Do you have a soft spot for sweets? If you are on your fitness journey to get in shape, it’s a no-brainer to abstain from eating sweets because of the heavy, empty calories they come with.
But it turns out that occasionally, you can enjoy guilty pleasures like gulab jamun. How? There’s a simple hack to treat your taste buds to sweets once in a while.
Orthopaedic Surgeon Dr Manan Vora shared in a September 21 Instagram post, saying, “I can eat two gulab jamuns a day without guilt and without going to the gym. I don’t do it but I can.”
Walk while taking calls
Often, one of the many responsibilities of your job includes making calls for clients or other work-related purposes. This is an opportunity you shouldn’t waste. Sitting for long periods while working is already dangerous.
Dr Vora elaborated more about this hack, “The hack is taking calls while being on a treadmill. I spend about two hours a day on calls, whether it is video consults with patients or any sort of meeting. And I take those calls while walking.”
He especially recommended this for work-from-home employees, taking your work calls while walking on a treadmill or walking pad.
Sitting is the new smoking
Smoking is life-threatening. Likewise, a comparison is often drawn, even by Dr Manan, where prolonged sitting has similar effects on your body as smoking. It increases the risk of heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and, in serious cases, even leads to early mortality. Dr Vora explained how sitting negatively impacts your health: “It will make you gain weight, it will slow down your metabolism, and it will give you some form of pain and aches in the future, and it is also a risk factor for diabetes and heart disease.”
The picture is not always gloomy, as to embrace any habit, you need to understand the advantages to stay motivated. Talking about the upsides of walking, he added, “Walking while you actually work will not only keep you active, but it will even make you think faster, and it will allow you to eat those extra calories without any guilt, just get up and move.” Because you are losing calories when you are moving, it clears up a small space for these limited indulgences in sweets.
Long story short? If you are craving sweets, amp up your daily movement – that way you don’t have to feel guilty later.