Going to Bed Early Can Help You Reach a Healthier Weight

Working out for hours on end and cutting out high-calorie foods are the most common pathways that people take to lose weight. However, there's actually a simple solution to some of your weight-loss issues. Your sleep quality also plays a huge role in whether you have a healthy or overweight appearance. In fact, an early bedtime is one of the most effective ways to lose weight on a long-term basis.

Less Time Awake
The simplest reason why an early bedtime is better for your body is basic math. If you sleep for eight hours, you're only awake for 16 hours. You'll eat a certain volume of foods during this time, and there's no temptation to eat junk food when you're fast asleep. Reduced sleep deprivation also gives you a clear mind about what to eat. Instead of grabbing that bag of chips, you might look for fruits and vegetables as a healthy alternative.

Balanced Hormones

You have two main hormones, grehlin and leptin, that regulate your food intake. Grehlin tells you when you should eat while leptin indicates that you're satisfied. When you don't sleep for the optimal eight hours, however, leptin drops in levels while grehlin surges. As a result, you feel ravenous and eat more. Your body doesn't really need these calories when it's tired, so it immediately turns the food into fat.

Improved Metabolic Rate

Your metabolic rate is the speed with which you burn calories for energy. Going to sleep early will ultimately drive that rate upward. You'll burn calories at an efficient rate, and weight loss is the result. Being sleepy only drives this rate down. You'll end up eating more with a lower metabolic rate. It's nearly guaranteed to gain weight in this case. Adding in daily exercise with an early bedtime is a great way to enhance the weight loss too.

You might be ready to go to bed at 9:30p.m., but you're still wide awake. Try to create bedtime rituals that allow your body to unwind before laying down. Turn off those electronics and read a book, for example. Less light entering your eyes will trigger natural melatonin to kick in and lull you to sleep.

Weight Loss Surgery Can Improve Cholesterol Levels in Young Boys

Preliminary findings from a new study suggest that weight loss surgery could increase levels of good cholesterol in obese boys and decrease their risk of heart disease.

The weight loss surgery also increases the protective qualities of HDL cholesterol. HDL, or high-density lipoprotein, is often referred to as “good cholesterol.”

Dr. Amy Shah, an author of the study and an endocrinologist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, stated that the surgery may change how HDL cholesterol works in adolescent boys. It was already known that weight loss surgery could improve cholesterol levels, but these findings on the function of HDL cholesterol were new to Dr. Shah and her team.

The study included 10 teenaged boys with an average age of 17. All were considered severely obese and had an average weight of 367 pounds. Nine out of the 10 boys were Caucasian.

The boys all had a vertical sleeve gastrectomy, a type of weight loss surgery that decreases the size of the stomach to improve the body’s ability to lose weight.

The researchers followed up with the boys one year after surgery. They each lost an average of 111 pounds, and their BMI (Body Mass Index) dropped by 32 percent. BMI measures the ratio between a person’s weight and height.

Additionally, the boys’ levels of HDL had increased by 23 percent since surgery. Their HDL also showed an increased ability to remove cholesterol from the arteries. Perhaps most significantly, the boys’ HDL levels showed a decreased inclination to trigger inflammation. The researchers reported that HDL actually become more anti-inflammatory after the surgery.

Dr. Shah said that though the boys were still considered obese one year after surgery, their metabolic health had improved, in part due to the changes in their HDL.

Dr. Shah admits that the results of the study are limited due to the small size of the study and their focus on only male participants, but she plans to use the results as a starting point for further research. Dr. Shah plans to expand the research to include female participants as well, and to start the follow-up observations sooner than one year after surgery. Dr. Shah and her team also hope to compare their findings to other types of weight loss surgeries.

The results of this study were recently presented at an American Heart Association meeting, and have yet to be published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

Will You Gain Weight if You Skip Breakfast?

The food industry has promoted the claim that skipping breakfast leads to weight gain in order to sell more breakfast foods, like cereal. However, rigorous studies have not found evidence supporting this claim.

The idea that a good breakfast is good for your health goes back as far as the 1920s, when there began a nationwide campaign encouraging people to start their days with eggs and bacon. One of the financial backers of this campaign was Beech-Nut Packing Company, a retailer of pork products including bacon.

In the decades after the campaign, dozens of scientific studies reported people who eat breakfast tend to be thinner than those who skip the meal. The studies proved only an association, though, and not a cause-and-effect relationship. Despite this, food companies and health authorities asserted the studies proved that eating breakfast prevents weight gain.

However, studies that assigned people randomly to skip breakfast or eat breakfast have not reached the same conclusion. A recent study, published in February 2016, did not find a difference in health outcomes or weight change between people who did or did not eat breakfast for six weeks.

Eating or not eating breakfast alone won't impact your weight. Observational studies can be misleading. For example, a person who eats breakfast likely also follows other habits considered healthy. They tend to smoke and drink less, eat less sugar, and consume more fiber, as well as exercise regularly than those who skip breakfast.

Observational studies show only that individuals who eat breakfast tend to be leaner, but that is likely due to a multitude of factors, including lifestyle and genetics.

Portion Controlling Your Appetite a Good Habit for the New Year

New Year’s Eve is a traditional time of vows and resolutions, and losing weight is on the top of many lists. Making the changes that will allow people to be successful can be difficult however. Many of the health and weight loss resolutions made fail quickly, but they don’t have to. Here are some easy ways to enjoy more success with your resolution to change body weight and improve health.

Why a Healthy Weight Goal is So Important

The obesity epidemic in the world is scary. Health issues from excessive body weight include heart disease, lung problems, stress and anxiety as well as serious illness of vital organs. Limiting food is one way to lose weight, but it is often not successful. People who try to avoid certain favorite things end up cheating and giving up quickly. There are no side effects to losing weight, but giving up can cause some serious side effects that have fatal effects.

Solving Obesity with Portion Control

We are used to seeing portions that are way out of line with healthy eating habits. The first step to controlling food intake is to read nutritional labels so that you understand how many calories are in each serving, but if you are not eating the amount equal to what that product’s serving is, the values are way off. Dieting seems hard because so many people think they are doing what they are supposed to be doing, but are actually consuming a lot more calories daily than they should.

When creating foods, most people use measuring cups, spoons and scales to determine exact amounts, but leave all of that aside when they actually serve up the meals. Obesity rarely strikes just one person in a family. Most times one person cooks and serves the food and everyone eats everything on their plate. 

Avoid Confusion with Macro-Dieting

There are a lot of numbers on nutritional labels that really aren’t as important as others. One of the ways to get the most out of your plans to lose weight is to consider the macros. In macro-dieting you simply have to break down nutrients according to a few quick numbers: your calorie requirements, and how many of the key nutrients you need to fulfill that number in a healthy manner. The macro nutrients include carbohydrates, fat and protein. It isn’t hard. A simple macro plan involves eating 40/40/20, so on a 2000 calorie a day diet, you would need to consume 800 carbs, 800 proteins and 400 fats. Doing this takes the stress of the heart, lung and kidneys. It is a low fat protein method of reducing fat intake.

Then make sure the food you eat equal that amount by measuring serving sizes and it all gets easier. When eating by the macro plan you can eat a little of everything, which means you won’t feel deprived the way some diets leave you. When you cut back on stuff you love, you may feel like cheating, you want larger portions, and miss out on your favorite foods.

Make Eating Smaller Portions Easier

Use smaller plates when serving meals. The eyes play tricks on our brains, and this is one of the times that is a good thing. By eating off of smaller plates we feel fuller faster, and eat fewer carbohydrates which is great for the heart and vital organs. Maintaining a healthy weight takes more than dieting, but limiting calories is a big part of reaching your goals.

Choosing the Right Types of Protein

Making the right choice by adding low fat protein and reducing fat intake allows your body to take the importunity to lose weight. Making a New Year resolution is a good start. It shows you are goal oriented and ready to create the importunity for your body to get healthy. All you have to do is maintain portion control, eat a little of everything in a good way and remain goal oriented to be successful in the New Year with your new lifestyle.