Before you start working out, you have to decide on what it is you want for your body. Are you trying to build muscle or burn fat? It is true that a lot of exercises simultaneously do both, but if you are more concerned about burning fat than building muscle or vice verse, you should use workout routines that are most effective and peculiar to your goal. Let’s compare how different exercises work.

Muscle gaining exercises:

Muscle building requires consistently challenging exercises. You basically have to expose yourself higher levels of resistance than your body would normally take, and keep increasing it. Of course this process will damage muscle fibers, but the human body will try to meet up to these challenges by releasing hormones that fuse the muscles, thereby increasing the mass and size.

Examples of exercises that are very effective for the muscle building process include:

-Squats

-Lunges

-Push up’s

-Abdominal crunches

-Bench press

-Dead lifts

-Hanging knee raises

-Planks

From the list here, you will find that all the exercises mentioned, require a lot more pressure, weight and resistance so as to challenge the body to infuse these muscles with hormones that will in turn increase muscle mass.

Fat Burning Exercises:

Fat burning exercises operate quite differently from muscle building exercises, they work by forcing your body to burn fat reserves for energy because the exercises will require a high oxygen intake.

Examples of effective fat burning exercises:

-Mountain climbing (not a literal mountain)

-Running/ Walking

-Cycling

-Elliptical trainer

-The bicycle exercise

-Exercise ball crunches

-Reverse crunches

Generally, most cardio exercises are fat burning exercises and are very effective depending on your body type. Some endomorphs might require more intense workouts for effective fat burning, but this works for most people.

I hope you enjoyed this read.

Little attention is paid to when we fall asleep and how. A lot of people don’t understand how much an irregular and unhealthy sleeping pattern can affect us on a daily. Random migraines hitting you in the middle of the day, always feeling exhausted, random mood swings and a lot more are things that could be as a result of a bad sleeping habit.

What’s the best position to fall asleep in?

If you would rather fall asleep on a side, try to sleep on your left side as it reduces chances of a heart burn and all the organs are relaxed in that position. If you wouldn’t rather sleep on a side, it’s best to fall asleep on your back as no pressure is exerted on any body parts so breathing isn’t obstructed in any way. There’s a reason why patients in hospitals are always in this position, it helps reduce existing pain.

How long should you sleep?

Average of 8 hours. While this is common knowledge, a lot of people fail to understand that inadequate sleep can have adverse effects on one’s health physically and mentally. There is also such a thing as “too much sleep”.

Why do I need a regular sleep pattern?

While it is almost impossible to have the perfect sleep schedule, effort should be made to minimize irregularity. Some adverse effects of sleep deficiency/ an irregular sleep schedule are:

-Weaken Immune system

-Decreased Libido

-Increases chances of cardiovascular diseases like stroke and coronary hear diseases

-Poor reasoning and memory

-Dull and unhealthy skin

-Weight gain

-Poor sleep is also linked to increased risk of cancer

Try to get a healthy sleep pattern and fall asleep in comfortable positions to avoid waking up with aches. You’d definitely notice the difference when you go about daily activities.

Over time, I’ve heard a lot of people talk about dieting and refer to statements that might not be necessarily true. Today, I will be debunking a few of them.

1) You can’t have fatty food when you’re dieting: Contrary to popular opinion, the narrative that fatty foods will ruin dieting is completely false. Infact, fatty foods are the necessary for the fat burning process because they activate the necessary cycles for breaking down of stored body fat. This shouldn’t come as a surprise considering that keto dieting consists of high fat, average protein and low carbohydrate.

2) Meat will make it harder for you to lose weight:While it is true that certain choices of meat contain less calories than others (e.g goat meat being a better option than beef for weight loss), it will not be accurate to say that as proteins are generally a poor source of energy compared to fats and carbohydrate, which means it contains less calories. Meat and other proteins are good additions to meals as they can be filling and help repair body tissues.

3) You can’t eat fun food when you’re dieting:Dieting doesn’t have to be about eating greens and drinking water. The whole point of dieting is eating healthy which shouldn’t disrupt a balanced diet. Since the key factor should be cutting down on foods rich in carbohydrate, there are easy substitutes one can use in preparing their favorite meals. Or if those substitutes might not be convenient, you could consider cutting down on the quantity of those foods and replacing with more protein or fatty foods.

4) I’ve been dieting for two weeks, maybe this isn’t for me: While there are different body types that may react differently to dieting, it isn’t smart to just conclude that there’s no point to eating healthy. For faster results, one may consider exercising often. Even if it doesn’t work after all of these, there are certain techniques that health experts give such as metabolic confusion (one day low carb and next day high carb) that one could try. What works for one person might not work for you, but it doesn’t mean you should abandon it completely. There are different body types (Endomorphs, Mesomorphs, and Ectomorphs) with different effective techniques peculiar to each. Find your body type and what works for YOU.

I hope this article helped clear a few things up. Please leave a comment if you enjoyed reading.

When I say birth control pills, I don’t mean postinor 2 or other emergency contraceptives. Those ones will require an entirely different article to be talked about properly. Unlike emergency contraceptives, birth control pills are required to be taken daily for pregnancy prevention. I’d be talking about the benefits, mild side effects and adverse effects of birth control pills for better insight.

Benefits of birth control pills:

-Regulate heavy/ Irregular periods: Birth control pills are prescribed by clinics as the hormones help regulate heavy and irregular periods.

-Prevent Iron deficiency that is usually caused by heavy periods.

-Decrease risk of endometrial cancer.

-Reduce risk of bone fracture by reducing risk of bone diseases like osteoporosis that commonly affects older women.

Mild side effects of Birth control pills:

The severity of these symptoms may differ in individuals.

-Nausea

-Weight gain

-Headaches (sometimes migraines)

-Missed periods

-Decreased libido

-Mood changes

-Breast tenderness

Adverse effects of Birth control pills: There are not any confirmed and proven adverse effects of these pills, but they have been linked to when taken by older women :

-Increased risk of cardiovascular diseases such as Blood clots and stroke.

-Increasked risk of high blood pressure.

Birth control pills for younger women are safe and provide 99% protection from pregnancies when taking correctly, daily and preferably at the same time of the day. Older women are advised to opt for more permanent and non hormonal contraceptives such as the IUD.

I hope you found this article helpful, let me know what you think in the comments.

The key to Dieting for weight loss is Calorie Deficit. The calorie contained in food is basically the energy content of that food, so when you consume less calories than your body requires, it is forced to burn fat for energy. It’s why some people have termed certain foods high in carbohydrate as “Bad food”. Basically, you can still have your carbs and keep up to the caloric deficit. Considering the Nigerian menu has always been difficult because most foods typical to a Nigerian home are high in carbohydrate (e.g Rice, Eba, Spaghetti…). Here’s a few tips on how you can manage with them.

1) Watch Quantity: Consider two people, both with the same daily energy requirements. One eats a bowl of rice and beef of say 460 calories, and the other eats 8 slices of whole wheat bread (60 calories per slice) which will sum up to 480 calories. The latter might be seen as the better option, but in the real sense, would not achieve any results because of the quantity he takes.

2) Increase Protein: This has always been very helpful with dieting, because proteins generally do not contain as much energy as carbohydrates but will be very filling. You could try to consume a lot more protein. Also certain proteins like Goat meat is a lot healthier for the dieting process compared to beef. Moi moi, Turkey, Eggs and Chicken are also smart options.

3) Be Smart With Swallows: Normally,the amount of calories contained in the soup would be far less than what the swallows contain. The Caloric values per 1 cup of some popular Nigerian swallows include: Eba- 330cal, Pounded yam (medium sized 12 inch yam)-526cal, Semovita-600cal, Amala-352cal, Wheat-455cal, Fufu-330cal, Tuwo Shinkafa-216cal, Tuwo Masara-260cal.

4) Watch the oil: Even though we established that soups are not major contributors, we can also help reduce the chances by minimizing oil intake.

5) Increase the pepper intake: The secret here is that the spicier the food, the more water you’re likely to take, thus leading to feeling full faster. Also, studies have shown that spicy foods may help increase the body’s metabolism

6) Increase Fiber intake: Fibers are very useful in dieting, theyaid digestion and also give a filling effect (preventing one from eating more). It also eliminates bacterial toxins.Examples of fibers include: Coconut, Pears, Apples, Kidney Beans, Carrot, Oats, Popcorn and Almonds.

7) Listen to your body: Sometimes, your body knows what it wants and what it’s lacking, so even though it might not be on your menu, find a way of fulfilling that need, preferably with the healthier option of what it wants.

You might’ve been in this situation before, but if you haven’t, trust me, it’s not a good thing. Sometimes you might not be close enough to the individual to know exactly where their inhaler is located. So here are a few tips on what you can do:

1) Stay calm: The first thing you want to do in this situation is to ask the patient to remain calm as restlessness will only worsen the situation for the patient. How you might ask? Asthma is basically a condition of inflamed and narrow airways with extra mucus making it difficult for that individual to breathe. So it makes sense that the first thing you should do is try to make maximum use of the little oxygen that the individual is getting.

2) Eliminate what triggered it: For example, if it is a situation where people were smoking in the room, take the patient away from that place. It could also be alcohol as it contains histamine that is released by the body during allergic reactions. If you’ve known the person long enough, and are aware of any triggers in the past, do your best to eliminate them.

3) Help them sit up right: In this position, the airways remain as unobstructed as possible, which might help reduce the severity of the condition.

4) Ask them to steady their breathing: When the breathing is taken more slowly and steady, there will be efficient usage of whatever oxygen the patient is getting. Panting will do the exact opposite as the difficulty will only grow worse.Also try pursed lip breathing (breathe in through nose, breathe out through pursed lips for twice as long) and belly breathing (breathe in with hands placed on belly).

5) Assess the severity of the condition and seek medical help: This is self-explanatory as there isn’t much you can do to end the attack completely, considering you are not a professional.

6) Try some Home remedies: Assuming it’s not possible to get medical help immediately, one should attempt remedies such as caffeine and eucalyptus oil as research has proven that they could help relieve symptoms of asthma.