How To Keep Fit In This Rainy Season

By Chioma Umeha

Are you exhausted at home or stressed at work with little or nothing to do during the raining season? You are not alone. This is the plight of many people in this country and across where adverse weather conditions affect one’s movement. Under such adverse weather condition, there is a tendency that you would add up a few pounds or kilograms.

Many would end up with a little bulging either at the hip or around the tummy. This is particularly so if you are among those with a genetic make up which allows you retain more calories than you exhaust. Sorry to tell you that, you are out of luck.

Unfortunately, the rainy season brings with it other draw backs other than flooded roads and constant power outage. The cold weather may also influence your moods.

Research has also shown that what you eat may determine your mood; so your mood can be influenced by your eating habit. Similarly, lack of activity creates a vacuum, which many people opt to use food to fill. However, foods like sweet potatoes and walnut can lift your mood. It doesn’t mean that you should load up on sweet potatoes and walnut or consume far less calories in order to maintain a quality lifestyle. Moderation is the key to everything you do. Generally, activities of many people get reduced in rainy weather, while calorie intake remains unchanged. In other words, whenever your food intake doesn’t commensurate with your caloric ‘expenditure,’ that leftover would be stored in your body as fat.

Now, the question is, what steps can one take to avoid excessive accumulation of fat during this rainy season? Here are some tips that may help you get your body to be the envy of your friends.

Modify your eating habits

This is where many of our defeats occur, and it requires the change in our psyche regarding food consumption. Often, we eat food because we think it is the essence of living, not for nourishment. Think of the food that you eat as a fuel in a car. You wouldn’t fill up your car with fuel and abandon it in the driveway.

A vehicle filled with fuel must have an intended task to accomplish, likewise your body. It is the vehicle that conveys your soul and spirit.

Also, you should be mindful that once your body stores carbohydrate as fat, it is hard to get rid of. Consequently, your goal should be to maintain a five per cent reduction on your carbohydrates, protein and fat, and if anything, you should consider the consumption of leafy food like salad and vegetables with an increase in water intake.

Firing all cylinders

Exercise is the most important thing that can have all the neurons in your body fired up. However, it doesn’t require you to be a fitness fanatic to score a considerable measurable result.

For instance, a 30-40minute of brisk walking or jogging up and down your one-story staircase can be just as effective as, or better than your traditional treadmill.

If you doubt this, measure your heart rate during the performance of each activity and you will discover that your staircase exercise ranks higher.

And this actually translates to good metabolic rate with a sustainable caloric expenditure.

This is not the only exercise programme that could have physiological changes to your body. Any activity, which would tax your body beyond the level of your daily energy to exhaustion, can have the same effect.

This explains the difference between physiology of a man/woman whose job involves push, pull and lift, and one behind the desk.