Fitness Regime For New Mums - No Vigorous Workouts After Child Birth

What is the right way to lose post-pregnancy weight?: Fitness experts suggest a slower regimen for mothers as pushing themselves too hard could impact them as well as the babies

It was an unfortunate photograph of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan coming out of a party that sparked off a national debate on celebrities and post-pregnancy weight like never before. If Victoria Beckham and Malaika Arora Khan could get back to shape in less than a couple of months, what was stopping Aishwarya from doing the same? Opinions ranged from bitchy to ridiculous and the topic itself has raised a number of questions. The most important being, just what is the right way to lose post-pregnancy weight?

New mom Aishwarya Embraced her Fuller Figure At Cannes this Year

Dr Kishore Kumar, neonatologist and CEO of Cloud Nine hospitals, is quick to caution. “The basic rule of post-weight pregnancy is it depends largely on genetics – how much weight you gain, how quickly you can lose it of if you will ever lose it. On an average, a woman gains about 10 kilos of weight during pregnancy, which is transient fat or as we know it, post-pregnancy weight. The presence of fat is very important for a new mother because she has to breast-feed. So this whole concept of losing weight in a month’s time is not very ideal in general if you are going on crash diets and vigorous exercise, which was not part of your lifestyle before. I have had a mother who swam till the last day of her pregnancy and went back into the water almost immediately after giving birth. But she had been a swimmer all her life,” he says.

Dr Gautami N, a gynaecologist, says: “Keep your weight constant at least for the first six months after your pregnancy because your body needs to adjust to the change of not having to supply nutrients to a life growing within. Unlike the women in the West, our genetic make-up is different, as is our diet. We need to work around that. If you have had a very active lifestyle before and during your pregnancy, you can go back to exercising after the birth of the baby. Just don’t do strenuous exercises that you have never done before because it will have an adverse effect on your system,” she says.

Fitness experts too recommend a slower regimen for mothers. “It is not vigorous cardios and weights and Pilates that we recommend immediately. New mothers have already gone through delivering a baby, so straining the body further is not recommended. The body needs to heal. For the first three months at least, I would recommend you keep it simple. Do 20 minutes on the treadmill on an even speed. Even if you do weights, keep it very light. Most women also do Kegel (pelvic) exercises after giving birth; you can supplement it with some calming yoga as well. At the end of the day, don’t push your body,” says fitness expert Arab Khan.

A driving reason for women to lose their post-pregnancy weight is largely psychological too. “We live in a visual world today where appearances are paramount. Previously we thought of our mothers as cuddly, warm and round. Today, motherhood is not a good enough reason to be out of shape, even if you have genuine medical reason for it. It does not help when you see a Karishma Kapoor, a mother of two, flaunt her toned body and slim thigh on the silver screen. But the truth is, stretch marks, a sagging bustline and jelly belly is the reality many mothers live with. Accept the fact that our body may not go back to college days. Embrace the truth that not all of us can be Demi Moore. It helps,” says Mamtha Shetty, a city-based psychologist.

But what happens when you push the envelope on the post-pregnancy weight loss? The repercussions are twofold – physiological and psychological. Dr Kishore says: “If you insist on a dramatic weight loss in a very short time, then there is a very diverse effect on your body. It affects the production of breast milk in a woman, which adversely affects the baby’s health. The mother herself increases the risk of osteoporosis,” he says.

“Depression is a very serious risk for a new mother who has to tend to the needs of a newborn baby and you will not be able to enjoy motherhood. We don’t need science to tell us what it does to a baby to be deprived of maternal love in its early days,” says Namrata Gupta, another city-based psychologist.

Here's How Arjun Kapoor Lost 50 Kgs in Four Years

Actor Arjun Kapoor says he still feels overweight in his mind. He bares his vulnerabilities in an account of how he lost 50 kilos in four years

When you are touted to be the next big star, the pressure to look good never ebbs. So what if Arjun Kapoor has lost 50 kilos in the past four years. Arjun says, “It’s a thankless profession in that sense.” Sitting in a jeans and a black shirt, you’d never think that this is the same obese industry-kid who hardly ever made any social appearances. Here he is confident, fielding questions with his co-star Parineeti Chopra like he was born to be on camera. The journey to reach here has been long, and treacherous, with booby traps full of food all around. He lets us in on to how he found a way around the ambushes:

Arjun Kapoor After Weight Loss

Arjun Kapoor Befor Weight Loss

The start

Most people think, aaj diet shuru kiya, kal patla bana. You can lose 10 kilos in 30 days if you don’t eat, but you are losing muscle. You can put that weight back on with five days of overeating. I realised early on that it’s not about a short term goal. I had to lose 50 kilos. So I had to make peace with the fact that it’s not going to happen overnight.

Salmanbhai [Khan] inspired me. He is the one who told me that I had acting talent in me, that I should not squander it just because I am this big lard of fat. He doesn’t miss going to the gym regardless of what his timings are. He works out early in the morning without fail. Initially, I used to work out a lot with him, cycle from his house to film city. When you live with a person who is so aware of his body, you get inspired.

I suppose the decision to lose weight happened when I decided to make acting a profession. Ultimately, 50 kilos is just a number. If I lost 40 and I looked as lean, then I’d be happy with it. I still want to lose five more.

When you are so overweight, your body responds to any kind of physical activity. First, your body drops the water. And you drop the weight like this (snaps his fingers). In the first month I lost about 10 to 11 kilos. It was kind of shocking initially.

But then I was so happy that I had lost so much weight that I put on all of that by eating more. I didn’t lose weight consistently. I used to lose five then put on three, then lose some more and eat again. I was always working against myself.
  

Lifestyle change

Losing weight isn’t only about hitting the gym every day, or keeping a check on your diet. It is a combination of the two. I recognised that I have to make adjustments to my diet and if I ever overeat, I need to work it off in the gym.

You reduce the number of yellows you put in your eggs in the morning. I don’t have zero yolks. Because I think the gelatin makes your hair better. Also, it tastes bloody good. I’m a foodie at the end of the day, so I offset this with a workout.

I think diet is a trial and error process. I live on rice, but it bloats me up immediately, so I’ve replaced it with quinoa, the South American grain. It’s actually pure protein. You can put in more chicken too. Chilla is made of aata and that is also something I use. These are small things that go a long way when you realise how your body reacts to certain foodstuffs.
  

The bad days

When you start losing weight, it leads to many bad days. When you are sitting in front of the TV and realise that you are looking at these guys with six packs and they are ripped, you really don’t see yourself getting there. You have to keep the will power and fight through. There is only one person you can look at in the gym for inspiration and it’s yourself. Anybody’s reassurance will not matter if you aren’t mentally strong enough.

Gym bean

In the first year, with weights and cardio, I lost a lot of weight. But the fourth year was the toughest. I had to lose only five more kilos. That’s when I wanted to get my jaw line sorted, stomach as plain as possible. That’s where CrossFit came in. I started training under Deepesh Bhatt. When you stabilise yourself with your own core, then you can lift anything in the world.

You activate smaller muscles through CrossFit. I hear Hrithik Roshan does CrossFit in the morning and then does hardcore body building through the day. Now, I haven’t reached that level in the gym.
  

Eating and cheating

I would be lying if I say I don’t have a diet plan. I have one toast with four to six eggs. One or two yolks depending on how many eggs I’m having. If I train in the morning then I have a protein shake. I have lunch and am still trying to cut down on carbs. At home, I have dal, sabzi, and chicken. I also have either bajra ki roti which is more filling or two phulkas. In the afternoon, depends on where I am and what I’m up to, I nibble on some rubbish or the other. I love food and I like eating. If anyone offers me good food I tend to have some. But I can afford to because I know I am training that much. I tend to avoid meetha generally, but nowadays I realise even that has become difficult because I’m travelling so much. 

My dinner is as light as possible — just protein. Because I am a meat lover by nature, it’s easier to follow a protein-based diet. The evening time is the worst time in the day. Between lunch and dinner I am tempted by a million things. I tend to have a lot of black coffee. It keeps you feeling fresher and gives you a false high. I stopped liking milk in my coffee a long time ago.

Self-esteem

You obviously have self-esteem issues when you are fat, but I never let it bog me down. You deal with it internally. Then you hit McDonalds, have three burgers and you are happy again. I used to go to McDonalds, order three burgers, one strawberry milkshake, French fries and pack one burger for on my way home. I was a grumpy kid who hardly ever smiled and just wanted to make films.

Now that I’ve lost weight I am more conscious of my weight than before. If I look at pictures when I was fat, I just smile. But when I see the posters of my film, I think ‘S**t, I have put on weight, I was so thin back then.’ I don’t look at myself in the most positive light. That’s why I hate posing in front of the camera even now.
Find Here: Pictures of Arjun Kapoor before weight loss and after weight loss

Rujuta Diwekar States Some Health Benefits of Regular White Rice

Regular rice is much maligned and is fast being dropped in favour of its unpolished avatar. But are the charges valid? Sports nutritionist Rujuta Diwekar separates the grain from the husk

Rujuta Diwekar, Sports Nutritionist

The Chinese eat rice with every meal, breakfast included, and the average Chinese on the street is thin, if not skinny. In our country, however, we are getting skeptical about rice and yes, we are all getting fatter. We either give up rice or replace it with wheat or ‘brown’ rice. What is wrong with this approach?

Replacing rice with wheat is not a good idea since it means reducing your intake of amino acids (protein’s building blocks) and Vitamin B. As for brown rice, it has the outer layer (husk and bran) intact thereby making it high in fibre. Now, of course we want fibre but if your rice has more fibre than you can digest, brown rice will only cause indigestion. On the other hand, rice that emits blinding whiteness may not be the best source of nutrients either.

Buy Books Written By Rujuta Divekar
Free Home Delivery - Cash on Delivery Thus, to get the best of both worlds, polish your rice to the extent that helps it retain its nutrients (proteins, Vitamin B and fibre) and looks brownish or reddish. Remove the outer bran but allow the rice grain to show off its brown/red strains. Don’t worry, this won’t compromise the taste and yes, you can eat basmati rice with the brown/red strains as well.

The protein in this rice (red-rice or hand-polished rice) is absorbed much better by your body than in brown rice. It is also way easier to cook and digest as compared to brown rice. It is easy to digest, easy to absorb, easy to assimilate proteins from and easier on your excretory system too.

This is exactly how the farming community of India eats its rice.

In fact, Ayurveda uses ricebased diets in treating various imbalances in the body.

Dal-chawal is a nutritious meal, possessing the entire spectrum of amino acids, vitamins and minerals. It also accelerates fat burning. In fact, the essential amino acid methionine found predominantly in rice helps mobilise fat from the liver. As India is dominantly vegetarian, getting proteins from rice, especially the essential amino acid methionine and the conditionally essential amino acid (becomes essential under conditions of stress) tyrosine is crucial for us. Diabetics should also eat rice since they need these proteins.

Know that rice is not a bad thing. The bad thing is when we mindlessly decide if one thing is good for us and that if we do it a lot, it becomes only better. We do that with rice so often now.

A humble dal-chawal meal is so satiating that it makes you eat slower and improves your chances of eating the right amount (the cornerstones of fat loss or accelerated metabolism, good digestion and health itself).

Rice is auspicious in both China and India: the dead are offered rice to wish them good health for life outside their physical selves. It is sad then, that in India, even when we are still in our bodies, we make fads out of rice.

Hello there..

yeah finally i have a blog ^^

makasi buat pacarku yang uda bantu buatin blog ini
dengan blog ini aku bisa menulis sepuas hatiku dan berbagi kasih kepada para pembaca

semua isi pikiran dan hatiku akan tertuang di blog ini
makanya aku kasih nama EMPIRE STATE OF MIND

salam kenal dan terima kasih
nice too meet you ^^

Deepika Padukone Likes to Shake Up Her Fitness Regimen With a Mix of Cardio, Pilates and Yoga

Blessed with an athlete’s body, Deepika Padukone does her bit to continue looking like the lean, toned stunner that she is

Former model and national level badminton player, 25-year-old Deepika Padukone, one would agree, has an enviably toned and lean body. The leggy actress has a figure that can carry of both Indian and western outfits with equal finesse and grace. An excruciatingly strong will power makes it easy for her to stick to exercise routines and diets without wavering. Here are a few things she and her trainer Yasmin Karachiwala are clearly getting right.


START YOUNG

“All throughout school, I would go for badminton practice from 5 to 7 am,” explains Deepika. “After school, I would practise for another two hours. It was a routine I stuck to every single day while growing up. So that definitely had a large role to play in how my body developed and maintained itself. However, after I stopped playing, I also discontinued exercising for quite a few years. And my initial training tided me over that period.”

Not known to be a chubby kid, she glided through her initial years of college and modelling without much training. It was only once work became more and more camera- centric that she felt the need to focus on her body and start to tone up again.

“I was always slim but I knew my body had the potential to really look defined. I wasn’t fat or out of shape, but I wanted to look a lot better. This is when I started training with Yasmin and she introduced me to Pilates and strength training. It did wonders for my tone and definition. I may have lost maybe a kilo or two at the most in all this time, but have lost inches all around and it shows,” she says.

MIX IT UP

Not one to enjoy conventional gym routines, Deepika likes to shake up her regimen with a mix of cardio, Pilates and yoga, constantly trying to mentally push the limits of her endurance and physical potential.

“I do a lot of freehand weights and four to five sets of stretching exercises with 10 to 20 reps, in between Pilates or stretching routines. I don’t particularly like running so I don’t do a lot of conventional gym exercises,” she says. “I try and exercise as often as I can, but when I’m travelling or shooting, I tend to skip it for days on end.”

One of the toughest things for Deepika was the effort to break her sweet tooth. “All my teeth are sweet. It’s my weakness. When I was younger, it was only chocolates; I wouldn’t touch any Indian sweets. But now I crave anything sweet, but I try and be good. I treat myself once in a while,” she says.

Deepika Padukone's Fitness Trainer Yasmin Karachiwala Talks

Yasmin goes into the details of Deepika’s training routine and emphasises on how important it is to have self-control and will power to control urges that work against you.

“Deepika tries to come in every day for an hour. But currently, for example, she is in South Africa and hasn’t been exercising for over 10 days. This is when she’ll usually work out at home with Pilates or yoga,” she explains.

Pilates has worked wonders on her body and uses a combination of strength and yoga to tighten the core muscles of the body and relax the mind. As a routine, it helps build flexibility and creates endurance in legs, abdominals, back and arms through resistance training. It also involves a steady control on breathing that helps to relieve stress and allow proper oxygen to reach core muscles. The flexibility helps coordination and balance and adequately trains all the muscle groups in the body.

BREAK A SWEAT

Deepika’s typical workout consists of functional training at the gym with a mix of freehand and light weights, depending on what body part is being worked upon.

In addition, the Pilates machine and props such as resistance bands, wunda chair, foam weights etc, are used for an overall workout. This gives her the lean look without making the body look too muscular. “We also have a jumping series of the Pilates, which is a combination of cardio and Pilates,” says Yasmin. “Here we do the jumping squat or walking lunges that may be accompanied by light weights of a kilo or two. I also like to intersperse a minute or two of cardio between other routines.” Since Deepika exercises daily, to prevent soreness in the body, weight training is kept at a minimum.

“If she has a shoot where she is wearing shorts or a short skirt, we emphasize on her legs; if it’s a halter that exposes her back and arms, we’ll focus on push ups or pull ups, and weights are decided accordingly,” says Yasmin. “For example, she has a beach scene in her upcoming movie, Cocktail, where we worked on her entire body’s look. Usually, it’s light weights and low reps and I like using a lot of props to keep the workout engaging and fun.”

As for her diet, Yasmin encourages eating small meals every two hours that contain a combination of carbs and proteins. “We recently discovered Quinoa, a carbohydrate substitute high in fiber, which has worked wonders for Deepika,” she says.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT
This is what Deepika Padukone’s Diet Plan Looks Like:

» Breakfast: 2 egg whites
» Two hours later: Fruits
» Lunch: Proteins; usually fish and grilled vegetables
» Two hours later: A fruit or vegetable juice
» Dinner: Lean meat; grilled chicken or fish

Arjun Rampal's Workout Mantras For a Sculpted Body In Ra.One

Superb villain Workout: Arjun Rampal sculpted his delicious body in Ra.One on the back of an injury. He lets us in on his workout mantras

For Ra.One, Arjun Rampal spent countless hours in the gym bulking up and chiselling his body to ridiculous perfection. But like a balloon that is happy to not be at its inflated best, Arjun says he has never liked the ‘body-builder look’.

Arjun Rampal's Sculpted Body For Ra.One

“The minute my chest goes to 42 or 43, I feel like I would need a bra (laughs). It doesn’t feel natural,” Arjun says, adding that one must understand what kind of a body they are happy with. “I can bulk up very fast. I can lift heavy weights because, like most people, I started off with heavy workouts. That’s stayed in my muscle memory.” Pinching his denims, he says, “I feel horrible when I feel my jeans are getting tight. Work outs peace me out.”

A skinny boy in his school years, Arjun was always an athlete and used to work out during college. “I think it is easier for thinner people to build on a frame once you get lean muscle. I get bored lifting weights at the gym and it isn’t enough as your body becomes stiff. So I train in different ways such as core training, cardio with weights, playing sports such as tennis, cycling, swimming and running 10 kms once a week.”

STOP BEFORE YOU DROP

Upholding a dizzying level of fitness hasn’t been injury-free for Arjun. He winces as he recollects the excruciating pain that slipped discs brought him on two occasions. “The worst was when I was squatting, about to lift weights. And as I bent… pop… my spinal disc popped. I felt a biting bolt of current shoot through my legs,” recounts Arjun, who was then shooting for Housefull. “I took painkillers and continued shooting. The lesson here is you must listen to your body, because it can go into a spasm otherwise.”

TRAINING DAYS

His regular workouts turn into relentless five-day-a-week ironpumping affairs once he is getting ready for a role. “When I was shooting for Raajneeti, Shah Rukh told me I should also start shooting for Ra.One. Some crazy training was on its way.” Training essentially means two unforgiving hours in the gym. About 40 minutes of various cardio, 10 minutes on treadmill to warm-up and then a specific body part. “I find 12 pm as the best time to work out. During training, I do two body parts a day: chestback, back-triceps or chest-biceps so that my body doesn’t get used
to a pattern,” says Arjun.

The gruelling schedule is followed by 20 more minutes on the treadmill and 10 minutes of calming down. “I always stretch before a workout and run a lot so that my heart rate accelerates. I do my lower back exercises so that my core
and back are warmed up enough because I am scared of injuring myself again. I work out very fast. I don’t take breaks and train non-stop for 80 minutes.” When Arjun does these body parts for three days, he doesn’t lift weights on the fourth but does only core, cardio and stretching. He says, “At times, I do Tabata, a high-intensity Japanese training regimen, in which I must do 20 seconds of a specific body part with 10 seconds of rest. This must be done eight times within four minutes. Your heart rate shoots through the roof but you burn a lot of fat.”

THE MAKING OF A SUPER-VILLAIN

To carve a lethal body for Ra.One, on the back of his injury, meant he had to start very slow. “No weights, no bending… only core training. It was very tough. But in 15 days, I worked out with a vengeance and made my core really strong. Zarine Watson trained me very scientifically because she had seen the seriousness of my injury in the x-rays,” he says. Freehand training and a lot of cardio with altitude training (wearing masks that simulate the effect of exertion at high altitudes) enhanced Arjun’s stamina and metabolism. “By the end of it, I was doing close to 2500 sit ups and 40 pound dumbbells while hanging from a pull-up bar. You push your body and it all happens.”

His diet had also switched to what he has in his "training mode’. Two whole wheat toasts, a dozen egg whites and a protein shake in the morning. Dry fruits such as walnuts and cashews munched on every now and then. “I would eat five small meals, as they increase my metabolic rate. For lunch, I would include some carbs. So it would be a roti or two with dal, tandoori chicken and whole wheat bread sandwiches.”

FOOD NO BAR

There is hope for even the most hardened foodies when Arjun agrees with their mantra — eat everything. “I am a foodie and I don’t avoid anything. I know guys who have an occasional kheer or chocolate cake and fall sick. Now that is ridiculous. I don’t ever want to be in that space.”A red wine connoisseur with an aversion to aerated drinks, Arjun hails salads as ‘essential food’ and recommends eating half an avocado a day, ‘because it contains good fats and burns your stubborn fat.’

Then of course is the golden rule — wrap up your dinner by 8 pm. “Avoid carbs because after 9 pm, your system shuts down. So dining late means everything you are putting in there will stay like garbage, with no nutritional value.”

SMOKES AND SHAKES

Puffing on his fourth cigarette of the hour, Arjun admits he needs to quit his ‘terrible habit’. “I think if I wasn’t smoking I would be running for the Olympics (laughs).” After making his profession an excuse for making it difficult for him to give up, Arjun points out, “When I work out rigorously, somehow my cigarette intake reduces. I can almost feel how each drag is undoing all the good I am doing to my body.”

And does he agree with the latest ‘health supplement’ fads? “I take only whey protein shakes. I haven’t ever tried amino acids or creatine, let alone steroids. I find playing with hormones very dangerous. Each of our body types are unique and special. So when none of us look alike, why should our bodies look the same?”

Want Marilyn Monroe’s Killer Body- Her Diet and Exercise Secrets Revealed

She had one of the most famous bodies of all time – and women have coveted her curves ever since. But just how did Marilyn Monroe achieve her perfect hourglass figure?


Marilyn Monroe’s Diet

Unlike today’s celebs who seem to go from one fad diet to the next, Marilyn Monroe’s diet seemed pretty sensible. One of her supermarket receipts showed a healthy mix of fruit, veg, protein and carbohydrates – as well as one or two treats.

She bought artichokes, eggs, cucumber, radishes, cheddar cheese, corn-on-the-cob, strawberries, endive, steaks, milk, lamb chops and chicken.

She also had some English muffins and strawberry jam.

Her diet was fairly controlled though and she tended to work around a set menu every day.

Her food was simple and wholesome and she often cooked for herself.

Breakfast: A typical day would start with orange juice and two slices of white toast with butter.

Lunch: Lunch included two tablespoons of cottage cheese and a baked potato.

Dinner: For dinner she would eat some lean meat, either a lamb chop, chicken or roast beef, with a potato ‘any way but fried’ and vegetables.

Between meals the actress had a cup of milk and perhaps a cracker.

She finished the day with a glass of eggnog.

HER EXERCISE

Marilyn was ahead of her time when it came to working out. She got up early and went for jogs around her Los Angeles neighbourhood before coming home to lift dumb-bells to tone her arms. Marilyn also enjoyed dancing and was only too aware that as well as helping her have fun, exercising helped to maintain her amazing body.