Tricks to Lose Weight Faster
There are lots of ways to lose weight. Some are very effective, others less. And some of them are plain wrong, because they may even lead to health damage.
The best weight management techniques involve healthy eating, avoiding processed foods and sugary drinks, eating fiber rich foods, mindful eating and physical activity like strength training and cardio workouts.
Most of the techniques to help you lose weight are well known. That is not what this piece is about. This piece is about some of the tricky life hacks, backed by scientific evidence and medically reviewed to help boost your weight loss plan. Therefore, here is a piece containing some less common but still interesting techniques to help you lose weight faster - boosting your metabolism by manipulating light, eating time and sleep.
A Good Night's Sleep and Weight Loss
Skimping on sleep to save time? Researchers found that might backfire. Sleep deprivation has been associated with obesity, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and even increased appetite. (1-8). Remember finals week? Yeah. As few as 5 days of poor sleep can cause excess eating and weight gain. (9). When I finished residency (a sleep depriving 3 years) I changed nothing about my nutrition, but had a weight loss of 5 pounds. Interesting, isn’t it? Maybe there is something to this after all.
“As few as 5 days of insufficient sleep can cause excess eating and weight gain”
– Rachel Markwald
So it turns out paying attention to light can help me achieve a healthy weight?
Lights, Camera…. Inaction?
In 1802, Humphry Davy invented the first electric light. It wasn’t a very practical light, but in the coming decades, many scientists experimented and by the late 1870s, Thomas Edison produced the first commercially practical light bulb. Fast forward to the 21st century. Most homes are wired with electricity, street lights illuminate the night 24 hours a day. If I want to learn about volcanoes at 3 in the morning, I can. Yes, society now functions on a 24 hour schedule. It might seem unusual that the history of the light bulb would be a topic of conversation in a nutrition and weight loss blog, but it turns out that light affects our metabolism and our fat storage …. a lot. The humble lightbulb has consequences much more significant than we initially understood. Bear with me while I take you through some scientific studies on sleep, metabolism and long periods of light and their impact on weight loss. It not just the foods you eat, that determine your metabolism, all lifestyle factors play a role.
A Healthy Breakfast to Lose Weight Fast?
Many diet plans start with a high protein breakfast as part of the eating plan. Everybody has heard the phrase breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
I don’t know how I feel about this statement, but I do know that breakfast is the least likely meal to stick with you -- as stored fat that is.
There is solid peer-reviewed studies in mice that when mice are fed during their normal sleeping time, they gain significantly more weight (10) despite having the same amount of activity and total calories consumed. The problem is, even though they had the same calorie intake, they were not able to burn calories as efficiently and those extra calories were stored as extra body weight.
As you can imagine, recruiting humans for similar studies is hard, but we do have some medically reviewed studies, mostly observational, of same effect. People:
Gain weight when food is only available in the evening (11)
Have a higher body weight if they tend to eat after 8PM (12-13)
Have more weight loss on a diet if they eat early in the day compared to late (14)
Burn more calories when digesting food eaten in the morning compared to night (11)
So it seems like an eating plan that includes eating more calories in the morning time would promote weight loss better than eating the same foods at night.
Is my job keeping me from losing weight?
So if people who lose weight quickly eat more often during the morning time, and people who work at night significantly decrease their calories during the day that would imply that shift work would have deleterious effects on weight. And it does. Higher blood sugar, higher blood pressure and higher body weight comes with nightshifts.
Ok, so what if you don’t eat at night, but you are up at night?
Great question. This too has been studied… presuming you are exposed to light at night. Increases in nocturnal illumination parallel increases in obesity and metabolic syndrome worldwide (16). Light at night has been associated with earlier puberty in birds (17), impaired learning and memory, increased belly fat and metabolic changes in rodents, (18-20).
For people, exposure of just a small amount of light at night can make a difference in weight. Exposure to just 3 lux is associated with obesity, increased waist circumference, elevated triglycerides and cholesterol levels. (21) (For reference, 320 lux is the minimum required light level in offices recommended by OSHA). People with suppressed melatonin have an increased risk of cancer, obesity, type two diabetes and mood disorders (22-26), and, unfortunately, it’s pretty easy to suppress melatonin by exposure to light at night (27) Blue wavelengths of light are more suppressive than the long red wavelengths of light.
So, I know what you are thinking, and I agree.
This information is not very convenient.
I wouldn’t advise living off the grid to maximize your metabolism (unless that’s your thing). I would try to make reasonable changes when you can. Here are my general suggestions. See if they will work for your family.
Mostly stop eating after 8PM
Turn off excess lights starting around 8PM
When able, avoid screens (TV, phones, tablets, computers) staring around 8PM, or at least switch them to “night mode” which filters out some of the blue wavelength of light
Turn off nightlights (or change bulbs to melatonin preserving bulbs that filter out the blue wavelengths of light and produce a red/yellow light)
Use curtains if you have street lamps bringing light into your room.
Do your best to get enough sleep.
These hacks can help, but eating habits are important too.
Eating a balanced diet filled with whole foods, healthy fats, frequent fruits and vegetables (avoiding fruit juice) whole grains like brown rice (and avoiding highly refined carbs) drink water or milk or tea without added sugar and avoiding empty calories like soda and sports drinks. If you are working to set your family up for healthy eating and lifestyle habits, check out my other blog How to Lose weight as a kid fast or exercise tips on Famous Parenting.
Scientific References
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