Posts Tagged ‘Muscle’

What kind of diet should be followed if the person is underweight ?

To gain weight and be healthy, you need to consume more calories every day from healthy foods and choose the right types of exercise. Being underweight can result from eating disorders, chronic diseases.
While being overweight or obese is a well-known risk factor for chronic diseases, being too thin may also increase a person’s risk of dying from diseases such as heart failure and cancer.

- Increase the daily intake by of calories. Remember the weight you gain should be a healthy combination of muscle and fat.
- Make sure that the diet includes adequate protein. So while you have the liberty of including at least one food high in carbohydrates, fat and sugar (chocolates, pastries, cakes, pizza, burgers and sandwiches) daily, you will need to balance these with healthy food such as cheese, curd, pulses, chicken, fish, nuts and seeds.
- Eat raisins/dates, fresh fruit juices and energy dense fruits such as banana, mango and chikoo which are usually forbidden.
- Add these in your daily diet and regular meals or as snacks between meals. Increase the additional intake gradually to avoid gastric discomfort.
- Eat five to six meals i.e. three main meals along with two snacks and a glass of milk at bedtime regularly.
- Add a small amount of flax seed oil and some psyllium powder to add some omega-3 essential fatty acids and extra fiber.
- You should not skip any meal.
- Eat at meal times even if you are not hungry.
- Make dishes which you enjoy. Sit down at table for your meals.
- Make the dining area lively by putting plants, flowers and colorful pictures.
- Put some soothing music.
- Relax and eat your meal properly.
- Increase the speed of your eating but chew the food well.
- Start having vitamin and mineral supplements after consulting your doctor.
- Exercise regularly and become more active. It will help in building up your appetite and aid digestion.
- Join a gym and train under expert guidance 2-3 times a week.
- Resistance training exercises such as lifting weights will help to increase your muscle size.
- It can take a while to gain the weight you need, but be patient and continue to choose healthy foods until you reach your goal weight.

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Relaxation Exercises : Progressive Relaxation

Progressive relaxation will help to relax the entire body. It will help you to create a mental image of this relaxed state that can be recreated instantly whenever it is needed.
This exercise can be done while lying in bed, face up and arms at your sides.
- Make fists with both hands. Clench your fingers although not so tightly as to be uncomfortable. Your wrists should feel tight and even in the forearms. Hold this tension for few seconds and then relax. You will feel heaviness and limp in your hands.
- Like in the previous example, make your fists tensed again, such that the muscles start quivering. Now relax. This should make your hands feel more warm and heavy, and this would extend to your lower arms.
- Now concentrate on your upper arms. Focus on your biceps, making them tense, and your hands should remain relaxed and heavy. Quivering will start, and then relax again. Now do this again, tense, hold and then relax.
- Now that you have a hang of this, this process of tensing, hold, relaxing should be done for as many muscle groups as possible. Once you are done with your arms, do the same for stomach, buttocks, thighs, calves, feet, chest, shoulders, neck, jaw and eyes.
- Once you have started doing this a couple of times, one of the prime advantages you will learn from this is being able to get relaxed. Without doing much of these relaxing, you will be able to easily distinguish between muscles that are tensed or relaxed, and be able to focus on the tensed muscles.

Helpful Hints for avoiding problems…

Prevention is better than cure. People get careless when their back is not hurting and they start doing all the things that they should not do to avoid back ache.
Precautions that you should take are :
- Your neck is best ruined when you hold the phone between your head and shoulders to avoid using your hands. Use a mouthpiece or else get a speaker phone to avoid this situation.
- People who say that in order to lift something, always bend your knees and crouch down to pick up something from floor level are not wrong. You should avoid leaning over from the waist to grab it. It creates a stress on the lower vertebrae.
- Driving for a longer time and in a wrong posture can create bad back ache. Take frequent breaks to get out and stretch. Keep your knees elevated and for that keep your seat as far forward. Keep doing neck exercises and shoulder lifts while you drive.
- Do not continue sitting in the same posture for longer periods. Take breaks to exercise and stretch your neck and upper back. Place a stool to elevate your knees and feel comfortable. You will feel comfortable if the lower part of your buttocks or lower back are pushed against the back of the chair.
- If the body is not prepared for active sports, then you should avoid playing active sports over the weekend. If you are planning to play a cricket match over the weekend with a gang of friends, spend a few extra minutes with the routines for the whole week preceding the get-together.
- Always turn to either of your side with knees close to the edge of bed to get up instead of keeping the legs flat on the bed, and straining the muscles of your lower back.