Tag: Fitness

This subject is something that I have thought about writing about for a while now as it gets to our core beliefs of whether we can really do it, with it being our goals or not. I always wonder how I can stop people from failing, heck even stop myself from failing.

What do we need to succeed and what can cause us to fail?

I was watching a show that I really like last night, Survivorman. Survivorman is a show where the host Les Stroud goes out somewhere on the middle of nowhere and lives for a week with no food, shelter or equipment, just him and a few video cameras.

What does this have to do with fitness, besides maybe how starvation affects people? Well Les Stroud talks about how he feels in these places, last night for instance Les was in the desert.

People are afraid in the desert about animal attacks, water, food, spiders, loneliness, and other stuff and he made a point of saying what helps and why.

Really, I am getting to a point here.

So Les starts a fire. The fire to him is a way to keep himself safe from animals and warm at night. He finds a river. The river water keeps him hydrated and being full of water makes him less concerned about the lack of food.

So when dieting or going through a big change in your health or your fitness what do you rely on to make yourself feel “safe”?

Rely on Family

I know that in times of trouble people rely on their families and friends. Often with family and friends though if we are trying to make a big change they are going to be worried for us if we fail.

Instead of supporting you they are trying to help you down from being unrealistic, so maybe family and friends are not always the best. Rely on them if you can though!!

Rely on Food

Next thing is food. We rely on food to help us as energy but sometimes also through our emotional trouble, emotional eating is one of the toughest parts of changing our diet because lets face it a broiled chicken breast is not as nice as a bowl of ice cream if we are feeling down.

But food is of course our fuel source and we need to rely on that.

Rely on Exercise

Next of course is exercise, Exercise is the one thing that we can push and feel comfortable with. Exercise of course proves our worth to us in our fitness.

There is no way that we can cheat ourselves into running 5 miles or doing 30 minutes on the bike except for the fact that some days we are dogging it and some days we are pushing our limits, still though at the end of the workout you KNOW how hard you pushed it.

Rely on Community

The last thing is community. We can feel safe in community and the people around us. This is why it is great to have a fitness partner, a diet buddy, a message board that we can talk of our successes and failures with like minded people.

The people around us within our fitness and health circle are the ones that we rely on and at the same time the more we support them the better they can support us.

So where do we go from here?

The fact really is that there is always some kind of give and take. We give an give and never want to take back, at other times we take and take and never have the ability to give. These are just the constant changes in life.

Years ago I read the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and even though there was a lot of stuff in there I remember the book only because Stephen Covey talked about this bank account of giving and receiving.

As you give to people in help, comments, being nice, any kind of giving then you are building a positive bank account that at some point they will want to give back to you for.

The first time you hear the idea it seems terrible like you are giving to take away from others but that is not really the way it works, giving begets receiving is more like it.

Anyway this is really all about getting some constants, some pillars to lean on in your life so that those variables that are tough, like food for instance, are easier to deal with.

Watch the people in your life, offer support to them, let them understand you and make it clear that you may need to lean on them when things are tough, your fitness friends will all understand this already but family and friends may not so make sure you explain your goals and fears to them.

If people understand why you are going through this uncharted territory then they will help you to feel safe (knew I would get back to those Survivorman references eventually) and then the tougher stuff like food and exercise are the only variables that you need to worry about.

Chitosan: Origins of Chitosan

Chitosan has long been considered as the potent substance that binds fat and stop it from accumulating in our bodies. Chitosan is effectively a fantastic fat inhibitor which work wonders for those in search of a safe way to lose that body fat.

What is chitosan made from? It is taken from chitin, a polysaccharide found in the exoskeletons of crustaceans and cell walls of fungi. It is manufactured by removing the shells from the shellfish like lobster, shrimps and crabs.

The History of Chitosan

The origin of chitosan can be traced back to 1811 when “chitin”, from which it is derived, was first discovered by Braconnot, a then professor of the natural history in France. According to some researches, while Braconnot was conducting research on mushrooms, he isolated what was later to be called chitin.

Twenty years later, there was a man who wrote an article on insects in which he noted that similar substance was present in the structure of insects as well as the structure of plants. He then called this astounding substance as “chitin”.

Basically, the name chitin is derived from Greek, meaning “tunic” or “envelope”. The concept was further known in 1843 when Lassaigne demonstrated the presence of nitrogen in chitin.

Following the discovery of chitin, the name “chitosan” emerged in the scene. It was first discovered by Rouget while experimenting with chitin. Rouget observed that the compound of chitin could be manipulated through chemical and temperature treatments for it to become soluble. Then, it was in 1878 when Ledderhose identified chitin to be made of glucosamine and acetic acid. It was not actually until 1894 that Hoppe-Seyler named the tailored chitin, chitosan.

Chitosan Studies

During the early 20th century, several researches took chitosan as their subject of study. They then involved sources of chitin, including crab shells and fungai. It was the work of Rammelberg in the 1930s that led to the confirmation on the identity of chitosan from these sources. It was also noted that by hydrolyzing chitin in several ways, it was determined by experts that chitin is a polysaccharide of glucosamine.

Some though are not so sure if Chitosan is that great Including Wikipedia

During the 1950s, the use of x-ray analysis had advanced the study of the incidence of chitin or chitosan in fungai. However, it is only the most advanced technologies that proved the most reliable in accepting the existence of chitin as well as cellulose in the cell walls. The first book on chitosan was published 140 years after the initial observation of Braconnot, and that was in 1951.

During the early 1960s, chitosan was examined for its ability to bind with the red blood cells. That time also, the substance was considered as a hemostatic agent. Then, for the past three decades, chitosan has been used at water purification plants for detoxifying water. It is spread over the surface where it absorbs greases, oils, and other potential toxins.

Nowadays, Chitosan it is known as a dietary supplement that is good for loss. In fact, it has been marketed for such purpose for about 20 years in Japan as well as in Europe.

What is Chitosan used for

Chitin has long been viewed as the nature’s second most abundant polymer. This is for the fact that it is found not only in shellfish, but also found in insect shells and fungi cell walls. Chitosan, a refined form of chitin, is prepared by removing the shells from shellfish. The shells are then ground into a pulverous powder, which is deacetylated or stripped of specific chemical groups allowing the compound to actively soak up fats. This aspect of it being able to absorb fat is the main feature which makes it effective in helping loss.

There are a number of functions or uses linked to chitosan. Because of these applications, chitosan is now marketed as a dietary supplement and is used to thicken foods, paints and makeup.

Liquid Chitosan

Chitosan is made in two main types, namely the dry and flakey product, and the liquid chitosan.

Although these forms are marketed as dietary aids, it is actually the liquid chitosan which gained a lot of interest from the people. This is mainly because the liquid chitosan is said to eliminate clumping problems or stomach pains as it causes the fat to form into hundreds of tiny calorie-free beads that are far gentler on your digestive tract.

The liquid chitosan is often identified by its appearance, color, protein content, degree of deacetylation, viscosity, insoluble, and other factors. Here is a summary of these factors:

Liquid chitosan is clear and yellow. Its protein content is less than 0.5% and often results to 0.14% if measured by Kjeldal method. Its degree of deacetylation is more than 90% with a result of 95% if measured through colloidal method. If you will prepare liquid chitosan by stirring 30 minutes, you can get a viscosity of about 50cps. Liquid chitosan has less than 0.5% insolubility if 20 grams of liquid chitosan is dissolved in 100 ml of distilled water. Liquid chitosan has a pH level of less than 5.5. Liquid chitosan has no taste and smell.

Liquid chitosan is commonly used as a loss supplement these days. Many of those who have used the flakey product have turned to the liquid form noting that liquid chitosan works better in the system than the flakey form.

Based on certain reports, instead of forming large clumps, the liquid chitosan causes the fat to form into hundreds of tiny calorie-free beads that are gentler in your digestive tract. However, it is important to note that in addition to binding fats, it binds the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K, making them unavailable to the body. This is the reason that most experts recommend a supplement with high-quality multivitamin.

Chitosan Recomendations

So, although Chitosan is taken as a ‘wonder’ pill of today, it has been around for ages and has been a subject since 1811. I am still not convinced about the abilities of Chitosan but again I say that in the absence of any side effects this is another product that you can try for loss, maybe for a couple of months, and then decide how it made you feel and whether you had a good response to it and go from there.

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This is the time of year that many people will make goals or New Years Resolutions for the New Year. I know that I do this every year.

We also hear that most people fail in these resolutions. There may be a lot of reasons why people fail in their resolutions, the primary though are that they are not actually important to them but more importantly they are too vague and are not SMART goals, goals created properly.

So this year I want you to create really good SMART goals, may as well give yourself a

If you do not have clear goals to keep up your motivation at this point, you can easily lose your way.

Creating SMART Goals

So take some time right now to write down your goals.

Like any goals that you might set in work or life, your goals in bodybuilding, in fitness, or diet should be S.M.A.R.T. – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time Based.

Let’s look at what each of these smart goals parts means in terms of bodybuilding workouts.

SMART Goal – Specific

SMART Goals

A specific smart goals is one that clearly says what you want to accomplish, along with how, when and where you will do it.

‘Get a great body’ is not a specific goal.

‘Go to the gym 4 days a week after work and train to build muscle mass’ is a more specific goal.

Even better, say exactly which muscles you will work on which days, and note down your routine. The routine for your bodybuilding workouts will change as you make progress but the overall goal of going to the gym 4 days a week to build muscle mass will remain the same.

SMART Goal –  Measurable

When you are working toward smart goals, it is very important to have some way to measure your progress.

If your goal is losing weight then you need to make it number specific. Try maybe lose 20 pounds or something. Then you can break this down to two pounds a month which would be also measurable each month. If you can easily track that in a diary or spreadsheet then you know it is measureable. But with a goal like ‘get a great body’, there is nothing to measure. So if you want to set goals in terms of the physical result, do it in terms of inches gained or that you can lift.

SMART Goal – Attainable

It is important to know when you have reached your smart goals. That way you can plan a reward or celebration, have a sense of achievement and start thinking about your goal or achievement.

If you have a goal or resolution to change jobs then you would have to have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to do that other job or a plan to get those skills otherwise it is not attainable.

If you have a fitness goal lets say to increase your bench press single weight and have a plan you can work with that makes sense then it would be attainable.

Remember to make a goal attainable all you need is to be able to believe in the steps that will take you there.

SMART Goal –  Relevant

Your smart goals needs to be something that are very important to you. Sometimes people will come up with goals that are important to those around them or “status goals” that are not important to anyone.

What would get you really jazzed up? Do you care about losing weight? Do you care about starting a new business? Do you care about writing a cook book.

To me this is one of the most critical points of getting your SMART goals to work. Your goal has to be exciting to you today as well as 6 months from now. A goal without passion is just an unattainable wish.

SMART Goal – Time Based

Whatever type of smart goals you set, it is good to give it a time frame. Remember that a New Years Resolution does not have to take a day or a year. Lose 10 pounds in 2 months? Read 3 books a month for the first 3 months of the year?

Be specific about how much time you have to achieve your goal, and you will be set for success in any goal. Clarity of time is important so that you can build steps to get you to achieve these goals.

Example of My Patio Goal

One of my goals this year will be to rebuild the patio. I know that this is not a SMART goal at all so this is how I am changing it up. Notice that this is not all about me but also the family and in the cold of Calgary it will not even be started physically for a few months yet.

Here are the SMART parts of this goal

Specific – We want to rebuild our deck and patio this year

Measurable – The deck will be final with new wood and paint, the patio will be cemented, all by the end of July (enjoy it for August and September)

Attainable – We will be setting a budget, I do not have the skills to do all of the work so we will be making a project plan that fits our budget and schedule, as well as any skills that I need and will be taking time in May and July to work on this

Relevant – Our backyard is an eyesore and my wife and I as well as the kids would enjoy that area far more if it would be better built. Also we are tired of people walking by and wincing when they see our deck from the alley

Time Based – As stated before this is a project that will be Finished by the end of July but will be started in March or so when we can really have a good idea of what we need and budget what we can do with our backyard

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