Top 10 Weight Loss Tips For Moms - Tip 6 Get More Sleep

Lose weight while you sleep. It sounds too good to be true right? I don't know about you, but if I am up really late, I get hungry and eat. And if I'm up really early and my day is longer, which means I eat way more on those days than I do on days where I get a solid 7-8 hours of sleep. And, as a mother to 5 children, I know all about broken sleep, and the affects it can have on your body.

Sleep affects our weight in a few ways: 1) It gives us more energy. 2) It helps us to eat less. 3) It helps keep fat genes suppressed, and my favourite, 4) It helps keep belly fat off!

1) It give us more energy: I know when I've had sleepless night from crying, hungry babies, that the next day my energy levels are so low. When your energy is low is it hard to even do the basics, which makes getting your workout in sometimes impossible. And when you need more energy, you turn to more food to get that energy. Adjust your sleeping so that you are getting 7-9 hours so that you can get your workout in. And exercise helps establish good sleeping patterns, so they go hand-in-hand.

2) It helps us to eat less: When we don't get enough sleep our leptin levels lowers, which in turn raises our levels of ghrelin. So, what does this mean in terms of weight gain? Leptin help our bodies realize that they are full, and ghrelin stimulates our appetite. Therefore, when we are sleep deprived we are more likely to overeat. The first 3 months of all my children's lives I felt this big time. There were days I just couldn't seem to eat enough to feel full. As soon as my sleeping pattern returned to normal, this problem was went away.

3) It helps keep fat genes suppressed: Research has shown that women who slept 7-9 hours a night had much lower body fat percent than those who slept less than 7 hours. And, interestingly, those who slept longer than 9 hours were prone to obesity. Just like my mom says, "Moderation. Too much of anything isn't good for you either."

4) It helps keep belly fat off: If you read my Weight Loss Tip #5 where I explained how stress affects your waistline this one goes hand-in-hand. Sleepless nights can cause stress and anxiety, which puts weight on your waist.

Make sure you are getting at least 7 hours of "good" fairly uninterrupted sleep. There are still 4 more tips, so don't go to sleep just yet!

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Top 10 Weight Loss Tips For Moms - Tip 5 Lower Your Stress to Cut Gut Fat

Do you have stress in your life? Stupid question, right? Well, do you know that stress plays a MAJOR role on weight? Now you like stress even more, I'm sure. It's true, the more worldy woes you have the more it can weigh on you. When we are stressed, our bodies release hormones, one of these hormones includes adrenalin, which gives us instant energy, along with CORTISOL.

Cortisol is a stress hormone. It is released when we are under any form of stress, physical, emotional, or mental. In today's world our stress levels are higher than even. Most households need to have both parents working, and that is IF there are two parents in the same household. Stress from kids, work, and most common, finances, it's enough to keep the release of cortisol constant in us. But we are not supposed to LIVE LIKE THIS! For our ancestors, cortisol would set in when they felt an immediate threat or danger, like an animal chasing them, or if their lives were in immediate danger, this is also sometimes referred to as "fight or flight". When this happens cortisol is released, which speeds up our heart rate, and slows our digestion down in order to give our body the burst of energy and strength it needs to survive. But this is only supposed to happen when we are under serious threat or danger. But now cortisol is released in our bodies when we are in traffic, or during typical stressful work days.

For so many of us we are in a constant state of fight or flight, but it isn't supposed to be like this!

Chronic stress and cortisol is a major contributor to your weight gain. It affects your metabolism, your blood sugar levels, cravings, and emotional eating. It also plays a major role in where you store fat, and fat caused from stress likes to grow your waistline.

Too much stress causes your metabolism to slow down. So, even if you're eating the same amount of food or healthy food you always do, but you are super stressed, too much cortisol will slow your metabolism way down.

Too much stress can affect your blood sugar levels, causing you to feel low on energy and fell moody.

Stress affect your cravings and emotional eating, but you know this already. You know, you have an exhausting, or emotional day, and you turn to the pantry for cookies, or chips, or both, or the ice cream in the freezer. What you don't turn to in times of stress is broccoli. You crave unhealthy, processed foods, which are not good for you.

And the most frustrating one is how stress affects WHERE your body stores fat ~ in your abdominal area, your gut and love handles!

So next time you are feeling stressed, which may be any minute now, take 3 deep breaths, in and out, in and out, in and out, and ask yourself, "Is this worth carrying weight around my belly?"

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Top 10 Weight Loss Tips for Moms - Tip 4 Stop Blaming Your Genetics!

Do you blame your "imperfections" on your mother or grandmother? Come on, admit it. As a child I remember hearing my mother say, "I hate my knees. I got them from Nanna." Subsequently, I grew up hating my knees and thinking, "Well, I inherited these "ugly" knees." When I met my husband one of the first things he told me was that he finds my knees very sexy.

I'm sure at some point in your life you knew or know someone who could eat pretty much whatever they want and not gain an ounce. Talk about frustrating, especially if you are spending hours in the gym and not seeing any changes to your body. Unfortunately, a very small number of the people are like this. I'm not one of them. So, where does that leave us, the other 99% of the population, whose body's do not take kindly to processed and manufactured foods?

While genetics are responsible for your hair and eye colour, I don't think it is fair to entirely blame weight to our genetics. The human race has been around for thousands of years, and we have NEVER seen obesity like we see it now. Never has the rate of obesity been what it is today. And our nation's weight issues are only gaining momentum. And obesity is no longer just a problem in North America, our European friends have been introduced to processed and fast food now too, and their obesity rate is on the rise as well.

So, while genetics do affect many areas of our lives, I can tell you that it doesn't matter what your genetics are, you can lose weight and achieve the body you want. I have literally seen hundreds, even into thousands of people transform their lives and achieve and KEEP the bodies they want. We weren't designed to be overweight, but we have been offered addictive "food" by manufacturers and we have forgotten what and how we were meant to eat. Processed food is full of additives, chemicals, (MSG) and harmful food dyes, and these are things our bodies don't know what to do with. And we are left feeling hungry, not satisfied, and gross after eating this "food". Not to mention carrying additional, unhealthy body fat.

Now why don't you can give your mother a call and apologize to her if you have weight issues and you've blamed it on your genetics. After all, it's not completely her fault, now is it?

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Top 10 Weight Loss Tips for Moms - Tip 3 Eat Real Food!

While it may seem obvious what real food is, I continue to realize that this is not true for many people. I was an educator for 10 years and I was shocked at the "food" some parents sent with their kids to school with. A dozen cookies, a bag of chips and a slice of processed cheese on white bread with a sugary drink to wash it all down. Try teaching kids after they have eaten a lunch like this. In a kindergarten classroom I would always encourage the kids to bring fruits and vegetables in their lunches. One little girl would always come to school with those gusher type gummies labeled "Fruit Gushers". She was always embarrassed that she never had any fruit and when she asked her mother in front of me one day, her mother looked confused and said, "Hunny, that is fruit." Wow, how did this happen? My grandparents raised their kids mainly from their garden!

What most people eat can't even be considered or qualify as food. And the "food" we have in abundance in grocery stores is nothing like the food our grandmothers ate. We have a simple but very effective rule in our house: I always ask my children, "How many ingredients does it have?" IE - a banana only has banana in it, apple, cucumber, carrots, chicken, eggs etc. Of course we can put 'one ingredient' foods together to make soups, stews, salads and even cookies! But the so-called food within the isles of mainstream grocery stores should be more appropriately called "products." Most of the "food" found in the isles is genetically modified, full of chemicals, artificial and natural flavours (aka MSG) and dangerous food dyes. Our bodies were never meant to eat like this!!!

We live in a very busy time where the average person receives more information in one day than our ancestors received in a year! So food manufacturers jumped on this bandwagon to "help" the busy working mother. But all that happened was their wallets got fatter and so did we. Not to mention the spike in childhood diabetes, ADHD and Autism. There is no doubt that food and environment play a huge role in these health issues.

But we can change this. We can eat real food. When we choose to eat real, unprocessed, non-manufactured food, our bodies respond the way they were meant to, and as a result, our bodies will be lean and healthy.

So check your dinner tonight, how many "one-word" ingredients are on your table?

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Top 10 Weight Loss Tips for Moms - Tip 2 Don't Count Calories, Count Nutrients

I'm sure you have heard people say that weight-loss is all about the amount of calories we take in versus the amount of calories we burn off during each day? For years people have been saying weight-loss is a simple, calories in calories out equation. The "thinking" goes like this: If you eat less and exercise more you will HAVE TO create a caloric efficiency, and then you will lose weight and be healthy. But if (and when) this doesn't work it is because you LACK WILL POWER with the calorie in calorie out diet. Does this sound familiar? If this really worked I wouldn't have spent the last decade researching and experimenting with different theories on weight loss.

I did quickly find out though in my early days of doing the "D" word (dieting!) countless times that when I restricted my caloric intake 2 things happened. First, the scale told me that I had lost weight, and very quickly. And secondly, when I began eating again another thing always happened, I always gained the weight back, and sometimes even MORE! While it appeared that I had lost weight, I had actually just lost water and on longer, more extreme calorie restricted diets, I lost muscle, and this is a very bad thing, lean muscle is attractive and healthy for women, and it looks good!

So, why doesn't this simple theory of calories in versus calories out actually work, it seems very logical. This is because our bodies are far too complex for this simple formula. We have evolved and survived over thousands of years. Our ancestors experienced times of famine, and during these times with little to no food their bodies did what they are designed to do in order to keep them alive, they turned themselves into FAT STORING MACHINES! And we have evolved from our ancestors, and therefore our bodies do the exact same thing when we restrict our calories. Our bodies think we are entering into famine and our bodies go into fat storing mode.

When you eat less calories your body actually go into starvation mode, which SLOWS DOWN YOUR METABOLISM and CAUSES YOU TO GAIN WEIGHT! And I don't need to point out that this is the exact opposite of what you are trying to do. Not to mention the misery you experience when you are on a low calorie diet. So don't count calories, they are not worth your time. Count nutrients instead.

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Top 10 Weight Loss Tips for Moms - Tip 1 - Why Diet's Don't Work

Have you ever put a time frame on yourself for your weight loss? A deadline you had that you wanted to be thinner for?

Most women give themselves deadlines for upcoming events, like a wedding, reunion or summer! This is when we get really "serious" about losing weight and we are prepared to do anything to get rid of the weight, and FAST!

This is why so many diet products and programmes make unrealistic claims like, "Lose 10 pounds in 10 days," or "Lose 20 pounds in 20 days", because they know that you have given yourself a deadline.

I've fallen for these gimmicks. They may all make a claim that they are "different", but what they all have in common is that the WEIGHT COMES BACK!

For most get-thin-quick diets, you typically lose a lot of water inside your body. This water loss is temporary so it looks like you have lost weight, and the scale may even "tell" you that you have. But shortly after you are finished with the "magical diet" the weight comes back, and sometimes even more weight comes back.

If it is pounds you want to lose, what needs to happen is that you have to ELIMINATE YOUR FAT CELLS.

Here are 5 steps you can take to right now to help eliminate your fat cells:

Step 1: Get a diet notebook. Write down and track what you eat. Being aware of what you eat on a daily basis will help you make healthier choices.

Step 2: Avoid processed foods. Especially processed carbohydrates, such as white pastas, cereals and white breads. Instead, eat fruits and vegetables.

Step 3: Eat healthy fats. These good fats are found in almonds, walnuts, avocados, pumpkin seeds, flax oil and olive oil. Avoid saturated and trans fats which are found in fried food, pastries, cookies, packaged and processed foods.

Step 4: Eat lean, hormone free protein, such as poultry and fish, instead of more fatty meats like pork, lamb, duck, and red meats. Our muscles need protein to stay lean and help aid in tissue repair and a healthy immune system.

Step 5: Exercise. Do strength training and high intensity interval training 5 days a week. And remember, it's not as much about the amount of time you put into exercising as it is the intensity of your workouts. Intensity is a vital part to losing weight, especially belly fat.

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