A Slimmer June… by Surekha Chandrasekhar

Our osme community is getting health conscious this month. Let us work out .

Here are 8 workable tips to fight that fat .

1.Start the day with some positive intentions.

It is essential to wake up every morning with some positive affirmations. These are the stories we tell ourselves about our day. These stories keep floating in our minds throughout the day and determine the quality of our day. So make it good and pleasant.

Some examples of positive intentions are here:

My body is my temple. I will keep it pure, healthy, and vibrant.

I will be mindful while eating today.

2. Plan! Plan! Plan!

For anything to work, one needs a blueprint. So make a blueprint for the intention of slimming and toning down in one month. Write it down. Make your day’s plan a little early, so that you don’t waste time. Ideally, make the timetable for your food, and sleeping time for a week in advance. Buy and keep the essentials according to your plan.

If you are planning your yoga and meditation for a fixed time, fix it and write it down. All other activities will fall in their places too when we fix one thing. If one day you fail to follow the plan /timetable don’t blame yourself. Ideally, start again on a new one. The body and mind have a strong tendency to resist our plans to break inertia. It will feed us with encouraging thoughts to break our routine. Your mind will coax you to eat that yummy delicacy saying

‘’nothing will happen if you eat few slices of pizza, you deserve it for having a productive day at home’’

‘’Give yourself a treat of paani puri.’’

‘’Look at the fluffy idli and the mouthwatering coconut chutney. Where will you get such healthy food? Eat some more ‘’

At this point, we give in and indulge in those harmless yummies.

Be mindful. Calmly reaffirm your positive intentions.

3. Wake up early.

“All change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end.”

The 5AM Club :Robin Sharma

To join the 5 AM club one needs to be in the 10 PM club also. The body will take its required amount of sleep. So sleep early to wake up early. Instead of a wake-up alarm, we must keep the sleep alarm which will remind us to shut down Netflix and get to bed. One of the main reasons why we don’t get good sleep is the lack of physical activity.

4. Work it out!

Include some physical activities in your timetable. Now, most of the gyms are closed so you can choose some household activities. Probably already you are doing jaadu pooncha . Put some mindfulness into that and imagine this work is going to help you reduce the flab. You can also take up half an hour of gardening or forty-five minutes brisk walk or running or jogging. Swamiji said in a blog we must work out till tiny beads of sweat appear on our forehead. Get Swamiji’s workout regime in this beautiful blog post here 🙂

5. Have buddy will walk.

A good friend is like a four-leaf clover; hard to find and lucky to have.

Irish Proverb

For outdoor activities like walking, running, etc it is always good to find a buddy. I always took pride in walking alone, but now I am a changed person after finding a walking buddy. When I walked alone it was mostly leasuirely listening to songs or talks on mobile. With my buddy we are walking 8500 to 9000 steps whenever we go out for walks. We aim to hit the 10,000 steps benchmark soon. Adding that extra 10, 000 steps to your daily walk can work wonders on your health and fitness.

6 . Cut the carbohydrate Intake.

Take a stock of everything you eat in a day. In a week.

Cut down on high carbs. Eat more Proteins. The high carbohydrates we eat daily are rice, wheat, oats, fruits, soft drinks, sugar etc.

The high protein we eat are Eggs, Diary products, nuts and seeds, legumes , beans , tofu etc. Be mindful of carbohydrate craving. This normally

spoils the dieting plans.

7. Do Intermittent fasting.

Many of us find it difficult to count calories. In such a case intermittent fasting occasionally can help. Like twice a week. Normally our eating time is from 8 am to 9pm. That means we eat for 13 hours and fast for 11 hours. In intermittent fasting, we eat for 8 hours and don’t eat for 16 hours. Short-term fasting helps burn more calories and helps in weight loss.

8. Let the happy hormones keep coming.

You know what to do ,

Eat good food to get that serotonin boost. Get your Oxytocin up with a hug. Mindfully drink that cup of tea or coffee which will relax you with Dopamine. That buddy walk or running is going to give you loads of Endorphine too.

Now we are all set for a slimmer June. Don’t forget your daily Yoga and Meditation.