Vietnam- Ms. Nguyen Quynh Mai, 48 years old, keeps her beautiful figure and slim waist by eating and exercising, in which she maintains a breakfast of fruits with honey and lemon juice.
After giving birth to her second child, Mai, in District 7, increased from 40 kg to 60 kg, not commensurate with her height of 1.54 m. Due to the pressure of the business, and the busy travel schedule, she lost weight by fasting or eating less. As a result, the weight decreased but the woman felt tired, hungry, and weak.
“After that, I ate indiscriminately, so not only did I not lose weight, but my body was even more tired,” she said.
Fasting or cutting too many calories is also not recommended by nutritionists. According to Dr. Nguyen Trong Hung, National Institute of Nutrition, starch, protein, and fat are energy-producing substances. When removing these foods from the diet, can cause weight loss quickly, but it will cause depression, affecting memory as well as work performance.
After a period of unsuccessful weight loss, in 2020, by chance reading a book on nutrition, Mai concluded a suitable diet method for herself. In particular, the diet is still balanced with 4 groups of carbohydrates, protein, fat, vitamins, and minerals, but she eats 50% fruits and vegetables, 30% quality protein, and 20% whole starch. bran.
Specifically, as soon as she wakes up, she drinks 250 ml of warm water with lemon and honey to detox, then has a fruit breakfast. Apples, bananas, avocados, strawberries, red dragon fruit, cantaloupe, passion fruit, grapefruit, and some seasonal fruits are the main ingredients in the meal. Jackfruit, durian, and mango are limited-sugar fruits. In addition, she focuses on drinking 2-3 liters of water every day.
According to Healthline, all fruit is relatively low in calories and high in fiber and simple sugars. The fiber in fruits helps slow down the body’s absorption of sugar, providing a steady source of energy. Depending on the fruit, you’ll also get a variety of vitamins and minerals, like vitamins A and C, and the mineral potassium. Vitamin C is important for the health of the immune system, fighting inflammation; vitamin A helps promote skin and eye health, and fights infections; Potassium helps control blood pressure.
According to the American Institute of Medicine, men need 38 g and women need 25 g of fiber per day. One cup of fresh blueberries contains just 84 calories and 3.6 g of fiber – 9 to 15% of your daily fiber needs. One apple contains 4.4 g of fiber, the same as 3.1 g of bananas.
To balance nutrition, at lunch, Ms. Mai adds starch from brown rice and oats; Protein mainly from chicken, fish, and limited red meat. For dinner, she cut down on starch, almost only eating green vegetables and boiled eggs. “I follow this diet for many years and never feel tired or hungry because it still provides enough groups of substances,” she said.
After three years, she maintained her weight at 48 kg, and the amount of muscle reached about 27-28%, the second round from 78 cm to 68 cm.
In addition to nutrition, Mai spends two hours a day in the morning and afternoon practicing yoga. According to health experts, yoga not only helps to relax the mind, and supports health recovery but also has the effect of losing weight. This subject may not be as strenuous as gym or cardio but maintains long-term weight loss effects.
“Doing yoga to lose weight is an effective way to get in shape and stay in shape, not to lose weight super fast or gain weight quickly,” Mai said.
She recommends some exercises to help reduce belly fat as effectively as a boat: sit up straight, bend your knees, put your hands on the carpet or the floor, slowly raise your legs, keep your legs still, slowly lean back, balance on the coccyx, 2 thighs. Next, take a deep breath, raise your legs, toes higher than your eyes, and at the same time bring your hands up to shoulder height, parallel to the ground, palms facing each other to form a V shape. You hold the pose. this for about 10 to 20 seconds, then slowly return to the starting position.
Or bow pose by lying on your stomach on the floor or mat, relaxing your hips, bringing your hands down to your body, and then slowly bending your knees toward your thighs. Then, bring your hands back and pull your neck, inhale, lift your chest, then lift your thighs off the ground and forward, relaxing your facial muscles. You hold this pose for 15 to 20 seconds, pay attention to your breath, hold your ankles with both hands, and lift your chest to create balance, the whole body bends and stretches like a bow. Finally, gently exhale, place your feet and chest on the floor, release your ankles, and relax.
As she got older, she realized that her metabolism declined due to changes in muscle mass. This condition causes the body to tend to store more fat, reducing the metabolic rate and leading to an excess of calories absorbed into the body. Therefore, besides eating and exercising, women supplement functional foods to help improve from within such as omega 3, collagen…
For Ms. Mai, to lose weight sustainably, it is necessary to avoid unscientific dietary menus such as fasting, cutting carbs too much, and eating only one or a few certain foods.
“Understanding the condition of the body is a prerequisite for good health. Without listening to the body’s signals, you cannot know how to eat and exercise appropriately, so you will be prone to diseases and diseases. more difficult to cure,” she shared.
