Ladies and Fitness

I've always wanted to comment on our ladies' health and lifestyle and give them tips to improve and correct certain flaws i've observed over the years. Our Singaporean ladies are no doubt one of the most health and fitness conscious women in the region. However they are often misled or clouded with false tips to looking healthy instead of being healthy.
Now I have come up with certain problems i've observed in our women and hope that they might correct it with time.

1. Dieting
Understanding the term dieting is the first flaw made by most women. Dieting has been redefined in our jargon as means to cut down food intake and omit foods deemed to be unhealthy. To a lesser extent (luckily), it also refers to cutting down on the frequency of food intake.
According to the online Yahoo dictionary, dieting refers to a food regimen designed to promote weight loss and more specifically to eat and drink according to a regulated system. There is no reference to not eating at all! So here's the first rule of dieting... EAT!
Next I would want to bring up the matter of weight loss. Yes it is true that you diet to lose weight. But weight of what?
There are many types of weight loss; water loss, loss of muscle and the most desired and sought after...fat loss. The way you diet is going to affect what you are about to lose.

2. Building Muscles
Before i begin about how to bring about fat loss, ladies must first understand that unfortunately your metabolic rate is much lower than that of males due to hormonal differences. Male testosterone naturally helps men to build more lean muscle than women and hence metabolic rates for men are generally higher. Not to worry because the solution to increasing body's metabolism is... increasing muscle mass! Most women would be turned off by this idea as the first thing that comes to mind about building muscles is the fear of bulking up to looking like a female Arnie. Well NO! That's one of the biggest mistakes you could be doing.
When I refer to building muscles, im referring to building lean muscles that would compliment a thin body frame.
While guys would want to do something that would give them a bulge at the biceps and literally pop out of a small sized shirt by flexing, ladies would want something that makes them look slim. So how do they acheive their desires without reaching the guys' desires? Well, you can increase the frequency of workout. And there is no need to carry heavy weights.
The guys' norm to build bulky, muscle mass that can well be seen in terms of bulging t-shirts is to carry heavy weights, doing less reps. Now even doing it fast adds to the bulk as fast-twitch muscles are able to grow to a bigger size than slow twitch muscles.

So for the females... don't follow the males...
For your workout, just grab some light weights and do atleast 20 reps for up to 5 sets of the same exercise at a slow and steady rate for each set. This is actually the norm for weight loss and toning, even for men. What resistance does to your body is over time, causes lean muscle growth. For some women, they may look slim, but the bulk of their arms or legs is actually covered with fat.

Another reason why you should build muscle is that for every kilo of muscle gained, your body burns an additional 200 calories a day literally doing nothing! Just that building a kilo of muscle could take a long time, practically.
So get started with those muscles, hit the gym!

3. Supplementation
Here's something interesting. How many times have you walked into a gym and seen a woman grab a shaker out of her bag and down a protein shake after a workout? Personally, I have seen that happen, but I admit that it is rare! I realised afterwards that the reason why females don't go for supplements is for the same fear of bulking up. While guys who can't seem to put on mass try their luck with downing mass gainers, females avoid the very supplement that these guys religiously take.
The truth about protein supplements is that, it is NOT going to give you a quick mass gain. Supplements are products too, and like any other product, are subject to marketing strategies. Hence the design, the claims, the colourful labels, the before and after pictures are all techniques to lure you into buying it and beleiveing that they can do more than what they are capable of.
Protein Shakes aid in muscle repair by providing a steady supply on the important amino acids that you may not be able to receive from the normal everyday meal, and for us Singaporeans, yeah, I can quite safely say that we don't.
However, there is a problem. Different types of protein work differently on the body. The two main examples are Whey and Casein. Whey is the most easily digested and which quickly reaches tired muscles for speedy recovery. Casein on the other hand is slowly digested and normally used for night time supplementation.
For those who are familiar with the wonders of protein and fat loss, here's a refresher. You do know that protein is the hardest to digest and the body burns more energy to digest protein than glucose. Hence to process proteins, you burn fat! Here's the catch. Whey being a quickly digested protein, skips much of the fat burning part and hence for us Asians, if we don't train hard enough, our supplement may well be helping our bellies grow!
Hence the best alternative would be to supplement with Casein Protein. Few places actually have sell Casein protein. I doubt GNC sells it. I found mine from nutrifirst. Casein protein is slowly digested and hence best suited for fat burning. Having a casein shake after a workout may be a great idea. Especially since ladies won't be carrying heavy weights and requiring that much of a recovery boost.

The important change for ladies is to eat properly and have some weight training in their normal lifestyles.

More tips coming soon...