Sumo wrestlers have a recipe for getting fat.
The way that they do that is they eat a big meal and then they go to bed!
In a recent paper I read that looked at the thermogenic effect of food.
Thermogenic, meaning your body’s ability to produce heat from the food that you eat.
They found when you eat a big breakfast,
you produce twice as much heat,
from the thermogenic effect of that food,
as opposed to eating that food later on in the day.
So one way of controlling your weight,
is not eating late at night, and eating a good sized breakfast,
moderate lunch, maybe even skipping dinner.
For good quality sleep, you need to drop your core body temperature by about one degree celsius to fall asleep,
and then stay asleep throughout the night.
But if you have a large amount of food right before you go to bed,
that will be thermogenic,
so your core body temperature will actually start to increase because of having eaten.
Additionally, it would be even worse if the meal includes protein and anything that raises blood sugar just before bed.
In another study carried out by WHOOP data,
deep sleep in particular and total sleep time,
corresponded with a specific task in the study: Impulse control.
They found that the amount of overall sleep and deep sleep the subject got was correlated with the actual activity of the neurons in the brain!
The more sleep subjects got,
the more neuronal activity was observed in the brain and the more the brain was actively engaged in the participant’s willpower control.
They broke this down to the point that they could quantify an increased ability to resist eating a cookie at night when the study subjects had gotten more deep sleep.
“Brain data revealed a relationship of cognitive functioning with the WHOOP data that behaviour alone could not.”
So it’s a catch 22.
If you want that positive feedback loop,
you need to increase the amount of deep sleep you get.
And you decrease your deep sleep when you eat just before bed,
and/or use digital screens just before bed, such as your mobile, computer or TV.
In the 5 week online workshop I offer, we work through many such habits to improve areas of your physical and mental health including Sleep, Breathing, Nutrition, Movement & Mindset.
Improving your sleep quality and quantity will make a profound change to your life.
Go to www.tonywinyard.com/workshop for more information.
“Over a 14-year period, those sleeping 6 hours or less were 400 to 500% more likely to suffer one or more cardiac arrests than those sleeping more than 6 hours. I should note that in many of these studies, the relationship between short sleep and heart failure remains strong even after controlling for other known cardiac risk factors, such as smoking, physical activity, and body mass. A lack of sleep more than accomplishes its own, independent attack on the heart.”
