450. My Tryst with Yoga and Health monitoring

I had never taken yoga seriously earlier due to various reasons. Maybe, I tried bending my body like they show on TV and couldn’t! Maybe due to laziness. Maybe due to thinking it is not for me as I don’t think this will help me in the long run.  For whatever reasons, I always avoided it.  Till there came a time when it hit me that I am getting old and I need to take care of my body.  I don’t like walking outside as I cannot do so without listening to music. And while listening, you never know, when someone comes and hits you with his vehicle.  I started to walk inside the house.  There is a 30-feet stretch in my house, which I used for walking while listening to songs on my mobile.  On googling I found that just walking is not going to help. 

 

About 2 years ago, my cousin and his wife had joined a yoga program and were doing it on a daily basis. My wife took the details from them and started doing the free yoga exercises available on YouTube from the organisers. I thought let me try this yoga. I checked out the details from https://www.habuild.in and subscribed to their program for one year.  I thought that since I had paid upfront, that issue alone would make me attend the program on a daily basis!  I had removed my WhatsApp account. I later learned that Habuild operates only on Whatsapp to send links for the daily sessions. So, I am now on WhatsApp only for Habuild!

 

I never liked to do yoga in a group. Knowing my body, I know that I would never be able to match the other participants.  The instructor would be doing something and I would be doing something else, depending on what my body can afford to do, without any injury!  Habuild yoga was online, so I didn’t have to worry about other participants watching me doing the yoga.  I could do it within the confines of my home without worrying about anyone watching me!

 

I started doing yoga for about half an hour and walking for an hour on a daily basis.  The yoga session goes for 45 minutes, but within half an hour, I get bored and stop it.  With an annual subscription for yoga, it also gave me access to their other wellness programs.  One of them was to reverse diabetes.  I knew I had diabetes but never checked it consciously.  I used to eat a lot of sweets regularly and my freezer was always filled with ice creams during summer.   I had stopped putting sugar in coffee for the past 1 year at that time.

 

The reverse diabetes program had a prerequisite of knowing your Hb1Ac figure.  I checked and found out that mine was at 11.2!  Google said that this figure means I would be a strong candidate for vision loss, heart disease, nerve and kidney damage.  With the help of the program, I stopped using white rice and shifted to brown rice.  I stopped eating sweets and shifted to green tea. I stopped using milk.  Initially the taste of brown rice and green tea was horrible. Somehow, I managed and was able to have them regularly.  Over a period of about 1.5 years, I was able to bring down the Hb1Ac to about 9.2.  During the above period, there were several instances where I had sweets.  There was some travel involved to attend some functions and during that time I used to eat whatever was available. 

 

End of last year, I had a heart problem and decided that I needed to shape up.  At that time, I decided to take up medicines for diabetes with the other medicines for the heart issue.  I used to do the Hb1ac test every 2 months to check up on the progress.  Since I am also a MedPlus customer, I get these tests at 50-75% off.  My Hb1Ac started declining from 9.2 to 7.2 over the past 6 months.  My taste buds started yearning for sweets and I started to have them in moderation.  Then came the time for a visit to the doctor. So, I had the test again, thinking it would have reached about 8 or so. To my surprise it was at 6.5! As per Google, 5.7 to 6.4 was pre-diabetes!  With this, it dawned on me that I can reverse my diabetes easily without having to let go of sweets! But as they say, abhi toh picture baaki hai.  Will continue to do these tests and monitor my progress.  It took me about 2 years to bring my sugar back to border level. Hope to maintain the same and go back to “normal” mode for diabetes Hb1ac figure!

 

The yoga sessions also have benefitted me a lot.  I have again started the sessions on a daily basis now with an additional one hour of walking. I had stopped it for the past 2 months due to my fracture.  As you are aware, I had the fracture at the Art of Living course, which was arranged by Habuild only.  Due to the fracture, I had to leave the course midway.  The next day, the founder of Habuild, Mr Saurabh Bothra (an IIT-ian), joined the advanced course there.  I missed meeting him.  But he called me up a few days later to find out how I was doing.  We had a nice talk for about 5-6 minutes.  He invited me to his studio in Nagpur sometime later. So, this trip has now been added to my bucket list!

 

Habuild also provides various kinds of programs for wellness.  Mr Saurabh’s sister, Ms Trishala, also teaches Zumba and other dance forms for cardio.  With the subscription for the yoga session, you can also attend Ms Trishala’s sessions.  Both yoga and the cardio sessions are available 6 times a day. And you can attend any of the sessions.  I tried Ms Trishala’s session when she took a week-long session on working with exercise bands. It was very good.  But I could not do the dance session as I don’t think my body can move like that!

 

Earlier my BMI was around 30+ putting me in the obese category!  Last week when I checked it during my hospital visit, it had reduced to about 25, which is just the top band of “normal”!  Now I am able to sit down and also do saashtang pranaams, thanks to doing yoga.  Yoga helps over time to get rid of these obstacles and I am saying this with my experience.  Mr Saurabh also says that just do yoga for about 10 minutes a day.  That itself will make you disciplined to do it. 

 

For those who say yoga is not for me (like my earlier version), the aasanas are done in the last 15-20 minutes. For the initial 25-30 minutes, it is exercising where different parts of the body are focused and exercises are done to improve them.  You can do them either sitting on the floor or on a sofa or bed also.

 

I have changed from being a yoga-agnostic to a yoga believer.  It takes time to get the body in shape, but it is worth it in the long run.  Habuild is now running a 21 day free yoga since 8^th June. In case you want to join, you can click here to join it https://habit.yoga/Seshadri_5tea9

 

On top of this, I have also been able to knock off about 10Kgs of weight!

 

Adios till next time!