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Blog, Weight Loss, Weight Loss Tips

If you are one among the ever-growing obese population that is looking to lose extra pounds and if you are one among those that hit the bed late at night, you need to carry on with the reading. Here is some food for thought to help you lose the extra pounds that crept in while you stayed awake late into the night.

While it had been advocated for years by health experts that a good night’s sleep is inevitable to stay fit and healthy, the changing lifestyle has made people borrow their sleeping hours to pound on their computer keyboards. Well, technology has enabled to work from the comfort of home, but it is unfortunate that you do not realise that you overwork. The extra time spent working or watching some entertainment shows on television results in weight gain as seen by research conducted on the association between weight gain and sleep deprivation.

How Sleep Deprivation Results In Weight Gain

When you stay awake late into the night, you are naturally prone to go for the extra food that you are not supposed to be eating. Food cravings are common when you stay awake at night. It could either be hunger thanks to the extra calories burnt while you are awake for more hours or it could be an attempt to energise your tired body and mind. Either way, it is only going to help you add some extra weight, which you have been desperately trying to lose.

Not Only Hormones, but Your Appetite Is Also Affected

The general idea everyone has about a lack of sleep is that it affects the hormones. Not only your hormones, but sleep deprivation also affects your appetite as well. Recent studies have brought to the fore that sleeplessness affects appetite, which in turn results in weight gain. Leptin and ghrelin, the hormones influencing our appetite, are affected when you sleep less. Leptin level reduces making you feel that you have not had enough and ghrelin level increases, triggering your appetite. So you end up eating more than what is rightfully due.

Cravings Go Down As Sleep Time Improves

When you treat yourself with sufficient hours of sleep every day, you do not feel tired. This, in turn, reduces your cravings for high carb snacks and sweets. Since you do not burn the calories you are supposed to; your body stores them as fat. You not only lose your sleep but also lose out on your goal to achieve weight loss.

Physical Activity Reduces With Reduced Sleep

Lack of sleep makes you tired the following day, and this could badly ruin your physical activity. Various studies have been conducted on people who are sleep-deprived. The results point to the fact that individuals who sleep less spend more time in front of their television rather than engaging themselves in physical activities. This plays a part to an extent in weight gain.

If you are planning to lose weight, you need to attack your excess flesh from all possible angles. While a balanced diet and regular exercise play a key role, to achieve the result you need to get quality sleep. Sleep not only helps in weight loss, but it also makes you energetic and healthy

Blog, Weight Loss, Weight Loss Tips

If you associate alcohol with nausea, vomiting and blackouts, you may be shocked to find out that you need more than the fingers on both your hands and your partner’s to count the ill effects of alcohol consumption. Did you count becoming obese? Yes, one such effect alcohol has on you is weight gain. Consumption of alcohol makes you obese. Hence, if you are planning to enter a weight loss program, you may want to refrain from alcohol consumption. Keen to know how alcohol can make you fat? Here you go.

Liver Disease And Weight Gain

 Cirrhosis is one of the most common risks faced by alcoholics. Being toxic to the cells in the liver, alcohol damages the liver so badly that liver performance is greatly reduced. Cirrhosis can cause weight gain. The poor performance of liver can result in obesity. The two major functions of the liver are detoxifying the blood and metabolising the fat. When the liver becomes sluggish, it results in weight gain. Remember that regular alcohol consumption can make your liver sluggish.

Higher Calorie Intake

You know that increased calorie consumption can cause weight gain. By consuming alcohol regularly, your intake of calories increases resulting in weight gain. Apart from the meals you eat, you gain more calories by drinking alcohol. You may want to know that 12 oz. of regular beer contains 150 calories, 1.5 oz. of whisky contains 105 calories, 1.5 oz. of rum contains 96 calories and 1.5 oz. of gin contains 110 calories.

Studies have proved that alcohol consumption before meals increases calorie intake at an alarming rate. Apart from the calorie, you gain from alcohol, you tend to get hungrier after consuming alcohol and end up eating more than you are supposed to be eating. Alcohol being an appetiser, you lose control over what you eat and how much you eat. The release of dopamine, the hormone for pleasure and addiction leads to further cravings for alcohol and food. You know where you will end up.

 Hormonal Imbalance Leads To Weight Gain

 Alcohol consumption increases cortisol levels and decreases testosterone levels. It does not matter whether you drink occasionally or regularly. Your cortisol level goes up nevertheless. While cortisol levels cause breakdown of muscles and suppress muscle recovery after exercise, lower levels of testosterone fail to burn fat leading to beer belly. Since cortisol breaks down muscles, your muscle loss will lead to weight gain.

Ability To Burn Fat Reduces

 Consumption of alcohol affects your body’s ability to burn fat. Studies have proved that fat metabolism is reduced drastically after consuming alcohol. Hydration is essential for your body for building muscle and burning fat. Since alcohol dehydrates the body, the fat burning process is affected thus leading to weight gain. Thus, you not only intake more calories by drinking alcohol, you also slow down the fat burning process, which inevitably leads to weight gain.

Stay Addicted To Health

 Being addicted to alcohol is nothing but ruining your health, wealth, happiness and in short, your life. It is better not to categorise such harmful acts as pleasures. The true pleasure lies in staying healthy. There is no better addiction than being addicted to health – physically and mentally.

Blog, Weight Loss Tips

Exercise, workout, and gym along can’t help you drop those extra pounds in your body. You need to adopt good food habits if you want to lose weight and to stay healthy. When you say good food, it doesn’t always mean those famous diet plans nutritionists and dietitians advise and monitor. Consuming more dairy products is one inexpensive and easy way to reduce your weight as well as stay healthy.

What are dairy products?

Dairy foods are products produced using mammal milk. Dairy products can be for drinking or eating. Examples are pure milk, yoghurt, butter, curd, cheese, etc. Dairy products are usually high in energy and calcium nutrition. Humans consume dairy products from the milk of cow, goats, sheep and camels.

For quite a long time, people have kept some dairy products such as cheese, butter out of their reach because they are high in fat content which accelerates weight gain. However, new researches release evidence that dairy products can help in losing weight fast. According to researchers, if adults start using 3-5 servings of some dairies in energy restricted meals, they can gain significant weight loss. Although, increasing the dairy food without reducing the intake of energy would not help a significant weight loss.

How do dairy products help in losing weight?

Despite the fat content, dairy products usually contain a lot of nutrition elements which are essential for the human body. Dairy products are good sources of calcium, protein, zinc and some forms of vitamin B. Calcium helps for healthy and strong bones. It also helps to break down the body fat, which helps in losing weight. With dairy products, weight loss is more felt around the waist.

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published a study that reveals that if you take fat-free milk along with your breakfast, it can keep you full for a long time, so you will eat less compared to when you have a fruit juice. This study has revealed that a person who had a glass of milk during the breakfast will consume 50 calories less during lunch. The reason for this is that milk is rich in protein and lactose and it is really thick.

The biggest complaint about the dairy products is that they are high in fat, but now there are a plenty of low fat or no fat milk, yoghurt, butter, and cheese. However, they are still rich in calcium. Hence, switching to dairy products will indeed help you stay slim and in shape while keeping you healthy.

Blog, Weight Loss Tips

If you have been thinking that stress upsets only your emotional make-up, think again. Being stressed can cause you to add weight, probably making you more anxious. Stressed state of mind is one of the many factors that induce obesity and hamper your weight loss. Let us see why and how you can reduce weight caused by stress.

Stress And Its Types

Physical and mental response to a tough situation is stress. Stress can be long term or short term and it can be positive stress or negative stress. Positive stress enhances the level of your performance while you face a tough situation. Negative stress can cause just the opposite impact by affecting your health and performance. When you feel stressed while reaching for the winning lap in a race, it can be a positive stress that motivates you to come up first.

Chronic eustress and acute eustress fall into the category of positive stress. Chronic distress and acute distress are categorised as negative stress. Chronic eustress, the good stress, motivates you and it lasts longer. Acute eustress, on the contrary, is sudden and short. You are out of this type of stress immediately after the winning moment.

Bad Stress And Health

Chronic distress, the bad stress affects your health so badly that you are susceptible to various health conditions including weight gain, migraine, diabetes, digestive problems, insomnia and heart diseases. As you are well aware, bad stress can affect you psychologically. It can make you lose focus, anxious and sad. When you are hit by bad stress, you tend to overeat and this is precisely when you start adding to your weight and stress.

How Stress Results In Weight Gain

Cortisol and adrenaline, the stress hormones are released when you are stressed. These hormones cause your cravings for carbs as well as fatty foods to increase. Your blood sugar level increases as well. Stress influences your hormones to store fat and your ability to burn fat is reduced. Various studies have proved that people gain weight when they are stressed.

Techniques To Avoid Stress Eating

Since stress can work all the way down to increase a few inches in your waistline, it is essential that you stay stress-free to avoid getting obese. Here are some simple and effective tips to help you avoid stress eating.

1) Address Cravings The Right Way: Well, you are stressed and the stress hormones play their part. Now, you crave for sugary foods. Play along, but be wise with your choice. Do not reach for foods that contain artificial sweeteners. Instead, consume foods that contain protein and magnesium. Fruits rich in vitamin C can be the right answer as vitamin C strengthens your immunity when you are stressed.

2) Study The Signals: Don’t make a quick move before you study the signals clearly. Consider if you are indeed hungry or if it is stress-induced hunger. Taking some moments off to study your body’s language will help you identify the signs. If it is cortisol behind your hunger, you don’t need food to treat it.

3) Away From The Stressful Atmosphere: If you can help it, get away from the atmosphere that causes stress and thereby tricks you to eat more. You may go for a quiet walk or you may get involved in your favourite hobby to relieve you of stress. If you are at work and hence cannot as much move from your chair, remember that there can be no barriers for a mind travel. Visualise yourself in a pleasant atmosphere that is calm and soothing.

4) Breathing Techniques: Deep breathing techniques help to lower your stress. They calm your mind instantly. Sit comfortably with closed eyes. Inhale deeply through your nose and exhale slowly through your mouth. Watch your breath as you do so. Regular practice of breathing exercises not only soothes your mind but also improves your immunity and makes you healthier.

Food might be a tempting option when you are stressed. Weigh the consequences of stress eating before you succumb to your cravings. The techniques mentioned above will help you overcome stressful situations. Regular exercise and breathing techniques will help to keep you stress-free. It is in your mind to control your weight.