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Lunchtime Workouts to Stay Fit Anywhere!

Lunchtime WorkoutsIt is easy to fall prey to a sedentary lifestyle especially with a hectic schedule that revolves around work, home and stress. Somewhere, a healthy life and fitness has taken a backseat for most people. But, most people forget that staying fit and active is a mantra to being more productive at work! There may be many constraints that might prevent you from working out but there’s always a solution. We call it the Lunchtime Workouts!

These workouts can be done anywhere, including your office. They are easy and can be wrapped up within 15-20mins flat! Remember that it is recommended to aim for 2 and a half hours of moderate aerobic exercise weekly, and strength training exercises at least twice a week.

Lunchtime Workouts To Keep You Fit

  1. Warm up with rotations of the hand and legs. End it with a cool down like stretching
  2. 4 min Tabata Workout: To get the best out of this workout, perform the following in the same order:
    • Jumping Jacks – 20 seconds
    • Rest – 10 seconds
    • Squats – 20 seconds
    • Rest – 10 seconds
    • Lunges – 20 seconds
    • Rest – 10 seconds
    • Push ups – 20 seconds
    • Rest – 10 seconds
    • Repeat once more in the same order
  3. Resistance and Stretching: Stretching can help you increase your blood circulation and bring flexibility to your body. It is also a great stress-busting method and it can ease lower back pain.
  4. Yoga and Meditation: Yoga relieves stress and tension, helps you take a break from daily routine and makes your day more energetic! Deep breathing directly recharges your entire body!

With so many options to choose from which are way below 20 minutes, you can move away from your desk for a little while and work towards a healthy lifestyle.

You can find more articles on workouts and fitness here. You can also begin working out by joining a live, interactive class on GOQii PRO conducted by a certified expert. Book a class now through the GOQii App.

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5 Powerful Bodyweight Exercises For Lower Back

exercises for lower backWith sedentary jobs and increased sitting time, we are much more prone to weak and underutilized muscles, leading to faulty postures and eventually lower back pain. So, it’s all the more important to work on strengthening our core/lower back muscles. A strong back not only makes you look aesthetically great, it also helps you maintain/improve your posture and protects from any back pain/injury. And what’s best, when you can use your own bodyweight as a tool to gain strength, rather than rely on fancy equipment! 

5 Effective Bodyweight Exercises For Lower Back 

1. Plank

lower back
The plank is an excellent exercise to strengthen your core, it works on your abdominal muscles and the entire back from the pelvis, along the spine and up to the shoulder girdle. It also engages the entire lower limbs.

How to do a Plank?

  1. Begin in the plank position, with your face down and your forearms and toes on the floor. Your elbows should be directly under your shoulders and your forearms should be facing forward. Your head should be relaxed and you should be looking at the floor.
  2. Engage your abdominal muscles, drawing your navel toward your spine. Keep your torso straight and rigid and your body in a straight line from head to toes with no sagging or upward bend. This is the neutral spine position.
  3. Hold this position for 10-15 seconds, release onto the floor and as you progress, you can increase the hold time to 30 sec/1 min/ 2 min.

2. Side Plank


The side plank works on your core, along with the internal and external oblique muscles that collectively help to control the rotational movements of our spine. A regular plank keeps our core stabilized, while working on the transverse abdominis muscle, whereas the side plank has a stronger emphasis on the quadratus lumborum or the part of the back side of the abdominal wall that plays a major role in preventing back pain.

How to do a Side Plank?

  1. Start with your elbow positioned directly below your shoulder, with the forearm resting on the ground.
  2. Keep the feet stacked or staggered (depending on your core strength), lift up your bottom, through the lower obliques until the body is in a straight line. Keep the shoulders and hips stacked.
  3. Perform one to three sets for 10-30 seconds, or as long as you can maintain proper form.
  4. For Beginners: You can drop the knee to the floor for additional support or find an elevated surface to place the hand or forearm, reducing the challenge on the core.

3. Quadruped Limb Raises/ Bird Dog


The bird dog is a simple core exercise that improves stability, strength (of core, hips and back muscles), mobility and alignment of the entire spine. Hence is very effective in relieving low back pain.

How to do a Bird Dog?

  1. Begin on all fours in the tabletop position, with your hands placed under the shoulders and knees under the hips. Maintain a neutral spine and draw your shoulders blades together.
  2. Raise your right arm and left leg, keeping your shoulders and hips parallel to the floor. Lengthen the back of your neck and tuck your chin into your chest to gaze down at the floor.
  3. Hold this position for a few seconds, then lower back down to the starting position. Repeat with the left arm and right leg. You can do 8-10 repetitions each side and progress with more sets.

4. Back Extension Exercise/Superman Pose


An exercise named after “the Man of Steel”, should definitely give your back muscles the power of steel, to keep you away from back pain and increase your mobility and strength for daily activities. The Superman pose is a great bodyweight exercise that engages your entire core- including the abdominals, obliques, back extensors, hamstrings, glutes and the arms too.

How to do a Superman?

  1. Begin by lying with your belly on the floor, head in neutral position and arms extended over your head, so that a straight line is created from the tips of your finger to the toes.
  2. Slowly lift your arms and legs off the ground at the same time, tightening your glutes(butt) as you lift up. Hold the position at the top, for 3-5 seconds.
  3. Gradually lower your arms and legs to the floor. Repeat the movement 5-10 times, depending on your fitness level.
  4. Increase difficulty level: If you think the above move is easy, you can increase the challenge by making this an isometric exercise. Hold the top position for 30-60 seconds, or as long as you can maintain proper form.

5. Bridge/Supine Gluteal Bridge


The bridge is a great exercise for improving hip mobility and strengthening your lower back muscles, using your own bodyweight. This exercise targets the back of your legs, or posterior chain, that includes your hamstrings and glutes. 

How to do it?  

  1. Lie on your back with your knees bent. Tighten your abdominal muscles.
  2. Raise your hips off the floor until your hips are aligned with your knees and shoulders. Hold for three deep breaths.
  3. Return to the starting position and repeat. You can do up to 3 sets of 10-15 repetitions.
  4. Increase difficulty level: by performing this exercise with a single leg, while maintaining level hips.

So, if you are looking to strengthen your back muscles using your own bodyweight and no equipment, you now know what exercises to do and how to progress ahead. You can do the exercises, 2-3 times a week and also can add to any workout routine that you have been following.

If this article on bodyweight exercises for lower back helped you, let us know in the comments below! Want to explore more articles on home workouts and exercises? Click here or join our fitness experts for live, interactive sessions on GOQii PRO. Book a class now from the GOQii App. 

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10 Easy & Effective Tips For Fat Loss

fat loss

In recent years, food choices have become plenty and the comfort of ordering food online via an app makes it difficult to eat healthy much less aid fat loss. With so many choices, abundance and variety, natural and healthy foods have somewhat been left behind.

Even food brands, restaurants or eateries that sell “healthy foods” don’t help you cut back unwanted fat. So how exactly can your food choices help you reduce body fat? Here are a few tips that can help you reduce fat and get healthy!

10 Effective Tips For Fat Loss

  1. Begin Your Day with a Fruit: Eat a fruit within 15-20 mins of waking up. This is handy for both working and non-working folks who are rushing through their morning routine. Fruits being rich in fiber, fructose and micronutrients, replenish glycogen stores in the liver after a long fasting period at night and jumpstart metabolism which aids fat loss.
  2. Avoid Processed/Packaged Food: Certain processed foods that come in plastic packets are calorie dense, don’t have natural dietary fiber, and usually lack essential nutrients & minerals required for fat loss. Whereas dietary fiber from whole grains has longer intestinal-transit time and hence has a higher satiety value as compared to processed/packaged foods. This prevents the creation of required calorie deficit for fat loss. Thus, avoid products containing refined flour, white sugar, salt and fats such as biscuits, breads, chocolates, sugar cadies, packaged fruit juices, pastries, white pasta, white noodles, pizza, samosa, Kachori, vada pav, etc.
  3. Begin Your Meal with a Salad Twice a Day: For instance sprouts + vegetables. Since raw, non-starchy vegetables contain high amount of water and fiber, they can be consumed in a relatively larger amount contributing to increased satiety with fewer calories. Thus, aiding fat loss by creating an energy-deficit. Vegetables are important sources of many nutrients which boost the speed of various biochemical reactions that burn stored fat. Dietary fiber from vegetables also have a prebiotic effect and promotes growth of health beneficial bacteria which even aids lipid metabolism.
  4. Add Protein in Meals: Proteins take longer time to digest. Hence, it keeps us fuller for a long time which in turn prevents us from eating more often. Secondly, proteins are building blocks for muscles which again help in increasing the basal metabolic rate. Thus, help in burning extra fat stored in Adipocytes.
  5. Small & Frequent Low Calorie Meals: Try to eat smaller meals every 2.5 to 3 hours rather than eating a huge meal after a long gap or eating too frequently. Spacing out the meals adequately and breaking it down into smaller meals gives our body enough time to metabolize the food. This leaves little or no chance for food to get converted to fat and get stored in your body. Don’t forget to eat up to 70-80% of your stomach’s capacity.
  6. Drink a Glass of Water Every Hour: Now, you might be thinking, how water can help in fat loss? Well, water fills you up in zero calories and being a medium of all cell fluids, it facilitates all physio-chemical reactions in the body including the ones which causes fat oxidation.
  7. Go for Home-Cooked Meals: Yes, at least 4-5 days in a week, eat home cooked food. This prevents intake of outside food which may have an unhealthy quality and quantity of fats. You’d rather eat a satiable and nutrient dense meal which aid fat loss.
  8. Use Cooking Oil Sparingly: Go for steamed, grilled, roasted, sautéed cooking methods using non-stick cookware to reduce the amount of oil used for cooking.
  9. Get Active: An active lifestyle helps in burning the stored fat by increasing the basal metabolic rate and blood circulation. Exercise should be a combination of aerobic/cardio and resistance training.
  10. Sleep Your Way to Fat Loss: Are you getting adequate sleep? Yes! If you don’t sleep well, it will create stress in your body and facilitate the release of cortisol which leads to fat accumulation in the body over a period of time. So get a good night’s rest. Try these tips to sleep better!

Remember, food is for nourishment of body not for over indulgence. Eat to Live, not Live to Eat. If this article helped you, let us know in the comments below. You can browse through more articles on weight loss here.

If you want to lose weight in a healthy, sustainable manner, get the right advice from a certified expert through the GOQii Transform weight management program here.

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6 Tricks To Help You Make Exercise A Habit

exercise a habitMore often than not, when you’ve begun a new exercise routine to get in shape, your intentions don’t often match your actions. You begin to realize there’s a big gap between having an intention of achieving something and actually doing the work to fulfil that intention. There’s no need to beat yourself about it. There’s always a way to bridge that gap. Let’s look at a few tricks that can help you make exercise a habit!  

How to Make Exercise a Habit 

  1. Set a Goal and Send a Reminder to Yourself: I wanted to exercise because I always wanted to stay fit like a soldier – this was my goal. I set a reminder on my phone for 5 AM as “Stay fit like a soldier “. This served as my morning alarm as well. Setting a goal where you remind yourself everyday will never let you sleep without ensuring that you exercised that day. 
  2. Challenge a Friend: The day you plan to start exercising, challenge your friend. I texted my friend, “hey, in the next 30 days, I am going to increase my stamina from 6/10 to 10/10 “. Believe me, your friend will never let you forget that you need to exercise daily.
  3. Use the 21/90 Rule: This rule says that It takes 21 days to create a habit. It takes 90 days to create a lifestyle. You just don’t skip a day for 21 straight days. In these 3 weeks, exercise will become your habit. And once you are able to do it, you will continue doing it for another 90 days.
  4. Reward Yourself With 1 Rest Day: Keep 1 day as your ”rest day “. This is important for your muscle recovery too.
  5. Make It Pleasurable: The music of your choice will do the magic! You will love your exercise without getting bored. This is actually something I do and enjoy a lot.  
  6. Take Baby Steps: Last but the most useful trick – When I started exercising, I had full “josh”, I forgot to count the sets and reps and just exercised with lots of energy. I had in mind, the more I will do, the sooner I will get the results. But the reverse happened. I had no energy for Day 2. So, this served as a lesson – doing too much, in the beginning, leads to burnout; which may lead to quitting the habit. So, the key is, start with light intensity exercises for 15-30 minutes in the beginning. Our only aim is to be regular. “One workout at a time. One day at a time. One meal at a time“ – Chalene Johnson.

Now that you’re aware of these simple tricks, let’s aim at making exercise a habit! Enjoy your exercise to enjoy the glow of good health.

If this article helped you, let us know your thoughts in the comments below. You can read more articles on motivation and fitness here. If you want to be consistent or begin working out, get the right guidance from an expert through a live, interactive, fun-fueled session on GOQii PRO. Book a class now through the GOQii App.  

#BeTheForce! 

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