Improve Your Health By Exercising At Home During COVID19

Due to the global pandemic and the circuit breaker measures that have been implemented and have just recently been extended, keeping healthy physical health has been challenging. The inability to spend time outside has taken a toll on our mental and physical health and adapting to such a change can be rather tricky.

Whilst many took it upon themselves to still jog and run outside – if you wish to do so, please remember to maintain social distance and always have a mask with you – it’s best to shift your workout routine to the confines of your home! Whilst it is far from ideal, working at home will further reduce the chances of you catching or spreading COVID-19 to the people around you.

If you’re not quite sure what are a few exercises you can do at home, here are a few to strike your fancy!

1. Yoga

There was a reason why yoga was gaining traction in the past few years in Singapore, with the opening of several yoga studios in the country. Its core foundation is based on breathing exercises and meditation, thus, translating to an excellent avenue for a mental reprieve.

Yoga looks deceptively easy – that is, until you’ve tried your hand at it. You’d be surprised that to hold a pose for a set period of time can be rather challenging. In fact, a 30 minutes session can easily burn around 200 calories. With yoga, you’d improve not only your flexibility, but also your strength and muscle tone. Its relaxing nature makes it the perfect workout to cool down after a high-intensity workout. If you wish to burn more calories with yoga on its own, you may want to consider options such as Power Yoga and Zero Gravity yoga. It’s a sport that caters to any fitness level and you’re bound to find a routine that suits you best.

2. Resistance Bands

Resistance bands may look rather modest if you compare it to the big boys (dumbbells, barbells, weights and the like) and whilst they don’t offer you the same amount of resistance, they can still get the job done. Depending on the type of exercise, you can activate different muscle groups and are excellent when it comes to toning the smaller muscle areas. Furthermore, its flexibility allows you to perform any type of strength training whilst also increasing your range of motion, flexibility and muscle endurance.

Resistance bands are especially beneficial to those who are beginners to strength training. Start slow and work your way up with a band that has a higher resistance!

3. HIIT

HIIT essentially stands for high-intensity interval training, which involves short periods of intense exercise followed by short recovery periods. These workouts are generally some of the most effective workouts as they can produce the same health benefits twice of that a moderate-intensity exercise can. Since HITT workouts usually include cardio workouts, they are effective if you wish to shed a few pounds by burning calories and increasing your metabolic rate for hours after the exercise.

However, with that said, HIIT is not recommended for those who have weak joints or ankles. The high intensity will do even more damage to these areas if your body couldn’t handle the body weight and the intense workout at the same time. It’s best to start with low-intensity workout and lose weight that way, before you try your hand at HIIT workouts.

4. Dance

Dance is not a mere form of self-expression, but it is arguably the best exercise workout in this list. Not only does it activate most, if not all, major muscle groups, but you will also hone your coordination, flexibility and strength. Of course, the specifics will depend on the type of dance you pick up. For instance, ballet focuses on form and flexibility, whereas break dancing focuses on strength. Furthermore, it is a form of aerobic exercise, which means you’d be burning as much calories as with any moderate-intensity workout. If you’re working out, might as well have fun whilst you’re at it!

Conclusion

These are just some of the few forms of exercises you can pick up within the confines of your home. You can always pull up a Youtube video that will instruct you on the proper methods, if you’re not exactly familiar with any of them.

As we strive to stay safe during this challenging period, we at Slim Couture have decided to cease physical operations indefinitely. Whilst we aren’t able to provide you with any Traditional Chinese Medicine, or TCM slimming treatments to aid with your weight loss journey, we hope this list can give you an inspiration of some of the methods to not only maintain your weight, but most importantly, your health. We look forward to serving you during a much safer and certain period. Together, let’s flatten the curve!

Lose Weight By Boosting Your Metabolic Rate During COVID19

As one of the key components to effective weight loss, maintaining a high metabolism is ideal. Metabolism is essentially a set of chemical reactions that has three main purposes: the break down of food into energy to supplement cellular processes, the conversion of food to set the foundation for production and the elimination of nitrogenous waste.

In the case of weight loss, your metabolic rate thus dictates how fast and effective your foods are broken down. The higher the rate, the more compounds you’d be breaking down. These compounds can be carbohydrates, glucose, fatty acids and more. Unfortunately, age predetermines the state of your metabolic rate and the older you get, the slower it becomes. Women, especially, get the shorter end of the stick due to menopause and the drop in estrogen.

Whilst it is an inevitable drop, we’ve gathered a few tips and tricks to ensure that the decline is not a drastic one. Consider incorporating these tips to maintain your metabolic rate.

1. Importance Of Protein

One surprising method to increase your metabolism is to, in fact, eat more! That is, to eat more of thermogenic foods. These foods give rise to something called the thermic effect of food (TEF) – energy that is required to digest, absorb and metabolise food. Naturally, when you consume large amounts of thermic foods, you’d be digesting, absorbing and breaking down food at a relatively more effective pace. This process will even take place whilst you’re resting.

One of the foods that cause a significant rise in TEF is protein. In fact, it increases your metabolic rate by 15-30%, 3 and 10 times more than carbohydrates and fats respectively. Furthermore, eating more protein will ensure there’d be less muscle loss. After all, you’re aiming to lose fat, not muscles.

2. Take Care Of Your Muscles

On that note, be sure to take care and maintain muscle mass. Unfortunately, as we age, our muscle tissues tend to weaken. This will definitely affect your ability to do physical exercise, much less any strenuous activities. However, there is still time to train and strengthen your body and slow down the loss of muscle mass.

Your metabolic rate also has a close relationship with your muscle mass! Exercise not only increases your metabolic rate for hours after the physical activity, but it also increases your resting metabolic rate! Thus, it’d be challenging to engage in an effective exercise routine if you didn’t build enough muscle mass. Besides, muscle tissues actually burn more calories – even more than fat – so all the more!

3. Sleep Is a Friend

We’ve gone over how sleep is crucial in bodily function and weight loss. Studies have shown that sleep deprivation will alter glucose metabolism and hormones. Ghrelin is the hormone that increases appetite and reduces energy expenditure, which translates to an increase in energy stored in your body.

Metabolism and weight loss have a close relationship and if you wish to have an effective weight loss journey, you may want to capitalise and boosting your metabolism rate. Otherwise, you can look into getting a slimming treatment, so that your body has fewer compounds to break down and digest, translating to a shorter time to reach your goal! Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we will be closed till 4^th May 2020. We look forward to improve both your health and weight loss once the situation gets better!

Bypass The Hidden Challenges In Your Weight Loss Journey

The most straightforward approaches to shedding a few pounds are to exercise and maintain a healthy diet. However, it’s easier said than done. Disappointment easily arises when the desired results are not met. Aside from the difficulty of losing weight, one may struggle losing fat at specific parts of their body. Frustration brews when you try your best to lose fat at specific areas, for instance, the belly, but to no avail. If you’ve reached this stage, perhaps it’s time to look at some of the things that you might be doing wrongly. There may have been a few things you’ve overlooked and these factors may very just be the reason why the results did not come to fruition.

1. Having A Bad Sleeping Schedule

Weight gain is not just the result of the things you’ve been putting in your body. Arguably one of the most important activity for your body as it uses this time to recalibrate and repair your body essentials.

The most straightforward relationship between a sleep-deprived body is having not enough energy the next day to exercise. Going further in, your body produces more cortisol, the stress hormone, which further increases the likelihood of stress eating. In addition to an increased cortisol level, the level of ghrelin also spikes. Ghrelin is a hormone that helps to stimulate appetite, and thus, you’d go hungry quickly when you didn’t clock in those hours.

Thus, be sure to maintain a consistent sleeping schedule and ensure that you clock in at least 8 hours of sleep every night.

2. Wrong Exercises

Many make the mistake of doing different types of exercises without understanding the muscles that they’re activating. If you’re not activating the muscles of your desired body part, then it’s only understandable why you’re not losing weight in that area.

For instance, contrary to popular belief, crunches don’t actually reduce belly fat. Crunches work on the rectus abdominis, the muscle that runs from your rib cage to your pubic bone. But to effectively lose weight in your belly area, you need to work on that muscle and 3 others: internal and external obliques, and the deepest abdominal muscle. Losing your belly fat will not be as effective if you didn’t activate all 4 muscle groups. Thus, instead of working on an isolated area of your body, a cardiovascular exercise such as swimming, will work much better.

 3. Be Mindful Of The Types Of Fat You’re Consuming

It is not a crime to eat fatty foods, but it will pose a problem should your body be the one who pays for it. Contrary to popular belief, a healthy amount of fat is needed for normal bodily functions such as temperature regulation, the absorption of nutrients, cell growth and production of essential hormones. Thus, getting rid of fat from your diet is not only impossible, but unadvisable. That said, what you can do is ensure that the fats you’ve been consuming have little to no unhealthy fats, which are trans fat and saturated fat. Apart from the extra calories (fats contain 9 calories/gram, twice the amount of carbohydrates and protein), you’d also cause cholesterol build up in your arteries, leading to ailments such as arteriosclerosis and heart attack.

Reduce your intake of foods high in saturated and trans fat, and replace them with healthier options, such as avocado, whole eggs and nuts. Be aware of what you put in your body at all times.

4. Ageing

With age, the body loses its ability to burn calories as effectively as it used to. Your metabolic rate slows down, especially so when you reach menopause. The drop in estrogen will cause your body to gain weight, which is frustrating if you also take into account the drop in your metabolic rate. Since your cell recovery rate is not as efficient, exercise will not give you the results as quickly as you wish to.

Thus, it may be wise to consider going for slimming treatments. Not only will it help you shed a few pounds, but it will be easier on your body when you do exert energy in a physical exercise.

Conclusion

Weight loss is challenging, but you can do yourself a favour by noticing the few things that may hinder your progress. Of course, this also means that you need to have the patience to try and tweak your journey one step at a time. If not, you can always opt to ease your burden a bit by going for an effective weight loss treatment.

Unfortunately, due to COVID19, we will be temporarily cease all operations from 7^th April 2020 to 4^th May 2020. Whilst we look forward to help you achieve your desired waistline, your health comes first! Let’s stay indoors, stay fit and help flatten the curve!

4 Foods That Will Aid In Burning Any Excess Subcutaneous Fat

Weight loss is an issue that most of us partake in, some more successful than others. Women, especially, have a harder time losing weight as their body composition carries more subcutaneous fat. This type of fat is not metabolically active, thus, they aren’t able to burn as many calories as their male counterparts. Apart from apparent risks of potential health issues such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes, this alone can easily adversely affect one’s image of oneself.

Subcutaneous fat isn’t all that bad for the body. Like most body composition, having the appropriate amount of subcutaneous fat is beneficial for your body. Not only does it stores energy for later use, but it also serves as insulation and padding to absorb the impact of hits and falls. This type of fat also functions as connective tissue between your dermis and muscles and bones. It also acts as a passageway for nerves and blood vessels between the skin and muscles.

However, too much will increase the risk of health complications. Thus, it is important that you keep it in check. Amongst the fundamentals and various slimming treatments, a healthy diet is paramount. We will look at some of the foods that will help you lose subcutaneous fat, which will improve your metabolic rate and thus, allow you to shed those pounds much more quickly.

Lean Meats

The most straightforward to lose weight is to cut down on calories. Since a high protein meal not only helps keep you full for an extended time, your meal frequency will drastically reduce, thus reducing any energy deficit. Lean meats, in particular, are sources of protein that are highly beneficial for you as they have relatively low fat content. It also possesses fewer calories than their non-lean counterparts.

Black Beans

Black beans have been acknowledged as one of the handful power foods, and with good reason too! Not only are they high in fibre and low in fat, but they also carry resistant starch. This complex starch allows you to feel fuller longer by sticking around your digestive tract. Furthermore, these beans promote the production of a particular chemical, butyrate, which encourages the body to burn fat as fuel.

Tuna

Fatty fishes such as tuna, are a prime source of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), a component of omega 3 fatty acid. Whilst omega 3 fatty acids are comprised of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and DHA, the latter is found to be 40 to 70 percent more effective when it comes to down-regulating fat genes and inhibiting their size expansion.

Jerusalem Artichokes

Jerusalem artichokes carry a particular insoluble fibre that will help you shed a few pounds tremendously. This fibre, the oligofructose, encourages the production of a hormone that maintains hunger, ghrelin, whilst simultaneously lowering down your blood sugar.

Conclusion

These foods are only a small portion of your effective weight loss journey. It needs to be supplemented with a good sleep cycle and regular exercise, amongst many other things. If you wish for fast results that do not pose a significant health risk, you may want to consider TCM weight loss treatments, such as our Divine Slim treatment at Slim Couture that utilise specialized TCM techniques to lose weight healthily.