Wednesday, April 29, 2020

How to Get Your Body Summer-Ready While Stuck at Home

Everyone’s stuck at home. Even our heroic essential workers finish their shifts, come home and are confined to their houses.

The social distancing is, of course, good for everyone’s health to prevent the spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19). And if we’re lucky, all of this good work could mean that everyone gets back outside for summer—hopefully, we’ll be able to gather at barbecues, head to the beach, bond with family on vacation, take in a ballgame or just head to the park for a sunny day together.

If you’ve got the time and energy, you can use this extra time at home to make sure your body is ready for all that summer fun. Achieve your fitness and energy goals in order to do all of the outdoor things you want to do this season. Keep reading for some simple ways to help turn this stuck-inside time into a summer-ready body—at the kitchen table, on the couch and when you’re moving around in and out of the house.

How to Stop Eating So Much During the Quarantine

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Here are some simple ways to get your body summer-ready while stuck at home:

At meal times: Eat more fiber

at home recipes

Losing weight and toning up starts in the kitchen, not the gym. That’s why Nutrisystem is all about providing a healthy meal plan that is filled with nourishing (and delicious!) food. There are very few things that you can eat that will help firm up your middle like fiber. The essential nutrient, found in vegetables, fruits, oats and more, helps you feel full faster and keeps you feeling fuller for longer. More important for your beach bod, fiber has the ability to help you lose belly fat: For every 10 grams you eat each day, studies show you could have as much as four percent less fat around your middle, says Science Daily.

That’s one reason Nutrisystem encourages members to eat four servings of non-starchy vegetables per day. These veggies, like cucumbers, broccoli, spinach and more, aren’t just low in calories and packed with nutrients your body needs. They’re also loaded with fiber that help keep you satisfied. That’s also why Nutrisystem meals, snacks and shakes feature extra fiber—even pasta favorites like the Lasagna with Meat Sauce have some dietary fiber built in! That way, you can enjoy comfort foods you love while getting the filling nutrients your body needs to reach your goal weight at home.

When you’re snacking: Have some healthy fats

healthy snacks

Another nutrient that targets fat… is fat! Specifically, the right, “healthy” kind of fat. Monounsaturated fats, like those found in seeds, fatty fishes and olive oil, have actually been found to help dieters lose belly fat, says Science Daily. That’s why Nutrisystem makes decadent-tasting snacks that can help you lose weight. Member favorites like the Dark Chocolate and Sea Salt Nut Bar are loaded with healthy fats in a delicious snack option that satisfies.

You can get those healthy fats from your non-Nutrisystem snack time, too. Almonds are super fat-fighters for your trouble spots. In one study, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, dieters who were given a measured, daily snack of almonds lost fat in their bellies and legs, even if they didn’t lose weight overall.

When choosing healthy fats for snacks, you still want to stay portion smart. Check out the Nutrisystem Grocery Guide for the perfect PowerFuel portion size. For almonds, you can enjoy a half-ounce or two tablespoons as one PowerFuel serving on Nutrisystem.

How to Know How Many Nuts You Should Eat

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In the house: Try a home workout

at home workouts

The gym may be closed but you’ve got the ultimate fitness machine right in your house—your body! You can try these five no-crunch moves for flatter abs, do some easy exercises without even getting out of your chair or grab a milk jug (or bag of dog food or tub of kitty litter) and do this simple, five-move workout at home.

To do this workout, perform each exercise for five repetitions, then move to the next exercise resting as little as possible while staying composed. You don’t want to be completely rested but you also don’t want to put yourself in danger of falling or having another injury. After you’ve finished all five moves, rest for 30 seconds to one minute, then repeat. Go for two rounds the first time. Try to do two or more rounds of this workout as many times as you can each day—if you’ve got time for five rounds… great! If you’ve only got time for two rounds now and two rounds later… great! Try to improve the number of rounds you do total each week.

  • Exercise 1: Goblet Squat
    • Hold the milk jug in front of your chest with both hands, your elbows close together and your hands cupping the jug. In this position, your forearms will look like a goblet. Stand with your feet hip-width apart, toes pointed slightly out from parallel. Push your hips back to initiate the squat. Bend your knees to descend until your thighs are at least parallel to the floor, keeping your chest up and your weight on your heels. Keep the weight of your body in your heels and press back to standing. Repeat.
    • If you’re not used to squatting and want to make this exercise easier, try it without the jug. To make it even easier than that, set up for the exercise with a chair or box behind you. Push your hips back to squat and slowly lower yourself until you’re seated. Try to stand back up out of the squat without using your hands.
  • Exercise 2: Elevated Pushup
    • Place your hands on the second or third step of the staircase. In this position, your hands should be directly beneath your shoulders and your body forming a straight line from head to heels. Maintaining this straight body line, bend your elbows to lower your chest until it touches the step—don’t reach with your head! Then push back up.
    • To make this move easier, use a higher step on the staircase so that your hands are elevated even more. You can also do presses against the wall.
  • Exercise 3: Bent-Over Row
    • Stand holding the milk jug in front of you with your feet hip-width apart and a slight bend in your knees. Initiate the hip hinge like this: Imagine you’re holding a box or a big bag of groceries in your arms in front of you as you stand straight, and you’re going to close a car door that’s behind you using your butt. Bump the door closed with your butt—doing this will push your hips back. Keep pushing your hips back (instead of bending at the waist) to push your chest towards the floor. This should help you maintain a flat back. Once you’re bent forward, the jug will be hanging below your chest. Bend your elbows to row the jug up to your chest, then return it to hanging. Repeat this five times.
  • Exercise 4: Step Up
    • Holding the milk jug in front of your chest, stand with a sturdy chair, bench or box in front of you. You can also stand in front of a flight of stairs. Keep your torso upright as you place your right foot on the chair and press through your heel to bring your left foot up so you’re standing on the chair. Control your descent as you return to start. Continue performing step ups on this leg for five repetitions, then switch legs and repeat.
    • To make this move easier, use the first step of the staircase instead of the second. Perform the exercise in the same way otherwise.
  • Exercise 5: Overhead Press
    • Sit in a chair and hold the milk jug in front of your chest with both hands, palms facing together. Keeping your chest proud and your elbows close to your sides, press the jug up overhead until your arms are nearly straight. Bring it back to your chest. Repeat this move five times.

On your outdoor time: Add weight to your walk

at home workout tips

Many people are able to get out of the house for some sunshine and stepping while social distancing. Walking is a great workout that you can do almost anywhere! Just 22 minutes of walking per day could help you lose up to 20 pounds in a year. Making a few simple tweaks to your walk could make it burn even more.

First, try to vary your pace—even just a little. Studies have shown that faster bursts of walking (even just five inches per second faster) helped walkers burn up to 20 percent more calories than keeping a constant pace. Try setting a timer on your walk so that every two minutes, your phone beeps. When it does, pick up the pace just a little bit for 30 seconds. Return to your normal pace until the next beep.

You can also amp up your calorie burn at home by adding a little weight to your walk. “Rucking” is an activity where exercisers walk, march or run with heavy packs on their backs. It seriously increases the calories you’ll use: According to the Compendium of Physical Activities, a 200-pound man will burn 378 calories when rucking for 30 minutes, compared to burning just 141 calories when walking without the pack. The pack doesn’t have to be super heavy either: Try starting with just a backpack that has a few heavy books in it. Work your way up to bags that are up to 10 percent of your body weight. The added weight will give your walk a fitness boost.

5 Reasons This Is the Best Time to Start Nutrisystem

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The post How to Get Your Body Summer-Ready While Stuck at Home appeared first on The Leaf.



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Weight watchers vs. CICO

Hello! As with everyone, my journey through weight loss has been long, complicated, and had many ups and downs. But I'll try and keep this short.

I'm a 21, female, 5'7" and with CICO through the fitbit app I went from 165 lbs to 140 lbs over 3/4 months. My goal weight was closer to 130/135, but at the time I was satisfied with 140. I maintained the deficit for a while and never really got anywhere lower. Its been a year, and I realized since quarentine I've shot up to 148. I shed the extra 8 again through increased exercise and a calorie deficit, and its got my motivated to shoot a little bit lower again, and not only that, but I'd like to tone my stomache.

My question is, at this point, would weight watchers be a better option? I know the points system is suppose to focus more on WHATS going in VS how much. Is it likely to push me past 140 and help me tone with the help of exercise? In your opinion, is it worth trying?

(Ps I've seen some posts saying "you don't need a system, just don't eat THESE FOODS!" or "use make sure you get X% of THIS!" and I honestly can never keep good track of that stuff which is why CICO was so easy for me. I just weigh the food and pop the grams of whatever into FITBIT app.)

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My weight loss has slowed down and I don’t know why. Feeling discouraged. Anyone else experienced this?

I started CICO and IF in March. I’m 21F, 5’4 (164cm) and about 65,5kg (144lbs). Since March I’ve lost about 5-6kgs and was losing steadily until about 3 weeks ago. I started including exercise in my routine about 4 weeks ago after being booked off for a month due to a back injury. (I used to exercise regularly before that) However, the number on the scale as been moving very slowly (only losing like 0.2-0.3kg each week) for the last 2-3 weeks and I can’t understand why. I eat ~1200 calories a day and exercise at least 5 hours a week. I don’t “eat back” my calories and I track literally everything I eat. I’m at a healthy BMI but my goal weight is 58kg. Does anyone have an explanation for why I’m not losing weight? Starting to feel a bit discouraged :(

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Day 1? Starting your weight loss journey on Wednesday, 29 April 2020? Start here!

Today is your Day 1?

Welcome to r/Loseit!

So you aren’t sure of how to start? Don’t worry! “How do I get started?” is our most asked question. r/Loseit has helped our users lose over 1,000,000 recorded pounds and these are the steps that we’ve found most useful for getting started.

Why you’re overweight

Our bodies are amazing (yes, yours too!). In order to survive before supermarkets, we had to be able to store energy to get us through lean times, we store this energy as adipose fat tissue. If you put more energy into your body than it needs, it stores it, for (potential) later use. When you put in less than it needs, it uses the stored energy. The more energy you have stored, the more overweight you are. The trick is to get your body to use the stored energy, which can only be done if you give it less energy than it needs, consistently.

Before You Start

The very first step is calculating your calorie needs. You can do that HERE. This will give you an approximation of your calorie needs for the day. The next step is to figure how quickly you want to lose the fat. One pound of fat is equal to 3500 calories. So to lose 1 pound of fat per week you will need to consume 500 calories less than your TDEE (daily calorie needs from the link above). 750 calories less will result in 1.5 pounds and 1000 calories is an aggressive 2 pounds per week.

Tracking

Here is where it begins to resemble work. The most efficient way to lose the weight you desire is to track your calorie intake. This has gotten much simpler over the years and today it can be done right from your smartphone or computer. r/loseit recommends an app like MyFitnessPal, Loseit! (unaffiliated), or Cronometer. Create an account and be honest with it about your current stats, activities, and goals. This is your tracker and no one else needs to see it so don’t cheat the numbers. You’ll find large user created databases that make logging and tracking your food and drinks easy with just the tap of the screen or the push of a button. We also highly recommend the use of a digital kitchen scale for accuracy. Knowing how much of what you're eating is more important than what you're eating. Why? This may explain it.

Creating Your Deficit

How do you create a deficit? This is up to you. r/loseit has a few recommendations but ultimately that decision is yours. There is no perfect diet for everyone. There is a perfect diet for you and you can create it. You can eat less of exactly what you eat now. If you like pizza you can have pizza. Have 2 slices instead of 4. You can try lower calorie replacements for calorie dense foods. Some of the communities favorites are cauliflower rice, zucchini noodles, spaghetti squash in place of their more calorie rich cousins. If it appeals to you an entire dietary change like Keto, Paleo, Vegetarian.

The most important thing to remember is that this selection of foods works for you. Sustainability is the key to long term weight management success. If you hate what you’re eating you won’t stick to it.

Exercise

Is NOT mandatory. You can lose fat and create a deficit through diet alone. There is no requirement of exercise to lose weight.

It has it’s own benefits though. You will burn extra calories. Exercise is shown to be beneficial to mental health and creates an endorphin rush as well. It makes people feel awesome and has been linked to higher rates of long term success when physical activity is included in lifestyle changes.

Crawl, Walk, Run

It can seem like one needs to make a 180 degree course correction to find success. That isn’t necessarily true. Many of our users find that creating small initial changes that build a foundation allows them to progress forward in even, sustained, increments.

Acceptance

You will struggle. We have all struggled. This is natural. There is no tip or trick to get through this though. We encourage you to recognize why you are struggling and forgive yourself for whatever reason that may be. If you overindulged at your last meal that is ok. You can resolve to make the next meal better.

Do not let the pursuit of perfect get in the way of progress. We don’t need perfect. We just want better.

Additional resources

Now you’re ready to do this. Here are more details, that may help you refine your plan.

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Some things I never considered with weight loss.

Hey guys, it's been a long time since I've written in here. Long story short I am 35 years old male and on my 30th birthday I decided I could no longer be the size I was which was around 21 stone or 294lbs. I started eating healthier and was on/off doing exercise (walking and DDP yoga) I did lose a few stone and ever since I have been around the 18/19 stone range after stop start health kicks.

I suffer from anxiety and depression and I always let that get in my way. In February I was very low I was in a job that while it was a good job was too much stress for me and I my girlfriend of 10 years broke up.

I had a choice, to sink further and see one way out or to make a decision there and then and to climb out of this pit however hard it may be and regain control of my life.

I chose the latter guys, I spoke to my bosses at work who helped get me transferred to a department with a less stressful environment, and I decided to get healthy in my mind and body. I have been intermittent fasting since the 4th of February this year and I'm down 50lbs I am so proud of my progress and wanted to talk about things I never even considered before now.

  1. My bones stick out everywhere. I used to be able to lean on myself when chilling bit now my usual comfy positions are being poked by my hip bone or lying on my arm I have my collar bone digging in me it's crazy.

  2. I fit in my bath well. I've lived in this house about 2 years and used the bath a small handful of times (I'm a shower guy) and the shape is odd where the middle of the bath is thinner than the ends (think of a sanitary pad) because of this I used block the water in the middle with my body which meant my head and feet had hardly any water. Not anymore I can comfortably lay in the bath.

  3. My sleeves on my hoodies wont stay rolled up. I fully expected my clothes to get baggy however I never considered the sleeves of my hoodies would no longer stay up because my arms are smaller.

  4. Something looks bigger. I will leave that as is.

How about you guys? Do you have any changes that while for the good you never thought about during your loss?

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Tuesday, April 28, 2020

Weight Loss Post-Birth Control

So I’ve (5’6, 21F) been working on my fitness and weight loss since 2018. I went from 180 to 167 trying to get into the military and then got off birth control last April and gained 50 pounds. (I wish I was being dramatic, I really do lol)

I’m now down 15 so I’m at 215 and 41% body fat (which is about 15% more than I feel good at), but I’m struggling badly to lose weight. I’m at a 1500-2000 p/day calorie count (body usually is hungrier after rigorous training days so I tend to eat more around 2000 those days). I work out about 4-6 hours per week (3 of those hours are cardio and the rest is resistance training and HIIT) depending on my schedule and how much class work I have. I also went vegetarian, cut out dairy, and cut out most of my gluten. (Turns out I have an intolerance to those, so that definitely helped with the bloating)

I went to the doctor and they told me that other than getting more vitamin d in my diet there was nothing else they could do for me. My body isn’t happy at this weight and I like being around 170-180 and feel my healthiest there (sounds unhealthy and is an ‘overweight’ BMI but I am a muscular black woman and if I go below 165 I look and feel unhealthy)

Have any other women gone through this and lost the post-birth control weight? If yes, what did you do to help this?

(I’m tired of feeling like all my ass kicking isn’t paying off. Not tired enough to quit, I guess, just tired enough to feel exhausted and feel less confident in myself)

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Just got to my goal weight of 140

Ive been up and down for years but I've just reached my goal weight of 140 !!! I started at my largest at 180 in april of last year and I've been very slowly changing all of my eating habits with lots of work and determination to get healthier.I got down to about 150 and then plateaued for a long time and honestly got complacent with my weight due to my doctor being happy with what I had lost. Well, recently I decided to start calorie counting to try to stop my plateau and to kick start my weight loss again and I've been scared of the scale recently b/c of the pandemic and my inactivity/ plain ol' laziness but I thought I should hold myself accountable and weigh myself this morning. I was exactly 140.0!!!!! I am so excited and can't believe it I've been wanting to get to 140 for 2 years and I am finally here!!!

Of course now I've got another goal of 130 :-) but i'm so satisfied with what I've done so far.

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