Health trends of 2017

Every now and then, a new diet or eating pattern, workout or a food item emerges as the trendy thing to do in the sphere of wellness. Some come and fizzle out in no time, while others spark a trend. We did a round up of all wellness practices that got people talking and found followers in 2017...

Clean eating

At the beginning of the year, this term was deemed  to be the buzzword for 2017. And it turned out to be so. We often see great pictures of delicious healthy, low-cal, protein-rich, organic foods and articles and corresponding links on their recipes, their health benefits and why you should incorporate these in your diet. And the internet and social media is helping steer this movement towards clean eating. 

The idea can be traced back to the socially-conscious health food movement of the 1960s in the US and UK, to the growth of organic foods in the 1990s to the last decade’s focus on eating fresh local produce.

Clean eating is about eating fresh, organic, unprocessed or minimally processed foods, like the concept of eating from farm to the table. Today, the market is flooded with unhealthy foods laden with pesticides. Pollution and lifestyle diseases are plaguing this age, obesity and diabetes have reached alarming levels, all these factors call for clean eating.

Keto diet

Though the Keto diet has been a rage for the last few years, it was only in 2017 that it crossed the barrier from being a diet followed by celebrities and the upper crust to the working professionals and had everyone talking about it. Some business ventures started delivering Keto meals to customers, celebrities began talking about it and challenges were taken by people to test its efficacy in weight loss.

For those who are still unaware of it, here’s what it is... “A Keto diet is a low-carb, high fat and a medium protein diet, which forces the body to get into a state of ketosis. This means that your body starts utilising the ketone bodies produced from the fat as the main source of energy instead of the glucose/glycogen, which drop due to low carbohydrate levels. This phenomenon allows your body to utilise the fat stores and give you a feeling of fullness and you end up consuming less as compared to the number of calories spent, thus lose weight,” explains Pallavi Srivastava, celebrity and fitness nutritionist, and proprietor — Q-Slim Fitness Studio.

Goat Yoga

While bizarre yoga practices have sprouted and mushroomed in the West, the world of yoga got a jolt of sorts with Goat Yoga that grabbed plenty of eyeballs. What’s Goat Yoga, you may ask? It involves having a goat perched on one’s back while doing yoga; for variety, piglets are roped in. This was invented by a US farmer Lainey Morse, who said her goats got her through being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease and a divorce. The practice crossed continents and came to the UK as well where it continues to grow in popularity — a two-hour goat yoga classes costing £25.

Charcoal latte

Turmeric latte is so 2016! The latest bizarre detox trend — Charcoal latte, caught the fancy of the online world, and in the UK. Next thing we know, it trended on Instagram. The drink, made using hot milk and activated charcoal, is touted to house a host of health benefits from lowering cholesterol to reducing bloating to curing a hangover.

Nutritionist Karishma Chawla, EatRite 24x7 says, “Medically speaking, activated charcoal is used for detoxification purposes, when it is administered under medical supervision to eliminate toxins from the body, resulting from an overdose of medications and/or drugs. Sipping charcoal lattes to enhance well-being isn’t detoxification in the true sense. If you want to detoxify your body, do it by eating right and changing your unhealthy lifestyle.” Thankfully, this bizarre detox beverage didn’t make its way to Indian shores.

Aqua Circuit Training 

Aqua specialist Deepali Jain conducts Aqua Yoga, Aqualates, Aqua Kickboxing and Aqua Strength Training classes in the city. She says that Aqua Circuit Training is the most popular workout. That’s because people like doing three to eight different workouts with diverse equipments in an hour-long class. “It’s fun, it’s challenging and very goal-oriented, and mainly a high-calorie burner to aid weight loss,” she says.