Healthy drinks and Healthy Lifestyle

As much as healthy food and diet are necessary to maintain a healthy lifestyle; healthy drinks play an equally vital role. Plain or still water is always the best option for hydration, but, is also not that exciting for many of us. 🙂 I talked to 5 friends of mine, 3 out of them drink just one glass of water a day (including the water intake with their medicine tablets or capsules), rest is just tea/coffee/sodas/juices throughout the day, which might not always be the best option. So this blogpost is for them (haha) and for all of us who want to stay hydrated, and want to cross the plain water barrier :).

Sparkling Water – I know what comes to your mind when I say, water with some fizz, but no its not soda or tonic water (which is a very unhealthy option) and has sodium and sugar. A simple option to stay hydrated in a fancy way is to drink sparkling water, or maybe add some lemon to it to make it a side drink with your dinner or lunch.
The consumption of water has increased to almost double for both, myself and Jugnu when we started sparkling water intake. We do drink normal water as well, we generally keep a bottle on our desk or couch for some extra hydration.
AH (Albert Heijn) sells it at 1.68 euros for 12 bottles (300ml each) and it covers a week for us.

Orange Water – Yep…I mentioned Orange ‘water’ not orange juice :), although the juice could also a better option but you also have a sugar intake with that. And if that’s available in cans in your grocery store, big no no to that because its just sugar.
Infused water is in now a days. I spent almost 2 years at Google headquarters in Mountain View and I got used to such amazing and healthy bites and drinks, and infused water was one of them. Just put slices of orange in cold water (Bottle or Jar) and hydrate yourself for the rest of the day with some tasty and healthy drink.
You could also infuse water with Lemon slices or Mint leaves or cucumber or any fruits. I will write a post about the different flavours of Infused Water.

Fruit Smoothies – Spending all the time at home crave us to cook more, eat more and gain more calories, which is a very serious concern. Of course, we feel hungry, specially Jugnu working from home has become a challenge for me, to feed him healthy food. But, I found this trick which works great keeping in mind essential nutrients needed during the day, his hunger thunder, and easy / stress-free cooking for me.
Fruit smoothies is a blend of any fruit, with fat free yogurt / skimmed milk / almond milk/soy milk/oatley (which has become famous recently). Our favourite is strawberry+blueberry+almond milk with no sweeteners, Spinach+Mango+Cucumber is our second favourite. Pick your favourite mix and stay healthy.

Milk – An excellent source of protein, calcium and vitamins, always resting in your fridge. I understand, a lot of us can’t handle or digest milk, go for skimmed milk or soy milk/almond milk/oatley. Jugnu and I go traditional when it comes to milk – add a cardamom, some nuts to low fat milk, and that is our post dinner meal / dessert when we can’t handle our cravings. It can be served both hot and cold.

Hot Chocolate – I know you must be wondering how’s that on the healthy list, but yes if you don’t go for the packaged powder (which are high in sugar content) and make your own at home, it could be your best friend.
Jugnu has a special way of making it, he melts the dark chocolate in the boiling milk (or your favourite low fat or non dairy milk) and after pouring it in the glass, he adds a pinch of cinnamon for some extra flavour. Also, it is my favourite drink during my menstrual days.

There are a lot more smoothies and flavoured drinks which could be substitutes to the high sugar ones, like coconut water, ginger tea, mint tea, cranberry juice etc. You and I just need to put in some extra efforts during these quarantine days to stay healthy and settle those cravings right.
I am writing this blogpost holding a bottle of sparkling water and the fizz is giving me a boost to spend my week ahead with my Jugnu and Snickey. 🙂

Stay Healthy
Flying Away
Jugni

Source : webmd.com, bustle.com,