Tell-Tale Signs That Your Body Needs More Physical Activity

Whilst the majority of Singaporeans believe that they are healthy, a survey conducted by Prudential Singapore’s Health Literacy Poll would state otherwise. Not only are we not eating enough greens, but we also lack in the exercise department. As a matter of fact, 426 out of the 501 respondents admitted to not hit the recommended 75 minutes of exercise per week. That’s 86 percent of the total participants. Likewise, if you’re one of those that don’t clock in the regular amount of physical activity, you may be ignoring the signs that your body is telling you that it’s in dire need of an exercise.

You Experience Unending Fatigue

You’ve ticked most of the boxes for cultivating a proper sleep cycle. You ensure that you clock in a full 7-hour each night and even take things a little further by eating healthy meals. However, even with these precautions, you always feel tired and lethargic as soon as you wake up.

Extreme fatigue may be due to the lack of exercise, which can cause deconditioning. Deconditioning can hinder your performance by making tasks feel significantly harder to complete. In this case, exercise is highly recommended. A regular exercise routine contributes to more restful sleep by increasing the time you spend in a deep sleep. Exercise has been found to reduce fatigue by as much as 65%! Whilst it may be challenging to start, much less keep up, you’re bound to be grateful first thing in the morning.

You Have Unexplainable Joint and Back Pains

Perhaps unending fatigue is not the only thing that’s bothering you. Do you also experience unexplainable joint aches and back pain?

Apart from your mattress quality, sleeping position and posture, the lack of exercise may be one of the causes. The lack of exercise may result in the stiffening of your spine and the lack of utilisation of the surrounding muscles may cause it to weaken. This goes the same for your joints.

Jumping into an intense workout routine when you have weak joints may not be a sound idea. The same if you experience back pains. This is a definite no-no, especially when you are on the heavy side, as an intense physical activity will put a strain on your joints, which is the last thing you’d want. Apart from researching the types of exercises that you can do, you may also want to sign up for a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) weight loss treatment. At Slim Couture, our TCM weight loss treatment will look into your health and even your physicality. By using specialised techniques like Guasha, it will help to stimulate better blood flow and increased circulation, which can be effective against joint aches and back pain. Not only does this slimming treatment will shed off a few pounds on its own, relieved joints and back will make it easier for you to move around and continue with an exercise routine.

You Can’t Cope with Stress

The adverse effects of a sedentary lifestyle don’t just stop at the physical, but it will also leak into the psyche. When you are always fatigued and plagued with constant body aches, coupled with the inability to complete tasks, you’re bound to accumulate stress. In the worst scenario, you’d get overwhelmed and crumble under it.

Exercise helps by not only eliminating body aches and fatigue, but you will also be happy. At the chemical side, at least, exercising will promote the production of neurotransmitters like serotonin and Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF), which will boost your mood and cognitive ability. Your body also releases dopamine, and beta-endorphins – the feel-good hormones – and reduces cortisol – the stress hormone – levels in your system.

You Have Issues Digesting Food

Workout sessions do more than just burn those extra calories and increasing your metabolism rate. Exercising helps the contraction of the intestinal wall muscles. It helps to strengthen the digestive tract and keep it healthy. By increasing blood flow, it aids in the digestion and reduces any issues.

Conclusion

As you can see, exercise does not just affect your physical health, but it influences your mental and emotional health as well. In a society such as Singapore’s, not adopting a sedentary lifestyle seems almost impossible. The lack of time is also an issue.

Instead of exercising for a full 75 minutes in a day, break it up into 20 minutes that you can intersperse during the week. This is a more doable approach, one that your body will thank you for.

The Effects Of Blue Light And Sleep Quality On Your Weight

In the past few years, there have been talks about the adverse effects blue rays have on your body. As the biggest source of blue rays, the sun is made up of violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red rays. Blue light exposure you receive from screen devices are relatively small compared to its biggest source, but it still bears long-term effects that may be challenging if you wish to revert.

There have been many discussions on the negative consequences on one’s eyesight after prolonged exposure to blue light, but what about your sleep?

A 2019 study was published in the JAMA Internal Medicine Journal and it revealed that having the television switched on throughout your sleep is actually bad for your health. It may seem insignificant, but the findings are not to be understated.

Blue Light Affects Circadian Rhythm

Your body has a natural clock that prompts your body’s preparation for the start and the end of each day. These swings are also known as the circadian rhythms and they vary from one person to another.

For the better or worse, blue light regulates our circadian rhythm. Exposure to blue light helps to maintain a healthy circadian rhythm – which justifies the need for sun exposure to get proper sleep – but too much may be detrimental to your sleep cycle. When you rely on the television to lull you to sleep or have the habit of spending time on your phone before you drift off, it disrupts your circadian rhythm. This can easily translate to sleep issues and extreme fatigue, amongst many other things.

It Disrupts Your Sleeping Patterns

Apart from messing up your circadian rhythm, blue light will disrupt your sleep patterns by boosting your alertness. This will force your body to stay awake even after you’ve switched off your devices. It’s especially worse for those who rely on their television as white noise as they drift off to sleep. Even if you’re not fully conscious, your brain will still actively pick up the sounds and information from the programs, thus rendering your sleep shallow at most. When you don’t get a full sleep cycle, you’re not giving the body a chance to rebuild and repair.

Increase Your Cortisol Levels

In the off chance that you don’t get to complete all 5 stages of sleep, you are also robbing your body the opportunity to recover. When the exhaustion and stress levels are not resolved, it will be brought forward to the next day. Furthermore, your body will release more cortisol to handle your stress, which will trigger higher blood sugar content in order to help you fight or flee the stressor. Unfortunately, you can’t do either since you’re not awake. Moreover, a high cortisol level may also trigger type-2 diabetes.

You Are Likely to Eat More

When your sleep is disrupted, your hormones will undergo a change. There will be an underproduction of the hormone leptin, specifically. This is a red flag as leptin suppresses appetite and encourages the body to use up energy stored in the body. Unfortunately, not only will sleep deprivation reduce the production of leptin, but it will increase the production of the hormone ghrelin. The ghrelin hormone is responsible for your hunger pangs. This spells bad news as not only will it translate to imminent weight gain, but it will also render your slimming treatments ineffective.

Conclusion

The good news is, you can easily avoid artificial blue light emission! Start by switching off all your screen devices, which includes your computers, phones and television. Leave 30 minutes or so in between before you prepare for your sleep. If you’re looking to lose weight and experience better sleep. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is a great way to do so! TCM weight loss treatment will also look into your overall well being and they offer solutions such as Chamomile tea to help detox your body and has calming properties to aid in your sleep. Consult with our slimming experts at Slim Couture on the best way to tackle two issues at the same time!

4 Common Myths About Exercise And Weight Loss Busted

Apart from purely aesthetic reasons, being overweight is also an indicator of poor health. Whilst a lean and skinny body also has the propensity to be unhealthy, a heavy body will physically harm your body. Your tendons and joints will take the brunt of your physical exertion, especially if your workout routine does more harm than good. A heavy body will also make physical activities significantly harder and more often than not, this has caused several to fall off the bandwagon to only return to their unhealthy weights.

If you wish to shed those pounds via exercise, you’d need to know what are some of the exercises that may not be as effective as you thought they were. We’ve gathered and debunked 4 myths about the relationship between weight loss and exercise, and reveal the truths behind them.

Myth 1: Belly Fat Melts Away When You Do Crunches

Crunches have been the proposed solution for those who wish to slim their waistline. It’s a popular exercise as it works out your abdomen area. However, that cannot be further than the truth.

The fact of the matter is that crunches don’t actually burn belly fats. Since they elicit and work out only a localised small group of muscles, specifically the rectus abdominis, you’re not targeting your entire belly. Furthermore, there’s very little metabolic work done, which translates to breaking down little to no fat cells. Abdominal movements, unfortunately, don’t burn stomach fat.

Myth 2: Any Form Of Exercise Is Effective For Weight Loss

Similar to how crunches are not effective when losing belly fat, not all exercises will help you in losing weight. There are exercises that are designed to lose weight, but there are several others that meant to stretch or strengthen.

The exercise that will benefit you will be those that will improve your metabolic rate. Cardio routines are especially great at increasing your metabolism. That said, ensure that you don’t overcompensate and overwork your body. High-intensity cardio exercises pose the risk of incurring musculoskeletal injuries. Rather than exposing yourself to this risk, you’d have to exercise moderately throughout the day. Especially if your body weight is heavier than most, your joints and tendons are especially vulnerable. Thus, start slow and increase the intensity in increments. For instance, rather than running, opt for a 20-30 minutes walk 3-4 times a week. You’ll notice significant weight loss in a matter of weeks!

Myth 3: An Exercise Regimen Is A License To Eat Anything

You may have adopted an exercise regime and figured out what truly works and what don’t. However, you realised that your weight hardly budges. Perhaps, you should take a look at your eating habits.

Often, many perceive that once they religiously work out, this gives them the license to eat absolutely anything. That isn’t necessarily correct. Whilst there is slightly more freedom for your dietary choices, all this means is that you don’t need to limit yourself to just salads and chicken breasts.  Review your diet and exclude harmful and unhealthy foods, such as soft drinks and desserts. Ensure that your meals are clean. Otherwise, you can have fun eating anything and everything, so long as your physical activities make up for it!

Myth 4: Once You’ve Lost Weight, You Can Put It In The Backburner

Several weight loss treatments in Singapore are popular because they promise results within a short time. And most often, they do! However, there’s a real and subtle danger that lies within rebound weight.

Apart from suffering from health conditions such as hypothyroidism, excess weight often comes from poor eating habits and a sedentary lifestyle. If you don’t change the latter, the chances of getting a relapse are high. Even after opting for slimming treatments, ensure that inculcate habits that will help you maintain a healthy weight. For instance, you could consider TCM slimming; it’s a natural slimming treatment without any side effects!

Whilst these 4 common myths have been debunked, you’d need to research into the types of exercises that will benefit you and your body. Have a look at the different types of muscles that are activated. Remember not to target only one type of muscles and always have various exercise regimes. It takes a while but your body will thank you for it.

A Sedentary Lifestyle: Health Risks You Need To Be Aware Of

For most Singaporeans, the temptation to do absolutely nothing after a long day at work often triumphs their desire to move, much less exercise. The physical and mental exhaustion often warrants a portion of time to wind down and decompress. Sometimes, this continues even in the weekends and physical activities become an item on their to-do-list but never actually pursued.

This sedentary lifestyle is easy to fall into since you literally need no effort. However, this very lifestyle possesses a threat to your health by increasing the chances of developing chronic ailments. That said, don’t be disheartened just yet! There are ways in which you can prevent and revert the consequential effects of a sedentary lifestyle.

What’s a sedentary lifestyle

In 2018 alone, a study done by the World Health Organisation (WHO) has shown that 1 in 3 Singaporeans are not active enough. Whilst more men than women are found to have engaged in physical exercise, both genders are still lacking behind the global average. On top of the fact that physical inactivity is the 4th leading risk factor for global mortality is concerning enough, Singapore’s statistics is highly worrying.

Especially for city dwellers, having a constant exercise routine is challenging. Apart from the lack of recreational time and pre-existing medical conditions, most Singaporeans would rather spend time on their mobile devices. Whilst it is definitely easier to adopt a sedentary lifestyle, your body and health may be the ones to pay the cost.

How it affects your health

Ironically, not doing anything has the propensity to bring you harm. Long periods of sitting or lounging on your couch will significantly reduce your metabolism, which makes it harder to break down fat. The weight loss plan that you thought would work, in actuality, wouldn’t give you any satisfactory results. Extended periods of inactivity will also impair your body’s ability to regulate blood sugar – basically your insulin and glucagon production – and also your blood pressure. This easily gives rise to type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, especially when weight becomes a concern. It may also lead to osteoporosis and even abnormality in cell growth, aka cancer.

It’s not only your physical health that gets affected but so will your mental health. A study was done with 10,381 participants who have adopted a sedentary lifestyle. According to their findings, they concluded that an inactive lifestyle increases the chances of one developing a mental health disorder, especially depression.

Solutions to sedentary lifestyles

The only solution for physical inactivity is as straightforward as it gets: be physically active. Clock in an exercise routine that combines both cardiovascular exercises and weight training. It could be as simple as walking for 30 minutes a day and doing 30-minute sessions of push-pull trainings a week. However, if you’re dedicating the majority of your time sitting down, having a weekly routine may not even cut it. Instead, reduce your time spent being sedentary by walking to your workplace or even spending more time doing simple chores at home every single day.

If your health is already at risk, don’t panic. Figure out solutions to tackle one problem at a time. For instance, if you have gained several pounds and have trouble trying to lose weight, perhaps you may want to invest in an effective weight loss treatment. If you are trying to reduce your high blood pressure, commit to a healthier and cleaner diet. There’s no way getting around it as the majority of Singaporeans are desk jockeys but incorporate tweaks to your way of living will prove to be sufficient.