Skipping breakfast VS Intermittent fasting for fat loss

 Majority of us confuses intermittent fasting with skipping breakfast,however,these two are completely different things.

Intermittent Fasting

As you all know what is intermittent fasting is,its when you are not actually restricting calories but you are eating less often or i can say that the your eating time period is smaller.Most common of which is 16:8 where we eat within 8 hours of time period and then fast for 16 hours however some people do 20:4 or 23:1 for more fat loss.

Intermittent fasting has recently been shown to be extremely helpful in fat burning process as it

1-Improves insulin sensitivity

2-Balances the hormones in the body

3-Kick starts the fat burning process in the body.

4-Also eating for a smaller interval allows our body to absorb and store the nutrients properly.

Thus by eating in a smaller interval really turns the body into a fat butning machine.

Intermittent fasting has become a lifestyle for many people nowadays.Some people follow it alternatively with normal eating days,usually 3-4 days per week.

Skipping breakfast

Now most people confuse it with skipping breakfast.Skipping breakfast means that you are going to skip your one entire meal which is not healthy for your body.

In other words you are cutting off the calories of your one entire meal from your diet which badly effects your body.

It not only slows down your metabolism but also disturbs the hormones and is not good for losing weight.

Whats the difference...

Now if we compare these two it comes to the following things

1-In intermittent fasting there is no calorie deficit thus it does not slows down your metabolism as in skipping an entire meal and decreasing your calories drastically.

2-Skipping your entire meals with the purpose of drastic calorie drop can lead to muscle wasting which in turn decreases your metabolism and can lead to weight gain if you eat slightly more than yout normal calories.

Intermittent fasting however allows the body to be in the protein saving mode hence does not lead to the muscle wasting which is extremely good as you are burning fat without wasting muscles.

Thus skipping breakfast during intermittent fasting is not actually skipping a meal as you are not going to be in a calorie deficit,you are just going to prolong the period of fasting and is going to break your fast later without being in calorie deficit.

Conclusion

So do your research properly before incorporating any new thing in your weight loss journey.

Always listen to your body how it reacts to different diets and schedules.

Always follow a healthy and permanent way to lose weight that does not effect your body badly in long run.

5 best yoga poses for PCOS

 Diet and exercise go hand in hand.We can not achieve the goal of a healthy and fit life just by following only one of these two.

So today i will talk about 5 best yoga poses that will help you with pcos and your overall health maintenance

1- Butterfly Pose or Baddhakonasana

2- Reclined Butterfly Pose or Supta Baddhakonasana

3- Camel Pose or Ustrasana

4- Locust Pose or Shalabhasana

5- Wide Legged Forward Bend or Prasarita Padottanasana

Now i will briefly explain the steps and benefits of all these...

Butterfly Pose

1-Sit on the ground with your feet held straight in front of you.

2-Bring the soles of your feet together.

3-Hold your each foot with hands properly and make sure to keep your elbows against your inner thighs.

4-Make sure to sit straight, inhale and as you exhale lean forward from your hips until you feel the stretch.

5-Hold for 15-30 sec and repeat 2-4 times.

Benefits

Helps in preparing for delivery.

Improves digestion.

Stretches your inner thighs and knees.

Relieves menstrual discomfort.

Improves blood circulation in lower body.

Reclined Butterfly Pose

1-Follow the first 2 steps of the butterfly pose described above.

2-Maintaining this position lie back on a bolster or you can keep anything that can match the height of bolster.You can keep your knees a bit above ground.

3-Make sure that your head neck and upper back is resting on bolster.

4-Place your hands on your belly or keep them on sides.

5-Stay in this position for 5-10 breaths and repeat 2-4 times.

Benefits

Relieves stress.

Alleviates upper and lower back pain.

Stretches shoulders,triceps,groin,abductors,hamstrings and chest.

Camel Pose

1-Keep your knees on the ground as you are standing on your knees with your legs parallel and behind your body.

2-Keep your back straight.Do not bend hip joint.

3-Now place your hands to your lower back with fingers pointing downwards and elbows facing backwards.

4-Gently arch your back in such a way that a backbend forms.

5-Lift your chin up as you are looking towards the ceiling.

6-Push your chest forwards and upwards as pressing against the ceiling with the hands in the same position as described in step 3.

7-Do not do any step beyond your limits.

8-Stay for several breaths and repeat 2-4 times.

Benefits

Posture improvement

Relieves back pain

Expands abdominal region thus improving digestion.

Improves respiration as it opens the chest.

Strengthens shoulders.

Reduces thigh fat.

Locust Pose

1-Lie down on your stomach with arms on the side of your body.

2-Rest your forehead on the ground/mat.

3-Now slowly inhale and raise your head,arms and shoulders up and look forward.

4-Now by staying in the same position lift your legs towards to ceiling without bending the knees.

5-Widen your chest across collar bones.

6-Hold for 30sec to 1min and repeat.

Benefits

Sretches belly, chest, thighs and shoulders.

Improves posture.

Improves muscle of spine,buttocks and back.

It strengthens core.

Wide Legged Forward Bend

1-Stand straight on your mat.

2-Place your feet several feet apart.

3-Make sure that your heels are slightly more apart than toes.

4-Make sure that your back is straight and your belly is pulled in towards your spine.

5-Bend forward and hinge at your hips not waist.

6-Place your hands on mat directly below your shoulders.

7-Keep your neck,head and back straight and look straight on floor.

8-Stay for several seconds and then repeat.

Benefits

Open hips.

Relief from backaches.

Relieves stress,anxiety and depression.

Increases the circulation to pelvic organs.

Conclusion

Make sure to not exceed the limit of your body for a posture as it can harm your body.

Make sure to gradually do each step avoiding jerks.

Your body flexibility will increase with time so do not force your body for a certain stretch as it can harm muscles.

How to lose fat not muscle

Losing muscle mass not fat.

This is the most common mistake that most people do while on a weight loss journey.Most of the people are completely unaware of this fact.

They just think that losing weight means starving yourself and thats all but they do not know that they are doing more harm to their body than good.Here i will discuss this common mistake and how to lose weight effectively and in a healthy way.

Calories in vs calories out.

Yes you heard right.I know that you probably will be thinking that its all about "calories in vs calories out".Now listen carefully yes its exactly true but you have to keep in mind that it all varies from person to person.

Everyone has different body sizes,shapes and composition.It also depends on how many calories do you burn in a day.If you are a large person that is mostly on feet throughout the day then you probably need more calories than a small average man.You can not say that having as few calories as a small person will be enough for you because then you will be depriving your body of its necessary food requirement which is not good so it varies from person to person.

Another thing is BMR(Basal Metabolic Rate) that is the amount of calories your body burn while at rest i.e..doing nothing just lying down.First of all check out your BMR that shows you how much calories you burn if you do no particular activity throughout the day.Now if you want to maintain your weight you need to have that much calories daily and if you are mostly on your feet throughout the day you can have 200-300 more because these 200-300 are other than those of the BMR and they will not make you gain weight if you are active.

Wanna lose weight?

Now if you want to lose weight you have to reduce the number of calories that you are taking than the number of calories that you burn.Now there are a few simple steps that will help you through this as they helped me..

1- Always know your BMR as well as your Body Mass Index(BMI).There are many calculators available online that helps you to calculate your BMI.

2- Now that you know in which category you fall,start working out accordingly.If you have normal BMI there is no need to worry but if you have an increasing BMI then that could be a problem and you have to do something about it.

3- Always have an app in your mobile phone to calculate all your calorie intake to keep track of what you are eating.I perso ally suggest MyFitnessPal..Its great and has helped me a lot in my weight loss journey too.

4- Now we have to burn some extra calories to lose weight and that we are going to do with exercise.Yes exercise i can not emphasize this enough that exercise is so important if you want to burn fat and lose weight.

Do not starve youself.

And the most important of all.Stop starving yourself.We know that our body uses glucose as a source of energy.Whenever You starve yourself and deprive your body of food and glucose your body will reach in a state where it is not getting enough food to turn it into glucose and there it will start to use your muscle protein and convert it into glucose to gain energy and the more muscle you lose lower is your BMR and it results in weight gain as your body is not able to burn even those few calories because of muscle loss.

Exercise for fat loss

First you should keep in mind that your weight loss results come "80% from your diet and 20% from exercise".

Now you must be thinking i will just do diet and that will be enough but to achieve long term weight loss you will have to incorporate exercise in your lifestyle at some point.

Exercise is extremely important...

1- It increases metabolism

2- Helps burns fat

3- Improves mood

4- Sweating helps get rid of toxins in the body 

5- Helps tone your body and much more..

Do Strength training

Resistance training is extremely important as it burns fat by helping building muscle because the key is the more muscle you have the more fat you will burn even in the rest state.

What you need to do is to do resistance training 3-4 days per week and remaining 1-2 days you can do cardio.

Follow high protein diet

High protein diet naturally helps you to lose weight by

• Increasing metabolism

• Increases satiety hormones like GLP-1 and cholecystokinin etc

• Decreases hunger hormone

• Have a higher thermic effect (20-30%) as compared to fat(0-3%) and carbohydrates(5-10%).

Now what is Thermic Effect of food?Our body uses calories to digest and metabolize the food this is the thermic effect of food.

Now as protein has higher thermic effect it means our body will burn more calories to digest high protein meal which is necessary for weight loss.

Take proper sleep

Sleep for at least 6-8 hours per day as it increases growth hormone that helps burn fat.

Conclusion

Follow these steps and you will definitely see changes in your body.Your body will be more toned and your body fat percentage will decline.

And always make sure to seek medical advice before following a particular diet.