1) Sleeping is very important to achieve your new lifestyle/fitness goals. You really must sleep 7-9 hours a day to have a healthy body and controlled hormones. If you sleep less than this, the hormone “Ghrelin” will go out of control and you will feel more hungry than ever. Also stroke symptoms are highest for people who sleep less than six hours a night.
Remember this equation:
- MORE Sleep = LESS Hungry/tired/annoyed
Clocking too little shuteye can impair how your body processes sugar, and increase your blood pressure. Your body creates more Ghrelin, a hormone that makes you hungry, and less Leptin, the hormone that tells you when you are full. Also sleep restriction revs up your sympathetic nervous system (the part associated with stress, and the fight-or-flight response.)
2) What to do to have a good sleep?
Take a hot shower before bed, your body’s core temperature should drop a bit around bedtime to signal your body that it’s time to sleep. Also, don’t eat at night, even eating just some protein will keep you awake, it converts itself indirectly into the neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain and in high amounts can keep you awake. The final tip I can give you is to wake up at the same time every day and open the curtains as soon as you wake up
3) Water is very important. Sometimes you feel hungry, especially after exercise or at nights, but this is generally just dehydration, especially if you just ate, even more so if you ate protein (it dehydrates you more than the other macronutrients.) You have to drink a lot of water. You can try those waters with flavor, sweetened with sucralose or Stevia, remember no Aspartame! Avoid it like the plague.
You can prepare lemonade also, with some sweeteners instead of sugar.
Being well hydrated can make you increase your muscle contractile strength by 10-15% and increase your capacity for prolonged aerobic exercise by 20 to 30%. It also helps you to burn fat more efficiently and increase your muscular development.
4) Don’t drink sugar, it has tons of calories, instead use sweeteners. America is drinking itself to obesity. The high-fructose corn syrup in many soft drinks raises insulin levels, which can over time develop into diabetes. Studies also show that getting too much sugar lowers the body’s ability to produce endorphins. Low endorphins can lead to depression, and know that depression sucks the life out of our sex drive.