A health freak mom's thoughts on health and all things healthy
Stair walking has always been one of my favourite forms of exercise. It’s simple, free, and wonderfully effective. For women in our 50s, stair climbing is more than just a cardio workout — it counts as a natural form of resistance training. Every step helps build muscle strength, improve balance, and most importantly, support better…
Lately, I’ve made a conscious decision to restart my stair-climbing exercise routine — and I’m proud to say that I’ve been keeping it up for at least five times a week. My usual workout now consists of half an hour of brisk walking, with some intermittent running, followed by a climb up five flights of…
Many of us juggle tasks every day. As a mother of 3 teenage girls, I juggle house tasks, work-related tasks, and tasks of caring for my daughters every single day. Did you know that juggling is a great exercise for your brain? But it is not juggling with daily tasks that help boost our brain…
What is NEAT? Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) is the energy expended for everything we do that is not sports-like exercise activity, sleeping, or eating. It ranges from the energy expended in walking to work, typing, standing, performing house chores, undertaking agricultural tasks, and even fidgeting. Even trivial physical activities like walking to the toilet or…
I have been wearing a Fitbit fitness tracker watch for more than 3 years now but it’s only during the Covid-19 lockdown that I actually started to track my steps closely, making sure that I hit at least 8,000 steps a day during my shelter-in-place. On most days, I clock in an average of 12,000…
Most of us have heard about the harmful effects the sun rays have on our skin when we are overly exposed to it. In the past century, most public health messages have focused on the hazards of over exposure to the sun. Did you know that not getting enough of natural sunlight can have negative…
For someone who is severely sleep deprived, I am often put in a tight spot where I have to ask myself this question “should I sleep in to get the 7 or 8 hours of sleep tomorrow or should I get up early to exercise?” That’s a terrible decision for me to make. Both sleep…
I’ve been practising intermittent fasting based on my circadian rhythm for almost a year now. On most days, I have a 12-hour fast. On some days, it’s only 10 hours of fast. At our home, the kids and I eat our dinner very early. On some days, we have our dinner at 4 p.m. when…
I’m a firm believer of having early dinners and hardly ever indulge in suppers. Our current dinner time is very early as two of my children are back from school at 4 p.m. Instead of giving them the opportunity to have snacks and then only have dinner at 7-ish p.m., I make sure that by…
There’s something about the Christmas season that has the unique ability to scupper your best-laid fitness and diet plans. We all have gone through it. It is a busy time of the year for us. Many of us will be on a holiday and celebrating the festivities. During this time of the year, it seems…