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Health and Wellness

Tips on Weight Loss By Girish Navani

Last year I decide to start off a new healthy living routine which I was in desperate need of after spending quite a few months not exactly looking after my body. I consulted the help of my good friend Girish Navani, some who I have known for a very long time and someone who is an expert in health and in weight loss. The tips which Guirish Kumar Navani shared with me were incredibly helpful and they aided me in achieving my weight loss goals. If we are all being honest with ourselves then we would confess that we all know how to lose weight, we just need some handy tips to help us out, and here is what Girish has to say.

Sunday

Sunday is a very important day when it comes to editing because this is the day that you should go and do your shopping and then prepare for the week ahead. Preparation is always key when you are trying to lose weight because if you haven’t properly prepared, you end up eating convenience food when you are hungry, which is usually unhealthy. And so a Sunday should involve a good breakfast ahead of your supermarket trip -shopping on an empty stomach is a bad idea. Once you have been to the supermarket you should spend your afternoon cooking for the week and preparing veg and salad for the week. The time that you spend on Sunday will help you throughout the week.

Snacking

Snacking has a reputation as a negative activity but as Girish often tells me this is a myth and snacking is actually widely encouraged. The key is of course what you snack on and that is why you should always have a ready supply of nuts, fruit and prepared salad such as cucumber and carrot sticks. Healthy snacking can be a great way for you to stave off hunger until it is time to eat and it will help you with your weight loss goals.

Sleeping

Getting a solid 8 hours of sleep each night is essential when you are trying to lose weight and it is during these hours that your body works hard on digesting and using food, as well as repairing cells, all of which are vital in weight loss. If you aren’t sleeping well then this will impact your weight loss.

Water

Not all aspects of a healthy lifestyle are difficult and one of the easy fixes which you need to be focussed on is drinking water. Drinking water not only helps you body to burn off foods quicker, it can also help you to be less hungry. In many cases where we think we are hungry we are in fact thirsty and so drinking a good amount of water each day can reduce how hungry we feel. The recommended amount is 2-3 liters for women and 3-4 liters for men.

How to make healthy living an ingrained habit

Most of us realize we could be living healthier lives, but we struggle with implementing the behaviours that would make such a change possible. While it isn’t super easy to do, following a plan others have set out makes the process easier versus trying to figure stuff out on your own.

In this post, we have put together a road map we hope will get you on the path to a healthier you. Check it out below…

1) Put together a smart eating plan

It’s said that hot bods are made in the kitchen – we agree with this assessment, as it is far easier to adjust the amount of calories we intake than to ramp up physical activity. This isn’t to say that working out isn’t important (it is), but the first step towards health for most people is to start by shedding the excess pounds they are carrying.

By figuring out your daily energy expenditure, and ramping down the amount of food you eat so you are in a caloric deficit, you will lose weight over time. Of course, it is important to ensure you are getting enough vital nutrients and to eat vegetables like spinach to keep hunger pangs in check, but if you are eating less calories than your body needs to maintain itself, your metabolic system will begin to draw on your fat stores.

Finally, to ensure long-term compliance to a healthy eating regime, have one cheat day per week where you are permitted to eat any food you desire, so long as you don’t eat more than 1000 calories over maintenance. Exceed that and you’ll set yourself back on your weight loss goals and you’ll feel like crap the next day – so don’t do it.    

2) Participate in a sport/physical activity you enjoy

While a smart eating plan will help you shed considerable amounts of weight, physical activity has benefits of its own as well. It increases your daily energy expenditure, improves your cardiovascular health, and helps to strengthen bones and muscles.

Unfortunately, many feel they are limited to running or going to the gym, even if these activities bore or intimidate them.  Do look into the endless fitness apps to help you on your way. Fortunately, the ways one can break a sweat are virtually limitless – from swimming to playing tennis, we’re confident there is something out there that is both physically engaging and interesting to you personally.

By taking it up, the motivation to keep going will keep you from breaking the habit, making it easy to tone your body and keep your metabolism in tip-top shape.   

3) Find ways to get your steps in

Even if you are too busy to engage in sports or other physically active pursuits on some days, you can still find ways to up your activity level in the run of your daily routine. 

Bike to work instead of driving, at least during the summer. Take the stairs instead of the escalator or elevator. Park at the back of the lot at the grocery store instead of hunting for a spot near the doors. 

All these acts increase energy use over the path of least resistance, making it easier to stay in an energy deficit or maintain your current body weight.

5 Great Health and Fitness Apps

Photo credit –  Unsplash

Need to improve the state of your health? As with most sectors of life, apps have been created to help optimize your standing. In this post, we’ll run down five apps that will improve all facets of your well-being.

1) MyFitnessPal

Know you need to lose weight, but don’t know where to start? Downloading MyFitnessPal is a good place to start, as this app allows you to keep track of a metric important to those seeking to shed weight: calories.

While many apps work well for approximating the caloric content of whole foods like grain, meats, fruit, and vegetables, they often fall short when it comes to evaluating the plethora of processed food brands out there, as well as different cuts of meat or types of bread.

Thanks to this app’s gigantic database, it has very few gaps when it comes to foods commonly found on store shelves across the country. As a result, you’ll be able to keep track of your nutrients, helping you to remain in an energy deficit if you are losing weight, or in a reasonable surplus if you are bulking.

2) Couch to 5K

The other part of losing weight is to boost your daily energy expenditure. Heading out your door for a morning jog is an easy and inexpensive way of accomplishing this goal, but without a plan, you might never make it off the couch.

This is where Couch to 5K comes in – it provides a user-friendly interface which encourages people to get off their duff and onto the sidewalk. It not only gives you a framework to which you can refer (warm up – run – cool down), it provides virtual encouragement via four different ‘trainers’.

Together with statistics which grants ongoing quantitative feedback, you’ll have all the motivation you need to eventually get yourself into good-enough shape to run a 5K race.  

3) Strava

Consider yourself a seasoned runner? Strava provides the tools you’ll need to take your game to the next level. A statistician’s dream come true, Strava tracks a whole host of metrics, from distance travelled to average speed.

This will allow you to keep track of your progress as time goes by, giving you the data you need to seek improvements that may give you the competitive edge you’ll need at an upcoming race. 

4) Sleep Cycle

Tired of not getting the sleep you need and deserve? There’s an app for that too, it seems. Sleep Cycle tracks the quality and duration of your beauty rest, noting the noises you make during the night. 

When it senses you are in a light sleep phase close to your chosen awakening time, it will nudge you out of it, as those roused from this state are far more refreshed than those forced out of a deeper sleep cycle.   

5) Calm

Has the hectic pace of your life begun to catch up with you? Help quiet your mind by downloading Calm on your phone. This handy program guides you through meditations and breathing exercises as it plays soothing music, putting your mind at ease as you wind down towards a peaceful sleep.