Stress Management with Food

Studies have correlated strong connection between food and stress. As we get busy and stressed, we tend to make poor nutritional choices which puts your body under further stress. Stress increases cellular activity and reduces the effectiveness of the digestive system leading to nutritional deficiencies and therefore a diet of nutrient dense foods needs to be followed.

So, a balanced diet is not only essential for maintaining overall good health, but can also affect your capacity to cope up stress. The key nutrients for combating stress are those that aid the adrenal glands, such as Read more

Indians need more exercise

We keep telling you how important it is to exercise and how Indians are genetically prone to obesity and diabetes. To combat this, the Indian govt lowered obesity guidelines, so more people fall into the ‘obese’ category. Check if you are obese, by Indian govt health standards? Trust us, most of you would be surprised!

To further confirm the genetic tendency of Indians towards lifestyle disorders like obesity and diabetes, recent physical activity guidelines state that Indians need more almost double te amount of exercise as our Western counterparts to reduce risk of diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and metabolic complications.

The American Diabetic Association prescribes 45 minutes of exercises, 3-4 times per week. Note, that’s for Americans. For Indians, the requirement is 1 hour of exercise, 7 days a week!

Keep in mind that its not just doing any kind of exercise, but the right kind of exercise, at the appropriate exertion level, that will help you improve your health and fitness. Get on a well structured fitness plan, and see great results on your health and fitness.

A really great way to get fit, is to sign up for a run, like the Delhi Marathon.

Juice Diet- detox & weight loss?

Juice diet is a popular diet that many people try to follow- most people use detox diet for weight loss. The juice diet has many forms: lemon juice diet, orange juice diet, carrot juice diet, vegetable juice diet, and other possibilities of juice diets. We told you about the lemon detox diet. Here, we talk about all juice diets

It is basically a fad diet or crash diet form, involves intake of raw vegetable and fruit juices, and water only. It is an extreme diet form, as no solid food is consumed during the length of the diet. So, is the juice diet good for weight loss? Is the juice diet healthy?

Does the juice diet detox your system? The juice diet is like a mine field. Read on to find out, if you’re going to lose weight, or lose something else…

So, does the juice diet help weight loss? Read more

Mono Diets: Fast, Unhealthy Weight Loss

Everyone wants ‘Fast Weight Loss’, regardless of how long it took them to gain weight. Due to this high demand, there are many short terms fixes using extreme & often unhealthy methods for ‘fast weight loss’ that do not give you actual fat loss, only water loss. So, once you return to your normal lives, the weight gain comes back with a vengeance. One of these is commonly known as Mono-Diets or mono food diet plan.

Mono Food Diet Plan means that you will only eat one Read more

Does Cardiovascular exercise make you smarter

There’s plenty of research to suggest the cardiovascular exercise, like running, or any other cardio activity, improves your heart health, help you manage your blood pressure and lots of other health benefits. But in the past few years, research has taken benefits of cardio exercise to the next level. It suggests that performing cardiovascular exercise might actually make you smarter.

Read on to know more .. Read more

Why lose weight- 5 reasons

Most people start a weight loss plan for aesthetic reasons to look good. But beyond that, excess weight is literally a menace to your health. Besides making you fat, large amounts of fatty deposits can cause havoc on your body’s internal systems.

By Indian government obesity guidelines, People who are Body Mass Index (BMI) of 25 or greater are clinically termed obese & have a much higher risk for many major illnesses. This is due to a genetic Indian risk of diabetes & heart disease. For most of us, obesity sounds like something foreign, but to be over a BMI of 25, is for example, anyone with a height of 5 feet and weighing over 58.2 kg, 5 feet 6 inches & weighing over 70.5 kg, or 6 feet tall and weighing over 83.6 kg.

Check the table below to see if you fall into the obese category. The height is in inches, the weight is in lbs.

Surprisingly, many people fall into the high risk category. Here are few reasons why you definitely have to lose weight: Read more

Are you drinking fat?

Sounds disgusting, but many of those soft drinks that we merrily consume are literally like drinking fat. We tell you all the time how sugar can make you fat. According to the New York City Health Department, drinking just one can of soft drinks (or sugary soda) can make you gain upto 5 kgs of fat! Leave aside all those weekly chocolate cake calories, or the coffee drink calories!

To further reinforce this matter, the New York City government has come up with this video highlighting the effects of sugary drinks. See it here below.

One bottle of soft drinks contains between 200-300 calories. That’s 200-300 empty sugar calories, that get stored in your body as fat! Similarly, fruity drinks like orange juice and mango drinks are loaded with calories. If you need to drink something, drink water. Read about the health benefits of water. Or try some green tea- it helps in weight loss. To start cutting down on your daily intake of sugary drinks, try doing it on alternate days. That itself, can half your sugary calorie intake, from soda and soft drinks.

Click here to calculate your Body Fat Percentage

10 Weight Loss New Year Resolutions that work

The New Year is almost here. Its time to look back at how the past year went, & plan your goals for next year! Is weight loss or fitness one of those goals? Did you make a weight loss resolution at the beginning of the past year? Did you achieve it…

Previously, we told you why most weight loss resolutions for the New Year don’t work. Here, we tell you how you can lose weight this coming year with the right weight loss goals. Don’t get on any crazy diets. Stick to a realistic diet plan. Add good foods to your diet (eg: green tea, almonds) and get some exercise. Before you know, the pounds will be melting away!

So, here are Fitho’s top 10 Weight Loss resolutions for 2010:

Lose 2 kgs: We know you want to lose 10 kgs, and get that celebrity body, but lets start with small steps. Let’s first target a weight loss of 2 kgs per month. This is the healthy rate for weight loss. For each month, target this weight loss, and track it. If losing 20 kg of weight is your goal, then in 10 months, you’ll be there. That’s much before the year ends!

Eat 1-2 fruits per day: Fruits are one of the best sources of carbohydrates for the body, along with vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. They taste great, and have a low glycemic index. Then, what’s stopping you from eating more. Most people don’t even eat one fruit per day. Start by targeting to eat 2 fruits per day. One with breakfast, one in the evening. That’s not too hard, is it?

Eat breakfast: Eat a healthy breakfast. Have eggs, milk, fruits, multigrain bread. We don’t recommend corn flakes, but eating them is better than skipping breakfast. Studies have shown that eating breakfast helps you avoid weight gain, than skipping it. Read about other eating habits to lose weight.

Drink less alcohol: Yes, sure drinking alcohol makes you feel like a rockstar, but you’ll be far from looking like one, if you keep drinking it. Besides, having a crap load of empty calories (list of high calorie alcoholic drinks), it also promote fat storage in the body. Excessive consumption of alcohol leads to hormonal imbalance and side effects. Eliminating alcohol completely is hard, so stick to only 2-3 drinks per week. Here is list of low calorie alcoholic drinks.

Get protein: Indian diets are very high on starchy carbohydrates. Wheat, rice, potatoes and other starchy foods dominate the Indian diet. Replace some of those carbs with protein, to help you build muscle and increase your metabolic rate. Here are some great sources of protein: whey protein, chicken, fish, eggs & vegetarian protein sources.

Workout: Yes, the dreaded one- exercise! Join the gym or get a weight loss plan. Paying for it, is one of the best ways to ensure that you stick to it. Don’t target to workout 6 times a week. For the first month, target to workout just 2 times a week. First make working out a part of your routine, then increase the frequency. If you hate working out, then join a class- power yoga, spinning, aerobics, kickboxing … Or play a sport to burn calories.

Go for a walk: If you are not doing any exercise currently, start with a walk. Jogging is better than walking, but its important to start with some exercise.

Desserts: Skip it, or share if you can’t skip. Desserts like chocolate cake, are loaded with calories from sugar and saturated fat. Besides the calories, read how sugar makes you store fat.
Try this simple healthy dessert recipe – give you 1 serving of fruit (bananas are good for weight loss) & unsaturated fat, that’s good for your heart. And see this list of the healthiest & unhealthiest Indian desserts & sweets.

Reduce processed foods: You’ve heard it before. Eat less processed foods. Avoid white bread, biscuits, juices, chips, etc … the list can go on. Easy to say, hard to do. So, to start, pick one processed food in your diet and eliminate that. Let’s show you how the numbers work: One slice of white bread is about 80-100 calories. Reducing those 2 slices of white bread a day over a year, equals a calorie reduction equivalent to a weight loss of almost 9-10 kgs!

10 minutes: Too busy to join the gym or go for a walk? If nothing else, do some light exercises at home, or in the park. Skipping is one of the best calorie burning exercises. Got some stairs around you? Climbing stairs as exercise to build muscle tone and incinerate fat. Try some pushups, squats to increase your metabolic rate. Both men and women can perform them easily.

Goals are great, but without the right plans, they’re hard to achieve.

Belly fat increases Asthma risk

Whether its a belly, or love handles, we already hate the belly fat on our bodies. To make it worse, recent research shows that overweight or obese women were more likely to develop asthma than women with a healthy weight.

Further they found that regardless of weight, Read more

Sugar reduces testosterone levels

We’ve told you about how sugar makes you fat. There’s new research that shows that besides promoting fat storage in your body, it further adversely affects your body. Read on to find out..

According to a new study, sugar reduces testosterone levels. Testosterone is the male hormone- its what promotes muscle growth (and fat loss), gives you facial and body hair and keeps your sex life crackling! So, a reduction of testosterone means that you could potentially have less muscle, a not so good sexual life, and overall being less manly.

So, is sugar really worth the side effects? We don’t think so. We’re not saying live without sugar, but find good replacements. A natural sugar replacement is honey. Honey has many health benefits. If you want to go sugar free, use the healthiest sugar substitute.

Indians are genetically prone to diabetes, so manage your sugar intake. It’ll keep you healthy!

Lose weight, get smart!

You already know the benefits of losing weight- It is good for your heart, help you live longer, and eases depression. But can it make you smarter?

Apparently, it does make you smarter! Researchers at Stanford University found that patients who had undergone gastric bypass surgery showed improvement in memory, problem solving, and attention to detail.

Research showed that belly fat contains harmful chemicals, when released into the bloodstream, trigger inflammation and cloud the mind. Know more why belly fat is unhealthy.

Before you book yourself expensive weight loss surgery to test out this theory, experts say losing weight through diet and exercise has the same effect. Thirty minutes a day of exercise is all you need to get in shape. We have tons of weight loss tips, diet tips, exercises to get fit, and info about healthy foods/recipes.

Can muscles turn to fat

A common concern before people start working out is – If you stop working out, does muscle become fat? This is a common myth. Let’s show you how.

When you start working out, your body builds muscle. To build and maintain muscle, your body uses calories. As a result, your metabolic goes up. With an increased metabolic rate, your body needs more calories to maintain itself. So, you get hungrier and you eat more. As long as you keep up the cycle of working out and eating appropriately, life is great.

Now when you stop working out for a long period of time, due to inactivity your muscles begin to atrophy (shrink in size). So, your muscle mass reduces. With a reduced muscle mass, your body needs fewer calories to maintain itself, thus the amount of food needs to reduce appropriately.

This is the problem. When people stop working out, they don’t reduce their diets appropriately to match their reducing metabolic rates. So, they stop working out but keep eating the same amount of food. As a result, there is excess calories in the body. And we all know what happens with excess calories- they get stored as fat in the body.

So, muscle does not turn into fat. Its the extra calories that you eat that turn into fat. Next time someone tells you that muscles turns into fat, feel free to enlighten them or send them to us! And just know that as long as you know your daily calorie requirement, you won’t gain any weight!

Similarly, know that muscle does not turn into bone either!

How to get a Model backside, perfect Waist to Hip ratio

How to get a shapely butt? That’s a question many women ask. But its valid for men too. Besides vanity, its great for your health. So, besides telling you how to get a shapely butt, we’ll tell you why you should. We’re not talking size zero now…

A great backside is about having shapely gluteal muscles, and having a good waist to hip ratio. The good news is that its not all genetic. The right waist to hip ratio not only make you look great in a pair of jeans (we all love those) but also helps you reduce your chances of many diseases. Studies have shown that a waist to hip ratio (WHR) is a strong determinant of your heart health. The better your WHR, the lower your risk of cardiovascular disease. Besides lowering your risk of cardiac disease an ideal WHR is also considered an indicator of fertility, in both men and women.

What a good waist to hip (WHR) ratio?
To calculate your waist to hip ratio, measure your waist and your hips, and divide the waist measurement by the hips. The ideal WHR for women is 0.7 and that for men is 0.85-0.9.

Don’t measure up? Don’t worry! To get a great butt like a model, you need to do 2 things- manage your diet and do the right exercises. Both should help to give butt a nice athletic shape.

As Indians, we are prone to belly fat, so to improve your WHR lets reduce your tummy first. Don’t waste your time on crunches. Go for a run- it’ll help you burn calories, reduce belly fat and build some leg muscles, which includes the glutes- the butt muscle . Just reducing your waist, will help you improve your health and WHR.

If you’re skinny, then you need to build those glutes. Start with doing squats and lunges. Below, we’ve got a video of how to do a squat. If this is too easy for you, then do a weighted squat. Hold dumbbells on your side and perform the same movement. A lunge is basically like a giant step. Take a large step forward with the left leg and step into it till your left thigh is parallel to the floor and your right knee is right above the ground. Return to the standing position and repeat with the other leg. Similar to the squat, if its too easy, hold dumbbells in your hands, while performing the lunge.

Both these muscle work the leg muscles, along with the gluteal muscles (butt muscles). Perform 3-4 sets of each exercise, with 10-15 repetitions in each set. Do this 2-3 times a week, and you should be on your way to a great butt!

Along with these exercises and running, stair climbing build great leg muscles and burns fat! So, build that shapely bum and look good in pretty much anything you wear, or nothing

Last but not the least, the right posture adds a lot to a make your body shapely. Slouching puts pressure on your lower back. Do these lower back exercises to improve posture.

Are you obese? New Indian obesity guidelines here

Studies predict that India will be the global diabetes capital by 2050 if the abdominal and lower limb obesity and metabolic syndrome are not arrested. Alarmed by reports, the Health Ministry has reduced the cut-off for body mass index (BMI) to 23 kg/m2 to fight the battle against obesity. If your BMI is over 23 kg/m2, then you are considered obese. The global standard for BMI is 25 kg/m2. So, someone considered not-obese by most international standards, might be obese in India!

BMI is the ratio of the body weight in kg versus height in m2. Understand how to find your BMI here. We think its wrong to judge obesity by BMI- read here to understand why.

The guidelines were released jointly by the Health Ministry, the Diabetes Foundation of India, the All-India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS), Indian Council of Medical Research, the National Institute of Nutrition and 20 other health organisations- Those with BMI of 25 kg/m2 will be clinically termed obese (as opposed to 30 kg/m2 at the international level) and those with BMI of 32.5 kg/m2 will require bariatric surgery to eliminate excess flab.

Along with the BMI guidelines, they have also released guidelines cut-offs for waist measurement at 90 cm for Indian men (as opposed to 102 cm globally) and 80 cm for Indian women (as opposed to 88 cm at the international level).

“The Indian body composition puts them in high risk for diabetes and hypertension. The guidelines—with revised statistics—will benefit the additional 15-20 per cent (60-80 million) of the Indian population who can now be clinically termed obese under the revised measurements,” Anoop Mishra, director and head, department of diabetes and metabolic diseases, Fortis Hospitals, New Delhi and Noida, said releasing the guidelines.

The study says one in every three Indians has high triglyceride (bad cholesterol) levels and 30-70 per cent has low levels of HDL (good cholesterol). For every 10 extra kilograms above the stipulated body weight (measured according to height), life expectancy of a person reduces by three years- the report said.

By the new obesity guidelines, every second person in Delhi fulfills the criteria of obesity or has excess abdominal fat and nearly one-fourth of the adolescent population in the capital has Syndrome X or metabolic syndrome, that heralds the onset of heart diseases and diabetes.

So, what are planning to do, to avoid obesity?

Get Fit, Save the Planet

You’ve all heard of global warming, pollution and all of that. Have you done something about it? No, right?! Well, at Fitho … there’s a way you can, and get fit at the same time.

Here’s a list of 6 ways, how by being fit, you can make a difference and save the planet:
- Eating healthy: Eat less processed food, and red meat reduces your carbon footprint on the planet, since it takes less
- Climb Stairs: Instead of taking the elevator for a few floors, take the stairs. Its a top fat burning exercise, and you save electricity and thus fossil fuels.

- Run outside instead of the treadmill: besides seeing more of nature, you’re saivng a ton of power. Those treadmills are heavy on power usage!
- Walk after dinner: You not only burn calories, but you also skip watching TV and saving electricity
- A stronger cardiovascular system uses oxygen efficiently and reduces your release of carbondioxide into the atmosphere.
- At a reduced weight, you will possibly need fewer calories to maintain yourself and thus more food for other people

Did you ever think that you could be fit and save the world? No, right?! Let us show you the way…

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