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Some years back I spent a lot of time in the gym trying to lose some weight and gain some muscle, not that it was bad but I often ended up gaining weight again especially if I got too tired to work out, not until I discovered that staying fit and healthy requires more than just working-out. You have to adjust “how much you eat” and your overall “lifestyle”. Now, for some us, we just don’t have that time to hit the gym or constantly check the kinds of food we eat or we just uhhmm.. Lazy!
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Firstly, lets get to know some things about weight.
Difference between calories and fat?
- Calorie is a measurement, just like a teaspoon or an inch. Calories are the amount of energy released when your body digests or breakdowns food. The more calories a food has, the more energy it can provide to your body. When you eat more calories than you need, your body stores the extra calories as body fat. Excess calories in any form can be stored as body fat.
- Fat is simply stored energy (calories) that the body doesn’t need at the moment. Fat is part of the three nutrients that provide your body with calories, alongside protein and carbohydrate. Although, all fats give you calories, not all calorie providing food are fats.
Your body derives energy from both calories and fat to power our everyday activities, even thinking and sleeping.
Metabolism is the process by which your body converts what you eat and drink into energy.
- Loosing weight is not automatic, it can take a long time as weight tends to fluctuate. Drastic fad diets and exercise regimes that result in rapid weight loss are unlikely to work for long, because it is difficult to maintain such lifestyle and perhaps when you stop you’re likely to return to old habits and gain even more weight. (Speaking from experience).
- skipping breakfast is not a good strategy to lose weight, it makes you eat more during the day.
Why try to lose weight anyway?
There are many reasons why you should aim at a healthy weight lose, but I’m just gonna point out a few
- Loosing just one pound of weight reduces four pounds of pressure on your knee joints. Read this somewhere but can't remember right now, but as a medical practitioner i can affirm this.
- Aside from the fact that loosing some extra weight could prevent cancer and hypertension and other heart disease, it also boosts your confidence, boosts your brain activity, makes you more productive and gives you some feeling of achievement).
TIPS:
Drinking water in the morning eliminates toxins in your body, relieves cramps (menstrual and any other pain), provide enough fluid for your body especially joints (just like oiling a vehicle). After drinking enough water you’ll probably have the urge to visit the loo. I’ll recommend you drink at least 3-5 glasses of warm water with lemon or ginger (just put a root of ginger in a boiling water), this alone prevents prostate cancer in men and boosts the immune system.
There is nothing much to do here. Try not to make your bath too hot.
If you don’t live far from your office or if you got some time to spare you can take a walk. By this you get the opportunity to burn some extra stored fat and get exposed to Vitamin D which is an essential nutrient for weight loss. I’ll advice that while at work avoid junk foods (if you had breakfast this shouldn’t be a problem), use the stairs (if there is an alternative)
Here is my own way of living healthy and fit with just making few adjustments to my lifestyle while I can’t make the gym. (If you can, please incorporate more exercises in your daily schedules,maybe over the weekend. Meanwhile I’m just looking out for guys like me).
There are more adjustments you can make. If you don’t mind, please comment and share your advice. We are here for each other to make each other better with our experiences and skills.
Thanks for reading.
Remember, you are responsible for your health.
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Thanks for reading.
Remember, you are responsible for your health.
Keeping a healthy weight is simple but hard. Most of our health issues comes down to just 2 things. Too much of something and not enough of something.
Applying this idea to weight control we can say too many calories not enough activity. Too much processed food not enough Plant Based Whole Foods. Too much sitting not enough moving.
This little mind hack can be used to investigate almost any situation. What do you have too much of? What do you have not enough of?
True. But how do you actually get a balance??
Thanks for this insight.
Your vote would be well appreciated
I would guess that balance could be measured by how healthy you are and how good you feel. Usually when we are in an unbalanced condition we intuitively know it. We may not consciously be aware of our unbalance, but our innate wisdom knows when something is not right.
I wish I had enough voting power. This is a really educating post.
Yep, good article, practical advices. You are completely right:) we just have to try finding ourselves a balanced lifestyle, but consider some nutrition/exercise rules and principles. You cant do it without them:) cause its science:). you cant expect being healthy doing nothing.:)