Add Hand Or Ankle Weights To Your Walk
You don’t have to give up your daily walk in favor of strength training workouts simply pick up a pair of 1- to 3-pound dumbbells or strap on a pair of ankle weights to turn your walk into a strength training and cardio session in one. Since strength training is so important to building muscle and burning fat, squeezing a weight into your workouts when you can is a smart way to up your calorie-burning potential all day .
Ways Sleep May Help You Lose Weight
If youre trying to lose weight, the amount of sleep you get may be just as important as your diet and exercise.
Unfortunately, many people arent getting enough sleep.
In fact, about 35% of US adults are sleeping fewer than 7 hours most nights, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . Getting fewer than 7 hours of sleep at night is considered short sleep .
Interestingly, mounting evidence shows that sleep may be the missing factor for many people who are having difficulty losing weight.
Here are 6 reasons why getting enough sleep may help you lose weight.
Sleep Deprivation And Fighting Off Cravings
If you find that saying no to less nutritious food is more difficult when youre short on sleep, youre not alone.
Results from a small 2016 randomized controlled trial found that a lack of sleep can increase your desire to eat more high calorie foods and decrease your ability to resist them.
More specifically, researchers found that less sleep altered levels of endocannabinoid, which are chemical signals that affect your appetite and your brains reward system.
This was most notable on the days participants were sleep-deprived, when endocannabinoid levels were both higher and lasted longer, particularly in the afternoon.
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Shut Down All Bedroom Electronics
Research conducted at Harvard University found that short-wavelength blue light emitted by tablets and smartphones prohibit the bodys production of the sleep-aiding hormone, melatonin. Another study conducted by Singapore based researchers found that long hours of television viewing caused higher levels of triglycerides and lower levels of adiponectin in the body.
The Better Health Secret: Prioritize Sleep
The connection between sleep and weight gain is hard to ignore. Research published in the American Journal of Epidemiology found that women who are sleep-deprived are a third more likely to gain 33 pounds over the next 16 years than those who receive just seven hours of sleep per night. And with all of the connections to obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart failure, and cognitive failure, the need to sleep goes far beyond just looking better and seeing results from your diet and exercise efforts.
While there’s no hard number that applies to all people, a good rule of thumb is to receive between seven and nine hours of sleep per night, and to make sure that one poor night of sleep isn’t followed up with a few more. It might not seem like much, but it could make all the difference and mean more than any other health decision you make.
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The Relation Between Weight And Sleep Apnea
One problem between weight and sleep apnea is that sleep apnea also causes weight gain. Studies have been done showing that the less you sleep, the more calories you eat during the day. People who are sleep deprived, eat on average 385 kcal more than their well-rested counterparts.
They found partial sleep deprivation did not have a significant effect on how much energy people expended in the subsequent 24 hours. Therefore, participants had a net energy gain of 385 calories per day.The researchers also found there was a small shift in what sleep deprived people ate they had proportionately higher fat and lower protein intakes, but no change in carbohydrate intake.
Now, the problem lies in the fact that sleep apnea decreases the rest you get at night. So youre sleep deprived brain will compensate and eat more.
So here we have a classic case of a virtual cycle. Excess weight adds tissue in the back of your throat. This causes sleep apnea. And apnea in turn make you sleep worse. Which makes you eat more during the day and you gain weight. And the circle continues
Do Cold Showers Burn Fat
Cold showers may help boost weight loss Some fat cells, such as brown fat, can generate heat by burning fat. They do this when your body is exposed to cold conditions like in a shower. Gerrit Keferstein, MD, says these cells are mostly situated around the neck and shoulder area. So, perfect for showers!
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Can You Lose Weight While Sleeping
Unfortunately, sleep alone won’t lead to significant weight loss
But proper sleep can help you avoid excess weight gain
Less sleep can lead to hormonal imbalance and feelings of hunger
Editors Note: upwave is Turner Broadcastings new lifestyle brand designed to entertain the health into you! Visit upwave.com for more information and follow upwave on , , , and Instagram .
The rumor: You can drop pounds by catching Zs
The not-so-secret way to lose weight is to eat less and exercise more, right? Well, according to some, sleeping thats right, catching more Zs can help you shed pounds. So, should you swear off the gym in favor of more time snoozing under the sheets?
You might think that the more hours youre awake, the more calories youre burning, so you should be losing more weight. But youd be wrong.
In fact, people who dont sleep enough at night risk gaining extra pounds, not losing them, according to John M. Jakicic, director of the Physical Activity and Weight Management Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh.
I think poor sleep is a contributing factor to weight gain, says Jakicic. When you have poor sleep or lack of sleep, youre setting a whole cascade of events in motion hormonally that could set you up for weight gain.
Less sleep = Less energy
Sleep can curb hunger
Sleep Is Part Of A Healthy Lifestyle
Getting enough sleep can help you maintain a healthy weight, but its just one of many factors. If you want to prevent weight gain or lose weight, be sure to eat a healthy diet and cut back on snacks and empty calories. Physical activity is important, too, but always check with your doctor before starting a new exercise program.
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It Can Reduce Your Cravings For Unhealthy Food
It takes a lot of willpower to order a salad over a pizza, and research shows that how much sleep youve clocked can make or break your resolve. In a small but intriguing study published in the journal NatureCommunications, Walker and his research team put 23 healthy, non-obese men and women through two sleep-related tests. In the first experiment, the men and women got a full eight hours of sleep, and in the second they were sleep-deprived for one night. The following day, they were placed in a brain scanner and asked to rate how desirable certain foods were to them, from a piece of fruit to things like ice cream. After a full night of rest, the people in the study tended to prefer healthier foods. But when they were sleep-deprived, the same men and women not only craved more junk food, but the area of their brains in charge of making rational decisionslike healthy food choiceswas inhibited. Overall, the sleep-deprived people wanted foods that contained on average 600 calories more than what they craved when they were well rested.
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We are finding that getting a full night of sufficient sleep actually helps you reboot and refresh the circuits of the human brain, allowing it to make optimal food choices, says Walker. These food choices may put you on a path toward weight control, rather than weight gain.
Sleep Habits Can Impact Hunger Hormones
The link between sleep and body weight may partly be explained by how sleep deprivation affects your bodys production of hunger hormones.
Leptin and ghrelin are hormones that regulate feelings of hunger and fullness. Leptin is released by fat cells and works to suppress appetite, while ghrelin is released by the stomach and makes you feel hungry .
Ideally, these hormones work together to let you know when you need more energy and when youve consumed enough calories. However, some research suggests that without adequate sleep, the balance between the two may become disrupted.
One small study in 12 healthy men found that sleep deprivation decreased circulating leptin by 18% and increased ghrelin production by 28%, leading to a 23% increase in appetite .
Furthermore, some studies suggest that you crave highly palatable foods, including calorie dense treats like sweets and salty snacks, when your sleep is poor .
When combined, changes in hormone production, appetite, and cravings induced by inadequate sleep may contribute to increased weight and obesity risk.
Still, the relationship between these factors is unclear, and more research is needed to better understand how healthy sleep patterns may be used alongside a balanced diet and exercise plan to promote safe, sustainable weight loss.
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Sleep Sabotages Gym Time
Unfortunately, the disastrous impact spreads beyond diet and into your workouts. No matter what your fitness goals are, having some muscle on your body is important. Muscle is the enemy of fatit helps you burn fat and stay young. But sleep is the enemy of muscle. Scientists from Brazil found that sleep debt decreases protein synthesis , causes muscle loss, and can lead to a higher incidence of injuries.
Just as important, lack of sleep makes it harder for your body to recover from exercise by slowing down the production of growth hormoneyour natural source of anti-aging and fat-burning that also facilitates recovery. This happens in two different ways:
If you’re someone who doesn’t particularly enjoy exercise, not prioritizing sleep is like getting a physical exam with your father-in-law as the investigating physician: It will make something you don’t particularly enjoy almost unbearable. When you’re suffering from slept debt, everything you do feels more challenging, specifically your workouts.
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In short, sleeping less increases hunger and overeating.
They concluded: “Improving and maintaining healthy sleep duration over longer periods could be part of obesity prevention and weight loss programs.”
Dr Esra Tasali from the University of Chicago’s sleep centre said the study wasn’t focussed on weight loss.
“But even within just two weeks, we have quantified evidence showing a decrease in caloric intake and a negative energy balance â caloric intake is less than calories burned,” she said.
“If healthy sleep habits are maintained over longer duration this would lead to clinically important weight loss over time.
“Many people are working hard to find ways to decrease their caloric intake to lose weight â well, just by sleeping more, you may be able to reduce it substantially.”
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Banish Electronics From The Bedroom
To lose weight overnight, all blue light devices laptop, tablet and/or smartphone need to go. Studies have shown that nighttime exposure to the blue light they all emit disrupts the production of the melatonin the body needs to promote sleep. In addition, a study conducted by researchers at Northwestern University reported that blue light exposure at night increases hunger and insulin resistance, which can, of course, lead to weight gain and not just the disruption of the body’s fat-burning power.
Ways Sleep Can Help You Get Slim
The following story is excerpted from TIMEs special edition, The Science of Sleep, which is.
When you want to slim down, the plan probably looks a bit like this: Step one, toss out the junk food step two, pull out the running shoes and step three, renew that gym membership . But a growing body of evidence suggests that getting a good nights sleep should be onor at least nearthe top of the list.
Few experts would disagree with the idea that weve become a nation in need of a pick-me-up. We stay up too late, we wake up too early and, increasingly, were overweight. While theres plenty of data showing that poor sleep can lead to weight gain and possibly even obesity, some new research also shows that the opposite may also be true: that getting the right amount of good quality sleep may actually help you shed a few pounds.
Getting a full night of sleep is one of the most under-appreciated factors contributing to healthy weight maintenance, says Matthew Walker, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies the effect of sleep on weight.
Like all weight-loss strategies, sleep is not a quick fix, but consistently clocking a quality nights sleep could be the secret sauce for your weight-loss plan. So keep the following lessons in mind when optimizing your sleep schedule for a more favorable number on the scale. Heres why.
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If You Think You Have Insomnia
Dr Dimitri Gavriloff, a clinical psychologist who specialises in sleep medicine for app Sleepio, explains that insomnia is classified as struggling to fall asleep or stay a sleep at night, for longer than three days a week and for more than three months, and impacting on your ability to manage during the day.
If you fall into this category, the first-line treatment recommendation is CBTI Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia.The therapy focusses on different behavioural treatments, one of which is stimulus control therapy, which aims to re-establish a healthy association between being in bed and being asleep.
For people with insomnia, the bed often becomes associated with feelings of restlessness and being awake, so this is a means of trying to re-establish a good bed-sleep association.
This treatment comes with five instructions, covering everything from not taking your work to bed, to following a quarter-of-an-hour rule, where you avoid staying in bed if youre not asleep and only go back to bed when your sleepiness has returned.
As part of CBTI, a therapist may also advise sleep restriction therapy, where you reduce the amount of time spent in bed to the hours you are sleeping and then slowly increase it again. And cognitive therapy, which is more about challenging unhelpful thoughts and psychological patterns people have.
Healthy Sleep Fuels A Balanced Healthy Lifestyle
If you or someone you know struggles with an eating disorder, the National Eating Disorders Association offers resources to find treatment and support. Sleep is a powerful force in our lives and a critical tool for health and well-being. Sleep should only be used in the service of good health.
If you know someone who you think could benefit from this information, please pass it on!
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Potential Benefits For Your Metabolism
Getting enough sleep may help you avoid decreases in metabolism that can happen when you havent gotten enough sleep.
Your resting metabolic rate is the number of calories your body burns when at rest. Its affected by many factors, such as:
- age
Therefore, more research is needed to determine whether and how sleep loss affects metabolism.
Lack of sleep may also suppress fat oxidation, which is the breakdown of fat cells into energy.
One study found that sleep deprivation resulted in significantly lower basal fat oxidation in people of different ages, sexes, and body composition. However, RMR was not affected .
It also seems that poor quality sleep may decrease muscle synthesis, which may lower RMR.
One small study showed muscle synthesis decreased significantly by 18% and plasma testosterone by 24% after one night of poor sleep. Additionally, cortisol significantly increased by 21%. Collectively, these conditions contribute to the breakdown of muscle .
However, this study was small and only 1 day long, which are major limitations. Furthermore, other studies suggest that sleep deprivation doesnt affect muscle repair and growth. Thus, longer and larger studies are needed (
It may also increase your risk of injury and delay recovery.
Ultimately, getting enough sleep is key to staying active.
Turn Down The Thermostat
Sleeping in the subtly cold enhances the effectiveness of our storage of BAT that helps burn the fat stored in the belly, thereby keeping us warm. A study published in the medical journal, Diabetes, showed that people who slept in rooms with a temperature of around 66 degrees burned 75 more calories than those who slept in warmer rooms.
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