Tropical Weight Loss
Tropical Weight Loss
Photo: Angela Roma
10,000+ Daily Steps However, aiming for a higher number is beneficial because walking not only helps in burning calories but is also responsible for the following benefits: Walking at least 30 minutes a day, five days a week can reduce your risk for coronary heart disease by about 19 percent.
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Read More »Simple Changes That Helped Me Lose 5 Kg and Feel Great in Just One Month A detailed yet easy plan of 30-minute bodyweight exercises, a bit of extra walking, and a shift to healthier food Image by biscotto87 When the pandemic-induced lockdown happened, I lost all motivation. My lifestyle became sedentary. Up until then, I had a relatively healthy lifestyle peppered generously with sessions of table tennis in the evenings and long walks along the dusty campus roads with friends at night. The indoor lifestyle didn’t suit me. It affected my mental health more than I would like to admit. I knew I was gaining weight, but because I didn’t want to do anything about it, I started consuming more processed food. It was a vicious cycle of self-hate feeding self-hate, until one day when I finally gathered the courage to weight myself, I found I was 64 kg. I was horrified. Before this, my weight had never crossed 60 kg. Since I am not very tall either (160 cm), this meant my BMI was 25.4, which is unhealthy for me. Since I am inherently a comfort-loving person, I could not devote several hours of my life in making and sticking to a religious meal or workout plan. I did the best with what I had: free workout videos on YouTube from celebrity fitness influencers. Along with it, I applied some simple lifestyle changes that did not take too much time or effort. The results were slow in coming, but when they did, they were gratifying beyond words. Within ten days of starting my journey down this avenue, I could see visible results. My stomach looked flatter, my love handles less pronounced, and my thighs slimmer. When I weighed myself at the month’s end, my weight had come down to 59 kg. My BMI stood at 23.4. In this post, I want to address some key mindset shifts and lifestyle changes that helped me achieve this goal. I would also like to outline my current training plan and discuss the results that I achieved, in the hopes that it would be helpful for anyone looking to lose weight without intensive dieting or fasting. Before we get started, I want to set the stage with a few things to keep in mind before you start tracking your fitness. Exercise because you want to. Not because the world tells you your current body type is not acceptable. Remember that “fit” is a state of being. “Fit” does not have a look. You should be disciplined in your workout routine, but remember to be flexible enough so that you don’t start blaming yourself if you miss your workout for a couple of days. Exercise should be an outlet for you to release your stress. Don’t make it one of the reasons to add to your anxiety. Above all, do it because you love it. Some body movements might not feel “right” for you. It’s okay to abandon those and stick to the ones that give you joy. I am not a professional nutritionist or a qualified physical trainer, but this is what worked for me. 10,000+ Daily Steps The average human walks 3,000 to 4,000 steps a day. However, aiming for a higher number is beneficial because walking not only helps in burning calories but is also responsible for the following benefits: Walking at least 30 minutes a day, five days a week can reduce your risk for coronary heart disease by about 19 percent. Walking eases joint pain. In fact, walking 5 to 6 miles a week may also help prevent arthritis.
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Read More »It improves immunity. According to a study, walking at a moderate pace for 30 to 45 minutes a day reduced the chances of contracting respiratory tract infections in adults by 43 percent. There can be several other intangible benefits of walking, like toning your legs, improving your mood, and inspiring creativity (especially if you walk outdoors and spend time with nature). Overall, walking a lot has several health benefits, and the daily goal of 10,000+ steps I set helped me in maintaining an active lifestyle. It aided the exercise I did and was especially fulfilling on my active rest days. Here are some ways in which I tried to incorporate more walking into my lifestyle without taking out extra time for my schedule: I started walking whenever I talked on the phone with someone. If it was a nice day with pleasant weather, I would walk on the terrace, breathing in the fresh air, enjoying my time with nature. I started watching movies standing up. This helped me stretch my arms, legs, and waist a little, also while ensuring that the two hours spent in front of the computer screen not completely sedentary. I stood up every twenty minutes while working on my computer. This made sure I wasn’t sitting for too long, while also allowing me to stretch my limbs. I also walked about a bit in each of my standing breaks, and this worked wonders in getting my heart rate up. The Mindset Shifts That Were Helpful Sticking to a workout routine is not easy for a comfort-loving person like me. However, I was tired of the unproductive, sedentary lifestyle I led, and that helped me stick to this 30-day routine of working out. The workouts I picked were short, barely lasting 30 minutes, and had lots of breaks in between so I didn’t exhaust myself. I also noticed some mindset shifts that developed that I believe were helpful in helping me stick to my routine and achieve my fitness goals. Challenge, not responsibility If I looked at my workouts as a responsibility, I started to feel pressured, as if a sword was being held above my head, and I had to do them, no matter what. This made them feel like a liability and I didn’t even have fun doing them. But, with time, when I accepted that I was the one who started this lifestyle by my own choice. No one had forced me to, and I could quit as soon as I wanted. This helped me stop looking at the workouts as responsibilities. Instead, I took them up as a challenge — something I pushed myself to do because I was driven by the results and I wanted to finish the entire routine. Fitness is a state of mind More than being something you do with your body, fitness is what you make of it with your mindset. After I had accepted that I would be striving to have a healthier lifestyle, the following changes came easily to me. While I did not count my daily calories, I only had home-cooked meals of rice, lentils, cooked vegetables, fish, and the occasional chicken curry. I stopped snacking on processed food, and only had carrots and peas when I felt hungry between meals.
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Read More »I tried not to have an excess of sugar, but since chocolates are my weakness and I don’t want to live in a world where they don’t exist, I went easy on them, consuming 15–25 g of dark chocolate every day. I drank at least 3 litres of water daily. Apart from making my skin glow and supporting weight loss, this had the unexpected perk of making me take a lot of “pee breaks.” I chose to go to the farthest washroom from the place I was sitting, so it also helped to increase my daily steps. The Results I lost 5 kg in 30 days, and this was in a month when I didn’t go out of the house much, except for groceries and other essential items. In spite of that, I stuck to a routine of 30-minute workouts and 10,000+ steps daily, and I was able to fit into the clothes I had worn in college. I also managed to bring my diet in control and got rid of urges to have bucket-loads of fast food. For someone who was chugging soda and bingeing on potato chips in the last month, this feels like a significant achievement. The author in the same outfit, pictures clicked five years apart (2015 and 2020) More than the changes in my body, I am grateful for the impact this routine had on my mental health over 30 days. The discipline made me feel more confident about myself — a confidence that does not end at physical appearances. Because I managed to gain control over my lifestyle and stick to a routine for a full month, I feel I can accomplish just about anything I start. It also helped me understand that it is possible to lose weight without making significant changes to your lifestyle or getting too much out of your comfort zone. Weight loss will happen when you decide that you want it, that you would settle for nothing less. But, to achieve it, you don’t necessarily have to spend hours training in the gym. Home workouts are effective and simple, and you can get through with them in just about half an hour. One important thing to remember is that don’t arbitrarily start working out. Instead, follow an established physical trainer on YouTube and enroll in one of their free courses. Keep tabs on what you are eating, but don’t get too obsessed. Allow yourself days where you can eat whatever you like and not keep counting calories with each bite. Most importantly, listen to your body and only select a plan you are comfortable with. It should give you results and, at the same time, be safe and healthy for you. All you need is a little self-control, and you can achieve wonders!
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