The Secret to effortless weight loss: part 1

Sometimes, things feel easy; eating lots of chocolate, grabbing whatever is in the fridge for dinner, diving into crystal clear, turquoise ocean with schools of dolphins…

Some things feel easier than others, but if you’ve ever tried to lose weight, you know that it can sometimes feel… shall we say less than easy?

The list often begins a little something like this:

• Exercise – a lOT
• Stop eating all the foods you love to eat
• torture yourself by thinking about all the things you shouldn’t be eating, (but probably wouldn’t be thinking about if you weren’t on a ‘d.i.e.t’)

What if losing weight could feel as effortless as those dolphins look, swimming through the ocean?

Part of weight loss is work, there’s no denying that.  The work is really in the habits that you’ve got (those neural pathways in your brain that got you here in the first place).  But there are some big pieces that people often don’t look at in the bigger picture of weight loss that have nothing to do with calories in/calories out.

The first one that we’ll look at today is SLEEP.

Yes, I know, you’ve ‘got’ to wake up an hour early to fit your workout in.  The truth is, is you are ditching your zzz’s to force yourself to work out, you may not get the payoff you were hoping for (ie- weightloss).

Studies show that women who got less than 8 hours of sleep were 75% more likely to be overweight.  When you leap out of bed in the morning and drag yourself to the gym or the road or the stationary bike in the basement, you’re messing with your hormones woman!  You decrease the hormone that lets you know your full, and you increase the hormone that screams “give me sugar and fat- preferably processed”.  You also  increase  Cortisol levels in your body- Cortisol is a stress hormone that makes your body- (gulp)- STORE FAT – especially in your belly!  Probably not exactly what you were hoping for.  I know ‘gain weight in my belly’ does not rank high in my to-do list- i’ve had two kids, enough with the growing belly.

But what about that workout you may ask.  You’ve got some options (always!!)

The first option is to turn off the tv or the computer, and get to bed earlier, (as an added bonus here- you won’t be tempted to rummage through the pantry for left-over Easter, Halloween, Christmas Candy).  You’ll wake up energized, and ready for that morning workout.

The second option is to schedule your workout for another time in the day- or break it into several ten minute increments throughout the day.   You do not have to do your workout all at once to get the most out of it.

I’ll share with your another secret to making weight loss not feel so hard next time- until then, get some sleep!!!