There are 2 major industries heavily invested in ensuring you fail to lose weight and certainly don’t want you to remain thin if you do manage it.
2 Reasons Why The Odds Are Stacked Against You Ever Losing Weight
Author: Sam
? My Hopeless Day Of Surfing With No Waves
What the hell were we doing? Here I was, lying on my kite board, on a totally flat ocean, freezing my ass off, attempting to surf.
What happens if you do no exercise for 3 years
I’d done no exercise for 3 years….In that time I’d lost weight and gained back my 6 pack, I hadn’t been ill the entire time, I had loads more energy and I was in a constant good mood.
Stuck Indoors & Worried About Snacking Too Much?
At the moment I know a lot of people are pretty worried about the effect being stuck indoors is going to have on their waistline. Let’s face it all this sitting around and boredom snacking isn’t going to make us any slimmer. There is however a more insidious threat to our waistlines which no one’s really talking about… This is, for many of us, one of the most stressful times of our lives. You may or may not be working, but you’ll certainly be worried about loved ones and what the future holds in general. Now stress itself is one of the biggest contributors to weight gain there is. On a simple (and slightly oversimplified) biological level, stress raises cortisol levels, which raises blood sugar which causes you to store more food as fat. So we want to avoid it as much as possible if we are to stay trim. Now, most of us, when we think of stress in this time will think about the financial stress, the psychological stress caused by the uncertainty of our situation… But stress comes in many forms. Being indoors itself is stressful to our system. Wifi, lack of sunlight, lack of contact with the earth, lack of nature, lack of forced temperature adaption, mould in our houses, social isolation, loneliness, lack of laughter and too much screen time all contribute to the underlying stress levels felt in the body, even if they are only subconsciously felt… And the body only has one response to stress: Dump cortisol, raise blood sugar and store fat… So anything we can do to lower stress levels in this time is going to do both our mental health and our waistlines the world of good. Luckily for us there are some things you can do right now, really simple things which will help you to control stress levels, feel better and have a positive impact on your waistline. SHOWERS Now I’m not for one minute suggesting that your not maintaining your daily hygiene but there is one thing you can do when you’re in the shower which can really help you reduce stress and boost your immune system at the same time (get your minds out of the gutter gents!). The benefits of cold water have been known for a while now. Cold water exposure leads to the creation of an increased amount of white blood cells, those internal warriors who protect you from viruses. But it also has a up regulating effect on our parasympathetic nervous system…that part of the nervous system which (quite literally in this case) chills us out and de stresses us. So at the end of your shower just turn the temperate all the way down for 30 seconds before you hop out. 30 seconds is enough to reap the benefits and I guarantee you’ll feel amazing afterwards. A word to the wise. The first few times you do this it may feel pretty unpleasant but the body reacts very quickly and within…
Keep engaged, productive and healthy (after 40) whilst you’re working from home.
At this time you must be wondering how you can keep yourself productive, engaged and healthy when working from home (and most likely watching way too much Netflix 😉 ) The sad fact is that for many people these latest developments will lead to a downturn in their health and an increase in waist size as they move less, eat more and lack stimulation and social contact. But it doesn’t have to be that way. For some people these next few weeks will be the opportunity they need to turn their life around. No where else could this be truer than the area of sleep. In the Western world we are chronically sleep deprived and it has a HUGE impact on our daily performance, our health and how much juice we get out of life. Now suddenly removed from the distractions of late nights at the office or later nights at the bar we finally have the chance to get our heads down and catch up on our full quota of sleep we’ve been missing for so long, BUT… Many people will emerge from this period actually sleeping worse… Will develop insomnia or some other awful sleep disorder, which may well impact their lives negatively for many years to come. Why? Our circadian rhythm, the natural cycle or internal clock within our bodies which tells us when to wake up and be energised and when to be tired and go to sleep is irrevocably linked to sunlight and the day night cycle. Being as we are now stuck indoors for most of the day with even less exposure to sunlight than usual the natural receptors which signal our bodies which hormones to release at what time to either wake up us or slow us down are going to struggle to realise when it is day and when it’s night. This will be compounded by the fact that most peoples natural daily rhythms will shift. A lot of us will lie in bed longer in the morning simply because we’re bored and have very little motivation to get up and get going. Wake up (and get up) time are huge signallers to our internal clock of what time it is and adjusting it further wrecks our circadian rhythm as another of the largest signallers governing our internal clock is thrown into chaos. So what can you do? 1) First thing in the morning open your door and just stand in the sunlight (preferably getting some on your skin) for 5 – 15 mins, with your eyes open, without sunglasses or sun cream. That will be enough to set the bodies internal clock and get the right hormones moving at the right time. 2) Make sure you get up at the same time every day. Wake up time is even more important that the time we go to bed. No matter what time you hit the hay, if you keep your wake up time consistent your internal clock will stick more tightly…
