Believe it or not, the most important factor is SLEEP!
1. Sleep prevents stress.
Lack of sleep is a message to your body that you’re are under stress, which sends a message to your brain to increase cortisol levels. High cortisol levels affect your overall health and weight. Furthermore, elevated levels of cortisol in your body can mess with your circadian rhythm and a solid night’s sleep.
2. Sleep regulates blood sugar.
Raised cortisol also creates an imbalance in insulin and blood-sugar levels, causing us to not only crave (and eat) more sugar, but also store more fat, especially around the mid-section.
3. Sleep helps you wake up easier in the morning.
Sure, this one is a little obvious, but waking up rested allows you to have a nourishing morning routine which in turns sets the tone for the rest of your day. A good morning routine includes drinking water, having a healthy breakfast, a mindfulness practice and allowing yourself enough time to get out of the house without feeling stressed before the day even starts.
4. Sleep positively influences your food choices.
When we’re tired, we often reach for coffee and sugar to jolt our energy levels and keep us going. But an overload of caffeine and sugar leads to a crash that can leave us even more tired than before.
Lack of rest also leads to poor choices when it comes to food, since exhaustion usually begets reaching for something to eat that’s easy and comforting (which are rarely healthy choices). Making healthy food choices takes positive intention and effort, things that aren’t possible without a well-rested mind.
5. Sleep can prevent mental (and physical) health issues.
Feeling depressed? Moody? Irritable? Impatient? You might want to take a look at your sleep patterns. We know that chronically high cortisol levels can cause weight gain and health issues like heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and a weaker immune system, but it can also cause mental health issues like memory loss, lack of focus and impeded alertness.
6. Sleep slows the aging process.
Lack of sleep causes inflammation to the body which affects both weight and overall health. It also causes us to age faster. When your body has too much cortisol, collagen (the protein that keeps skin looking young and smooth) breaks down and wrinkles and dry, sallow skin show up instead. Still not convinced? Raised cortisol levels also slow down cell regeneration, negatively impacting muscle and bone health.
7. Sleep is a motivator.
When we’re tired and exhausted, we don’t feel motivated to do much more than sit on the couch and watch TV instead of getting up and being actively engaged in something. On the flip-side, getting enough quality sleep leaves us with almost a full day of energy … more than enough to do more than just sit on the couch.
As you can see, one simple change can affect an entire day of positive habits. If you make one change this year, let sleep be your priority so you can live a nourished life, lose weight and lead a healthy life without feeling like every day is a struggle.
Apart from sleep the following also influence successful weight management
1. Wrong Lifestyle: Even if you are on a proper diet plan, it will not work longer if you do not change your lifestyle, which means to add healthy activity in your daily life, such as exercise. Remember: 80% nutritional diet + 20% Exercise is the 100% mindset for a Healthy Weight.
2. Wrong Diet Plan: Remember skipping meals doesn’t work. When you skip meals, your metabolism slows down, and if your metabolism slows down, you are very easy to put on weight. Besides, when you skip meals, you will eat large portion during your next meal, and this extra calories will be converted into fat. Ideal diet plan is a low calorie protein based complex carbohydrate.
3. Failure to Gain Muscle: Losing weight healthily means losing bad body fat, not muscle. Most of the cases people focus on weight loss so much that they forget about the muscle mass. It is very important to grain muscle during weight loss. When you gain muscle, you may not see so much drop in the body weight when weigh yourself, but nothing to worry, gaining muscle will not make you look fat, rather it will make your body more toned and well-shaped. Remember, if you can increase your muscle mass, you will not very easy to put on unhealthy weight. My meal/diet plan always focus on losing bad body fat and gain muscle.
4. Failure to change eating habit: This is an important factor in weight management that determine whether you will achieve permanent success or not. Most of the people rely on medicine or some product to lose weight. That is why they put back on weight very fast when they stop that product or medicine. So it is very important to train your eating habit during your weight loss.
Eating with new awareness by following the above versus mindless eating, will help you reach your fat-loss goals. When we eat, food does not just disappear into a dark tube after swallowing. It has a function, and the more aware you are of how your body processes what you ingest, the more likely it is you will choose nourishing foods. There is a complex cascade of events that happens downstream of swallowing each bite of food.
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