Swathy and Sky

Drink Water to Lose weight

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Losing weight easily becomes a nightmare for everyone. We all try so desperately to be in shape and most of the time we are unsuccessful and the sole reason for this is because we are not trying it in the right way. And, things which we go wrong about are, generally, the most trivial and the most important habits of our daily life . I would be talking about one habit per week and you can change or inculcate the habit in your life and see the difference it makes in one week.

Today’s Habit: Drinking adequate amount of Water
I know it sounds pretty simple and obvious. And, many will think they are already doing it quite right. But, there are many ifs and buts involved in this seemingly simple habit too. I would advise you all to first go through the post “Drinking Water for Skin and Hair Care“.
Water cleans up the toxins from our system and improves the fat metabolism. It helps the liver to fight the fats in our system and pushes it out through the kidneys. But, there is a loophole there.

Too much of water can wash away a lot of minerals and vitamins too from the body along with the fat. So, regulate the amount of water you drink according to your body weight, age and the physical activity you do in a day. A good estimate would be not to increase the regular water intake if you find your urine to be colorless. Another very good way to regulate water in body is to drink a liter of water in the morning as soon as you wake up and reduce your water intake after 7 PM in the evening.

Sometimes, drinking water leads to water retention in the body instead of passing it out of the system. The reason is due to the presence of huge amounts of salt and sugar in your body. So, reduce the intake of salt and sugar to reduce your weight. You can see the difference in a week. Tips to reduce salt and sugar intake:
  • Drink your tea and coffee with honey or without any sweetener to reduce the calories
  • Decrease the amount of salt you take everyday by a pinch and soon you will be used to less salt
  • If you drink milk, do not add sugar to it
  • Reduce the desserts, sweets, chocolates and carbonated beverages you take

Facial Exercise: Anti-aging Skin Care

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Just as our body muscles need exercise to stay in shape, our face muscles too need exercise to keep the skin from sagging. Sagging of the skin can be due to a number of factors ranging from aging, excess exposure to sun to gravity. Yes, gravity is a very big reason for sagging our body whether it is your face, your breasts or your belly fat. So, you need to exercise everyday at least for 15 minutes to counter the effects of gravity. You can couple the facial exercise with the facial massage everyday to get the maximum benefits. The exercises are very simple and you can perform them while sitting and watching television also.  They will take only 10 minutes of your time and take years off from your face. The results will show in as less as a month.

Jaggery – Health Benefits

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Jaggery is a natural and viable alternative for Sugar. Sugar is manufactured by chemical processes where as jaggery is obtained from sugarcane juice. It is the safest and the purest form of sugar and the process of obtaining jaggery does not involve any chemicals. The manufacturing process of jaggery is very hygienic and requires no human intervention. It is full of proteins, mineral salts not present in refined sugar and vitamins and is extremely nutritious and delicious. In fact, it has all the nutritional values present in a sugarcane. It is used in many Indian dishes in place of sugar. Let us take a look at few of its many health benefits:

  • diabetic people are often advised to replace sugar with jaggery
  • purifies the blood
  • extremely beneficial for anemic people as it is rich in iron
  • helps maintain blood pressure levels due to low amounts of sodium
  • reduces water retention in the body so controls weight of the body
  • is rich in anti-oxidants so helps in fighting the free radicals in the body
  • strengthens the nervous system
  • helps control indigestion and constipation problems
  • extremely beneficial for throat and lung infections
  • helps in preventing breathing problems and asthma
  • helps fight pollution by allowing people to breathe easily in higher levels of pollution and smoke
  • is rich in magnesium so helpful in relieving fatigue and relaxes muscles and nerves
  • prevents rheumatism

So, looking at the subset of the health benefits, I would certainly recommend daily consumption of jaggery in the morning breakfast and afternoon lunch.