tajirul
Author Archives: tajirul
tajirul
The fountain of life – water
While everybody knows water is essential, most people make no effort to ensure they're getting enough water daily. Three-quarters of the earth is covered with water. Nearly as much of the human body is water as well.
We can go a month or even more without food but you can only go a few days without water. Water is that important. We get some of the water we need from the foods we eat. As a consequence, when you feel hungry, you may actually be thirsty. For that reason, I usually recommend to my clients that they drink water when they feel hungry and wait 15 minutes to see if the hunger fades.
Now, let's get into some of the biology of water and what it does for us.
Muscle
When we work a muscle, the muscle draws in water to aid in the repair. The water is valuable for flushing out toxins created by the workout. That’s why it’s recommended you take enough water after a good heavy workout.
Organs
A vast majority of the water we take goes to our most critical organs like kidneys, the brain, and the liver. If you are not enough water, the functions of those critical organs will be interrupted. In your weight-loss process, you need to ensure you take in enough water to help your liver and kidneys can handle the toxins being released from the stored fat.
I recommend you drink 60-100 ounces of water every day.
Music: Ben Sound Royalty Free Music
December 31, 2015
- in fitness , health , solo show , weight loss by tajirul
How alcohol affects health and fitness
In this science episode, we discuss alcohol. It’s a topic that comes quite often when I deal with my clients. They ask whether they can consume alcohol in their health and fitness journey. The answer, that isn't really an answer for this question is “it depends.”
A March 2013 study found that the chronic alcohol consumption reduces testosterone and increases cholesterol, both of which are not good for muscle growth and muscle retention. Therefore, chronic use of alcohol is not recommended. Moderate alcohol consumption may be okay. But you need to understand what is moderate. Just to give you a number, something less than 7 drinks a week should be okay.
There are other studies that may help you set your strategy. A March 2015 study on “Alcohol, Obesity and Loss of Strength” found alcohol use reduces our strength. Another 2015 study on “the lifestyle factors in associated with successful weight-loss” found that losing weight is co-related with a healthier lifestyle which includes drinking less alcohol.
After seeing results like this, it may seem like it is best to quit drinking entirely. But that may not be practical. So, the goal should be to build healthy habits that we can keep over time. Gradual changes of habits are more sustainable, which will lead to a healthier lifestyle.
So, an individual needs to determine what is going to work for him or her. One perfect way to deal with alcohol is treating it like sugar. Sugar is one of the things that create fat in our body. Alcohol works almost exactly the same way.
Links for further reading:
Nutrition and Metabolism Article
Now you are better informed of how you should deal with alcohol in your health and fitness journey.
Music used for the podcast Intro and Outro: http://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music
The magic of sleep
Everybody loves good sleep, but they often don’t get proper sleep. Babies and teens sleep well but when we get to adulthood, we begin to purposely avoid it. We may want to sleep at night but we don’t sleep very well. We don’t do the right things when it comes to sleeping.
Sleep the actual magic happens. That’s the time our body goes through the process of repairing. Sleeping is the time when our body repairs itself. Sleep is also when your brain stores memory. In fact, while we're asleep, the brain repairs itself. So, if you are not getting proper sleep, you're short changing your brain and body. We have stress hormones that develop during the day when we work but when we sleep, they get washed away. So, if we are not getting proper sleep, then we are not fixing our stress problems.
Most of our hormones are set on a circadian rhythm and sleep is a big part of driving release and removal of them. Breaking your sleep cycle will affect your hormone cycles, which is quite damaging to your body and brain.t’s not about how much sleep you get because the ideal number of necessary sleep varies from person to person. So, quality of sleep is
The amount of sleep someone needs varies from person to person. The quality of sleep is more significant than quantity. The environment needs to be the ideal one when we sleep. Avoid non-natural lights in your room when you sleep. Trying to avoid blue light is a good idea. And your room needs to be noise-free as well so that you don’t get up until your sleep is naturally completed. Taking alcohol or any kind of medication is a big “No” before sleeping. They can hamper your normal sleep cycle.
The environment needs to be the ideal when we sleep. Here are a few tips for better sleep:
Artificial lights
Avoid artificial lights in your at night and in your room when you sleep. Artificial lights are typically in the blue spectrum, which breaks the circadian rhythm, telling the brain it is daytime.
Noise-neutral
Your room needs to be noise-neutral. Allan uses a fan to make his bedroom noise-neutral, but you may prefer full quiet.
Alcohol/sleeping meds
You may be unconscious with alcohol or sleeping pills, but unfortunately you're not going through the full sleep cycles. As a result, you're not getting good rest and your hormone cycles will be disrupted.
Music used for the podcast Intro and Outro: http://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music
December 24, 2015
- in solo show , weight loss by tajirul
Obesity and exercise
In this science episode, we explore studies on exercise and obesity. Does exercise help reduce obesity? Some interesting studies seek to answer that question.
A 2003 article of Journal of the American Medical Association by Drs. Frank Hu and colleagues examined the relationship between women’s BMI and their physical activity. An important term here is “Body-Mass Index”, briefly BMI which measures the relationship between a person’s weight and height. The ideal BMI for a person is between 18 and 25. So, anyone with over 25 BMI is considered overweight and below 18 considered underweight. The study took 6 years to examine 50277 women aged between 46 and 71. What the study found was really very interesting. Individuals two were sitting two additional hours a day had 23% more obesity. So, less daily movement is one of the major reasons for increase in obesity. So, someone who watches TV for two hours is more prone to obesity than another person who chooses to walk around and constantly on the move. The study report says two hours of daily walking or around the house saw obesity decrease by 9 percent and one hour of brisk walking saw 24 percent obesity decrease.
Another study also in 2003 published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition by Drs. Koh-Banerjee and colleagues examined 16,587 men aged 40 to 75 years who they described as healthy. The study took nice long years to complete and it was about weight and waist size. The study found that just 4 hours of weekly increase of physical activity resulted in a reduction of their waist circumference by about 1.9 millimeters. On the other hand, the men who increase their TV watching by 20 hours a week had waist size increase of about 3.0 millimeters. One of the key finding of the study was the group that exercised daily had way to less obesity than the group that did not.There are many more studies that indicate the level of activity is an important factor that determine your fitness and obesity. Consider how your activity level can be affecting your weight loss or weight gain. Obesity is at an epidemic level and it is time to change that. The change starts with you.
There are many more studies that indicate the level of activity is an important factor that determine your fitness and obesity. Consider how your activity level can be affecting your weight loss or weight gain. Obesity is at an epidemic level and it is time to change that. The change starts with you.
Music used for the podcast Intro and Outro: http://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music
December 18, 2015
- in keto , solo show , weight loss by tajirul
3 keys to successful weight loss
In this episode, we cover the three keys to successful weight loss – patience, persistence, and progression.
Patience
You need to understand that nothing significant can be achieved overnight. So, you shouldn’t expect to lose 20/30/40 pounds in a week or a month. You'll have to have patience.
When you want to lose weight, you need to be practical and set an achievable goal, for example, 1 – 2 pounds in the first week. It’s also important for you to set small, specific milestones like 5 – 10 pounds in next month Most people find they lose weight rather quickly at first and then level out. This is the body's normal state. Persistence will keep you on track. Just keep working and it will happen.
Persistence
The whole weight-loss thing is something that happens gradually. You can’t expect to achieve your milestone when you don’t do anything about it. As we learned in episode 9, you can use weight training as a part of your weight loss program. Starting small and progressing by slowly adding resistance will
Progression
At any stage of the process, you can’t afford to quit. It’s never going to be easy to get what you want. So, you need to be very persistent. Just after you make the commitment, you need to stick to your commitment and keep doing all that makes your goal achievement easier and a step forward.
Use these three keys, stick to your commitment, keep moving forward, and focus on the end goal. You can do this.
Music used for the podcast Intro and Outro: http://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music