Hello and welcome to another edition of the Lounge Fitness roundup. Every weekend, we bring you a selection of the best fitness and health stories that have been featured on the website. These stories will help you get expert tips that you can then incorporate into your wellness journey.
This week, we dispel some long-standing myths around diet, exercise, and relationships. We delve into how a flatter stomach is made and how an occasional spoonful of sugar isn't really the worst thing you can do to your body. And yes, while love is lovely, we have a story that focuses on a more sinister sort of relationship behaviour—love bombing. Want to know more? Read on
How you can have your cake and eat it too
If you've been on any sort of a diet, you have definitely eliminated sugar and products laden with it. "It's stuck in people's minds, lodged like a piece of (sugar-free) gum on their shoe - sugar is the cause of weight gain," writes weight-loss coach Jen Thomas, adding, however, that most people fail miserably at completely eliminating sugar from their diets. Instead, she suggests a happy medium—a way to enjoy the occasional sweet treat without it getting in the way of our fitness goals by improving our relationship with sugar. "The strategy you decide to minimise the sugar in your diet will be as unique as your diet itself," she says, offering a food awareness journal as a starting point to this process.
How to recognise and defuse a love bomb
After her first official date with Kanye West, Julia Fox returned to a hotel suite full of clothes waiting for her. Cinderella moment or a downright creepy one?Divya Naik seems to lean towards the latter, going on to say that accelerated, overfamiliar behaviour is often a clear sign of love bombing—a tactic frequently employed by narcissistic, manipulative partners. Her solution? Setting boundaries and establishing clearly communicating them to a potential partner."Any relationship which becomes the SOLE focus of your life is NOT healthy. If your partner doesn't pay heed to your protests of feeling smothered, it might be a good idea to give the relationship a pause," she writes, quoting clinical psychologist Dr Meghna Singhal.
Why endless crunches do not really strengthen your core
Do you know that old adage about abs being made in the kitchen? Did you also know that abs are also made in bed while you sleep? Jen Thomas dispels the endless ab exercise myth, one that refused to die. She also throws in some extra dope about building a strong core, contoured abs and better health.
