Ranadeep Moitra of Endorphins Corrective Exercise Studio and Ryan Fernando of Qua Nutrition conducted a workshop on Healthy Living, Clean Eating & Good Movement at Endorphins, Alipore. Here’s what t2 picked up... 

RANADEEP MOITRA LISTS THE COMMON MISTAKES IN THE GYM

1 Not stretching enough. This makes lifting techniques poor. It is not possible to lift weights without being flexible. You will injure yourself. Sometimes people stretch too much; this can lead to laxity in the joints. This is more common in women. Find a middle ground. 

2 Lifting too much. How do you know when you’re lifting too much? When you can’t keep good form and you’re just lifting to finish the exercise. The human brain tends to remember the last two reps in a set and if your form starts to break, that will become your lasting technique. You must lift till you achieve failure (when you’re fatigued) and generally people achieve failure between 10 and 12 reps, which is good for building endurance.

3 Resting too much or too little. What’s an ideal rest pattern between sets? The more reps you do, the less time you need to recover. The fewer the reps, the higher the weights, the more the fatigue, the more rest you need. 

4 Poor sleep cycles. Our sleep cycle is closely tied to daylight and darkness, which is linked to our hormones. The stress hormone (cortisol) is highest in the morning, so we can get up and get on with our lives. As daylight wanes, the body produces melatonin and seratonin that calms us down and loud noises or harsh lights interfere with this. So the ideal time to go to bed is 10.30pm. How many hours you need varies from person to person, so 10.30pm to 6.30am is not the same as midnight to 8am. If you’re working late, you have to make do with what you’ve got, of course. But if you have the option to sleep early, you must. Too much sleep will make you sluggish as well.

5 Too much cardio. Any exercise that elevates your heart rate and causes positive stress on the body is called cardiovascular training. There doesn’t have to be a cardio section in the gym. Any physical activity requires muscle strength and cardiovascular strength. You think you’ve lost a lot of weight doing cardio, but you’ve probably lost a lot of muscle, since muscle is easier to lose than fat. It’s impossible to lose a significant amount of weight without losing some muscle but you can control muscle loss with more strength training and less steady-state cardio. 

6 The wrong use of weights. Cardio has a negative effect on bone density and the way to improve that is by loading the bone (the part of the body that bears the weight), which is where strength training comes in as well. That’s not tricep pull-downs or dumbbell curls. For bone density, you have to load the longer bones in the body, so the force travels through the spine, hips and legs. The force has to be one-tenth of the force that causes a fracture. When the bone bends, it has to recognise that it needs to get stronger.

RYAN FERNANDO CHARTS A NUTRITION PLAN 

What’s your capacity for nutrition? “Qua” in latin means “in capacity of”. We help people discover their capacity for nutrition. When we understand how your genes work, you don’t have to work with general philosophies like “red meat is bad for you” or “milk tea is not good”. It’s about what agrees with your body. Then again, let’s take one cup of green tea vs one cup of milk tea. One cup of green tea is 0 calories. 1 cup of milk tea will have 2 teaspoons (10g) of sugar in it, which is 40 calories and milk is another 40 calories, so 80 calories altogether. If you’re on a mission to be healthy, milk tea is not good. If you’re lean, mean, clean and 1 cup of milk tea keeps you happy, go ahead, have it. 

Fat cells take eight years to turn over in the human body. 

So if you’re putting on weight or losing weight, that cell is going to live for eight years. That’s why people can regain weight they have lost through aggressive workouts and diets — you’ve just decreased the fat in it but the cell is still there. That’s why being healthy is a long-term thing. 

Weigh your food. Know what your portion comprises. Learn how many calories a portion has. Are you getting enough carbs from pulses or do you need more? 

Keep a food diary and take pictures of food you eat. Scroll down after 10 days and you’ll see what you’ve been eating and the lack of colour on your plate. 

Put more colour on your plate. This means lots of vegetables. Research shows 10 servings of fruits and vegetables is ideal! White rice is good for bulking up and brown or red if you’re looking to be lean. These varieties require more chewing, so you’re likely to eat less.  

Go organic. We have a chronic lack of nutrition in this country. According to the National Institute of Nutrition, brinjals, for instance, had 40 per cent more magnesium in 1984 than the brinjals grown in 2004 (we don’t have the latest data). 
Chew your food. This sends your brain the satiety signal. People looking to eat more do well with soup because you can pack in more since there is no mastication for the brain to decode. 

Watch your protein. Soyabean, mushroom and quinoa are good protein sources for vegetarians. Have 5g-10g of protein pre-workout and 15g-20g post-workout. If you eat a little during a workout, you prevent the stress hormone from breaking down your muscles. So carry pistachios or dates to the gym. Eat your post-workout meal within 20 minutes of finishing. Protein shakes are convenient but the equivalent of that is a glass of milk or a cup of curd and three eggs. 

How to drink more water? Get a personal water bottle. The discipline of drinking water is more important than knowing how much to drink. 

HOW TO LOSE THE FIRST 5KG

Kg 1: Eat something within 20 minutes of waking up. Don’t wait for four hours. 
Kg 2: Get a vitamin D test and get it up to the correct level because vitamin D helps in muscle protein synthesis.
Kg 3: Eat lunch early, between noon and 12.30pm. 
Kg 4: Turn off the TV, the phone, put away the book. Research has shown that being distracted while eating leads to eating 24 per cent to 28 per cent more. 
Kg 5: Eat smaller portions. Switch the dinner plate for a quarter plate and make it red because there’s a theory that the colour prevents you from piling on. 

Compiled by: Ramona Sen