The three S's of a healthy lifestyle when losing weight

The three S's of a healthy lifestyle when losing weight

Previous articles have emphasized the importance of combining a healthy eating and exercise program with equally healthy lifestyle habits. The questions then are: What exactly are these lifestyle habits that need to be adopted for life and how do they impact weight loss? This article answers these two questions.

First, however, we must emphasize that the discussion will focus on three aspects of lifestyle - smoking, stress and sleep. Other aspects such as sexual and social behavior patterns are not discussed.

Smoke

If there is one benefit to smoking cigarettes, it is that the activity increases your metabolism. For smokers with a daily packing habit, the activity alone burns 250 calories. If you quit smoking, you'll likely gain up to 2 pounds of weight within 2 weeks of going cold turkey as your body has to deal with an additional 250 calories.

You then return to the smoking habit because you fear gaining more weight, as counterintuitive as it may sound. But you should stick to quitting the cigarette habit as your metabolism will balance itself out in about 2 months. Whatever extra pounds may be gained can be lost soon enough with proper diet and exercise.

Additionally, you need to consider the benefits of quitting smoking in terms of exercise and therefore weight loss. Your heart, arteries, and lungs become healthier, meaning you're physically able to perform more intense, more frequent, and longer cardio exercises than before.

stress

Yes, stress can cause weight gain, which is both physiologically and psychologically possible. First, the neuroendocrine system activates the fight or flight hormones that are present when we face stressful situations. These hormones are adrenaline, CRH (corticotropin releasing hormone) and cortisol. High levels of adrenaline and CRH reduce appetite, but the effect is temporary, while cortisol increases appetite. Combine the effects of these three hormones, and it's likely that you're suffering from food addiction.

Second, stress can lead to emotional eating, even when the stressors have not been present for a long time. For example, the deaths of loved ones in a tragic accident place extreme strain on the emotions of those left behind, who live with food as their primary source of earthly comfort. We have heard so many stories of people whose girth increases as they grieve.

Sleep

When it comes to sleep, its relationship to weight loss can be traced to two hormones – leptin and ghrelin. These two hormones work in a check-and-balance system that controls feelings of hunger (ghrelin) and fullness (leptin).

If you don't get enough sleep in a day, your leptin levels drop while your ghrelin levels rise. The result is that even after a heavy meal, you don't feel full and always seem hungry. This is the start of overeating and therefore weight gain.

So if you want to lose weight, we recommend you quit your cigarette habit, reduce your stress and get enough sleep - the hallmarks of a healthy lifestyle. There are many ways to achieve these goals, including exercise, eating healthy, and using relaxation techniques. But the most important thing is to start now.

Inspired by Ho Shiu