Yaana, moving on to food, we read in an interview that when you were a teenager, you had a tendency to go on extreme diets"Natural Wonders – Apple" Apple is my most favourite food but I also go crazy about anything that is made with coconut (such as a coconut chutney, curries or simply food with grated coconut in it like they do in south). I love all kind of daals and really healthy looking brown breads.
There’s been news of a book you’re going to release. It’s called “How To Love Your Body And Get The Body
You Love”. What made you write a book? What’s it about? We’d love to know more!
The book is already out and it’s about my journey with food, dieting since I was 16 and developing an unhealthy relationship with food (and my body). It talks about the psychology of eating, negative body image and negative thinking. It also has details on how to eat healthy, exercise and be fit or even lose weight but in a healthy, peaceful and loving way.
Now onto skin care! How do you maintain such glowing skin? Any secrets you swear by?
The secret is really eating healthy as any toxins you receive through eating or unhealthy life-style will project on your skin. State of the mind however is very crucial as well as stress or negativity creates disease in our body and will surely affect the look of our skin as well.
Finally, there are so many young girls who’d love to look like you, but can’t! Do you have a positive message about self-esteem for our readers?
You can be the best looking woman/man and believe me, you can be still miserable. Looks have nothing to do with if you’re happy or not. Mainly, it is very superficial and one day it will go away, so if you identify yourself with the way your body looks (or your beauty) you’re going to go downhill and feel terrible and unhappy one day, when that goes away. So focus on the beauty inside and first of all start loving yourself unconditionally. This is not as easy as it sounds but when you get there, it will transform your life totally. Then self-esteem won’t be an issue. Looks won’t matter either. The way others perceive you and what they think of you won’t matter either. This is a true path towards freedom…and happiness.
The gorgeous Yaana Gupta chats with us about her fitness plan, diet secrets and beauty tips!
Hi Yaana! Thanks for talking to us. You are known for your ultra-toned body. Tell us, what does good health mean to you?
The English word “health” comes from the Old English word hale, meaning wholeness, or being whole so in that sense to be “healthy” doesn’t just mean one is free from illness or pain on a physical level. It is more than that. Being healthy means being balanced on many levels, it is about the condition of one’s mind, body and spirit. So to me optimal health would be an ability to deal with all life’s challenges (physical, psychological, emotional) without experiencing stress or resulting in any imbalance.
Tell us more about your fitness regimen. How often do you exercise in a week? What kind of workouts do you do? Do you prefer running, yoga, sports etc.?
I exercise every day (unless I am travelling a lot but even then I find some time to stretch, at the very least). My fitness routine has changed over the years as I evolved as a person and came to a point where I understood my body’s needs and followed them, rather than following my mind, working out for the purpose of achieving some ‘perfect’ body shape. Before I understood this, I used to work out very intensively (doing weight training or cardio) for an hour every day which I feel now was too much for my body (and caused physical stress) as I often pushed myself too hard (after I got high on double espresso so I could manage to even pull it off).
My routine today is much more peaceful as my goal is purely health and happy/balanced state of mind. I love to sweat a lot (plus that is what makes the exercise healthy as that is what gets the toxins out) so I do work out intensively sometimes, but for much shorter periods of time (perhaps 20 min) and then I go into something I call a ‘pleasur-ise’ . It’s a combination of all the movements I find pleasurable and fun to do. It includes lot of dance movements, stretches and bits of yoga and it’s very spontaneous and different every time. I just follow my body and do whatever it needs and feels like doing in that moment. The main goal of this is to connect with my body, stretch it in such a way that the energy starts flowing through my whole body and mainly do it all with feeling love for myself. At the end I feel very positive and I end up laughing a lot too as I sometimes develop some new crazy weird funny moves or stretch my facial muscles by making funny faces at myself in the mirror. It’s all a lot of fun and a great way to start your day and make it a kick-ass day!!!:-)Tell us about managing stress. You’re in an industry that can be quite unpredictable. How do you stay calm and happy?
I think lot of stress diminishes when one stops running after achieving things all the time. My focus is; whatever I do, I should enjoy it or else not do it at all. Money and fame is not what gives you any happiness anyway, so better to focus on just enjoying each moment, being creative and doing what you enjoy and giving your best even if it doesn’t bring you money or some other outcome. Outcome in general should not be the reason why we do things, it’s should be the enjoyment of the process itself.