Set Your Body Clock To Lose Weight
Increasing your metabolic rate
Your brain, the center of your being is also the keeper of your time clock. I’m not talking about the biological, baby producing clock; I’m referring to metabolic functions. The clock that keeps your body temperature, your blood pressure and other hormone related activities working at the correct time. Your body clock works on sunlight. Your body clock starts the hormones working that will give you the clues to wake up. This is one reason that people who are totally blind have sleep problems and other time related issues .Other issues may include mental activities, mood swings, stress, heart functions, body immune and hunger.
Keeping your body in ‘clock working order’ is very important. Getting the proper amount of sleep at a routine time, eating a good diet and keeping stress to a minimum all contribute to your metabolic rate. Cortisol is one of the hormones that helps regulate your body clock. Cortisol helps us meet the stress that is bomb barding us daily. Oren Froy, PhD. at Israel’s Hebrew University of Jerusalem states, “The more the body’s cortisol levels peak throughout the day, the more fat tissue is stored and the more the clock is disrupted, the more cortisol peaks. Then there’s more fat tissue, and so it goes on and on.” When you disrupt the working clock, the cortisol level tries to get the clock back on track by releasing more cortisol. The increase in the cortisol causes an increase in the fat storage that causes weight gain.
Cortisol imbalance is one of the causes of beer belly and the inability to reduce belly fat.
When you eat potato, bread, pasta and other complex carbohydrates, you cause blood sugar levels to spike. Your body will burn the sugar not the fat. No matter how good your diet is, no matter how many calories you cut, you will not reduce belly fat. The reason: your body is fighting the bomb barding of environment toxins, highly processed food, sugary foods, stress and wrong diet choices. This all adds up to weight gain and an increase in cortisol levels that eventually leads to fat that settles around your mid section.
Disrupting your working clock is very serious. Harvard University researchers did a study on sleep deficit and found that short sleep duration caused an average weight gain of 33 pounds. Dr Froy found that eating fatty foods disrupted the clocks and stopped a fat burning enzyme. Researchers at Northwestern University in Illinois found that eating late in the evening caused a gain of 2 ½ times more weight in six weeks than those who ate around the same time everyday.
Reduce Fat, Reduce Stress
Cortisol is a steroid hormone that aids in fat, protein and carbohydrate metabolism. This hormone helps us meet daily stress by converting protein into energy, releasing glycogen and counteracting inflammation. A short term rise in cortisol is okay, but high levels for longer periods of time can tear down muscle tissues, weaken bones, impair the immune system, and lead to weight gain around the belly area.
Cortisol levels are highest in the morning. This is normal and it sets your clock for the next 24 hours. A good cycle will taper off at a steady rate and remain level. When the cortisol levels rise during the day, the clock is disrupted. Higher levels in the evening contribute to overeating.
You can start now to help keep cortisol level and your body clock synchronized. Establishing and maintaining a routine may all that is needed to start losing belly fat. First try to schedule meals at the same time everyday. Get the same amount of sleep every night. Go to bed and rise about the same time during the week and on weekends.
Eat carbohydrates in the morning. This makes you feel fuller, have more energy and keep your moods level. Have your largest meal at noon and lighter meal in evenings. Your metabolic rate is about 6 percent higher in the afternoon. The evening meal should be higher in protein. This will lower your desirer to snack. Reduce fat in your diet. Dr. Froy says high fat diets can disrupt the body-clock, “This disrupts hormone secretion and can lead to weight gain.” Saturated fat like, bacon, cheeseburgers and butter are the worse. A better choice would be: fish, avocados, nuts and olive oil.
Do all you can to keep your body clock in good working order.
