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Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Holistic Weight Management- Time Factor

Weight Management Mantra
If you are trying to lose weight, don’t ever tell your friends about it.
They will try to
sympathise – why are you torturing yourself, poor you, eat something
be patronizing- you are not fat, you don’t need to lose
tempt you into submission- eat tempting food/ desserts in front of you or don’t worry, once in a while you can eat.

Better tell your enemies about it. They will snigger at you and taunt you in such a way that you will be determined to prove them wrong and re-double your efforts in losing weight and proving the enemies wrong.

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For Exercise
It is important to select an exercising time suitable for yourself.

Some say it is easier to do it in the morning before the start of your day. The advantages being;

  1. you have had a long gap since your last meal so you need not worry about ensuring exercising on an empty stomach. However take a cracker or biscuit or small glace of juice or milk about 15 minutes before exercise. This fuels your body for better performance, settles the gastric juices and abates hunger.
  2. you also clear your stomach if you choose to and it is rewarding to see your weight minus the shit of the previous day when you reach the gym.
  3. you jump start the metabolism process and since you are active the entire day, it continues
  4. Improves mental energy, alertness and possibly controls appetite through out the day
  5. more fat burning if you do it in the morning because the body has used up all the carbs during the say and during the night while you sleep and morning you have only fat to offer at the alter of the gym
    Flip side would be –
    -if you wake up late, you get to miss exercise as obviously you wouldn’t want to miss office
    -laziness- you don’t feel like getting out of bed
    -you may need to rush up as you have to get back home to get ready for work/ get your kids ready
    -warming up takes time and if you don’t do it right you may hurt yourself

    The advantages of evening exercise;

1. de-stressing after the day’s activities

2. you are not hard-pressed for time – no tension of going to office

3.you are already in a warmed-up stage so exercise is optimized
4. the flip side being- you may be too charged up and alert till late in the night, you may find it difficult to stick to it if you are too tired or hungry to exercise, or you need to go out for a party in the evening and you may not have time to exercise.

CNN disagrees- but it is difficult to find time in the afternoon for work out. A second workout especially with weights in the afternoon is recommended to optimise the calorie burning. A good idea if the workplace could provide a basic gym facility (like my Mumbai branch office - hardly used though. Wish I was there to use it)

For Eating
Eat at the right time to maximize the effect of controlled diet

  1. Never skip breakfast- breakfast helps jump start the metabolism by providing carbs to the body to burn
  2. If your first meal of the day is late, imagine the number of metabolic hours your body would have lost
  3. Eat lesser during the evening as your metabolism begins to slow down at that time. Try to finish your last meal by 7.30 pm.
  4. If you eat a huge snack / meal right before work out the blood gets confused- it’s like it has 2 bosses- it doesn’t know whether it needs to rush to the stomach to digest the food or to the exercising muscles and doesn’t do either job right.
  5. Don’t be hungry for too long after work –out- you need to replenish the body after the hard work

Check this for a good laugh

10 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh yes, and you forgot to mention dont ever tell your mother you are trying to lose weight. Even if you are bursting with lard at the seams of all your clothes or have migrated from Tshirts into kurtis, your mother will always find you skinny and therefore will find sabotage ways of fattening you up by making cartloads of your favourite stuff and sending it over.....

Aradhna said...

I am on a similar drive since past two months, have some success also.

My Exercise Mantra- Dont excercise, enroll in some sport activity. I have started swimming.

Advt :

1. Have fun in this Scorching summer.
2. Quality Time spent with Hubby.
3. This is excercise plus Yoga together.


Flip Side:

1. No Matter what you try TANNING is inevitable.

Noodlehead said...

oh dear, can't i just diet and lose all that weight :( i'm nursing and the answer's a big NO. gee, i have 6 kilos to get to pre-pregnancy weight and these will the toughest 6 kilos to lose!!

personally, i like to exercise at night. firstly, there aren't too many people getting in your way and also, i sleep like a log afterwards!!

Itchingtowrite said...

karmic k- hey u stole my next mantra! that was meant for the next post..
chiya- swimming is good provided u do it for an hour atleast - continuous without breaks - one often gives lot of breaks in teh pool. also watch yoru food intake after a swim- one tends to hog due to the hunger
noodle- don't worry abt the 6 kg (only) u will lose while nursing too. and strange, i remmebr years ago i too used to sleep after an exercise session...

Artnavy said...

wow- thinking thru and writing this post- that is a lot of exercise in itself- would have been enough for me:-))

The Visitor said...

Itchy - I feel tired reading all that you do. Do burn urself out dear. ;)
@ arty- I am with you on your point.

By Deepa and Supriya said...

vow i've missed quite a bit in the last 3 days...will read through them :)

The Visitor said...

Ouch that should read as Don't burn urself out dear. ;)

A, mama of twins said...

Hi Itchy
This is my third week of AM workouts and guess what? I am so much more consistent. I wake up at 6 and hit the gym or the pool. I do weights once a week, swiming twice and spinning twice. I am training for a triathlon so I need to get my behind in gear for it and lose my last 22 pounds. :) I have lost 18 so far and have a bit of ways to go but working out in the morning gives me so much energy for the kids and everything else.

Downside is that my bed time is now 10 pm sharp or i never make it to gym!

Good luck!
Archana

Lavs said...

Good post ITW. Can you also write about how to choose a gym? What factors should be considered while evaluating a gym? Considering the fact that almost every street has one, how can we sift through and find a good one?
How much does a gym session cost? I have never done exercises in my life not seen an inside of a gym. I want to start now though I have no idea how to go about it. Also, I have heard many people saying that once you stop gymming, then weight comes back into your body with vengenence.