Author: Sameed Chaudhary

Feeling winded after climbing a few flights of stairs, or exhausted by mid-afternoon even on a light day? Many people in Pakistan put this down to the heat, long work hours, or simply getting older. In most cases, the real answer is low stamina, and the good news is that it responds well to consistent, practical effort. Stamina is your body’s ability to sustain physical or mental effort over time without fatigue setting in too quickly. It depends on three things working together: cardiovascular fitness (how well your heart and lungs deliver oxygen), muscular endurance (how long your muscles can…

Walk into almost any gym in Lahore or Karachi and you’ll see the same split: one group grinding away on treadmills for an hour, another group camped at the dumbbell rack. Both are putting in the work. But which approach actually gets you closer to your goal? The cardio vs weights debate is one of the most common questions Pakistani gym-goers ask, especially those trying to lose weight before a wedding, after Ramadan, or simply because the doctor said it was time. The honest answer is that both matter, but they work through very different mechanisms, and understanding those differences…

Many women in Pakistan want to get fit but face real barriers: no nearby gym, safety concerns about going out alone, family responsibilities, and the sheer expense of a monthly membership. The good news is that a well-structured home workout for women can be just as effective as the gym, especially in the early months when building the habit matters more than the equipment. According to the WHO’s 2020 physical activity guidelines, adults need at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity per week, plus muscle-strengthening activity on two or more days. Most Pakistani women are not meeting even half…

Oily skin is one of the most common skin complaints in Pakistan, and it gets worse every summer. If your face looks shiny an hour after washing, your foundation slides off by noon, or your T-zone (forehead, nose, and chin) stays greasy no matter what you try, you’re dealing with excess sebum — the natural oil your skin produces. The frustrating part is that oily skin rarely has a single cause. For most Pakistani people, it’s a combination of genetics, hormones, climate, and daily habits all working against each other at once. Karachi’s coastal humidity alone can push even normal…

Pakistani men’s skin takes a daily beating. Dust from Lahore’s GT Road commute, Karachi’s coastal humidity, scorching UV between May and September — these aren’t abstract threats. They show up as clogged pores, stubborn tanning, and breakouts that keep returning no matter how often you wash your face. The problem isn’t that Pakistani men don’t care about their skin. It’s that most routines are built around advice written for cooler, cleaner climates. A three-step routine designed for London winters won’t hold up when the temperature in Multan crosses 45°C and the air quality index is in the red. According to…

Your 30s feel like the healthiest decade. You’re past the chaos of your 20s, you have more control over your routine, and serious illness still feels far away. That sense of invincibility is exactly what makes this decade the riskiest time to skip a health checkup. Pakistan’s disease picture has shifted sharply. According to the second National Diabetes Survey of Pakistan (NDSP) 2016-17, the age-adjusted prevalence of diabetes in Pakistani adults is 26.3%, with another 14.4% in the pre-diabetes range. A 2024 study from tertiary hospitals in Rawalpindi found that 22% of patients had undiagnosed hypertension. Both conditions develop silently,…

Your 40s are when the body quietly shifts gears. The roti-and-chai routine you have followed for decades starts to show up in your blood work, and conditions like high blood pressure or elevated blood sugar can develop without a single obvious symptom. Many Pakistani adults in this age group feel fine right up until a diagnosis that could have been caught two years earlier with a simple test. According to the Second National Diabetes Survey of Pakistan (NDSP 2016-2017), nearly 46% of Pakistani adults had hypertension, and a significant proportion were newly diagnosed, meaning they had no idea. A separate…

Your fifties are often when the body starts sending signals it never bothered with before. A dull ache here, a slightly elevated reading there, fatigue that chai alone can’t fix. Most of these changes are manageable, but only if they’re caught early enough to act on. Pakistan carries one of the highest burdens of non-communicable disease in South Asia. According to the WHO, over 33 million Pakistanis are estimated to be living with diabetes, and hypertension affects roughly 1 in 3 adults over 40. The troubling part is that both conditions can stay silent for years. A routine health checkup…

Someone collapses in front of you at a wedding in Lahore, or slumps over during Friday prayers in the summer heat. Your heart races. Most people freeze in that moment because they don’t know what to do in the first 60 seconds. Fainting (known in Urdu as بے ہوشی, or behoshi) is a sudden, brief loss of consciousness caused by a temporary drop in blood flow to the brain. It usually lasts only a few seconds to a couple of minutes. In Pakistan, it’s especially common during the long summer months in Karachi and Lahore, during Ramadan fasts, and in…

A kitchen knife slips while you’re chopping onions for dinner. Your child scrapes a knee on the street outside. A piece of broken glass catches your finger. These small injuries happen in every Pakistani household, several times a year, and most people reach for whatever is nearby — a cloth, some Dettol, a strip of tape — and hope for the best. The problem is that “whatever is nearby” is often the wrong thing. Pakistan’s warm, humid climate, particularly during the monsoon months in Karachi and Lahore, means bacteria multiply faster on an unprotected wound than they would in cooler,…