All of us, or almost all of us, are clear about the keys to losing weight or, at least, not gaining weight. Food and exercise is the basic pair for anyone who wants to maintain a healthy weight. However, what happens when we are forced to stay in bed? Injuries, bone fractures, pregnancy or a postoperative period are situations that can be prolonged and force us to rest, something that over time can cause us to gain weight.
How to lose weight by resting: key points
I am resting and I need to lose weight: what to do? In the first place, it is essential that you stop to think about what your diet was like before you had to rest and what you must change so that these days standing do not translate into kilos. How did you eat? In what quantities did you eat? What kind of food did you eat? Was it a balanced diet? Once you have answered all these questions, you should take into account the following points, as they are the keys that you should guide your rest diet:
- You should consume less amount of food.
- Avoid eating processed or industrial products, even those that may seem healthy such as packaged soups, sauces, packaged juices or yogurts that contain fruit.
- Eat in an orderly manner, that is, eat 5 times a day and do not skip any meals.
- You must drink at least 1 liter and a half of water daily, for this you can accompany yourself with infusions.
- Do not follow very strict diets, you must eat well to recover as soon as possible. Food is essential to be able to do it.
In addition, to know how to lose weight while in bed, you must banish some ideas that we have very established and that, in reality, have no scientific basis. A clear example is that carbohydrates should not be consumed at night. This is totally false, in fact, it can be good for not gaining weight while at rest. Of course, you must do it correctly.
When you eat carbohydrates at night you should always accompany them with vegetables, better if it is raw, since it will satiate you, it will make you not want to eat anymore and it will help you not to gain weight. Of course, when we talk about eating carbohydrates, it does not mean that you can eat as much as you want. You can eat a small plate of pasta -boiled al dente- accompanied by vegetables.
Resting diet
This is how the diet should be for people at rest in order not to gain weight or even lose weight:
- Breakfast: it has been repeated ad nauseam, but it must be repeated as many times as necessary: breakfast is the most important meal of the day and that is also true in diets for people without mobility. Eating enough for breakfast will kick-start our metabolism and burn more calories throughout the day. We must avoid eating sugar that causes us a rise and fall of glucose that causes us hunger. With all this in mind, your breakfast should include: fruit with a low glycemic index, coffee or tea, low-fat milk, cereal, or whole wheat bread with turkey or fresh cheese.
- Food: this is the food in which we must incorporate carbohydrates, proteins and some healthy fat. One way is a good salad with avocado, tuna and nuts or brown rice with chopped turkey, tomato and onion.
- Dinner: it should be the lightest meal of the day since we don’t need calories that we can’t burn. That’s why a good dinner should be a small serving of something like vegetables or protein. A vegetable purée or a vegetable scramble is an ideal option before going to sleep.
In this diet to lose weight while resting, it is important to have small snacks between meals, a small lunch and snack are essential to keep glucose levels stable and prevent us from getting hungry and destroying the fridge. The ideal is to eat a piece of fruit, however, you can also combine it with a handful of nuts, yogurt, dehydrated fruit or vegetable and fruit smoothies.
Burn fat at rest with exercise
Exercise is the best option we have to burn calories, acting as a counterweight and balancing what we consume so as not to gain weight. Beyond that, movement and sports are essential for a multitude of benefits in our body, such as accelerating metabolism, maintaining toned muscles and preventing cardiovascular diseases. However, if we are forced to rest, whether due to an injury, pregnancy or an operation, our mobility can be very limited.
If this is your case, you can rest easy, physical exercise is not just dumbbells and going for a run, we have a wide variety of exercises at our disposal to be able to burn calories and avoid a sedentary lifestyle even if we are at rest. Here’s how to burn fat at rest with exercise:
Isometric exercises
Isometric exercises are an ideal alternative to exercise while at rest and thus avoid gaining weight. These exercises can be performed to gain strength and tone:
- Biceps.
- Shoulders.
- Back.
- Legs.
- Chest.
- ABS.
- Buttocks.
- triceps
The fact that isometric exercises are ideal for people who are at rest is due to the fact that they are exercises in which there is no movement. We often believe that sport is only possible by moving, but isometrics show that it is possible to exercise muscles effectively in a static way. It is about tensing the muscle, either by pushing, stretching or exerting force for a certain time, and for this it can be done with specific material, with a wall, with towels or with our own body. Although hypopressive exercises are very varied, depending on the condition that has you in bed, you should opt for one or the other, avoiding doing those that compromise any of the affected areas. For this, the most recommended is always Talk to a doctor or physical therapist who can tell you what the best option is. Below you can see some isometric exercises for the abdomen or for the legs.
Muscle toning exercises in bed
The exercises that we are going to explain to you below focus on the legs, the extremities that suffer the most with rest and the most important to have toned so as not to suffer once our rest days are over. All of them are performed in bed, lying up and with the legs and arms stretched out. In turn, we will perform between 10 and 15 repetitions, alternating one leg and the other. These are the exercises to avoid gaining weight while at rest:
- Starting with your legs straight, extend and flex them while moving your toes up and down.
- Without letting your foot lose contact with the mattress, bend your legs up and straighten them again.
- In the event that your condition allows it, repeat the same exercise but without the foot touching the mattress.
- Starting with your legs straight, lift one leg 30 centimeters off the mattress, hold for 5 seconds, and repeat with the other leg.
- Straighten your leg and place a cushion or folded towel under your knee. Once you are like this, press your leg down while raising the tip facing you.
We have chosen exercises that are easy to do so that anyone can do them, however, it is always best to talk to a doctor or physical therapist so they can advise you which ones you can do and what you cannot do if you are injured and do not want to put on weight.
