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Editorial

Painless approach to weight loss

  • PublishedJuly 10, 2011

We would all be slimmer and healthier if we focused more on exercise than diet. Many people, especially women, try one fad diet after another only to find themselves adding more weight. The focus should be on keeping weight off and not just losing it. Most people fail in weight maintenance. The best way to achieve success in weight maintenance is through exercise. Hard workouts are not necessarily the best; in fact, to keep weight off, simply strive to take at least 10000 steps a day – meaning walking as much as possible. The more steps you take in a day, the less you have to restrict your eating. Another mistake in weight maintenance is setting goals that are too high. When you are trying to lose weight, increase your daily goals by setting achievable targets, such as walking an extra 50 steps or being on the cycle for an additional five minutes. You should also not make any food off-limit when you are trying to lose weight. Instead, decrease your daily food intake by, say, a quarter through reduction of portion sizes.

To increase your daily steps at home, walk around while talking on phone, do chores like emptying wastebaskets during TV commercial breaks and move around the kitchen as much as possible when you are cooking. At work, walk from office to office instead of fully relying on the phone to communicate; walk to lunch, and have walking breaks around the office or car park every two hours or so. When you are out and about, walk as much as you can, for example, at the airport waiting for your flight or bus stop waiting for your transport, walk around instead of sitting or standing in one spot. Park your car a few metres away from your final destination and walk the rest of the distance.

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