Living in a capital city like Delhi, with its fumes and traffic and work pressure, is never easy. Your health can easily take a back seat, and before you know it, you may be carrying extra kilos around your mid-riff. However, it needn’t necessarily be this way. Attaining good health in Delhi is possible. It takes a bit of discipline, but if you can follow some of these tips towards a healthy lifestyle, you will end up fitter and happier.

• The first thing to say about a healthy lifestyle is that you need some exercise. Ideally, an exercise schedule should include a combination of cardio, weight training and stretching. Stretching improves your flexibility and the range of motion of your muscles, weight training improves your muscular strength and conditioning, and cardio helps you burn calories, and keeps your heart in healthy condition.
• If you can join a reputable gym, a certified fitness trainer will help you with a comprehensive workout schedule, depending on the time and initiative you can give. Otherwise, a brisk walk or a jog everyday for about 20-30 minutes is imperative. For strength training, you could begin by incorporating simple body weight exercises like squats, push ups, leg raises and crunches.
• When one talks about health and lifestyle, diet is the next most important component. The diet advice that should be the easiest for you to incorporate is – avoid junk food, as far as possible. Junk food includes all kinds of fried and processed foods, and sweets. Your McDonald’s burgers, chips, fries and samosas all figure in this category. Even if you can’t omit these totally, reserve such foods for the rare occasion.
• If you are like most other people in the city, omitting junk food will empty out your diet considerably. Fill in the space with healthier roasted snacks and fruits such as bananas, guavas or apples. Also, make sure you don’t compromise on the quality of your meals. Have wholesome meals, salads and mildly cooked vegetables. This will prevent you from feeling hungry too often.
• Breakfast should be your most substantial meal of the day, with dinner the lightest. Have at least 3 complete meals, with a couple of light snack meals in between. If you eat 4-5 times a day, your body will be required to digest food more often. This will not only burn more calories, but will also keep your metabolism high.
• If you are doing any form of exercise, you are putting strain on your muscles. In order to cope with that strain, and to grow and develop, your muscles need protein. Protein, in fact, is the most crucial component of your diet. 15-18% of your daily calories should come from protein. Milk products, eggs, all meats, lentils and beans and nuts are all natural sources of proteins.

These simple diet and exercise tips should help you improve your lifestyle and attain good health, even if you are in Delhi!

The advice for people who are underweight is of a slightly different nature. If you count yourself amongst that category, you need to remember that your weight gain needs to be healthy.

As far as exercise is concerned, focus more on weight training and less on cardio exercises. Weight training will help you gain muscle size. In your diet, remember that gaining weight does not give you the license to eat anything. Yes, you need to increase your calorie consumption, but that increase must be healthy. Foods such as cheese and other milk products, starchy vegetables like corn and potatoes, dried fruits and fruit juices will all help you with weight gain, and attaining a healthy lifestyle at the same time.