Swathy and Sky

5 Simple Diet Tips to keep my family Healthy which you can also follow {Health}

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balanced diet and protein for hair growth

Lately, being the sole caretaker of the house and our meal plans, I have started drifting towards the easy and not-necessarily healthy meals. Breakfast is proving more difficult to plan in the long run. It looks like a mess menu with 7 days with different breakfasts repeated without break week after week which is really monotonous.

I have not yet been able to tackle this breakfast issue because of my laziness as well but some of the healthier things I have been able to incorporate in our routine has definitely improved our health overall. Unfortunately, hubs does not take eggs so the protein has to be made up from somewhere else which is as yet I am unsure of.

One Apple a Day keeps Cravings Away

One good thing hubs has is not munching and eating unnecessarily. He has a limited appetite when compared to my voracious one. And, he also has a very limited meal needs. I am the one who needs variety and I so wish there was someone at my beck and call.

Anyways, so to make our breakfasts more fulfilling and due to lack of time to include fruit in any other meal, we take one apple per day during the breakfast. As a rule, I would recommend the fruit at the end of the breakfast so as to help cleanse the teeth as well but eating fruits on empty stomach is also a good idea!!

banana with oats
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Good Ol’ Dalia or Oats

Did I tell you I suffer from borderline cholesterol? Yup and what else can come to my rescue but the oats. Yes, I love dalia as well. I did not use to like it much but over the years palates have changed. If you are taking oats, I would suggest you to go sugarless way but then considering even I do not find it palatable, a bit of sugar can do no harm.

Lets go nutty

I love nuts – cashews or walnuts or almonds. I do go easy on the raisins and dates and pistas and all other dry fruits. But, I totally love pine nuts. We used to get loads of them in Simla from our friends (the fresh produce) but if you go to buy them in the market, you really do not find a fresh produce.

Anyways, either chop your nuts and store them or powder and store them and sprinkle them on the oats, dalia, sweets, salads, smoothies, milk shakes and what not? Best way to get omegas and good fats. Not only that, I have a huge amount of flax seeds sitting at home. Eating them raw is manageable but I am sure most would hate it so roast them and powder them in small batches and finish within a week or 10 days.

sandwich with cheese as snacks
photo credit: cygnoir via photopin cc

Snacking 

As much as I love my gol gappas and aloo tikkis, they do not taste yummy unless you are in the right mood and then I am so lazy that getting ready to go out is a huge task. Instead, I can grab a sandwich or something else made at home. In fact, I have been gorging on roasted lotus seeds. I love them and I love chat masala so mix the two and a yummy and filling snack is ready.

Similarly, I love bread and there is a host of dishes we can do with it. The simplest starts with assembling all the raw salad veggies in between bread slices and my favourite is to mix cheese and onion and salt and put the mix between the slices and toast it in sandwich maker. A few minutes and you get an absolutely lip-smacking dish ready. Well, that is only for cheese and onion lovers though!!

And, finally Tea, Herbal or Not!!

No, I am not much enamoured of the fact that I have become a tea-addict but sometimes when I have been in the mood I have noticed that drinking any herbal tea helps prevent cravings. Specially talking about ginger tea, it is absolutely amazing that how filling it feels after having it.

Also, a good accompaniment to herbal teas are multi-grain biscuits. Now, it depends on whether you make at home or buy them in the market. I, for one, love the Mcvities brand of biscuits.

These are a few healthy things which are there in my routine. Forget exercise, forget drinking water and forget proper sleep, none of them are really happening with me. So, if you are going through the same phase as I am, I would suggest t come up with short cut health tips which you can follow without disturbing your schedule too much.

So, what are your regular health care tips? Those small things which you do in your entire day which does not feel really important but can do wonders in the longer run. A small routine change, a simple inclusion of a meal plan or a brisk walk of 10 minutes – what is your secret?

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Are these factors causing hair fall for you and how you can work around them? {Hair Care}

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hair fall reasons

A lack of an entire year of hair care and now I am sporting a shoulder length hair which I can not tie neither can I flaunt because it frizzes out crazily! And, facing a major amount of hair fall.

That reminds me that I get an insane amount of mails that everyone is facing a major amount of hair fall and I am not really mocking anyone, mind you. I am just trying to address a problem here. No one really specifies what major amount? Actually, does any one really know how much amount of hair falling is actually called a hair fall issue gone out of hand.

How much hair fall can be called a hair fall problem?

Officially, everyday we can expect up to around 150-200 hairs coming out of the hair which if we look in a bunch would obviously look a lot!! And, this value can actually vary depending on our diet intake, lifestyle, stress, climate, lack or excess of exercise, lack of omega 3’s and good fats in the system and what not!! Its not really easy to make out what is happening to hair and our internal body. Well, that is why probably yoga is one of the most preferred ways to keep body in balance. So, let me just try to write down what can be the most immediate factors for major hair fall in the body.

If you have a continuous hair fall of copious amount for more than two months under variable conditions, then probably it is something to pay attention to. But, again, may be you are pregnant or going through post-partum period or have been recovering from a major shock or change in your life. See what I told you – hair is damn fickle!!

hair care

May be you have thyroid or diabetes or anything else?

Do check out with your doc and get some blood tests done and rule out the more serious health conditions. Thyroid is more often than not the culprit but then you can get yourselves scanned for cancer also, just in case!! Better to safe than sorry. And, then, do check out for antibiotics you are taking. They can weaken your immunity to an alarming rate and hair is the first to show such symptoms.

Oh btw, the list does not end here. Do you have PCOS or PCOD? Or, may be anaemia? Or, your body is basically using all its resources somewhere else. Hair and skin are the last organs to be given nutrients as they rank pretty low on the major organs list of the body so they are the first to show any symptoms of problem in the body.

Do you have fine hair?

Ok, this is a sad news for all those fine hair owners. Fine hair is more prone to hair fall than the thick hair counterparts. Now, I am not sure if it is because of the breakage or weak roots, both of which mean weak hair.

Keep changing your parting

If you have been parting your hair or your hair gets parted automatically at the same place, beware that the said area is a potential bald spot zone. It is prudent to keep changing your hair part often to encourage hair growth at all the hair lines. This can, especially, increase the female pattern hair baldness problem. Keep changing the part from extreme left to extreme right.

Similarly, if you tie your hair constantly in one place, it is a good habit to sport different hair styles. Tying hair or sporting same hair style everyday at the same place creates strain and weakens the hair at that spot so it breaks off easily. So, if you are braiding the hair, leave it in a ponytail next day.
 balanced diet

Improper Diet

Well, isn’t diet the most obvious cause of any issue in the body? Lack of iron, lack of sulphur, lack of zinc, lack of magnesium or potassium, lack of good fats, lack of Vitamin A or B family or C or even D, anything can result in hair fall. Vitamin B family is way too important for hair growth whether it is a biotin or folic acid.

Also, lack of protein causes the hair to lose volume and become lanky. Lack of water makes hair lose all the shine and bounce. So, ultimately, it is the food which makes our hair look amazing. So, get your diet to include some eggs, green leafy veggies and fruits. Basically, eat everything and make your plate as colourful as possible!

So, this was just a basic round up of all the reason which might cause severe hair fall. Let us discuss more about them some other time. What all other reasons will you attribute to hair fall? Do add your comments 🙂

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Books 2014 Vol. 11 – “God is a Gamer” by Ravi Subramaniam

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God is a Gamer by Ravi Subramaniam book review

About the Author

Sometime last year, I received The Bankster by the same author which I was not very impressed with. It was a plot involving the corporate bankers and secret nuclear project and blood diamonds. But, I was not really thrilled over there and that book had a lot of grammatical errors. I might not be a grammar nazi but the editors are expected to be!!
But, a lot of changes have happened in the last one year. And, his latest book God is a Gamer is a real game changer. The plot is all over there right from America to India which starts with a senator assassinated to a major ATM heist in the heart of New York in broad daylight to a major banking CEO murdered and many more sub plots which will have you reeling!!

About the Book

Where should I start talking about the plot and which ones should I talk about? Russia plans an imminent change in their payment system and shut down the visa and mastercard and put up a nationalized payment card system. Gillian Tan, a senator, is called upon to control this change as it would result in billions of dollars of loss for the involved parties.

And, soon after, Gillian Tan is assassinated. The scene then shifts to PM’s office in India where appointment for the RBI governor is pending and he looks through the shortlisted candidates. On the other hand, Swami comes to know through his mother that some amount of cash was withdrawn from their neighbour’s account when she reacted to the almost-real looking spam mail.

Turns out that this fraud has happened with many of the customers of NYIB, the bank for which Swami is the retail head of India. Malvika, the CEO, has sour relations with him and holds him responsible for the damage and loss the spam has caused the bank. Soon after, to contain this damage and realizing that the CEO lacks leadership skills, the management of NYIB plans to replace Malvika which throws her into depression.

God is a Gamer by Ravi Subramaniam book review

Aditya is the owner of eTIOS and Indiscape, a BPO which has NYIB as one of its clients and a growing gaming company, is an ex-employee and mentor of Swami. His son, Varun, comes into his life after 20 years and takes over the gaming company with his bright and new-age ideas. He meets Tanya in Rio-de-Janeiro and accidentally bumps into her in Goa and then again in Mumbai.

Tanya, Malvika’s daughter plans a birthday blast for her in Four Seasons during which her colleagues and the who’s who are invited. Even the finance minister makes his appearance and just as he leaves, Malvika is found lying on the ground floor after a 32 floor fall. Tanya actively blames the finance minister.

And, in New York, a grand ATM heist of 5 million dollars in the heart of New York is planned and executed successfully. And, this money is taken from NYIB. The FBI gets on the case and then they start unravelling the threads which connect all the incidents happening.

My Verdict

But, the surprise is at the end of the novel and the tagline befits the plot perfectly! Though you would wonder if the motivation and the target were really in sync with each other.

The novel is breathtaking and everything moves at jet speed. The language is correct and I could spot only one grammatical error in the entire book which was a missing period, nothing major. So, yes, I would say its a treat for any crime thriller lover.

This review is a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. Participate now to get free books!