Diet, Exercise, Sleep and Stress: What Effects Weight More?
How many of us consistently eat poorly and try and run it off the following week; or binge eat junk food late one night and hit the gym hard the next day in a desperate attempt to burn it all off?
Only all of us!
But what if we are going about things all wrong? Deakin University, and many others are starting to explore the fact that diet has a higher role to play in weight gain and loss, than purely exercise alone.
Although exercise does help on many levels of health and fitness, think about it this way, one 100g chocolate bar or fast food item containing around 2200kj, can be eaten in under a minute, which could fuel a normal sedentary office worker or house bound person for around five hours, and would also take a 90-minute walk or 7km run to burn off!
Now if we look at other factors: many studies have found increases in stress contribute to weight gain too, and the same is true for sleep-deprived individuals.
People who do not have enough quality sleep tend to eat more processed and sugary foods, searching for that missing energy kick. While their metabolism and hormones are also changed from the lack of sleep, which, in turn, additionally effects their weight through inflammatory pathways.
So it seems, when talking about weight loss, long-term success is achieved by sticking to a combination of factors:
-Eat more wholefoods= foods which haven’t been changed or processed in any way.
-Eat more fresh vegetables.
-Decrease sweets and fast foods.
-Decrease portion size.
-Increase regular, moderate exercise.
-Decrease stress.
-Increase good quality sleep.
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