Saturday, 23 January 2010

• Silly Exercises from Asian Magazines

  I'm not a personal trainer or fitness expert, but I'm a person that frequently participates in physical activity and reads fitness magazines. These photos are not from a fitness magazine. My friend purchased the August issue of Vivi fashion magazine from Hong Kong last summer and I got a big laugh out of the exercises taught at the end of the magazine!

  I've talked previously about how Asians are obsessed with slimness. I always support healthy eating and being active, but it seems that some people are just lazy! They prefer rubbing exercises:

  

  Rub rub rub that fat away? Honey, fat is FAT! Pushing, poking, or yelling at it will not make it go away! When your body consumes excess calories, it will store the excess as body fat. When your body eats less calories than you expend through exercising, then it will burn up your fat for fuel.

  Unfortunately, reading Chinese is very difficult for me, so I look at Chinese magazines mostly to see the fashion. I may have totally misinterpreted these pictures, but the next picture gave me the idea that some people like to raise their arms and flap them like a bird:

  

  Fly fly fly that fat away? I enjoy strength training group classes at the gym and sometimes it's embarrassing to be exercising in front of so many people. However, I've never been told by any fitness instructor or personal trainer to fly like a bird!

  With the next exercise, I actually think it may be dangerous and hurt people! It seems they want you to stand with your feet apart, feet twisted inwards, then contort to bring your knees together. This is NOT how you do a squat:

  

  When does the human body ever naturally use this position?! This is the nastiest squat that I have ever seen! I feel that many Asians believe that real exercise gives women bulky and muscular thighs and arms. I wrote previously on these misconceptions, but the biggest thing to remember is that women simply do not produce enough testosterone to make big muscles. Therefore, muscles in women come out as as a lean and toned body. Personally, my favorite strengthening exercises are SQUATS and LUNGES. You can find a simple Youtube video teaching you these great exercises here.

  I'm not sure if the exercises taught in this Hong Kong magazine are used to just avoid REAL EXERCISE. But if you want to lose weight and keep that weight off, only exercise and healthy eating have shown to be the effective long-term treatments.

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  On a related note, I am SO PROUD of my friend, Adrienne Wong, for engaging in healthy physical activity for a great cause. She is participating in an indoor cycling event at my school to raise funds and awareness for childhood cancer. Adrienne and I have been friends since our first year of university. She is now a vet school student. A lot of my ideas for i-Nutrition blog posts were inspired just from conversations that I had with her over lunch! So please support her and raise awareness for childhood cancer by going to this page here.

  

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