Best Exercises for Abdominal Fat or Love Handles

After belly, thighs and arms and butt the other common weight gain area is your waist. Over a period of time weight starts to collect on the side of your stomach which is also known as “love handles” or “tyres”. All these terms are nothing but common slang for abdominal obesity.

Eating unhealthy food and no exercise is the most common cause of love handles. These tyres were mostly seen on women in the past but now more and more men seem to develop it in their late twenties & early thirties. Indians are genetically inclined to accumulate fat around their waist which is also linked to Type 2 diabetes and heart health.

The simplest way to check for abdominal fat is to measure your waist. Run a tape measure around your waist at about the level of your navel. Breathe minimally, and make sure not to pull the tape measure so tight that it depresses the skin. The average BMI  (Body mass Index) of an Indian woman ranges from 18-24.9 , a waist circumference greater than 34-35 inches is considered high risk to lifestyle diseases.

Another way to measure abdominal fat is by calculating the waist to hip ratio. This is done through simple calculation of taking the ratio of the waist and hip. The healthy range in women is less than .7 and men is less than 1.

The best way to lose weight is to exercise and watch what you eat. Ensure that your body is getting adqeuate nutrition to improve the metabolism. Do not resort to fad diets as they might show you weight loss in the short term but in the long term you put the weight back on besides depriving your body of important nutrition resulting in multiple deficiencies in future. For healthy weight loss consult a good professional weight loss expert to help you lose weight and get fit.

Here are a list of exercises that are very effective to lose abdominal fat or love handles:

Running: Love handles are fat accumulated on your sides. So it is more about burning the fat in the body. You can lose maximum fat by running or doing any cardio exercise. Running allows you to burn maximum fat in a workout other than boosting metabolism. So do running in variations and or push your self more for quicker results. Include sprinting, bounding,
German drills, etc in your plan. Burning maximum calories starts burning fat gradually from the body. Manage your diet and eat adequately according to your daily requirement to allow fat to burn faster.

Crunches: Love Handles are part of your core and require core to be worked to exercise the area and build some muscles underneath. Crunches are highly beneficical is strengthening your core for better balance in the body and provides strength for intense workouts. Do crunches on medicine ball and see the muscle gain.

Side Crunch: Working the obliques help in reducing the love handles on the side and side crunch is very effective for oblique muscles. Lie down on right side of your body with right arm over your chest. Crunch your left armpit towards the left hip and raise your legs while crunching. Repeat and do both sides.

Elbow to Knee Crunch: You could do elbow to knee crunch either standing or while lying down.Lie down on the floor with knees bent and arms over your chest. You have to touch your right elbow with the left knee and alternatively. While doing the exercise move your torso for the exercise. This works the rectus abdominis and obliques while the standing one works the entire mid section and hip flexors.

Side Bends: Stand straight with dumbbells in your hands by your side. Alternatively bend your side and stretch the other side holding for a few seconds and then do the other side. This execise stretches the love handles and improves blood flow in the area.

Burpees: It is a aerobic exercise which is a combination of a few exercises mixed together for greater fitness. To perform the exercise stand straight in the first step. Then get down to squat position. Third put your hands on the floor and throw both your legs back stretching your back and looking up in the air. In the fourth step bring back your legs to the sqaut position and lastlt jump up to starting position. Repeat. This exercise not only stretches the core and works the entire body but the faster version of it burns many calories too.

Russian Twist: Sit on the floor with your knees bent and hold your  arms straight in front of you and lean your back a little while your torso is at 45-degree. Brace your core and rotate to the side and as far as you want. Repeat for both sides and mind the posture. This exercise also helps build the muscles on the side and works the core. To make this exercise more intense hold a weight between your hands or lift your feet in the air and perform the exercise.

Wood chop: It is again one of the finest twist exercise which can be done with a object, cabel, dumbbell, bat, base ball bat etc. As you pull the weight across your body, you rotate your hips and bend forward slightly so the weight ends up slightly below your hip. Keep your torso, chest and head in line with your hips. Do it for both sides.

Benefits of Vitamin C

Vitamin C is one of the most popular nutrients in the body. It is water soluble in nature and cannot be stored by the body. Since it is predominantly required to protect the body one needs to ensure that the diet includes this essential nutrient on a daily basis. The most important benefits of Vitamin C is that it protects the body by building immunity and fights the body inflammation helping reduce colds, coughs, heart disease and cancer.

Vitamin C is an antioxidant which eradicates free radicals from the body and keeps the body in fighting mode from all foreign substances. It is also responsible for producing collagen present in muscles and bones useful in wound healing of all types. Therefore is a very popular for beautiful skin and is used in lot of cosmetics. The most popular  sources of Vitamin C are citrus fruits like orange, tangerines and grapefruits and Fresh green leafy vegetables and lemon, strawberries, and lime.

Benefits of Vitamin C

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Yoga for weight loss

Yoga helps in weight loss by improving muscle flexibility, strength, stamina and circulation of blood. The yoga asanas along with correct breathing technique and correct posture help in creating the perfect balance between the mind and body. Yoga compliments the other forms of more active exercises and can never substitute it.

Yoga is fit for beginners that want to start losing weight but are not motivated enough to start running or lifting weights. Yoga helps increase the flexibility in the body gradually motivating you to start more active form of physical activity.

Over the years some forms of yoga like power yoga, flow yoga  have become extremely popular for weight loss. There are many schools of yoga that have similar benefits as power yoga  and have infact helped people manage  heart diseases, asthama and other lifestyle diseases.. To know what style is most conducive to your lifestyle here are few schools listed out for your information.

Hot Yoga: Hot yoga is doing yoga poses in a heated room Read more

Balanced Diet

We are all familiar with the concept of eating right. There is so much information about all sorts of healthy foods and their calorie value. There is enough being written about how vitamins are good for you and what are the rich sources of this nutrient. But rarely do we get to know the approximate quantity that is required by the body on a daily basis. What makes a balanced diet. To make it a little simpler for you we decided to give you an overview of what should make your daily dietary intake.

 

The key nutrients that are required for smooth functioning of the diet are proteins, fat, fiber, minerals, iron, carbohydrates, vitamins and calcium. A diet that includes all these essential nutrients, in correct portion, is known as a balanced diet. Based on the average calorie requirement for a male weighing 60kgs: 2700 or a female weighing 55 kgs:2100 here is a list of essential foods to maintain your weight :

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Caution: Child Obesity in India on the Rise

Pizza’s & Burgers  and junk food joints have become a hot spot for children now a days to fill their tiny stomach’s. Well, pizza’s & the burgers taste nice and exciting but are unable to provide the nutrition that is required for healthy living. Obesity in children has tripled in the past two decades and an alarming concern for us to take note of the fact. The rate of development of mind and body in children decreases with junk food due to the empty calories it provides. A regular pizza provides about 600-800 calories whereas a burger provides you with around 300 calories.

A research report written about a study on Prevalence of overweight and obesity among children and adolescents. According to that report 16 % children 6-19 year old are overweight or obese
“this is three times what it was before. In addition, this report brings out the fact that also during this same time period an additional 15% were “at risk of becoming overweight”.

Researchers also warn that children who are fed with junk food have lower IQ than their counterparts who ate nutritious food.  Junk food may fill the stomach but cant provide the quality of energy which nutritious foods provide. Junk foods are high in saturated fat and oil which leads to high cholesterol levels make you feel lazy and drowsy, resulting in lower concentration levels in children. Junk food decrease the efficiency which is important for children. Heart related diseases are growing with obesity and weight gain is normal for people on a junk food diet.

Once the habit is developed for junk food, it gets very difficult to get rid of the addiction. To ensure that kids do not make this unhealthy lifestyle a permanent part of their life one should start inculcating good nutritional habits from the beginning. Ensuring enough physical activities is an equally important aspect of every child’s growth. In case you need professional assistance to get you started on a healthier lifestyle for your family call us for a free consultancy and speak to our expert now.

5 Fruits to Boost your Health

Fruits are a major and natural source of  many vitamins, minerals and other natural substances to protect you from chronic diseases. Fruits are available through out the year and some are seasonal too.

Here is a list of commonly available fruits that you can include in your daily diet to boost immunity to stay away from infections with its anti-oxidation properties to destroy free radicals. Read more