjoying the fruit of our labour? We base our entire lives on how people will perceive us, and so our material possessions define our reality. If you think about it, our houses in Mumbai are not even large enough to accommodate guests. The guests themselves are too busy to notice that they are wiping their faces on expensive towels or sleeping on silk sheets.

This Diwali, let’s pledge to use all the things we have stacked away. Give away the things that you have not used for over six months. The next time your child wants juice, unpack that beautiful glass tumbler. If you want, unwrap those new sheets when you make your bed today.

Let’s celebrate Diwali for ourselves first.

(Picture courtesy blog.at-home.co.in. Image is used for representational purpose only)

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Achieve

Underprivileged children put up photo exhibition in Mumbai

Click Rights, a photojournalism initiative, returns in its 2015 edition with photographs taken by street children of their younger siblings.
by Child Rights and You

The first five years play a significant role in a child’s life. But for thousands of children, a healthy start to life continues to be a distant dream. Long before they turn five, their physical, emotional and cognitive growth is hampered by the lack of adequate nutrition and healthcare. Child Rights and You (CRY) aims to change this by launching its ‘Get Healthy. Give Healthy’ campaign that will give 2,81,045 children a healthy start to their lives.

One of the primary features of the campaign is CRY’s annual photo journalism initiative called ‘Click Rights’  that is in its 4th year.  Click Rights 2015 will highlight through the power of photography the health and nutrition challenges faced by children under the age of 5 years. A large number of the photographs have been contributed by children from our supported project areas in the States of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh, with training from esteemed photographers and CRY volunteers. These children were given cameras to photograph the daily lives of their younger siblings. Many of the elder children had in fact never stepped into a school because they were entrusted to look after their younger siblings.

Their photographs will be showcased at exhibitions across the country, in malls, parks, colleges and as part of projections on prominent buildings.

In Mumbai, the first exhibition will be at Phoenix Mall, Kurla (West) from October 17 to 18.

“The real health of a country can be measured by how we look after our children. Hence it is alarming that in India today, 13 million children are un-immunised, making them susceptible to deadly diseases, and 40 per cent of these children are underweight. With Click Rights, we would like to highlight the health related issues confronting children in India. We hope it will build awareness, start conversations and motivate people to take action for children,” says Kreeanne Rabaddi, Director, Western Region, Child Rights and You (CRY).

PHOTOVOICES

This is what 12-year-old Raj clicked.

Photo by Raj“This is my two-year-old brother Manas. He is quite naughty and plays with mud all day. We are three brothers and one sister. We live on the roadside and spend our whole day playing. We have no school in our area. We don’t have any toilets as well. I want to see my brother happy. I want to build him a home one day.”

This is what six-year-old Anjali clicked

“My little brother Ajay (name changed, in featured image above) stays with me all the time and plays with me. I take care of his needs. He is one year old. My parents are labourers, they leave the house early in the morning and come back only after dark. We live on the street, sometimes it is difficult to manage him, but most of the times I do it with ease. I love my brother very much and think of him as an angel. If he weren’t there in my life, I don’t know what would I do the whole day.”

This is what 12-year-old Umesh has to say of his photo…

“These two girls are my best friends. They are more like my sisters. Many of the kids don’t go to school, so we play all Photo By Umeshday on the road. Some people give us food to eat, on Sundays so many bhaiyas and didis come to visit us and we have fun sessions with them. I wait for Sundays, that’s the only day I feel loved and cared for.”

Categories
Deal with it

How to make a good impression at work

You don’t need to suck up to the boss. Healthy work habits, promptness and good manners will get you far.
by Reyna Mathur

Shashwati Agarwal (33) vividly remembers her first job at a magazine office in Bangalore. “As an editorial assistant, I had to ensure that all functions in the office happened smoothly, nobody’s work got held up due to scheduling mistakes, all advertisement dummies came in at the right time. I was also in charge of ensuring smooth production.” She says the biggest compliment came from her boss, who called her when Shashwati was on a month-long break owing to an illness. “My boss said, ‘We can’t handle this without you. Please come back soon!’” she laughs.

All of us crave for approval and confirmation that we are doing our jobs so right that the office will suffer if we are not there. But the practical reality is that nobody is indispensable at the workplace – if you quit today, the office will simply replace you and work will go on as before. However, there are always a few employees who are so impressive at the office that when they decide to quit, the management normally tries to talk them out of it. Contrast this with other employees, whose resignations are accepted at once. This means that the former are doing something that the latter are not.

Here’s how you can come close to being indispensable at the office:

Always be ahead of schedule. If you are in charge of a certain task which has to be completed in a week, start on it the moment the assignment is given to you. People make the mistake of starting work at the last minute and then handing in shoddy work. If you give yourself enough time to work out your assignment, your focus will be greater and the quality will be top notch – a sure way to get noticed. If you are in charge of a regular task, ensure that you are ready with the final product before deadline.

Cultivate good manners. Always be ready with a smile and a genuine compliment for colleagues and your immediate seniors. Your composure will be tested in times of stressful high-pressure situations, so handle yourself with dignity and calmness. If you find a colleague panicking over an issue, try to calm them down and offer assistance. If you see your boss looking tired or stressed, tell him or her in a polite, non-intrusive way that you have noticed them looking worried, and that they should let you know if you can help in any way. Extending a helping hand always works, but be genuine in your interactions.

Display initiative. If you have a solution to a problem, don’t be afraid to offer it. Many employees don’t offer solutions fearing that others will think they are showing off, or that it will annoy the boss if they speak out of turn. Unless you are being brash and arrogant about it, there is no harm in revealing that you have something to say. Make your point and don’t gloat if your suggestions are taken on board, and don’t sulk if they are not. You are not there to display one-upmanship; you are there to work with a team. Don’t try to stand out in a group and never claim credit for the group’s success even if it was your hard work and ideas that won them the success.

Be organised. Understand how the office operates on projects, and follow that system religiously. If necessary, add your own tips and tricks to the system to optimise it further. If you are left to work out your own system, start by making progress charts of an ongoing project, and if necessary, tack them on to the soft board at your work station. This brings a semblance of order to the job, especially if it helps you to keep track of all deadlines and summarise the project satisfactorily. Your seniors might adopt this system and you will be credited with introducing it to the office.

Don’t badmouth anyone in the office. Even if your immediate colleague is highly irritating or your boss is irrational, refrain from speaking ill about anybody in the office. Since everybody gossips, the person who doesn’t immediately sticks out and gets noticed by the seniors. Your office management will understand that you are discreet, mature and capable of not giving in to the temptation to gossip.

(Picture courtesy www.morganmckinley.com. Images used for representational purpose only)

Categories
Wellness

Maharashtra skateboards for breast cancer awareness

Skateboarders from across the State convened recently at Bandra to spread awareness about rising incidence of breast cancer in India.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

October is known as Breast Cancer Awareness month. In India, however, despite rising numbers of breast cancer victims, many women are still shying away from speaking about the disease. There is also widespread ignorance about the disease and its symptoms, which renders it undetectable for long.

Understanding that breast cancer continues to the leading killer of Indian women, the DS Research Centre came up with the idea of spreading awareness about breast cancer. They decided to do this with a skateboarding rally, which would travel the length and breadth of the country all this month. The rally kicked off in Mumbai at Bandra with over 50 skateboarders from across Maharashtra participating in it.

The next phase of the rally goes to Bengaluru.

Some facts about breast cancer:

– Breast cancer accounts to about 29.7% of all cancers in women.

– Approximately 2,000 to 2,500 new cases of breast cancer are detected every year in Mumbai, and the number is increasing.

– Presently, breast cancer is more common in the younger age group and 52% of all women suffering from breast cancer in Mumbai are below 50 years of age.

– A significant number of patients are below 30 years of age.

– Men can get breast cancer too.

– 1 out of every 2 women detected with breast cancer is in the terminal stages of the disease in India.

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