Get Fit Without Sacrificing that Chocolate

In every television channel, book, magazine, newspaper, hoarding and website, we see them. Yes, we’re talking about those models, with their perfect, voluptuous figures—shapely legs, tiny waists, rounded hips and slender arms, achieved after five hours of vigorous workouts and a diet of salads and wheat-bran. How many hours have girls spent before the mirror, wishing they were a few sizes smaller, wishing they had better bodies, wishing that they could magically shrink a few sizes without compromising on that sinful death-by-chocolate? Well, practically speaking, it would be next to impossible to attain those nubile figures sported by most models, but definitely, we can make an effort to achieve a figure that is both attractive and healthy.

So stop chomping on rabbit-food and get ready to shape up.

• Starting with food, first remove all the fatty food from your diet. This includes butter, ghee, oil, fried-food, chocolates, pizza, fizzy drinks, etc.
  
  
• Replace your milk with skim milk. Substitute white bread with brown bread or whole meal bread. This is reduces your carbohydrate intake. You can include some low-fat cheese for breakfast, as cheese contains more protein than fat, unlike butter.
  
  
• In between breakfast and lunch, have a fruit—some juicy chunks of watermelon, or maybe an apple or a pear. This makes you less hungry during lunch.
  
  
• Have a normal, healthy lunch. Don’t cut down on your lunch, as this is likely to leave you hungry, and you could end up on a binge later on.
  
  
• In the evening, have a glass of skim milk, maybe a few biscuits, and a fruit.
  
  
• Have a light dinner in the night, but don’t skip meals.
  
  
• Keep slurping glasses of freshly squeezed juice in case you feel hungry during the day.
  
  
• Have at least ten glasses of water a day. It cleanses your body, and sometimes, people tend to snack even when they aren’t hungry. To avoid that, drink plenty of water.

When in comes to exercise, don’t do vigorous workouts. Try to join an aerobics class, or go swimming. Do stomach crunches every night to flatten your stomach. Skipping is another great exercise that can flatten your stomach, and tone your thighs and arms. Two hundred skips a day will do the trick. In case you’re really keen on shedding off a few pounds, do the gym for an hour a day.
 
However, don’t deprive yourself of the food you’d very much like to eat. Once a week, it’s all right to indulge in a thick slice of chocolate cake, or a pizza with extra cheese.

For chocoholics, here’s good news for you! Maybe that milk chocolate you’ve been wolfing down has added to your waistline, but dark-chocolate is completely harmless when consumed in small quantities. So you can add four squares of dark-chocolate to your diet, probably once in three days. Dark chocolate contains anti-oxidants, which is very good for the heart, and it also has anti-aging properties.

You can also have a scoop of vanilla ice-cream once in three days, immediately after your workout, because that’s when your metabolism-rate is very high. But you’ll have to increase your workout time by fifteen minutes.

For fizzy drink lovers, there’s always Diet Pepsi and Diet Coke to keep you going. However, having too much of these is likely to cause health hazards. After all, nothing like freshly-squeezed fruit juice.

In case you do, on an impulse, go on a binge, don’t get disheartened. The summer has only just begun. So encourage yourself and get back to your diet the very next day.

If you strictly discipline your diet, eat healthy and in moderation, by the end of the summer, you’ll have a body to die for.
 
However, it isn’t necessary to go for the svelte look. Nowadays, the curvy, sensuous figure is more in demand. So for those of you who’re happy the way you are, cheers to you. It’s a good thing that you can accept and love yourself the way you are. As we all know, looks barely matter today. It’s the way you carry yourself in your skin that does. People should love you for who you are, and not what you look like. Those people who do love you for your looks, they’re really not worth it. You deserve a lot better.

 So don your best clothes, plaster your best smile and let the sun douse you with its incandescent rays. Life is simply glorious!

By Namrata