Health clubs are getting popular by the day what with dwindling manual work, reigning taste bud blitz, changing sexual mores, and craze of being slim trim and fashionable to core.
Gone are the days old timer full bodied heroines. Thanks to lean and sprity heroines of present genre, weight watching has come to stay. What if we are too busy to find time for exercise, physical that is. We still manage to lock our taste buds, squeze our innards, and go on a diet.
Cursing flab that forces us to rein our taste buds, we still salivate on seeing our favourite cuisine. Nevertheless, keeping distance from gastronimical attractions, we pump iron at health club and stick to our regular exercise to shed away that extra fat. Yet the ghost of being overweight haunts us even in dreams.
The very sight of icecream, cake, pastry and samosas makes us drol over them even as a voice deep inside says; don’t touch them, else you will put on weight. In such a dilemma one desperately feels if only there could be a way out, to maintain a figure together with catering to taste buds simultaneously. Is this possible?
Yes it is. You can eat all you like and yet remain slim trim and smart. All this requires is a bit of stock taking, and then you are free to relish your favourite dishes as bonus.
What you have to do is to create space for calories which your choicest cuisines are about to provide you. So to say, burn up an equivalent of calories which you are about to replenish by way of your favourite food.
What is calorie ?
The unit of chemical energy released from food in course of its digestion in human body, is called calorie. To keep body functions in proper gear, calories are indispensable. Every food item has it own calorie value—high in some low in others. For example each one gram of carbohydrate and protein contains 4 calories of food energy. Whereas 1 gm of fat (ghee) contains 9 calories.
Part of the total calories released in the process of digestion is used to keep the body warm and working, and rest of it is deposited in body as fat (adipoise tissue). Twenty four hours of the day body clock ticks by virtue of calories released in myriad of biochemical reactions occuring in human frame. In terms of dieting, to shed a pound of flab (fat), you ought to burn about 3,500 calories of available energy.
That, obviously, is possible when you cut down on your calorie intake in a phased manner. Either eat less or work all the more harder. Flush physical labour burns calories in abundance. More calories spent mean more of body fat removed.
The calorie quantum in our body provides energy for two distinct group of activities, one—for internal work, two—for external work.
For Internal work : Even as apparently you don’t seem to be doing something, your heart beats, lungs heave, blood remains warm, and nerves remain live and kicking. And these set of internal activities need 60 calories an hour to remain in vogue.
For External work : The harder you work physically, more is the energy spent, hence greater the need for higher amounts of dietic calories.
Ergo, to melt down your excess fat, better sit than lie down, better stand than squat, better walk than stand, better still walk fast, and best of all run rather than walking briskly. Whatever way you put it, message is simple. If you must fight over-weight, doing something is better than doing nothing.
Caloric consumption is influenced as much by the status of physical and mental work. You spend more of life energy in summer season as compared to winters. So to say, it is easier to shed weight in countries and climates that are hot, than in those that are cold.
It is pertinant here to know how much of calories are required by you each day? And what is the calorie content of foods you intend eating. For that helps you decide on type and extent of work out required to burn equivalent of energy that is about to be taken in food form.
Vegetarianism v/s non-vegetarianism
Most people these day believe vegetarian diet is less nutritious and pappy than the non-vegetarian variety.
They scarce believe vegetarian food to be wholesome. The common misconception of veg. being low protein is easily removed if congnizance is taken of the following facts:
- Between 100 gms of pulses and 100 gms of animal flesh; former has more amount of protein.
- An egg (poultry product) has 12 to 14 gms protein whereas 100 gm of Paneer (milk product) contains 24 gms of protein.
- 100 grams of hen egg gives 170 calories of energy. The same amount of fish and chicken give 194 calories each, whereas wheat, pulses and rice (100 gms each) provide 300 to 350 calories each.
- Fat derived from animal flesh is wholly unsaturated and contains an excess of cholesterol.
- A diet high in calories and animal proteins is significantly limited to cancerous conditions in rectum, large intestine, mammary glands, ovary, prostate gland, uterus and fallopian tubes. But with a vegetarian diet no such linkage to ailments is proved till date.
- Fibre contents of vegetarian diet help protect from heart diseases, diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure, gastric trouble, constipation etc. Non-veg food is lacking in dietary fibre of which 20 to 30 grams are mandatory requirements for a human being.
- In a balanced and varied combination, pulses, cereals, fruits and vegetables—coupled with milk and milk products—supply all essential nutrients to human body—and keep malnutrition at bay. Albeit, subsisting on flesh alone, it is hard to remain in good health.
How spicy foods rich in saturated fats affect your health
Saying goes that an excess of anything and everything is bad. Ditto for food. We take spicy foods in routine diet even though these are bad for health. Overly salted and peppered food spurs acid production in stomach leading to gastritis and peptic ulcer. Such food is especially hazardous for our present day fast paced life. Mental tension being rampant in modern times, acidity is already there on count of psychic reasons. Spicy food would only serve to make it worse.
Now a word about saturated fat. Fat that we take in as food have two types of constituent fatty acids :
1. Saturated fatty acid, 2. Unsaturated fatty acids.
Animal fats are rich in saturated fatty acids while vegetable fats abound in unsaturated fatty acids (notable exceptions being coconut and palm oil).
Adipose tissues in our body contain 10-15% of our total body fat. Of our total food energy, 20% comes from fat. As per technical recommendation, 50% of our total food fat must be of vegetable origin.
Thus, on one hand unsaturated fatty acids are best and mandatory for life, on the other hand, saturated fatty acids are harmful. Excessively fat laden diet, especially with saturated kind, is a positive threat for your heart. Saturated fat is directly linked to vascular and heart diseases.
Vegetarianism is positive health prop
Take care that 40-60% of your food energy comes through fruits and vegetebles.
As far as possible eat your vegies raw, or half cooked, and with their skins intact. Vegetable peels posses all the essential minerals and trace elements, which are immune boosters.
Even vegetable seeds are good source of nutrients that favour fast growth. So, if possible, even seeds should be consumed along with the principal vegetable.
Have a go at seasonal fruits and vegetables ad lib. For these supply stock of myriad minerals which go into the formation of some 20,000 biochemicals produced in human body—some daily, some in phased manner, and some on specific demand. For metabolism of mineral elements, vitamins contained in fruits and vegetables are indispensable for human body.
Rich fibre content of fruits and vegetables helps in regular bowel movement and maintaining tone and tenor of the intestinal tract.
When joints go jarring
Painful joints in winters in a eubiquitous problem. By one estimate, some 40% of world population suffers from inflamed joints. Gradually though, it is assuming epidemic proportions. At times joints wear off to such an extent that their replacement alone can help patient. Nevertheless, the problem can be tackled even without recourse to surgical intervention. For there are numerous misconceptions gaining currency in respect of arthritis.
A layman is more apt to consider any kind of pain in bones and muscles as arthritic. As a matter of fact it is only the joint discomfort which is categorised as arthritis even though the cascading effect of it is felt in many adjoining organs as well. For knee pain some prescription exercises, done either in clinic or at home, are useful. Apart from that the patient must exercise prudence in matters of eating and drinking. Treatment for joint pains must zero down to removal of the causative factors. If attention is focussed only on effected joint, other joints/areas of body will remain diseased. Hence all joints and body muscles ought to be heeded.
And at the same time accumulated fat (obesity) in body must be got rid of. Flab, infact, is major cause underlying many a diseases.
Physical exercise is a must
For good health, food alone is no solution. What you additionally need is a well regulated life style and daily routine. A package that not only helps you digest your food better, it also makes apt use of calories available therefrom.
What really works to burn excess of body calories is exercise of body muscles. You can choose from a host of excercises like brisk walk, cycling, aerobics and even a more formal workout in a jim. These will help you consumate your surplus body energy, as also give many indirect benefits. Albeit these benefits will surface only on a sustained application. Bodily workouts will help you thus :
❑ It will increase basal metabolic rate of your body.
❑ It helps you fight depression and disappointment.
❑ It enhances flow of blood in your vascular system, thereby supplying more of life giving oxygen to your body cells.
❑ It increases calcification of your bones, making them strong.
❑ It develop your muscular framework and makes more of life energy available at your disposal.
