The Less You Sleep, the More Weight You Gain

If you need more convincing to finally fix your sleep deprivation problem, here it is: A new sleep study has found people who lose a lot of sleep eat more fatty foods and gain more weight.

The study, from researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, confirms several other similar studies conducted over the past few years. This one is pretty significant, because it used the largest, most diverse sample to date—225 healthy adults ages 22 to 50—and it was done in a controlled sleep lab.

The researchers found that on the days the subjects were restricted to four hours of sleep, they ate more meals, chose fattier foods, and shifted eating to later in the night. After five consecutive nights of this, they gained an average of 2.2 pounds.

The solution, of course, is to try to sleep more (or end your sleep problems). It might even help you lose weight.

Effects of Sleep Restriction on Weight Gain, Caloric Intake, and Meal Timing | Sleep Journal via NBC

Photo by ollyy (Shutterstock).

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How I Motivated Myself to Face My Weight and Debt Problems

There was a time when I was overweight, but didn’t want to admit it to myself. I didn’t feel in control of my health, because I couldn’t quit smoking or eat healthier for longer than a few days, nor exercise regularly.

Thinking about my weight made me feel horrible, so I didn’t want to even think about it. Of course, not thinking about it meant I never did anything about it. Not facing my problems made it worse, which just made me feel worse. It was a downward spiral, and really hard to stop.

I had the same downward spiral when I was in debt (at the same time in my life, about eight years ago). I couldn’t pay all my bills, so I would stuff them in a drawer so I didn’t have to see them. I had creditors calling me but I didn’t answer their calls (I knew their numbers on the caller ID). I didn’t know how much debt I was in because I never wanted to open the envelopes, much less add it all up on paper. I’d borrow money to pay bills, then owe more. And I’d skip paying lots of bills, and accrue interest.

It wasn’t a smart way to manage my finances, but I couldn’t stand the thought of facing all of it. I felt bad even thinking about my finances, so I’d avoid them, and think about other things. Of course, this led to me seeking distraction in food and entertainment and shopping, which led to worse debt. Not facing my debt made it worse.

How did I overcome all of this? I’ll share it here, in hopes that it will help others facing the same problem—or not facing it. It’s also important to note that if you know someone in bad health (or bad financial shape), they are probably also in denial. They don’t want to even talk about it. How do you help them? I’ll share that below too.

So how do you face a problem, so you can work on it, when you don’t want to face it? There has to be a point when you say, “This isn’t good. I need to do something about it.”

In truth, there usually isn’t just one point—there are many. It’s a building problem, where you get many data points over time—you see yourself in a picture and don’t like how heavy you look, you get a comment from someone that’s less than flattering, your pants don’t fit anymore, you breathe heavy when you try to run for a couple of minutes. But then there has to be a point where you decide that enough is enough. You start to feel some resolve. You decide you can do something—it’s not insurmountable.

How exactly I got to that point, I can’t fully remember. But I do know that there were several things that helped me:

Inspiration: Seeing other people with similar situations who overcame the problem— in blogs and magazines, mainly.Do-ability: I didn’t think I could lose all the weight or overcome my huge mountain of debt in a day or a week… but having a small step I could actually do was mentally empowering. If I could do something in a day or two, that was doable. It felt like I could take control again.Motivation: When I saw that my health problems were going to be an example for my kids, I knew I had to make a change. When I saw that my financial problems were hurting my family, I knew I had to make a change. In both cases, my motivation for change was bigger than myself—I was doing it to help people I cared about.Commitment: When I was inspired by others to make a change, I took an easy step that’s actually a very big step—I made a commitment. Making a commitment is actually very easy—you can tell a friend, a child, a spouse, or the world (via social media or email) that you’re going to make a change. Commit not just to “losing weight” or “getting out of debt” but to something specific: “run 3x a week and cut out sweets” is better. So is “make a list of all my debts, then make a payment to the first one." Those are first steps… you can always “add more veggies” or “make a meal plan” after you get started. But making a commitment is an easy (if a bit scary) first step that will lock you in to further steps.I have to admit that it wasn’t as simple as making a decision to change, and then continually making progress with no discouragements. Not at all. I would try to make a change, slip up, feel bad, then start again. And again. And make adjustments each time, learning about myself in the process, and over time getting good at the skill of change. But the first step—facing the problem—was made possible by inspiration, do-ability, motivation and finally commitment.

I firmly believe that you can’t force anyone to change. You can only inspire them to change, if you’re lucky. That’s not an easy task. If you have a friend or family member who is struggling with health issues, or financial problems, or something similar where they don’t want to face the problem … it’s tough. They probably don’t want to hear it from you.

However, that’s not to say you should throw your hands up and forget about it. You can still help. Just don’t try to force it.

Here’s what I would suggest:

Never attack—empathize. Never tell the person they’re doing something wrong, or imply they’re a bad or undisciplined or lazy person. Assume that they have the best of intentions, that they would change if they could, but they feel bad about it. Assume that you would feel the same if you were in their position—and try to remember a time when you felt that way. Don’t be patronizing, nor “sympathize." That’s condescending.Inspire. Set an example, and share what’s working for you. Share stories of other people who have overcome problems.Suggest something do-able. And do it with them. If you want them to tackle health issues, suggest the two of you go walking after work every day. Just for 15 minutes (at first). It’s a nice way to socialize and bond, but also get active. This is a small step that can be built upon—later you can walk further, or faster, and maybe add some jogging intervals to the walking after a few weeks or months (health permitting). You can also later do some diet challenges. But the key is to make the steps do-able, easy, and social.Offer to be an accountability buddy. If the other person admits to not being motivated, suggest that they commit to you, and be accountable to you (email you every day or every week to share progress or lack thereof). Suggest that they set a fun consequence (something embarrassing) if they don’t live up to their commitment to you. Or do a challenge, where the two of you are doing something fun at the same time —a pushup challenge, a thousand-steps challenge, an eat-more-vegetables challenge.Despite your best efforts, this might not work. You can’t force change on someone. They have to want it themselves. And if they don’t, you can’t make them want it. In that case, you’ll have to back off, though showing concern and wanting to help is always something you can do. Change is possible. Facing problems is totally possible. You just might need a little inspiration to do it.

How I Finally Faced My Weight and Debt Problems | Zen Habits

Leo Babauta is the creator and writer of Zen Habits. He's married with six kids, lives in San Francisco (previously Guam), and is a runner and a vegan. Read more about him: My Story.

Image remixed from pond5.

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Focus More on Your Brain and Less on Your Diet to Lose Weight

Weight loss is tricky business. Obviously what you eat has a huge impact on your health and body weight. But anyone who has ever tried to modify their diet for the sake of losing weight knows it isn’t so simple.

Most of us understand intuitively that broccoli is healthier than cookies. We can talk about sugar, fat, gluten, and antioxidants all day, but that doesn’t change the fact that cookies taste good and you still want to eat them. Any weight loss plan that simply tells you what to eat and neglects why you make the choices you make is unlikely to help you in the long run.

Nutrition knowledge is important, but it is only one piece of the puzzle. The real secret is understanding your behaviors and motivations at their roots, and using this information to have a meaningful impact on your health. In this sense, good health starts in your brain, not on your plate.

The first thing you need to understand is that we don’t have as much control over our food decisions as most of us assume. We tend to believe that we can call on willpower anytime we wish and use it to order a salad instead of a burger, and if we fail to do so it is our own fault. However, self-control is not something we can simply turn on or off, and as a result the process of decision making––particularly when it comes to food––is much more complex.

Approximately 20 percent of the calories we expend daily are used by our brains. Because brain activity is so costly, things like self-control and decision making cannot be relied on indefinitely. As a result, willpower is a limited resource. Like a muscle, willpower becomes fatigued when exercised too frequently. All the decisions you make throughout the day deplete your willpower, and when you start running out of steam your ability to choose healthy food over more convenient food rapidly diminishes. Ironically, increasing your blood sugar can help restore willpower to some extent. But finding a healthy way to raise blood sugar in a state of depleted willpower can pose quite the dilemma. Tired brains find it much easier to just grab a cookie.

The way our brains cope with the willpower conundrum is to automate as much of our decision making as possible. It does this by creating habits. Habits are specific behaviors that occur in response to a trigger or cue. They are also always associated with some kind of reward, which in turn reinforces and strengthens the trigger. For example, a buzz in your pocket is a cue to reach down, grab your phone, pull it out, and glance at the screen. The information you see causes a bit of dopamine to be released in the reward center of your brain. We humans love novelty, which is why most of us have a reflexive response to checking our mobile devices when we receive a notification. This is how habits are born.

Once established, habits occur automatically without expending any willpower or mental effort. Scientists have estimated that up to 90 percent of our daily food decisions occur as a result of habits. This saves our brain energy for more difficult decisions where habits cannot be used.

For one thing, it shows that willpower is not particularly reliable as a means to achieve lasting weight loss, and we’re better off spending our efforts creating healthy habits.

It also teaches us that any habit we wish to develop needs to impart a meaningful reward in order for it to stick. You can probably guess that some vague promise of future thinness is not sufficient––the reward for any habit needs to be immediate and tangible. This means that in order to achieve long-term weight control you need to find healthy foods you actually enjoy eating, physical activities you like doing, and spend your time making these as convenient and accessible as possible.

Fabulous news, right? Using willpower for restrictive dieting is difficult and incredibly unpleasant. We can all let out a collective sigh of relief that it doesn’t actually work. To achieve true success in health and weight loss, we’re better off quitting diets altogether and focusing on building healthy habits we enjoy. Try starting with something as simple as breakfast. Warm muesli with a splash of almond milk and cinnamon only takes two minutes to prepare and is absolutely delicious. Invest in a pedometer and challenge yourself to reach 10,000 steps a day. Setting and achieving an attainable goal is a very powerful reward, and is one of the reasons so many people love videogames.

Since our brains are easily overwhelmed, don’t try to develop too many habits at once. Work on just two or three habits at a time, and build from there. Habits take anywhere from two weeks to six months to take root, but on average about two months. Start with the easiest ones and work your way up. Once you’ve built enough good habits, your health will take care of itself.

Focus More on Your Brain and Less on Your Diet if You're Serious About Losing Weight | Summer Tomato

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