Trip to Grand Canyon

It had been a long time since I had taken any long distance road trip . Juneteenth day holiday was coming and I had been thinking about making a plan to go somewhere fun but didn't know where to go. This is summer holiday time for kids and they were excited to go somewhere out. I also wanted to break the monotonous routine which was increasing my stress level .  Long weekends in US are generally busy weekends (Much busier than the weekdays :) which is funny .On Mondays everyone's question is about what you did over the weekend. Most of my long weekend plans are random and I go out without much planning.  I didn't decide for this trip as well until last moment on Friday evening. I remembered seeing an ad about the Grand Canyon railroad on youtube long back . So I asked a few of my friends about it but nobody had been to  the Grand Canyon railroad . I have fond memories of going on long train rides in India and always miss  the train journey . When I looked it up online I saw that there are some great vacation package options available on their website. 

https://www.thetrain.com/

These options looked ideal for the 2 -3 day trip I was hoping for. I booked the vacation immediately for my 2 day trip . It's a long distance drive  (  ~ 8 hours or 430 miles ) that was making me a little nervous to be honest . I thought of taking one step at a time and enjoy the journey rather than only destination. 

I drive an electric car so the car decides where I need to stop for the charging . It takes ~ 30 mins for the charge but it's good to explore and take a break and stretch legs  . 

Our journey started from Orange County and we took our first stop at Barstow . Plenty of supercharges were available at the location. Lot many food options were available like -  Dairy Queen and Carls' Jr. 

There were oversized chair and spoons for taking picture if anyone is interested :) 

My son liked the spoon . 

We started our second leg our journey after fueling ourselves and our car and the next stop was  Kingman .Kingman is ~ 200 miles from Barstaw and was our second forced stop to charge the car . Kingman is a historic town on route 66 and there is a kingman historic museum . The museum has  $10 fees for adults and it's free for children . We took some pictures outside and skipped the museum . 

This steam engine you can visit from inside and it's mesmerizing  .

        Tried this huge Salad at Mr. D's Route 66 Diner  at the Kingman. Could not finish the tortillas :) .My wife played safe and ordered Cheese pizza . 

On the way is scenic route 66 . We stopped at Kingman for quick lunch .This is the picture spot located in front of the museum . 

After checking into the hotel our first tour was the Bearizona park. It's a driveway park located at the Williams. People can drive through in their cars to see the animals . kind of like an animal Safari . 

This is the Bear cave. 

The next morning we barded the train to Grand canyon from Williams Station. It's 2.5 hours journey on the train powered by the steam engine. It's interesting that the engine they operate on is not run on coal but they burn the vegetable oil that is left off from the restaurants. The train runs very slow at the average speed of 40 miles an hour. It's tourist train so no wonder this is slow. On the train there are musicians that come to perform all the time. There is pantry car in the train where you can buy the sandwiches/ beer/coffee  and other snacks. 

Grand Canyon is the most magnificent natural wonder of the world. It truly takes the breath away .However long you marvel this wonder is not enough.  

There are may different buses that run on grand canyon route for free that can be taken to go from one view point to the other. We took the train at 3:30 PM to return back to the williams to our hotel. 

It was a memorable trip though it was a long drive from Irvine. We took 2 breaks to charge the car. The drive itself was 8-9 hours long but this journey was more beautiful than the destination. 

Let's loose lockdown fat

Coronavirus lockdown changed lives of so many people . I was one of those working for IT job and staying at home. My office closed down in March 2020 and I am working from home ever since. 

This  lockdown caused significant impact on the healthy lifestyle of many as the gyms closed down too . 

There was no regular exercise and I was getting bored at home as I was not getting chance to meet my colleagues and friends. 

When I get bored I eat and most of the time it's sweets stored in the refrigerator. Chocolates and fried snacks were the comfort food for me.  I would make multiple trips to refrigerator and eat whatever is there in stock. By the time gyms reopened in Apr 2021 I had gained whooping 15 lbs. My BMI was 33.3 which is almost obese and at very high risk level. My total weight was 185 lbs.

As per the recommendations the ideal BMI for my height is 154lbs . I had to do something to get out of this dangerous situation. As I gained weight I was feeling the differences in my body movements . My movements were not as swift as before. When I was playing any sports like cricket or tennis I was not feeling as agile as before.

Lockdown accelerated the weight gain for me but I had been steadily gaining weight from last few years.

I am going to point a few things that may not work when you are trying to loose weight .At least for me it never worked.  

1) Don't rely on only cardio to loose weight. 

2) Don't rely on keto based diets only which are not sustainable.

I have run several half marathons and I can tell you one thing that running never helped to loose weight.

On average average person consumes 2000 cal per day and the goal to loosing weight is reducing the calorie intake by 500 cal per day. If you can create the deficit of 500 calories per day then you can loose 35000 calories a week which is equal to 1lbs .I want to share diet plans and exercise plans that worked for me. I currently weight 163.5 lbs . Lost more than 20 pounds in  almost 4 months. The key is to have a lifestyle which is sustainable. Don't adopt a lifestyle that you can't do for longer duration of time.

Here are some techniques that you can use and then I will share what I used. 

1) keto diet ( Don't recommend that as it's short term).

2) Low carb diet.

3) Intermittent fasting.

4) Exercise regularly to increase your metabolism rate.

If you do intermittent fasting then you start burning fat after 8 hours of fasting as you are out of carbs that you ate last night. Don't do it for more than 24 hours as you will start breaking down the proteins. Eat enough proteins throughout the day on daily basis. 

My diet plan:

It took me time to understand what is carbs . People say reduce carbs but it was not clearly defined.  Carbs is anything made of grains ( Mainly rice and wheat) .The bread we eat in the morning. The roti, rice we take in the lunch and dinner is all carbs. Our Indian diet is mainly carbs based.  We can replace these carbs with healthy carbs like oats and quinoa or brown rice. Brown rice takes more time to digest and its better for health. In the morning instead of white bread we can take multigrain bread. The whole flour roti can be replaced with multigrain roti. We make the multigrain flour at home by mixing the different flours.  

Eat most of the carbs and sweets you want in the morning. In the morning the body needs more glycogen and during day the metabolism is fast so it gets used throughout the day . During sleep time the body doesn't need more than 500 cal to get though 8 hours . So dinner needs to be under 500 cal and carbs free or low carbs. 

My weight loss plan is mix of intermittent fasting, low carb diet and regular exercise. 

1. Fasting on Tuesday( Fast from dinner to dinner. I take dinner on Monday night and then take another dinner on Tuesday. When I eat on Tuesday night I take enough carbs as I didn't eat any carbs whole day).

2. I go to gym at least  3-4 times a week in the evening ( Exercises I do are cardio, Strength training and again 10 mins of cardio at the end. Cardio has to be HIIT ( Hight intensity interval training) that can elevate your heart rate.For example you can walk at the speed of 3miles  and then run at speed of 6 miles and then come down to 5 and again walk at 3 or 3.8. The  Strength training should be for full body  - core, legs , glutes and upper body. you can break down the exercises on different days).

The more muscles you develop the more are the chances of loosing weight. Muscles need more oxygen that means you will be burning fat while you are not exercising as well. 

3. For dinner I don't eat any carbs and try to finish dinner before 7 PM in the night. 

4. For proteins I eat eggs, chicken and fish . you should eat (0.8 * your weight in kgs) gms of protien each day. So if you weigh 60 KG then you may need 48gms of protien each day . This is only an approximate calculation. 

5. For veg options I eat beans, chickpeas, soya chunks, kidney beans.

6. If I eat a lot in the day then I take only protein shake in the night .Any protein shake with less calories is good. Generally whey based protien is better than plant based protien  . 

As some wise men say the goal as to be SMART ( Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound)

Specific - How much you want to loose.

Measurable - You can measure it in the kilos but a better measurement is the waist size. As you gain more muscles the weight will also be more as the muscles are heavier than fat. I use an app called fatsecret and measure my weight and calories intake each day. 

Achievable - Target for no more than 1 to 2 lbs per week. Anything more than that is dangerous.

Time bound - Be consistent with your effort . 4-5 lbs per month is possible .

Here are some of the tips that can be used as well.

1) Reduce the intake of salt as salt helps in retaining water that leads to weight gain.

2) Drink more water . The more water you drink the less water body retains.

For the first few weeks the weight lost is mainly water. For each molecule of carb there are 3 molecule of water stored. After the water weight is lost the fat starts to loose. In men most of the fat is stored in the abdomen and face area. When you start to loose weight the first place you loose from is from your face . After some time  you start loosing weight from waist/abdomen area   . In the end the weight from love handles looses.

Good luck !

 

Mistakes teach us something always

 Admit it we all make mistakes. Sometimes these are foolish and other times we take very calculated steps but they turn out to be not so good decision .Whatever the situation I feel that sometimes it's good to make mistakes. Have you ever thought what will happen if nothing goes wrong in life . If all things keep going smoothly then how dull life will become. When musicians compose music they use high notes and low notes to make it interesting . Smart orators use pitch variation in their speeches to get constant attention of listener. There are ups and downs everywhere in the world whatever example we take . Stock markets are cyclical. There is not always a bull market. At the end of bear market there is always a very long bull market.

Recently I made a mistake that made me realize how it improved my life when I dissected it more . One fine evening I was trying to take out my car from garage but the rear door behind the front passenger seat was fully open and  while backing up it stuck the drywall on the right side. I heard a loud thunder and when I looked back there was a large crack in the wall . Also there was big black spot near the garage door. 

I was tired from the day trip to mountains and was going to purchase some groceries and food .I had already driven for more than 5 hours that day and I didn't have any energy to deal with this situation. As soon as I hit the garage wall I felt horrible . I didn't want to see it at all. It was looking so bad .I started cursing myself for being so reckless.  It was in the night at around 7 PM and I couldn't do anything about this situation. So I tried not to think about it and carry on with what I was doing for the time being. I went to the market and bought food and groceries from the market . Then I went ahead and got my car washed. Called up my wife and asked if she needs something from the market.  

After an hour I reached back home and looked at the crack again  . It was a straight line and was about 1/4 inches deep . I have a new house any small issue that comes up is painful.

I started searching on the internet for some solution . After looking at several videos and blogs I  found a home depot video that tells exactly what to do to fix the issue. 

Based on that video I made a list of the things on my phone that I need to buy next morning to fix the drywall  myself . Next morning the first thing after waking up I did was that I went to home  Depot and bought the items I had made list of. 

As soon as I was checking out at Home Depot I heard from the customer service that there is an offer  going . If I apply for the Home depot Credit card today then all the items I purchased will be free .I was happy to hear that. I could wait for 5 mins and get the things for free.  This blessing came out of nowhere so I went a head and applied for the card .

It was blessing in disguise for me. For me the following are the takeaways from this mistake I made inadvertently .

1. Learned new skill. I was able to fix the drywall and also painted the rest of the walls in the garage that had marks. 

2. Now I know how to fix the nail holes and other marks in the wall. This may seem like a small thing but I didn't know what to do about those. 

3. God has his own plans . I didn't want to go to the Home Depot next day but when I went there all the items I purchased were free of cost because of offer they were giving due to new year.

4. Look for positive for whatever happens in life. If you win be grateful to what you received and if you loose you will learn something new that will help you win next time.

Hope my experience will help you also to look at the brighter side of the things. 

What is there in Yoga and meditation?

I am going to discuss here what are the benefits of Yoga and Meditation and why we all should do it everyday like we do any other daily activity. I have always been amazed by seeing how these ancient Indian  practices have survived so long and still being practiced throughout the world.

People all over the world now recognize the importance of yoga and mediation and it has become popular as one of the best stress reliever technique.
These practices have always existed in ancient India  and nobody gave them proper respect and encouragement.

Nobody promoted yoga in India like it should have been but it is practiced by the whole world which is miracle in itself. I have lot of respect for our forefathers who have given us the gift of knowledge which unfortunately we don't believe is good enough.It is said in Geeta that "All the material things in the world are perishable . You are running behind the material things but they will not follow you when you leave the world." The only happiness you can gain is by changing your way of thinking and not getting involved in the worries of the world . All the resources required to make yourself happy are there in your head with you only. We didn't know what worry is when we were born . We learned to worry through our experiences in the world. Yoga and meditation will helps us achieve this happiness which we have forgotten is nowhere in the world but inside us. It is only in our head. I remember watching a movie where the lead star travels all over the world to do the research on what makes people happy. There is no need to go all over the world to find happiness. The real happiness is there with you . You just need to find it within yourself and unlock it. Your soul is the best friend of yourself .

Meditation is for your brain like physical exercise is for your body. It calms the mind and clears the unnecessary chatter of thoughts going on inside the mind. This helps to focus on our daily work. All the students should be taught the importance of  yoga and meditation from the early age.

Fact of life is that it is hard to do meditation .It is easy to learn but it is difficult to keep  going . But in the end it is worth the effort you put in.

Good news is that like any other activity it comes with practice. It takes lot of time  and a strong will power to keep yourself engaged at doing mediation.It can be frustrating at times , you will feel like you are not getting anything out of it and think of abandoning it to do something more meaningful.

If you have learned to play any musical instrument  in life then you know how important the persistence and hard work is .

Think of doing meditation as learning to play a musical instrument. It comes with practice .It takes time to learn and to concentrate on something for so long but we all are humans and we  all have all the resources required to learn it.

Once you pass the initial stage , you will start reaping the benefits very quickly.

Both yoga and meditation should be performed one after another so that your body is stretched and ready . Meditation involves sitting in the same posture for long time .Yoga helps with that. Yoga and mediation both go hand in hand. Yoga relives the physical stress by the stretching exercises whereas meditation relieves the mental stress.

Here are the tips for yoga for beginners (I consider myself among one of them).

1. Set aside a time daily for doing yoga. Its better to keep the same time daily.

2. Don't overdo it if your are a beginner . 15- 20 minutes is more than enough.

3. Start by doing the simple  stretching exercises. Don't try to do very difficult asanas in the beginning.

4. In the morning the the body is rested and the mind is calm. It is the perfect time for doing Yoga .

5.Buy some good CD or use some apps on the phone for training yourself the yoga asaanas. Always go for the beginner stuff if you have not practiced it ever  in life or starting it after a long time.

Tips for doing meditation:

1. Meditation should be done after the yoga. Because mediation involves sitting in the same posture for long time and the body is relaxed after doing yoga.

2. Concentrate on the breath (inhalation and exhalation )while doing the meditation. Don't breathe deliberately. Keep it natural .

3. There will be thoughts coming to your mind all the time .Don't get carried away with the thoughts .If you get carried away,come back and again start focusing on your inhalation and exhalation. There will be distractions like somebody walking heavily on the floor or some baby crying somewhere or the honking on the road but keep your attention focused on the breath. If you get distracted come back to your breath.

4. Don't try too hard to focus on the breath. Thoughts will keep coming and going. The idea is not to get involved with your thoughts.

5. After finishing the meditation give yourself 2-3 mins to think of the good work you have done for your body and thank god for giving you the opportunity .

6. Usually its better to do the meditation after yoga but you can do it anytime .Set aside 10 mins for it when you want to do it. At some places it is said that you should do it for 15 mins but I think for beginner 5-10 mins is good enough.

7.  Use the timer on the phone for keeping track of the time. Put the phone in airplane mode if you don't want any distractions.

8. Sit on the blanket/pillow  or mediation mat while doing mediation.It will keep your body in better posture and you will feel relaxed while doing mediation.

9. Most importantly don't lose hope if you don't see the benefits in the beginning .You will start realizing the benefits  if you keep doing it. At least keep focused for one year.

I hope you will enjoy doing  yoga once you get a hang of it.If there are any questions please post it in the comments section.