Exercise Quest - 1

Weekend is coming! Let's start this weekend with a new routine!

Wake up early before the sun rise on a Saturday Morning and take a walk in your favorite park! If u are too lazy to drive to a park, u may go to the one nearest to your house!

Familiarize yourself with the surrounding, see how many trees are there and feel the morning fresh air!

Walk for at least 20 min or more and while walking, take a deep breath of the air and feel how it travel in your body.

Is reducing our weight equivalent to weight loss?

Now you know your ideal weight but do you know that weight is also = muscle + fat?

Muscles are essential in our daily activities such as balancing, optimizing our movement and preventing injury.  Most importantly, they help us to burn calories!

Our muscle mass will determine your metabolic rate. Our metabolic rate (Resting Metabolic Rate / Basal Metabolic rate) is the rate of the calories burn when you are not doing anything. The rest will be converted into FAT. 

Our bodies normally took 4-8 hours before converting the unused calories to fat.

Eg. If you consumed 3000 kcal a day and your RMR is 1500 Kcal, it would means that if you stay sedentary, your body would burn the 1500 calories and the remaining balance of 1500 calories will become fat.

It doesn't means that you are slim now you won't become fat. You will notice that why some slim people are getting fatter despite doing the same activities and having the same kind of diet over the years. This is because as we grew older, our metabolic rate decreases naturally. That is why we need to do even more exercise as we age.

For normal people like us, our challenge is to increase our resting metabolic rate, decrease our fat and achieve the idea weight that we want.

Cardio exercise helps you burn fat while weight training helps you build muscle.

In order to help you build your muscles, you need to do your weight training. For ladies, weight training doesn’t means that you will be as muscular as the guys or the body builder, and you will never be one no matter how hard you train. To be like them, you need special training to have a bodybuilder physique. Our normal weight training is call toning, where you work on your muscles so that your RMR will increase. There are some core muscles such as Traps, Triceps, Back, Gluts, Hamstrings, Calve, Shoulders, Chest, Bicep, abs, Quads.

For me, I focus on Triceps, Biceps (that’s where u can get a slimmer upper arm), Gluts (for a firmer butt), Back (for a straighter posture), hamstring (for a leaner thigh), Calve (to have a leaner calve especially when you are wearing heels). Shoulders (for a better posture) and Abdomen (flatter tummy) Chest expansion don’t work well for me; I think it’s more suitable for guys.

Next time round, I’ll be starting on some exercise quest to get you get started. Get ready your gear and check out this column for update!

How to calculate your ideal weight?

So have u decided what is your ideal weight? Some may say 5 kg lighter, 10 kg or even 50 kg lighter - depend on your current weight.

How to determine the ideal weight? 

One rule of thumb is by your Body Mass Index (BMI). BMI is the measure of your body fat based on your weight and height and the score will determine whether you are in healthy weight range or not.

There are various BMI definition for different country, which is fair because different country have different type of people. Generally ,  Asian have smaller built than the Westerner.

Below is the BMI definition for US and Singapore

BMI Definition for US

Index	Definition
<18.5	Underweight
18.5 – 25	Healthy
25-30	Overweight
>30	Obsese

BMI Definition for Singapore

Index	Definition
<18.5	Underweight
18.5 – 22.9	Healthy (Low risk)
23-27.4	Overweight (Moderate risk)
>27.5	Obsese (High risk)

How to calculate your BMI?

Measurement System	Formula
Metric System Weight = x kg Height = x meter	Weight / ((Height)* ( Height))
Imperial System Weight= x pound Height = x inches	Weight X 703 / ((Height)* ( Height)) *703 is the constant

Information to take note :

• Note that BMI is a guideline to see whether you fall in the healthy range. If you are pregnant or under 18, you would need to consult your doctor on your weight. 
• If you are a bodybuilder, your BMI will be higher , so does your weight.

Why is this so?

As mentioned, BMI is a measurement of FAT using your weight and height. Your weight will comprise of the FAT and the lean muscle tissue. Generally if you measure your fat percentage, it should not fall above 30%. Bodybuilder would have less than 10% fat percentage.

You may use some digital body fat scale to calculate your body fat percentage. It would give you your weight, BMI, body fat percentage and resting metabolism! If you don’t have it at home, you may use it in the gym or some fitness centre.

Take some time to see if your ideal weight is really ideal J