Sleep & Weight Loss

According to a study in the American Journal of Public Health, adequate sleep is associated with more healthful food choices and may mediate the effects of workplace experiences. "Insufficient sleep duration and sleep disruption have been linked to weight gain, diabetes and early mortality in the long term," the researchers said.

Really? They had to do a study to determine this? I could have told the researchers this. I usually do not choose fast food, but when I am too tired to cook, fast food suddenly becomes a convenient alternative. My will power to choose healthy foods also tends to decrease as my tiredness level increases. When I'm wide awake, I will choose the apple every time but when I'm tired, chocolate wins hands down. Sound familiar? However, evidence has shown that it may not be these food choices when tired that cause weight gain.

A 16 year study, which included 70,000 middle aged women, by the Case Western Reserve University showed that women who slept 5 hours per night were 32% more likely to experience major weight gain (33 pounds or more) over the course of the study compared to those who slept 7 hours per night.

The women reported their weight at the beginning of the study and then every 2 years there after. At the start of the study, women who slept 5 hours or less per night weighed an average of 5.4 pounds more than those sleeping 7 hours per night. They also gained an average of 1.6 pounds per year over the course of the study. One and a half pounds per year may not sound like much, but over 16 years, it adds up to 16 pounds!

The researchers looked at activity levels and the amount of food the women were eating to determine what was causing the weight gain. Exercise levels were about the same for those sleeping less than 5 hours and at least 7 hours. Those sleeping less must have been eating more, right? Wrong. "Prior studies have shown that after just a few days of sleep restriction, the hormones that control appetite cause people to become hungrier, so we thought that women who slept less might eat more, but, in fact, they ate less. That suggests that appetite and diet are not accounting for the weight gain in women who sleep less" states lead researcher Sanjay Patel, M.D.

A small study at the University of Chicago found that dieters getting at least 8.5 hours of sleep lost more body fat than those sleeping only 5.5 hours per night. When getting less sleep, participants burned more lean muscle mass instead of body fat. They were also hungrier and expended less energy, most likely to make up for not getting enough sleep.

Researchers are not sure why the amount of sleep you get affects your weight and whether your body burns fat or muscle but they do have some theories:

• Sleeping less may affect changes in a person's basal metabolic rate (the number of calories you burn when you rest).
• It could be that if you sleep less, you are more tired and move less leading to less calories being burned. This is not exercise-type movement, this is involuntary activity such as fidgeting, tapping fingers, nervous twitching, etc. Those little movements throughout the day add up.
• Sleep affects cortisol levels. Not getting enough sleep can cause the release of additional cortisol (the stress hormone) which has been linked to weight gain.
• Inadequate sleep interferes with the body's ability to metabolize carbohydrates and causes high blood levels of glucose. This leads to higher insulin levels and greater body-fat storage.
• Too little sleep drives down leptin (controls hunger) levels, which causes the body to crave carbohydrates. Carbohydrates themselves do not cause weight gain but if you are craving them, and eat too much, weight gain may happen.

I don't know about you, but I think I need to go to bed...

Overweight and Obesity and Disease

We restarted the Weight Loss Support Group on October 12 with a well attended meeting. Marcia, our RN in residence, provided some information about how being overweight or obese can increase our risk of several disease and/or adverse health conditions such as coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, cancers (endometrial, breast, and colon), high blood pressure, high lipid levels, stroke, liver and gallbladder disease, sleep apnea, respiratory problems, osteoarthritis and gynecological problems. After Marcia's presentation, Cathy, a USAG community member, discussed the health problems she has suffered due to being overweight and how she has lost weight. This blog will review some of the topics Marcia discussed in her presentation.



A common misconception is that fat is just extra skin. It just hangs there and takes up more space. If only this were true. Fat cells need oxygen and nutrients too so your body needs to build more blood vessels to get these things to all parts of the body. Because there is more area to pump the blood too, the heart has to work harder. This can cause left ventricular hypertrophy which is thickening of the wall of the heart's left ventricle. When this wall is thickened, the heart can not work as efficiently stressing the heart. Blood vessels also thicken making them less elastic. Both of these changes can contribute to coronary heart disease.



Fat cells also produce hormones such as estrogen. Premenopausal women get estrogen from ovaries, postmenopausal women primarily get estrogen from fat tissue. Estrogen is linked to breast and endometrial cancer. Breast cancer in postmenopausal women is increased 30% in overweight women and 50% in obese women.



Although not yet proven, scientists theorize that the hormones and other chemical messengers the fat tissue produces causes inflammation which interferes with insulin receptors on cells. When this happens, sugar in the blood cannot get into the cells. It is forced to stay in the blood. This leads to high blood sugar and a diabetes diagnosis.


Studies have shown that you can stop or reverse some of these processes by losing as little as 5% of your body weight. As Cathy pointed out in her talk, she knew she was at a higher risk for diabetes due to her weight but until it actually happened, she was not very concerned about it. Unforetunately, it can happen to anyone. I hope these blogs will help you lose the weight you want to lose.

Cheat Days - Should You Have Them?

Cheat days - those days during a diet when you can eat whatever you want. They are incorporated into diet plans. Some people swear by them and say they could not stick to a diet without them. Others say cheat days are the downfall of a diet. So, which is it? Are cheat days good or bad?

Going on a "diet" typically involves restricting your food intake particularly the foods you really love but know are not good for you. One solution: Allow yourself to eat what every you want one or two days per week. While this may make those restricted days more tolerable, you may be sabotaging your weight loss.

As I have mentioned several times in this blog, weight loss involves burning more calories than you take in. For a healthy rate of weight loss (1 pound per week = 3,500 calories), you need to cut your daily caloric intake by 500 calories per day for a total reduction of 3,500 calories per week (500 calories per day x 7 days). If you decide to follow the diet Monday - Friday but eat whatever you want on the weekends, you will need to either plan for a slower weight loss or decrease your calories Monday - Friday by 700 calories per day to maintain the same rate of weight loss.

For this example, we will assume that you decide to cut your calories Monday - Friday by 700 calories per day which should lead to 1 pound per week weight loss. On Saturday and Sunday, you splurge on all your favorite foods that you deny yourself during the week. By the end of the weekend, you discover that you ate 500 calories each day above the calorie level you used to eat before the diet. By the end of the week, you only have a net decrease of 2,500 calories (3,500 calories during the week less the extra 1,000 calories you ate one the weekend). With all the hard work you put in during the week, do you really want to undo it all in two days?

One study in the International Journal of Obesity found that people who eat a similar number of calories over seven days are 50 percent more likely to maintain their weight than those who diet more strictly on weekdays.

How do you lose weight but not have cheat days? Instead of restricting the types of food you are eating, try restricting portion size. Think of calories like money. Each month you have an income in which you have to pay your mortgage, electricity, phone food, etc. Each day, you have so many calories that you can eat to maintain weight or lose weight. You can choose to spend a small portion of those calories on your favorite food. For example, instead of super sized fries, order a small size for a smaller portion of your calories. Better yet, order a side salad. If you can't live without soda, try just one per day and make sure you budget for it in your calories for the day. Personally, I can't live without chocolate. I know I will have 50-100 calories of chocolate every day after lunch. To do this, I know that I have to not spend those calories elsewhere such as on butter for my vegetables.

If cheat day work for you and still allow you to lose weight, keep doing them. Some people like or need the rigidity of following a very strict diet. Just be careful to not overdo those days. If everything in moderation works for you, do it. Weight loss is a very personal endeavor and what works for one may not work for another. Figure out what works best for you. This may take some experimenting but in the end will be worth it.