Studies Identify Relationships Between Sleep and Weight Gain (Part 2)
September 6th, 2008 by Go Weblog
In part one of this series, we discussed a relationship between sleep and weight, and three hormones that had serious implications when it comes to weight loss or gain. Two hormones were discussed in part one of this series (leptin and cortisol) and today we are going to discuss the third, human growth hormone (HGH).
A 1999 study published in “The Lancet” followed a group of young men who were limited to just 4 hours of sleep for sixteen straight days had increased levels of cortisol - which slows metabolism and causes fat to be stored - and decreased levels of leptin - which cause a “satisfied” feeling when the body has consumed enough food.
As a follow up to this study, Eve Van Cauter (the head researcher) looked more deeply into the effects of sleep deprivation on the body’s chemistry - particularly as it pertains to weight loss or gain. The results of the follow up study were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2000.
The follow up study looked at the phases of sleep that a person experiences and how those phases change as a person gets older. It seems that as men age, they experience less “deep sleep” than when they were younger. Women, on the other hand, experience about the same amount of “deep sleep” throughout their lives, until after menopause when their sleep patterns more closely match that of a similarly aged male.
So what, you ask, does that have to do with weight gain or loss? The answer varies whether you are a male or a female, and has to do with the third hormone we will discuss: human growth hormone. HGH, as it is commonly called, is secreted into the blood stream for the purpose of repairing muscle and tissue. If you are exercising, you are actually damaging your muscles by creating tiny tears in the tissues. This is how we gain lean muscle. We break down the muscle when we exercise, and then we rebuild it at night while we sleep.
Men secrete two-thirds of their HGH during the periods of “deep sleep” and women secrete one-third of thiers. If you are robbing yourself of valuable sleep, you aren’t getting to the point where HGH is getting into your blood stream. The less “deep sleep” that a person experiences, the less HGH that is available to build lean muscle.
What makes this worse is that the study found (at least for men) that even if they get the same number of hours of sleep as a younger man, they still get less “deep sleep” than their younger counterparts. Van Cauter’s research showed that a 45-year-old man’s HGH production will have decreased by 75% as compared to a 25-year-old.
Since the odds are stacked against us as we get older, what are we to do? As you may be aware, the body is an efficient and hard-working machine. It has three major processes that operate over the course of the day. We work (exercise), we make energy (digest) and we repair (sleep), just not all at once. Each of the processes requires too much energy to be efficiently performed while another is being completed. If you don’t believe me, eat a big meal and go run for two hours.
The body was designed to fuel and then work and then refuel and work some more, and then repair itself overnight. The more HGH that is released into the blood stream, the more muscle repair, and even lean muscle gain, takes place. Two things that we can do to help stack the odds in our favor are to make time for exercise and sleep, and to supplement with time release whey protein before sleep.
Supplementing with whey protein (such as NightTrainer, http://www.nighttrainer.com) puts the building blocks of muscle (protein and amino acids) into your body so that they’re available to help the HGH build more lean muscle. (An added benefit I’ve noticed is that because it comes in chocolate and vanilla flavor, I can avoid eating dessert when I’m craving something sweet late at night, knowing I’ll soon be enjoying my protein drink.)
As has been chronicled here and myriad other texts, building lean muscle is exactly what one needs to do in order to win the battle of the bulge. Sweet dreams!
Michael Callen is the author of the Weekly Weightloss Tips Newsletter (http://www.weeklyweightlosstips.com) and the Chief Technology Officer for WellnessPartners.com (http://www.WellnessPartners.com), an online retailer of dozens of health and wellness products such as conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), r+ alpha lipoic acid (R+ ALA), and green tea extract.
Tags: ALA, CLA, diet, fat loss, green tea, humor, hydrate, kidney, liver, metabolism, obese, sleep, water, weight lossThe Foolproof Diet
May 14th, 2008 by Go Weblog
Weight-loss gurus often tout impractical and absurd diets. They push their products and posit their heft-reducing theories, each claiming to have unlocked some previously undiscovered or undisclosed secrets. These hucksters market all kinds of nutrition plans, from the never-eat-anything-bigger-than-your-fist to the fill-up-with-enough-fiber-to-start-your-own-gas-transmission-plant variety.
One man I know (whose name I won’t mention) has been following a high-fiber diet so long that he’s become a hazard to others’ health. In fact, he should be forced to wear a sign that reads: WARNING: CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE.
The sheer magnitude of weight-loss programs today causes me to develop apathy toward the entire industry. Why would I want to join some fat-reducing organization from the West Coast when I live in Texas? Who wants to spend their time counting points or calories? And what’s so great about drinking unsweetened green tea? This is the Southwest (home of “sweet tea”)not the Orient.
If I have to purchase prepackaged foods sold only through authorized distributors to banish my bulge, then I’ll keep my fleshy rolls (and my yeast ones, too), thank you very much. So stop asking. No, I haven’t called Jenny yet!
I prefer to follow a healthy eating program that includes all my food groups: chocolate, ice cream, pizza, fried potatoes, and specialty breads. And finally somebody has developed one; it’s called The Flavor Point Diet.
Now, if I correctly understand the concept, The Flavor Point Diet works by flooding your taste buds with one central flavor for an entire day. So on tomato day, for instance, the diet recommends eating tomato products at every meal. The next day, you’re instructed to switch to a different flavorlike pineapple.
On tomato day, then, I would eat cold pizza for breakfast, tomato soup with a grilled cheese sandwich on tomato/rosemary bread for lunch, and lasagna for dinner. Somehow I don’t see myself shedding much weight on a plan like that. But from a foods permitted standpoint, this program I’ve come up with a weight-loss program of my own. Here’s how it works:
Allow yourself to eat only bland foods at every meal. Appropriate dishes include plain, unsweetened yogurt, boiled oatmeal without added sweeteners, salad greens with no dressing, celery (no dips), plain chickpeas, and tasteless vegetables such as hominy.
If you’re uncertain whether a specific item might be appropriate for this diet, here’s a simple test to help you find out:
1) Take a bite of the food in question.
2) Swirl the sample in your mouth.
3) Determine if this morsel tastes good. Depending on results, follow
“a” or “b” below:
a. If this food holds no appeal, swallow and continue eating.
b. If you’d like a second sample, spit out contents. This is not suitable fare for the The Flavorless Diet plan.
Follow this diet for one week and I guarantee you will have no desire overeat. You’ll feel no craving whatsoever to excessively consume any of these foods. And you will absolutely lose weight the whole time you stay on this programeven if you don’t exercise.
There’s only one drawback; dieters following The Flavorless Diet are advised to wear a sign. To be safe, they’ll want to warn those nearby to exercise caution when lighting a flame.
Diana Estill has been a freelance journalist and humor columnist for ten years. Her work has appeared online, in magazines, and in newspapers such as The Washington Post, The Miami Herald, and The Dallas Morning News. She was a finalist in the August 2005 America’s Funniest Humor Contest. Her book, Driving on the Wrong Side of the Road: Humorous Views on Love, Lust, and Lawn Care, will be released in June 2006. To see more of her work, visit http://www.DianaEstill.com
Tags: diet, diets, eat, eating, fads, food, humor, weight loss, women, womensStudies Identify Relationships Between Sleep and Weight Gain (Part One)
April 9th, 2008 by Go Weblog
It is with great joy that I pen this article. It seems that every weightloss tip involves taking something enjoyable out of your diet or routine. Sure, its for our own good… and the end result is that we’ll feel better, but sometimes it really seems as though we’ve got to exercise twenty hours a day and eat nothing more than broccoli to win the battle of the bulge. This time it’s different. This time it’s special. For the next couple of issues, we’re going to discuss the importance of sleep as it relates to weight-control and fat loss. Yes, I am happy to suggest that you should sleep more and sleep better!
You don’t need to be a scientist to realize how important sleep is. Simply skip it for a night and you’ll never forget why you need it. Sleep is the time that we relax, recharge, renew and renovate. For our minds, it is the time that we let the stresses of the day go so that we can start anew the next day. For our bodies, it is the time that our muscles are rested and healed.
On a biochemical level, however, there is a lot more going on than just rest and repair. This is the time in which the body releases and regulates the majority of its hormones. Three main hormones have been identified as directly affecting your weight in three different and important ways.
The first hormone is cortisol. If you’ve been awake at all the last several years, you’ve heard of this stress hormone and its reputation for storing away fat in the most visible ways. Cortisol is there for a reason, but changes in lifestyle have caused it to work against us. Under duress, the human body releases cortisol to provide bursts of energy, while slowing the metabolism. In a life-or-death struggle with a sabre-toothed tiger, this beneficial chemical reaction can provide additional energy needed to survive a “flee or fight” situation.
Our modern, and more sedantary, lifestyles find us, more often than not, experiencing stress while at work, in traffic or at home with the kids. Because our activity level does not compensate for a lowered metabolism, the fat that we should be burning gets affixed to the beltline. The more stress we experience, the more cortisol is produced, the more fat is stored… The story is repeated day after day, and the end result is that we gain weight from stored fat.
The second hormone is leptin. Leptin is know as the “satiety hormone”. If you aren’t familiar with the word “satiety” it’s root is the same as that for the word “satisfy”. When we have the proper amount of leptin in our blood, our bodies recognize that we are “full” sooner. That is, we know when to stop eating because the leptin allows us to realize that we should be satisfied.
A study out of the University of Chicago published in “The Lancet” in 1999 followed a group of young men who were in good shape. This group of men were limited to only four hours of sleep during a sixteen day period. The effects were amazing:
* Leptin production was down causing the men to feel excessively hungry, so much so that the men consumed an average of 1,000 additional calories each day
* Cortisol levels increased so that the metabolism slowed down
* Blood glucose levels increased to pre-diabetic levels, a sign that their bodies were unable to properly process carbohydrate
Okay, you probably agree that you don’t want excess cortisol or a shortage of leptin in your blood. So how do you know if you are getting enough sleep? Sleep experts suggest that if you answer “yes” to these three questions, you are likely getting enough sleep:
1. Do you wake up on your own, without an alarm clock each day?
2. Are you able to function at an optimal level throughout the day without getting drowsy?
3. Are you able to fall asleep easily each night?
Well, that should give you something to sleep on… we’ll continue this thread in the next issue when we look at the third hormone (human growth hormone) and how to benefit from some really smart protein powder!
Michael Callen is the author of the Weekly Weightloss Tips Newsletter (http://www.weeklyweightlosstips.com) and the Chief Technology Officer for WellnessPartners.com (http://www.WellnessPartners.com), an online retailer of dozens of health and wellness products such as conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), r+ alpha lipoic acid (R+ ALA), and green tea extract.
Tags: ALA, CLA, diet, fat loss, green tea, humor, hydrate, kidney, liver, metabolism, obese, sleep, water, weight loss