The Fitness thread - needed for desk jobs

I am starting this thread here about fitness on a technical forum in its rightful Misc topic because everything else covers various facets of our jobs and technical expertise. This thread is going to be different and will focus upon choosing a healthy lifestyle over what most of us are used to. Its not unknown that "Health Is Wealth" and as most of us have a job that requires us sitting on the desk for hours together, we are becoming unhealthy as time passes. We binge upon unhealthy food habits and eventually start deteriorating our health and get what is called the "IT Belly" .
I would not want to go much into what being fat or having an unhealthy lifestyle can do to you down the road because we are aware of it, and yet we binge upon those burgers and pizzas over and over again.

The Start:
Before we even think about changing, we need to be in a correct mindset. Ask yourself if you want to do it for your health and for your family and loved ones. Be committed to make the change and start by taking small breaks and stretching every one hour while you are at office.

When you start feeling at ease, start by doing bodyweight exercises in the morning at home. Start by doing normal squats, push ups, crunches etc. or go for a walk/jog outside for an hour. Cut all the coke and soda that you have developed a habit of and instead drink healthy drinks. By healthy drinks I dont mean the overhyped gatorade which only has sugar. Drink something natural like coconut water, etc.

Do this for a week and you would start noticing the difference . You would see that your body is thanking yourself. Continue for a month.

Taking it up a notch:
Once you are comfortable doing these, get a gym membership and commit to spend one hour no matter what, there.Do 30 min cardio and 30 min of mild weight training. Make better nutritional choices and substitutions. The indian food habits are such which make us fat very easily if we dont perform physical activities. Let me do a simple breakdown:
- We eat 3 big meals a day mostly loaded with rice and chapatis, which is essentially carbohydrates which get stored in the body and if they are not burned using physical activity they got stored as fat. Look at it this way, Fat is the Loan on your body which you have to remove by working hard and doing intense phsyical activity.
- Eat log of vegetables. vegetables give you a lot of essential vtamins essential for your body.
- Omega3 - I cant stress enough on the importance of this healthy fat for your heart and brain. Have almonds daily or any nuts for omega 3.
- Choose complex carbs over simple carbs- Simple carbs like white rice , sugar etc get digested quickly and raise the insulin level in body thereby aiding fat storage. Instead have sources of complex carbs like brown rice, oats etc, which contain fiber and slow the digestion so that you dont feel hungry often to binge eat and you have steady and constant supply of energy.
The right mix of exercise and nutrition will keep you healthy and rejuvenated and you will notice the results of the same in your job and day to day activities. You will see your energy levels and confidence grow.

Note: Dieting is a short term fix, a healthy lifestyle is forever. Dont diet, change your lifestlye and be healthy and keep your parents and family healthy with you.

I embarked upon this journey after failing numerous times 3 months back. I have lost 4 inches around my waist and have lost 10 kgs in the last 3 months. I still binge eat once a while but that's fine if you choose to have healthy meals the rest of the time.

This thread is out of the field of this forum but seeing the number of unfit people in IT industry, this is the need of the hour. Do pose if you have any questions about what I posted above or any topics related to nutrition and I will try to answer them to the best of my knowledge..

Be fit.. Be strong.. Be confident.. All the Best 😀