Beating the summer heat

UAE is known for it's blazing summers. The sizzling heat that can literally cook a broken egg on your head within seconds. The hospitals teaming with cases of dehydration. Heatwave so strong that sometimes aircondition fails to work. Cars getting window cracks while parked under the direct sunlight a bit longer than necessary. Having a soaked shirt while making that 1 minute run from your apartment to your vehicle. The list is endless yet it is no reason to give up on your fitness regime. 

How to beat the heat? Its quite simple actually. Follow these pointers and make your summer fitness enjoyable and fun:

1. Run outside at dawn. Despite what you think, it's quite pleasent that early in the morning.

2. A 30 min cardio workout in your own drawing room is always a good way to kick it.

3. Summer heat naturally urges your body to loose those extra accumulated winter pounds so binge on water and fresh juices and see those inches sliding away.

4. Have a good night's sleep to regenerate those damaged tissues in your body and have an early start to boost your metabolism. 

5. Water sports and activities will whip you in shape in no time and develop some seriously gorgeous muscle formation in your body.

6. Last but not the least, summer time means lots of fruits and leafy green vegetables. Take advantage of it and enjoy garden salads whenever wherever. 

In short,  summer is your best option to get back in shape if only you give it a chance. 

Happy Holidays Everyone

Regards

Tabia

I am in shape; round IS a shape

We are the generation of ironic behavior. Don't we all keep telling each other that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes, it lies in the eyes of the beholder and one should be beautiful from inside and not outside? Yet, we are the ones who pass judgments on others who are not the same dress size as us.

I won’t deny it; I often find myself a victim of such brain conditioning as well. Suffice to say, we are our best enemies and our worst nightmares.

Wellness through Nature

In life, trial and error is the only way to get perfect results. Such has been my struggle with all the things related to my physical appearance. From having a deviated nose to weight gain issues due to goiter to having the worst case of adolescence acne.  Suffice to say, my self esteem and confidence level was pretty low growing up.

Funny thing was, the solutions were right there in front of me all along. I just never realized it.

After I completed my college with the oiliest face in the whole batch and started working for an organization, carrying a lunch box was the most tedious of tasks. So, I and my colleague came up with a solution, we hooked up with a local vendor who used to sell sliced fruits and vegetables on a kiosk on wheels. 

Not only was it cheaper this way, it was hassle free as well.

Every day we would mix the cut vegetables in a glass of packaged yogurt, squeeze some lemon on top and have the most refreshing concoction of fruits and vegetables for lunch.

The results started showing soon enough. Our skins cleared out, hair became better, nails started to shine and our waists started pinching in.

SQUATS ARE A GIRL’S BEST FRIEND

If you are into exercising and workouts, you will be familiar with those miscreants called ‘The Squats’

They are by far the most misunderstood of exercises, yet the best ones for a woman’s body.

From a layman’s prospective, squats are the most boring and difficult exercises ever invented. But from a professional point of view, they truly are a girl’s best friend.

Those extra accumulated pounds around our love-handles are the hardest to fight, aren’t they?

Well, let me tell you my friend that this problem can be easily fixed and here I am giving you the perfect solution for it.

But, hold on a second. Before I introduce you all to the workings and benefits of squats, let me share with you a story:

‘Once upon a time, there was a chubby little girl whose parents enrolled her in Taekwondo at school. Initially, she was ecstatic at the idea of being a part of the cool crowd who strutted around the campus in their white PJ’s and overlapping jackets with the coolest looking belts knotted around their waists. 

The first day when she wore her uniform with her head held high, she felt like a completely different person. Every regular uniform gawked at her with admiration in their eyes as if congratulating her on the start of her beautiful journey.

Fitness, Food and Foolishness

Everyone has their own opinions and ideas about fitness. For most it’s either a way to quickly loose the extra accumulated pounds or a dream that they wish would come true. 

For me Fitness is Life.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no skinny looking, gym going, dieting till I die kind of a person.

I am a Fitness trainer.

I was on the healthier side of life since the day I opened my eyes in this world. Belonging to a Pakistani family, it was common for kids my age to be stuffed with baby food by their mothers. To date, a lot of families have the same concept, if your child doesn’t have cheeks till the floor, then you are a major fail as a mother.

Little do they know, obesity at a young age is a major cause of many physical and psychological issues in adulthood.

Growing up I realized how people judged you on basis of weight and eating habits.

Pregnancy and child birth showed me how your life changes with the change in numbers on the weighing scale and my constant effort to stay fit made me fall in love with fitness itself.

What initially started off as a self corrective exercise regime; soon turned into a major hurricane and changed me for good, inside and out. Miraculously, all those hours of playing baseball and taekwondo during school days paid off years after and I decided to take up Fitness Training as a preferred profession.

My definition of fitness isn't to have 6 pack abs or 16 inch waist. If you are able to run around with your kids with ease, do the house chores without back ache or climb stairs without falling down, then you are definitely fit.

Always remember, real women have curves and real men don’t look twice towards sticks.

Fitness is a life style. A way of living, that needs to be adopted and accepted whole heartedly.  The worst you can do to your body is to spoil it with food then deprive it for days at end, only to revert back to old habits.

There is one simple rule you should always bear in mind:

'Bite only what you can chew'

Too much and you will lose interest quickly. Too little and you will most definitely feel de-motivated.

Remember, moderation is the key here.

Our modern lifestyle has made us lazy. Cars have thrown walking habits out the window. Our kids prefer to play games on tablets rather than physically getting tired.

The other day I took my kids out to the park so they could get fresh air and exercise.  My 6 year old, not being used to hot weather got upset because he was sweating.

Though it did make me laugh at his innocence, it also proved to be an eye opener. Spoiling our kids with technology may seem like the best show of love for now, but in the long run we will regret making then physically incapable of facing challenges of youth and age.

My advice is that in order to have a successful fitness regime, you must first analyze your life style and then devise a routine that suits you the best without it turning into a burden in the long run.

We often discuss how our mothers and grandmothers were able to not only produce a dozen kids, but also perform physically challenging tasks with ease. Don’t we all blame our lack of physical strength on artificial and unhealthy foods these days?

In my opinion, this fault finding and blame game is completely unnecessary.  There are always two choices in any situation and one of them is always right.

What we choose to do to our health is in our own hands. The best way to stay fit is to have consistency in your daily life style and a promise to do it not because of what people will say, but because it makes you happy.

In this age of social media we come across various diet plans on a daily basis. Some based on so called chemical (crash) diets while others suggest concoctions of fruits and vegetables.

A very popular line comes to mind here

 ‘Use but don’t abuse’

It’s true that food plays a major role in our well being but when healthy nutrition is replaced with extremely unbalanced diets, the results are most certainly nothing but dangerous.