Losing Weight When Your Brain Hits Below The Belt

PULLMAN, Wash. – If you’ve made a New Year’s resolution to eat right and trim down, be forewarned that medical science shows your brain has it in for you and will actively promote your failure on two different fronts. That’s not good news, of course, but you should know about it so you can strengthen your resolve as best you can.

Here’s the scoop. It’s relatively easy – particularly if you are significantly overweight – to lose a few pounds by reducing the number of calories you consume each day.

The problem is that your initial success will trigger a couple of responses in your body.

Metabolism

First, as you lose weight a hormone called leptin – which is produced by your fat cells – will start to drop in concentration. That change tells your brain that your stores of fat are decreasing. The brain responds to that report as if famine is on the way. The body makes changes to conserve its energies, and your metabolism will drop.

Metabolism – the rate at which we burn energy – is a major key to what our weight tends to be. Your metabolism may differ from that of John or Jane. But it also will change compared to what it was before you lost weight. The lower your metabolism, the easier it is to consume more calories than you burn in a day – triggering weight gain.

Calorie “handicap”

Here’s how that works in practice. Imagine you weighed 175 pounds for a number of years, but then your weight creeps up to 200 pounds. You go on a diet and successfully get back to 175. Congrats!

But your metabolism is likely to be slower at 175 than it would have been if you’d always weighed in at that amount. In other words, science has shown you have to eat fewer calories to maintain yourself at 175 pounds than you would have if you had always weighed 175.

This means that, depending on your weight loss, you may face a 300-500 calorie “handicap.” To beat that handicap you’ll have to eat that many fewer calories each day to maintain yourself at your new weight compared to someone who had never been overweight.

But the scientific news gets worse.

Less weight, more hunger

At your post-diet weight of 175, there’s a double whammy. Simply put, you’ll likely feel plenty hungry after your weight loss. The reason is that some other brain chemicals will be triggered that tell you that you feel peckish. In short, your appetite will be stimulated by the fact that you’ve lost weight.

So on the one hand you’ll need fewer calories than someone of your weight who has never dieted, while at the same time you’ll feel hungrier than someone who has always been slim and trim.

What’s a poor person sincerely trying to be faithful to a New Year’s resolution to do?

Good nutrition, exercise

For one thing, the experts agree it’s pointless to try fad diets like eating only dill pickles. Your best chance of success is to modify your diet toward eating right in a way you can do for the rest of your natural life. “Dieting” shouldn’t be about short-term weight loss based on serious deprivation – you need to find what works for you that you can sustain over the long term.

Another key to success is exercise – and yet more exercise after that. General medical advice is to get 30 minutes per day of moderate exercise. But to maintain weight loss, you’ll likely have to do more. Many advisors in medical science say a person needs to do an hour of exercise each day to keep off pounds shed through dieting.

Encouragement

Nothing about weight management is easy, and scientists are learning more and more about how and why it’s so difficult to lose weight and keep it off.

But if you’re like me, January is a good time to make some changes – changes you can stick with throughout all the weeks and months of this bright and shiny New Year. Others have done it successfully in the past – so let’s encourage one another to take on the serious but rewarding work of helping our health through diet and exercise.

Source:- https://news.wsu.edu/2012/01/03/losing-weight-when-your-brain-hits-below-the-belt/#.VMaYa9KsWgo

Sleep More, Weigh Less

Sleep More, Weigh Less

It's true: Being short on sleep can really affect your weight. While you weren't sleeping, your body cooked up a perfect recipe for weight gain.

When you’re short on sleep, it’s easy to lean on a large latte to get moving. You might be tempted to skip exercise (too tired), get takeout for dinner, and then turn in late because you’re uncomfortably full.

If this cascade of events happens a few times each year, no problem. Trouble is, nearly two-thirds of Americans aren't getting enough sleep during a typical week Yet experts agree that getting enough shut-eye is as important to health, well-being, and your weight as diet and exercise

Your Sleepy Brain

Skimping on sleep sets your brain up to make bad decisions. It dulls activity in the brain’s frontal lobe, the locus of decision-making and impulse control.

So it’s a little like being drunk. You don’t have the mental clarity to make good decisions.

Plus, when you’re overtired, your brain's reward centers rev up, looking for something that feels good. So while you might be able to squash comfort food cravings when you’re well-rested, your sleep-deprived brain may have trouble saying no to a second slice of cake.

Research tells the story. A study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that when people were starved of sleep, late-night snacking increased, and they were more likely to choose high-carb snacks.

A second study found that sleeping too little prompts people to eat bigger portions of all foods, increasing weight gain. And in a review of 18 studies, researchers found that a lack of sleep led to increased cravings for energy-dense, high-carbohydrate foods.

Add it all together, and a sleepy brain appears to crave junk food while also lacking the impulse control to say no.

Hunger Hormones

Sleep is like nutrition for the brain. Most people need between 7 and 9 hours each night. Get less than that, and your body will react in ways that lead even the most determined dieter straight to Ben & Jerry’s.

Why? Because insufficient sleep impacts your hunger and fullness hormones, including two called ghrelin and leptin.

Ghrelin signals your brain that it’s time to eat. When you’re sleep-deprived, your body makes more ghrelin.

Leptin, on the other hand, cues your brain to put the fork down. When you’re not getting enough sleep, leptin levels plummet, signaling your brain to eat more food.

Put the two together, and it’s no wonder sleep deprivation leads to overeating and extra pounds.

Then there’s the cortisol spike that comes from too little sleep. This stress hormone signals your body to conserve energy to fuel your waking hours.

Source:- http://www.webmd.com/diet/sleep-and-weight-loss

What Keeps Us Obese, Fat And Unhealthy Started Way Back Than!

No, it wasn't Mc Donald's or Hungry Jacks, or any of the other take-away junk food outlets who started it. Although, they are conveniently placed in locations where you have to make a distinctive detour to miss them, and are now dominating the scene. The ones that instigated it to make us fat and to eat more started long before computers were known and even before TV became an addiction in our living rooms. It all started when Movie Theatres were the in-thing in entertainment for the young and old; you may remember the bucket of popcorn that was part of the deal.