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Obesity today has been recognized as a worldwide epidemic, and it continues to rise at an alarming rate. It is a major health challenge not only as it leads to premature mortality but also is the root cause of cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, and more. Obesity in the last few years has been directly attributed to the change in dietary and lifestyle habits; which results in an imbalance between the intake of energy and use of energy. With a more sedentary lifestyle and a decrease in physical activity, the excess energy is accumulated as body fat thereby changing the body dynamics with the most common underlying abnormality - human obesity.

To win the “battle against the bulge”, people have spent unaccountable sums of money, but the effort to lose weight has been in vain. As the pounds pile on, weight management becomes more difficult through dieting and exercise; and then people tend to look at other avenues like surgery, liposuction, etc to combat the abnormality. However continuous research conducted over the last few decades by many firms including DuPont, have shown how dietary modifications can help manage the equation between energy consumption and energy expenditure thereby ensuring healthy weight management. 

Of course, the best option for weight management would be a sensible diet combined with exercise, however, a significant number of research studies show that a high protein rich diet enables greater weight and fat loss. Protein plays a major role in many bodily functions, including building bones, muscles, cartilage and skin; producing blood, enzymes and hormones and repairing body tissue. 20 amino acids make up the protein that is needed by the human body, of which only 11 are produced within the body while 9 must be supplemented by food. The best sources of high-quality protein are meats, fish, eggs and dairy products, which have all the essential amino acids that the body needs. Some vegetables and fruits also punch in a fairly high level of protein while dairy products provide the necessary amount of protein. However, research shows that the Protein Digestibility-Corrected Amino Acid Score of Soybeans is the most optimum making it the best source of plant-based protein available to humans.

Dr. David Allison and Dr. Mark Cope at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and Dr. John Erdman at the University of Illinois at Champagne-Urbana conducted review based studies on soy and obesity and found that soy-foods help to battle weight by promoting fat loss. Clinical trials also reinforced the results that soy consumption enables weight control as:

1. Soy Proteins is plant-based and thus naturally cholesterol and lactose-free. 
2. Soy Protein helps feel fuller for longer, thereby decreasing calorie intake. 
3. Soy Protein has a low-glycemic index, thus maintains a normal blood sugar level. 
4. Soy Protein helps control heart health during weight loss.
5. Soy Protein minimises loss of bone mass during weight loss.

Soy Protein is a low-fat source of high-quality protein that when combined with exercise and a healthy diet, makes an excellent 'partner' in a successful weight loss as well as a weight management plan.

Have you included Soy in your diet? Let me know in the comments below if you think Soy Protein actually helps in weight management. 

Until next time,
~ Heena
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The most certain thing about life is change and change is risky; which makes every stage of life a risk. Whether you are walking up a path to work, or fulfilling a dream of travelling to a new country, or driving a new car along a scenic highway, or getting blood work done; you are at a risk. And the only way to minimize every risk you may encounter is through the security of insurance. 

What is insurance? 
Insurance is an agreement between a company and an individual where the company provides financial compensation for loss, damage, illness, or death to the individual in return for a specified premium paid on a periodic basis.

Why is insurance essential?
Insurance is essential to provide financial security and protection during an unexpected situation, Considering the innumerable risks and the rising costs to cover these risks, it is advisable to get insurance to lessen the financial burden.

Which types of insurances should one get? 
Insurances are of many types, however the most common are:

Life Insurance 
An insurance that offers financial compensation to the insured individual in case of disability or to the family members in case of death of the insured individual. The most common ones are term insurance and whole insurance. A term insurance covers an insured person for a specific length of time while a whole insurance coverage is for the entire life of an insured person. 

Health Insurance
An insurance that will help tide over the expenses related to medical treatment and hospitalization in case of a health scare. It is advisable to opt for specific health plans like cancer insurance plan in case of a family history of that disease to cover the financial worry.

Vehicle Insurance
An insurance also known as auto insurance, car insurance, and motor insurance; protects vehicles from financial loss in case of accidents, damage, theft or natural disaster like fire, floods or landslides. 

Travel Insurance
An insurance that compensates for any financial liabilities arising out of medical and non-medical emergencies such as cancellation of flights, hotel accommodation, theft, etc. during travel within or outside the country.

Property Insurance
An insurance also called home insurance, that provides coverage against risks to property due to man-made damage, theft or natural calamities like fire, weather, earthquake, etc. It not only offers financial protection to the property, but also the valuables inside.

Others
Less common types of insurance plans include bond insurance, accidental death insurance, loan protection insurance, casualty insurance, flight insurance, deposit insurance (FDIC), kids’ insurance, and many others.

How to buy Insurance?
It is simple to buy insurance in India. First understand what is needed, get the details of all the available options. Compare the options and pick the right plan. Pay the premium and be secure. 

It is advisable to have insurance, especially life insurance and health insurance. While vehicle insurance is mandatory in India, others are not. Most people prefer to pay a little bit of money every month and stay worry-free while a majority they have nothing to worry about. The most sensible thing to do is to protect yourself without paranoia, pick the right insurance instruments as per your lifestyle and enjoy with a relaxed, peace of mind. 

Until next time,
~ Heena
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If you are looking to achieve a long-term body transformation and instant satisfaction from a single activity, then yoga might just be the way to go. Yoga works alongside meditation to promote wellness and to help you achieve a healthy lifestyle and self-healing. Depending on the type of yoga you do, you will be able to strike different poses while doing some breathing exercises. The main aim of yoga for beginners is to make your body and mind stronger while promoting awareness and harmony.

Benefits of Yoga
Yoga allows your body to relax, thus reducing chronic pain, especially one associated with your lower back. It also alleviated arthritis, headaches, and the carpal tunnel syndrome.

Yoga is also the right exercise routine to help reduce your blood pressure and insomnia. Other physical benefits of doing yoga include increased flexibility, improved muscle strength, muscle toning, increased energy, better vitality, improved respiration, balanced metabolism, helping with weight loss, promoting cardiovascular and circulatory health, enhanced athletic performance, and protection against injuries.

It is also worth acknowledging that yoga has many mental benefits for beginners, especially when it comes to stress management. Yoga can also help you attain a better body and a healthy mind. You could practice yoga because it provides you with a better coping ability to stress while promoting positive living.

As you meditate and do some breathing exercises, you are likely to improve your mental health. It is the right routine, therefore, if you would like to achieve mental clarity as well as calmness. Your focus and ability to concentrate will be sharper since yoga not only creates body awareness but also relaxes your mind. With body-awareness and self-awareness, you will be in a better position to detect any physical and mental problems and be able to come up with early preventive measures.

Why Glo
Glo provides online yoga lessons for beginners conducted by renowned instructors across the world. The benefit of the online yoga classes is that they help you to do yoga from wherever you are and at the time of your convenience. With the best online yoga classes at your palm, you will be ready to take the steps necessary to change your life for the better.

There are thousands of classes available for all levels of training. The length of each class varies between 5 and 120 minutes. At Glo, you will get to enjoy world-class yoga classes at pretty affordable charges that are unmatched by any of the other competing studios.

Glo has the best online yoga classes for all individuals ranging from beginners to runners, cyclists, professionals, prenatal mothers, travellers, men, and women.

There are classes aimed at strengthening you while at the same time helping you promote your stability both physically and mentally. Furthermore, there are specific yoga classes that achieve calmness where your body and mind get to relax for wellness.

If you would like to develop flexibility by achieving the new inversion that you have just learned, bending over until you touch the toes and many other activities, you could take advantage of Glo's free trial.

The instructors working with Glo are highly experienced and fully certified. This means that each of the lessons will meet your needs adequately. It also means that you will benefit from the best online yoga classes that will help you advance gradually to gain physical and mental fitness.

If you would like to participate in the best online yoga classes for beginners, then you need to try out Glo today to enjoy the best yoga benefits. You can take advantage of this online presence to maintain the health of your body and mind.
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Motherhood is overwhelming and can leave you at a loss of what to do next. Bringing home a tiny person, who you are completely responsible for can be extremely intimidating. But do not worry, motherhood is a learning process and your child will be your greatest teacher. Seven years ago when I was expecting Heer, I was so carried away with the entire pregnancy and motherhood experience that I missed out on taking a few moments to sit back relax and make some of those moments into precious, everlasting memories. However the second time around as soon as I got to know I was expecting, I made a list of things I wanted to do as soon as the baby arrived. Here are three things that I'm doing to remind me of RV's early days.

Hand-Painted Portraits
I love taking pictures of my babies but under the ton of digital images, it is going to be impossible to pick one and gaze at it adoringly. So instead of just letting it slide, I picked a gorgeous, even though imperfect picture of RV and Heer sharing a precious moment and sent it to PortraitFlip to be converted into an original hand-painted portrait. PortraitFlip is an online portal that converts photos into paintings with a range of custom finishes in oil, pencil or charcoal, acrylic and watercolours. I choose to get my precious cherubs painted in watercolours for a baby portrait that will adorn the walls of my home, showing raw emotions between the siblings that I can always hold close to my heart.


3D Casting
Every time I touch RV's tiny hands and feet, it fills my heart with love and care. I have a surge of emotions running through me, a feeling that compares with absolutely nothing else and I wish time stood still so I could live this forever. But that's not going to happen and in a few years, I won't even remember how tiny he once was. The chubby hands and feet that I so loving hold and caress will outgrow my arms and will be lost in the mundane of life. So to preserve this preciousness forever I've contacted a 3D casting artist to create a replica that will capture every single little detail of the hands of both my offsprings and give me something to cherish forever.

Breastmilk Jewellery
I absolutely love my jewellery and if I could make it exceptionally special with something as precious and personal as breastmilk, I would absolutely go for it. After some research I came across the brand that specialises in Breast Milk Jewellery and browsed through the product options and finishes available, zeroing in on a gorgeous yet simple ring. Once I finalise the design with the vendor, I will send in the required quantity of pumped breastmilk to have a keepsake, of the personal moments I shared with RV.

These little things will be a perfect reminder of how ‘Miracles Happen’, and an acknowledgement of how I overcame my fears and struggles with determination to have a family of my dreams.

Have you preserved the memories your children’s birth in any way? If so please share with me in the comments below and I’d love to explore them.

Until next time,
~ Heena
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Oriflame The One Colour Obsession Lipsticks Swatches & Review

A woman’s obsession with beauty never ends, however slowly but surely women have started appreciating the diversity of beauty, rather than being confined to the beauty standards set by the fashion industry and society at large. This positive change has helped brands experiment and launch products that cater to the diverse customer base without inhibition. Today brands are being bold and launching a range of varying shade options for colour cosmetics so that every woman can find a perfect match for herself.

Colour cosmetics like foundations, concealers and pressed powders are easy to match, however lipsticks can be pretty tricky. Lipsticks tend to look very different on different women due to the undertone of the skin, and the guesswork of whether or not a shade will suit a particular skin tone or not, makes it a gamble. This makes picking the best shade for your skintone extremely difficult. However, the One Colour Obsession lipsticks from Oriflame resolves this issue with the launch of it’s PopShock tones infused with ChromaLoad Technology to give colour intensity that looks appealing on every skin. The lightweight formula provides a weightless gel-crème finish that melts on contact and gives a luminous look and locks-in an eight-hour moisture. The colours available in the range are:

35155 - Nude Appeal 
35156 - Peach Passion
35157 - Pink Possession
35158 - Magenta Mania
35159 - Coral Craze
35160 - Tempting Orange
35161 - Red Rage 
35162 - Red Fever
35163 - Purple Power
35164 - Cherry Crave

Oriflame The One Colour Obsession Lipsticks Swatches & ReviewThe one makeup product that I wear almost every day is the lipstick and I love to experiment with various shades, but my go-to remain peach and nude. Many a times I pick up lip shades that end up looking different on my lips vis-a-vis the packaging or digital images, and I am so disappointed. So when I was sent the new range by Oriflame, I assumed that a shade or two would actually work for me, but to my greatest surprise the Colour Obsession lipsticks have upped my lip game. All the ten shades are a win, for their amazingly bold colours that convey intensity and confidence.

I loved the way all of the shades felt and looked on my lips with its super velvety formula and strong the colour intensity. I fell in love with Peach Passion right off the bat as it smoothly glided on my lips instantly moisturising them while adding the amazing colour. I wore it on a hectic day and I pretty much sailed through the day without a reapplication. I had a friend borrow the shade and it looked a bit different on her, but still absolutely gorgeous. The formula does seem to have a perfect mix of under layers that actually look great on warm, cool and neutral skin tones. Nude Appeal is my dream nude shade, the shade is a notch lighter than my natural lip colour, but better, and Red Rage is definitely the most flattering classic red I've worn in a long time.

Whatever your favourite shade is, you must try the Colour Obsession range for a great look and a much greater feel. So go break the colour rules, pick the Purple Power or the Tempting Orange,  because makeup is ultimately all about feeling beautiful and empowered. 

Until next time,
~ Heena
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A Mother’s Guide To A Soy Protein Enriched Diet

Children today are living in a very different world compared to what we grew up in. The changes in the family, community and personal dynamics have taken a toll on their physical health, mental stability, spiritual conscious, intellectual strength and social compatibility. Children around you no longer face just the evil of nutritional deficiency but also suffer from the problem of excess, especially where food is concerned with larger intake portions and lower activity patterns. The solution to this problem is pretty simple, yet difficult to implement as people are unaware of how to make healthy food choices, control portion size and indulge in mental and physical activities. 

In a recent workshop organised by DuPont Nutrition & Health, I was brought abreast with the benefits of soy and how it is an effective dietary protein that can easily be incorporated into children's diets. The Protein Digestibility-Corrected Amino Acid Score (PDCAAS) that ranks protein on the basis of essential amino acid profile and digestibility; ranks soy Protein as 1.0 which is the highest score attainable similar to that of dairy and meat. According to a study conducted by the Soy Foods Association of North America, apart from being a tasty alternative in children’s meals, soy provides essential nutrients like calcium, zinc, iron and folate for growth and development, fibre which boosts absorption and digestion and enables a higher protein intake with decreased saturated fats for overall wellbeing.

Since soy is an exceptional 'complete protein' which is extremely good for growing children, the next imperative question to all mothers is 'Are you incorporating soy in your children’s diets?', If not, here are a few simple ways of consuming soy, whether supplement for a child or an adult. 

Soymilk
The simplest form to introduce soy protein in a diet is through soymilk, the best alternative to dairy milk. A cup of soymilk contains about 100 calories and 300 milligrams of calcium. Soymilk can not only be consumes as is but also can be added to milkshakes and coffee, or set as curd. 

Tofu
Soybean curd or more popularly known as tofu, is similar to cheese in texture and paneer in taste.Yet another excellent source of protein and calcium, tofu can be stir-fried, baked, grilled and used as an ingredient in numerous recipes, both in an appetiser or main meal. 

Edamame
Unmatured green pods of soybean can be boiled in salt water to make Edamame. The pods can be then garnished with flavours and served as an appetiser. The beans can also be removed from pods to be added to salads and other food dishes. Matured soybeans can also be roasted and served as a snack.

Tempeh
Soy can be cooked, slightly fermented and made into Tempeh that can be added to grains and legumes to be baked into cakes or set as energy bars. Tempeh has a firm texture and an earthy flavour, which becomes more pronounced as it ages. It also has a higher content of protein, iron, dietary fiber and vitamins. 

Isolate
Isolate is dry soybean powder that is separated from the other components of soybean, making it rich in protein, carbohydrate and fat-free. Isolate can be found in many ready-to-eat food items such as protein powders, bottled fruit drinks, energy bars, breakfast cereals and more. 


#ProteinHealth #SoyIsGood #SoyBetterForYou

There are numerous products with isolate brands available in the market, however, DuPont Nutrition & Health is a world leader in developing innovative soy-based ingredients that enable nutritious and great-tasting food and beverage products. The rigorous quality standards for raw materials, advanced technologies, manufacturing and inventory control ensure that the soy protein products deliver the highest levels of quality, safety and consistency. So when you pick products especially for soy protein, look at the label for the DuPont edge. 

So will you take the leap and introduce soy food and soy protein in your children’s diets? If so how, let me know in the comments below. 

Until next time, 
~ Heena
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About Me

Hey, my name is Heena and I'm a Mumbai based blogger, influencer and content creator.

iCynosure.in is my cozy corner on the internet, where I've chronicled things that fascinate and inspire me.

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