Aqsa Shaikh Archives

July 8, 2019 By Aqsa Shaikh 7 Comments

How Important is Cardio For Weight Loss?

You are well aware of the fact that you lose weight when you burn more calories irrespective of how much you eat. The best way to lose weight is to follow a combination of cardio, strength training and a healthy diet.

Cardio is one of the key components because:

You burn more calories at one time.
Getting your heart rate into your target heart rate zone means your blood is pumping, you’re breathing hard, and you’re sweating and burning calories.
You can easily add intensity to increase your calorie burn. With cardio, it’s easy to increase your calorie burn with small changes, for instance running or walking faster, jumping higher, climbing hills or trying new activities that your body isn’t used to.
It adds to your overall calorie deficit. Burning calories with exercise means you don’t have to cut as many calories from your diet.
You can do cardio most days of the week. With strength training, your muscles require rest to recover and grow stronger. Cardio can be done most days of the week without worrying about injury or over-training.

The Best Cardio Exercises

While you know that cardio is important for weight loss, which exercises are best and how much do you really need for weight loss?

The truth is, there really isn’t any best cardio exercise. The best activity is the one you’ll do on a regular basis. So, finding something you like is critical to reaching your weight loss goals. That said, some exercises offer more intensity than others.

Impact activities: Exercises that involve some impact, like walking, will usually boost your heart rate quicker than no-impact activities like swimming or cycling.
High impact activities: High impact, or exercises that involve running or jumping, will often burn more calories than lower impact things like walking.
Whole body activities: When you involve both the upper and lower body, such as an aerobic activity which is also is known as cross training, it’s often easier to get the heart rate up and burn more calories.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t bother with low impact exercise. Both types of activities offer opportunities to burn calories and doing both gives you a well-rounded cardiovascular endurance development.

To get an idea of just how much cardio can do for you, check out the following list of common exercises. Below is the number of calories burned for a 150-pound person in 30 minutes:

Step aerobics: 340 calories
Stationary bike: 238 calories
Swimming: 270 calories
Walking 4 mph: 170 calories
Running 5 mph: 270 calories
kickboxing: 400 calories

Everything from walking to kickboxing can burn a significant number of calories!

How Much Do You Need?

It’s tough to know exactly how much cardio we need for weight loss. The American College of Sports Medicine and the American Heart Association recommend about 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous intensity activity on most days of the week. But, the truth is how much cardio you need varies from person to person and depends on factors such as:

How many calories you eat
How hard you exercise
Metabolism, age and gender
Fitness levels
Body fat percentage and weight
Exercise schedule

That said, here are some tips for setting up an effective cardio program:

If you’re a beginner, start with 3 days of the cardio exercise of your choice, working at a level you can handle.
Add time each week to work your way up to 30 to 45 minutes of continuous exercise.
As you get stronger, try interval training once a week to help boost endurance and burn more calories.
Work your way up to 5 to 6 days of cardio and try to vary what you do and how hard you work.

It will help you lose weight but it is most effective when combined with strength training and a healthy, low-calorie diet and adequate rest.

How Much Do You Need To Build Muscle?

You may think you shouldn’t do cardio exercise if you’re trying to gain muscle. But, cardio isn’t just for weight loss. It also helps condition the heart and lungs and promotes health and well-being.

If your goal is to gain muscle, you won’t need tons of cardio. But, doing at least three 20-minute sessions a week won’t hurt your goals and will help you reap the benefits of cardio without burning too many calories.

These are some simple necessities for cardio in weight loss. After reading this, I am sure all your misconceptions about weight training and weight loss are cleared!

Want to know more or still have queries? Drop them in the comments below!

#BeTheForce

March 25, 2015 By Aqsa Shaikh 7 Comments

Food Pyramid – Did you Know? A guide to healthy eating with the Food Pyramid

Good food after a day’s hard work is always a pleasure and there is no substitute to good wholesome and nutritious food. But, more often than not, we are so engrossed in our work that we fail to think about our health which in turn means that we neglect good food.

And most think it’s a cumbersome task to deal with all these nitty gritties, think about nutrition, good food etc.. It’s so complicated. The idea ultimately is to just eat whatever is available when hungry.

But, it’s not difficult as it seems. Well, while you are in a restaurant you always think about ordering something tasty and compromise often with the nutritional aspects, here is a simple food pyramid tips which can be followed easily without any complications. This can be followed in restaurants or while you are out and at home.

So in the food pyramid, there is a cereal and grains group, followed by fruits and vegetable group, dairy products and non-veg, and then oil fat and sugary foods,

1.Cereal and grains group.
These are mostly staple foods which is consist of nutrients like carbohydrates ( Complex carbs ), proteins, fibre, minerals, calcium and B-complex vitamins. An individual should have 6-11 servings of this portion in a day. Common food items in this group- Whole grain cereals, millets, rice, Jowar, Bajra, Makai (Corn), Barley Oats, Poha (Puffed Rice) and Upma. These foods are rich in nutrients and good to provide the necessary fuel for our body to run all day long

One serving of this equals
-1 cup of rice, Poha or Upma
-1 cup of oats
-1 Paratha
-2 Phulka
-1 Jowar, Bajra or Makai roti.

2.Vegetables and Fruits group (Protective Food Group)

These foods are a must eat and should be added to our food plate daily. A person should have at least 3-5 servings of vegetables and 2-4 servings of fruits each day. They contain vital nutrients like vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, folate, iron and potassium and many more nutrients. These foods consist fiber help our digestive system and also gives us different types of nutrients, phytochemicals and are also rich in antioxidants.

One serving of vegetables consists of:

1 cup of leafy vegetables ( Lettuce, spinach, Fenugreek, Dil, spring onions)
1 medium potato/yam, ½ medium sweet potato ( cooked )
1/2 cup of other vegetables, cooked or raw ( You can also include some of them as salads too )
3/4 cup of vegetable juice(vegetables like Bottle gourd, carrot, beetroot, French beans, green peas, are good to grind and have as smoothe with a pinch of salt and pepper)

In fruits one serving is:
One small apple, orange or banana or any other fruit
1/2 cup of chopped, cooked or canned fruit

3.Dairy products and non-veg food items

These foods are the main protein building group because it is important to maintain the strength of our bones and muscles. Apart from providing proteins these food items also provide B-complex vitamins, invisible fat, fibre, calcium, vitamin A, riboflavin, vitamin B12, iron and iodine. You should ideally have 4-6 servings of this group each day. These foods are mainly important to build up our muscles and help to recover the wear and tear that might occur during the hectic day

One serving of this group consists of:
1 cup of milk, curd
40g (2 slices) cheese, paneer
1 cup dal, pulses, sprouts
1 handful of dry fruits, nuts like groundnuts
1 Egg
65-100gm cooked meat/chicken (½ cup mince, 2 small chops, or 2 slices roast meat)
80-120g cooked fish fillet

4. Oils, fats and sugar:

There are certain good fats which are useful and beneficial for our body, as the cell membrane around our brain are made up of good fats, These are the foods which should be eaten by keeping the portion control in mind and even the time of the day should be noticed as its important.

Some good source of sweetners are Raw honey/Jaggery/Dates/Prunes, these are the healthy sweetners, But, because of today’s lifestyle some unhealthy sweetners have sadly become the staple diet in our lifestyle. Ideally this should not have happened. Choose Any of the junk food item and it will contain these ingredients – burgers, pizza, vada pav, samosa, fizzy drinks, alcohol, instant noodles, chips, frankies etc.

These are not bad to have but, at the same time we should keep our portion in control. We shouldn’t have more than 3-4 servings of these food items in a day. Some common basic sources are vegetable oils, butter, sugar, jaggery and honey.
One serving is defined as 1 tsp of oil, ghee or butter and also 1 tsp of sugar, jaggery and honey.

Now last but the least…WATER:. Water is one of the most important component that cannot be ignored in this entire pyramid. We should have at least 8 glasses of water, as it is very important to keep our cells well hydrated and alive. The above given quantity is for a non-active person, but an active person needs at least 10 to 12 glasses of water average..

January 16, 2015 By Aqsa Shaikh 3 Comments

Protein importance for muscles strength

Sometimes we wonder how to build up protein, one very important thing that crops up in every human’s mind in terms of muscle development is “weight training” which is in a way correct, weight training is very important to build those muscles but diet is equally important. Wight training — creates microscopic tears in your muscles.

The nutrients you eat determine how well your muscles repair these tears and, in turn, how much strength you gain. Apart from eating healthful food, you must get enough sleep and eat frequent meals for the greatest muscular strength. Do you know that your fitness is 70% of your diet and 30% of your workouts?

For an example you have your vehicle, a car but you don’t have its key… Will you be able to drive the car? Absolutely not… Similarly, here the weight training is the car, and the key is your diet, a perfect amount of protein is very necessary for your muscle development. The most important nutrient in muscle repair, which allows your muscles to become stronger, is protein.

The Amount of protein for a sedentary person would be Approx 0.5 to 0.8 Grams, and for a active person who do rigorous activities, he needs at least 1.5 to 1 gram of protein for 1Kg. Protein is a macro nutrient necessary for the proper growth and function of the human body.. Any excess protein is turned into energy by the body. A deficiency in protein leads to muscle atrophy, and impaired functioning of the human body in general.

Ideal sources for building strength are complete protein sources, rather than incomplete proteins, states the National Strength and Conditioning Association. Complete proteins contain each of the nine essential amino acids. Sources include milk, yogurt, eggs, cheese, soy products, poultry, fish and meat. For the best benefit to your strength, consume a source of complete protein within 30 minutes of finishing your workout

Some of the good protein options are:-

1-Turkey and chicken breast

2-Fish ( tuna, salmon, halibut )

3-Cheese ( Non-fat mozzarella )

4-Lean beef ( Low fat )

5-Tofu

6-Beans ( Mature soy beans )

7-Eggs ( Egg whites specially )

8-Yougurt, milk and soy milk

9-Nuts and seeds (Pumpkin and watermelon seeds, peanuts and almond )

So the next time you are going to prepare for your muscle build up, try to keep these things in mind. And keeping these things on track doesn’t mean that you avoid the other nutrients. They are equally important.

August 6, 2014 By Aqsa Shaikh Leave a Comment

Red Wine is good for health

Red Wine is opened on occasions or even otherwise. Contrary to my previous blog on the harmful effects of Alcohol, in today’s blog I actually have chalked out the benefits of Red Wine. Red wine is the only one that has beneficial qualities.

Here are some of the benefits……

1) Red Wine is good for Your Heart

Red wine contains resveratrol, a powerful antioxidant compound. Resveratrol also protects your heart and arteries against the effects of saturated fat in your diet, so drinking one or two glasses of red wine a day can help protect your heart and prevent cardiovascular disease.

2) Red Wine contains Antioxidants

In addition to resveratrol, red wine contains a number of other antioxidants, which can slow the signs of aging and prevent a number of degenerative illnesses like type 2 diabetes. Drinking one or two glasses of red wine each day can help protect you from many of the diseases of the elderly, such as osteoporosis.

3) Red Wine Prevents Cancer

Mounting evidence suggests that drinking red wine in moderation can help prevent cancer. The many antioxidants in red wine can help prevent the oxidative damage responsible for the process of aging and for many degenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Gerstein, one of the many antioxidants in red wine, may help prevent lung cancer. Research has shown that resveratrol, the same red wine antioxidant that helps protect your heart, can also kill cancerous cells.

Scientists have found that resveratrol, when used in conjunction with radiation therapy, can penetrate cancerous cells and induce apoptosis. Apoptosis is a type of cell death that occurs when the cell dies, dissolves and is removed by the white cells of your immune system. Cancer researchers have been looking for a way to induce apoptosis in cancerous cells, because it’s the safest way to remove unwanted cells from the body.

Resveratrol also inhibits cancerous cells’ ability to remove irradiated particles, making radiation therapy more effective against cancer. Resveratrol also attacks cancerous cells and inhibits their ability to function.

Red wine has well known health benefits. However, drinking any alcoholic beverage in excess can lead to alcoholism and the serious health problems associated with it, so limit your red wine consumption to no more than 24 ounces per day and keep a track of calories it has. Although, red wine is beneficial and has calories, yes it is not empty nutrients and so you can enjoy the following benefits of an occasional glass of wine.

So this is the very rare knowledge about wine and alcohol although wine is good for health but then too its consumption should be in controlled as mention above how much you can and you should consume in a single day as it has some good and bad side-effects both…..