Nayantara Karnik

Everything You Need to know About Diets – Diet 101

Nayantara Karnik · September 2, 2015 · 1 Comment

In my first article, I talked about some of the more commonly believed myths about dieting and losing weight. Here I hope to explain more about how to get started on developing a healthy diet and the importance of knowing your calories. Remember the last time I mentioned that diet is 80% of the key to weight loss, or weight management if you prefer.

What are Calories?

To start with, what are calories really? A calorie is basically a unit of energy that the body derives from fuel which in this case is food per weight in grams/ ounces. Technically when we say there are 155 calories in 100 gms of boiled egg, it’s actually Kilo-calories (like kilograms versus grams in units of weight), but for convenience it’s usually referred to as just calories.

Different types of food provide different quanta of energy or calories. What happens to these calories? Your body uses and burns it in doing various activities. Even when sleeping your body is burning calories just to keep your heart beating, your brain and organs functioning, amongst a myriad of other natural and involuntary functions. I’ll come back to why that’s important later.

The basic principle of understanding how this works in relation to weight management is knowing your energy consumption vs. energy expenditure, or calories in vs calories out. A calorie deficit is when you eat less than you burn and will result in weight loss, whereas a calorie surplus is when you eat more than you burn, leading to weight gain. Simple enough concept, right?

How to use Henna and Indigo to naturally darken brown Hair?

Nayantara Karnik · July 22, 2015 · 48 Comments

Since I hit my 30s, I’ve been noticing greys creeping up one by one. Maybe not 50 shades, but enough to be noticeable! Sadly, most of them turn up around the crown of my head and end up being very visible. Ever since I decided to grow out my hair, I’ve been trying to take care of it better and part of that was to stop using chemical dyes on it.

I just got tired of the whole cycle of getting damaged and split ends, cutting it then wondering why I wasn’t able to grow it out. So around 3-4 years ago I decided to start using henna. My henna of choice is the one by Shahnaz Hussain, and I’ve been happy with it. I actually like the smell and love the way it conditions my hair.

But, from 8-10 greys or so, I now have loads more…sigh, the perils of ageing!! And, I really detest those bright orangey-red threads running though my hair. I literally had nightmares of my whole head turning a ghastly orange. After the usual internet research, I found there were 2 options to naturally colour hair dark-brown to black, though it doesn’t seem to be used commonly in India. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

Both these methods involve the use of indigo, and as fate would have it, when I happened to step into the local organic store a few days later, I spotted it on the shelf, so picked up a pack. This is the one that I’m using, and it’s available on flipkart and amazon, probably other sites too. Since then I’ve used it twice, and I did get better results the 2nd time I used it. Just like plain henna, it builds up colour with each use.

By the way this is the same indigo used to dye denim, and it can’t be used on it’s own, it’s always used in combination with henna. So, if you would like to know how to use it, read on ladies (and gents)!

So, the thing about the indigo molecule is that it literally needs the henna to hold onto the hair shaft and they are used together either as a 1-step or 2-step process. In a 2-step process, you get a deep blue-black colour, which I understand colours even lighter toned hair and the 1-step gives you a deep auburn to dark-brown shade.

5 Myths Busted about Weight Loss and Exercise – Diet and Fitness 101

Nayantara Karnik · July 17, 2015 · 10 Comments

It’s hard to decide where to start this, especially when ‘diet’ is probably one of the most searched keywords on the internet. However I’d like to think of this as a post about the basics of being and staying healthy. This is for those who are overweight, underweight, just want to get healthy or want to improve their health.

Personally I’m not a health expert or a dietician, but I have been consistently active since I was at school and over the last 8 years I have done my share of research on diet and health when I first put on a few extra kilos. Along the way I’ve gathered plenty of info which I’ve put to use, figured out what works for me and this usually applies to most people. Since I like to think of myself as a scientific-minded person, fad diets and the latest popular routine don’t appeal to me. My goal is to be and stay as healthy as possible for the rest of my life.

I’m hoping to write this as a series of posts as there’s just way too much to put down all at once, and it can get confusing. So let me start by busting a few stubborn myths out there that just don’t seem to die.

Fad Diets

High-protein, low-carb, high-fat, low-fat, paleo, cabbage-soup diets and what not!! All these will definitely help you lose weight in the short-term because any diet that’s restrictive will naturally make you lose the pounds.