Hack that fat

Ashis Dutta Roy

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Forget putting a person on the moon and inventing the zero, losing weight and becoming fitter has always been one of the more difficult things humankind has ever had had to do. From the weighing scale to zero-calorie soda, technology has always been our friend in this quest. With three months already gone since many of us last vowed to fit into tighter pants, here are some geek gear to bring your resolution back on track.

Blender for all seasons

As many an expert will tell you, hacking your diet is the first step towards a fitter body. Eat right and half your job is done, they say. But in our busy schedules and lazy lifestyles what can we really do to inject the right kind of nutrition sparing realistic portions of time and effort? One effective way is to take to a healthy invigorating shake first thing in the morning. Yes, you can try your lime juice with warm milk, your low-fat museli with yoghurt and once all that fails you can try this. Buy yourself a personal blender like the NutriBullet or NutriBlend, blend the good stuff into an extremely hyper-nutritious smoothie and drink it up.

What good stuff you ask? Well anything goes. From bananas to beetroots, spinach to sprouts, carrots to celery, oranges to strawberries. Liven it up with mint, lemon juice, salt or whatever. There is a whole world of recipes just waiting to be explored. It’s quick, it’s hassle-free and it’s really good.

Calorie counting app

Before you scoff, let me just say there’s a reason why they exist and thrive. Think of calorie counting apps not as yet another hi-tech fad, but more of a dairy to keep track of what you eat. The idea is that if you watch and write down what you eat, you are less likely to eat junk. While it varies according to a number of factors, the usual recommended daily intake or RDI of calories is around 2,000 for women and around 2,500 for men. To lose weight, you have to eat less than your recommended daily intake. Apps like MyFitnessPal and FatSecret help in this. They have a huge pre-programmed directories of food (even Indian ones). Note down what you eat and try to keep your daily intake below your RDI. Also while you are at it, read up a little on nutrition to see how you can cut down on the bad stuff and amp up the desirables in your diet.

Time for Freeletics

Remember fitness CDs and DVDs? Well, we still may have some of those lying around from Shilpa Shetty to Baba Ramdev to the makers of programmes like CrossFit, Insanity and P90X, but there are some new regimens with cult followings out there today. Freeletics is one of them. This app and online community-based programme is great for beginners, is free (or not – if you choose to pay for a virtual ‘coach’) and is known to be very effective. As its name suggests, Freeletics requires no gym membership and is virtually equipment-free. From the dreaded ‘burpees’ to the eventually fun pull-ups, Freeletics offers a well-chalked out road to a fitter body at little more investment than downloading a smartphone app and some commitment.

Fitness band

Do you know how little activity you get? These days you can track everything from how many steps you take to your heart rate to your sleep quality and tweak your daily movements and habits. For as little as a thousand rupees for the Xiaomi Mi Band to the much more capable (and expensive) offerings from a host of other companies like FitBit, Garmin and even Microsoft, you can track the number of steps you take daily (10,000 steps key to fitness?), how well you are sleeping (all solid 8 hours?) and whether you run at the optimum pace (your heart rate can tell).

Kinect, Move and Wii!

Did you think video games were all about twiddling your fingers on a controller really fast? Sorry captain, the world has moved on. Kicked off by Nintendo for the Wii, and then quickly followed up with Kinect for Microsoft’s Xbox and Move for Sony’s PlayStation, video games these days offer a whole world of motion-tracking games that actually need you to move your arm, your feet and even your whole body to engage in a variety of games.

If all the free time you get is at 3 am when parks are a little out of bounds, maybe you could take to anything from badminton to Zumba right in your living room and swoosh or hop your way to fitness.