Burning Calories While You Sleep

While your body sleeps it’s performing many operations whether you realize it or not. This of course requires energy to be expended thus calories are being burned while you sleep. It’s important to understand how this works so that you can take the proper steps to maximize the amount of calories burned in your sleep.

First off here is how you can determine about how many calories on average you’re burning. During sleep, a person's weight and the number of hours he/she sleeps determine how many calories are burned.

Normally, a person burns about 0.42 calories for every pound in one hour of sleep. For instance, a 150 lb. person burns about 63 calories in one hour. If this person sleeps for eight hours total, he/she burns 504 calories for the whole duration. Just multiply the average rate with every pound of weight and number of hours of sleep. Therefore, the heavier a person is, as well as the longer a person sleeps, the more calories are burned.

Or you can just go to this link and the FitWatch calculator can do the math for ya J

http://www.fitwatch.com/phpscripts/viewexercise.php?descr=sleeping&mets=0.9

Here are some of the factors that contribute to the amount of calories burned during sleep:

MUSCLE MASS

Muscle mass impacts the rate of burning calories. Even while sleeping, a person with greater muscle mass burns more fats and sugar, compared to a person with average muscle mass, or worse, a person with more fats. A single pound of muscle consumes 50 calories for one whole day, while a pound of fat consumes only nine calories.

Metabolism also plays a key role in calorie burning. An active person requires more energy and burns more calories. On the other hand, a person with slower metabolism rate consumes less energy. It is during sleep that a person replenishes what he/she has lost during the day. Because an inactive person does not spend much energy during the day, there is not much energy to replenish when he/she sleeps.

BODY TEMPRATURE

You'll burn more calories --- several extra hundred each night --- while you sleep if you keep your body temperature cooler. When you bundle up in heavy blankets and wear thick pajamas, your body does not have to work to supply natural body heat. Sleeping with a cooler body temperature, sans excess blankets and cozy pajamas, makes your body's thermostat work to provide natural body heat.

LACK OF SLEEP

Substituting exercise for sleep time sounds like it would be an ideal way to lose weight, but it's actually not. Not getting at least seven hours of sleep each night can contribute to extra fat storage. When your body gets fewer than seven hours of sleep, hormones that increase your appetite kick into high gear. This will likely make you eat more than you would if well-rested. In addition to being hungry, your body will also crave carbohydrates and other high-calorie foods.

ALCOHOL

Avoid drinking alcoholic beverages before going to sleep. It slows down your metabolism rate.

So by increasing your awareness of these variables that effect the amount of calories burned in your sleep you can tip the scales in your favor to maximize your results!

Tracking Your Moods & Energy Levels

When going through a diet/exercise program tracking various data is important.

Like the old saying goes, “Knowledge is power.” You track things like your workouts, your diet, your water intake, your inches, and your weight… All of these allow both me and the client a wealth of information to draw from in deciding how to achieve our set goals.

Two often overlooked and very important variables to track are your moods and energy levels.

Your moods have an incredible impact on your ability to stick to a diet, and maintain an exercise routine. Your mood has an equally incredible impact on your energy levels. Think about it… Have you ever been really stressed, or sad, and been just busting with energy? Probably not. In turn, if you found a $100 bill on the street one morning, odds are you’re not going to be dragging yourself through the rest of that day.

A positive or negative mood could mean the difference between going to the gym or not.

At the end of a long stressful day many people find that working out is a great release, and a way to clear their mind so that they may enjoy the rest of the night without being bogged down by the day that is now over and behind them.

However…

Sometimes there are days that are just so bad that you can’t even fathom dragging yourself into the gym. There are nights you’re driving home from work, and just don’t have the energy after the rough day you had to cook that healthy meal you were supposed to, so you swing through a drive thru.

Your moods can either be the spit in your face, or the wind at your back. This is why it’s important to take note each day in your diet log as to what your mood was like, or your day at work, as well as your energy levels. You’ll find more often than not that your moods and energy levels will usually coincide with one another. The better your mood, the more energy… The worse your mood or higher stress levels, the less energy.

By tracking this information we can find trends in days that were harder either in training, diet, or both. This also gives you a unique insight into yourself, and your own world. If you notice a trend in stress, or unhappiness you would do well to take pause, examine what it is in your life causing it, and take action against it. Because diet/exercise aside, you deserve to be a happy person and enjoy each day of your life.

It’s all a matter of pushing through the tough days to gain momentum, and then maintain it. One thing my parents taught me was that the days you want to work out the least, or just want to skip it, are the days that matter the most. By doing anyway, by passing up on the drive thru, in SPITE of the crap life has thrown at you for the day is your way of spitting in the face of the negativity. It’s you showing life that you are in control of yourself, and will not let other people’s actions, or circumstances sway you from your personal goals at happiness.

If you can hang in there through the rough days you’ll get closer to your goal that much sooner, thus making you a happier person! You’re paying the price, and investing in your future happiness.

If you diet clean, and maintain a steady exercise regimen your mood will more often than not be a good one, and you’ll find you have more energy. This is why diet and exercise is more often than not, suggested for those battling depression.

So if this isn’t a habit you currently practice, I highly suggest it.

For those of my clients using the My Fitness Pal program, a good place to track these would be in your food notes. Then I’ll be able to see them. 

Nobody HAS To Drink

I hear often from clients how they have situations come up where they HAVE to drink.

Be it a business dinner, or meeting with old friends... Nobody HAS to drink. While not drinking may not be as fun while around others who are, you have to ask yourself what is more important: Those couple of drinks or your health/weight loss goals.

Some are embarrassed to not drink with their friends, or co-workers in that they don't want them to know that they are dieting or trying to lose weight. But this goes beyond simple weight loss. One of the greatest benefits to weight loss beyond the cosmetic, is that it allows your body to function healthier.So you could always cite health reasons, or just tell them it's none of their business why you're not drinking.

I'll write you a note to show them that says your trainer won't allow it if that's what it takes!

If you had diabetes, or were a recovering alcoholic you wouldn't drink. Regardless of the circumstances. You just wouldn't. Your weight loss has to become just as important of a reason for you to not drink.

Many argue that there are some benefits to some alcohol such as wine. This is true. However, if your goal is weight loss then the drawbacks far outweigh the benefits. Some look at the calorie content in liquor and more often than not it's less than 150 calories a drink... so no, nothing too over the top,. But 150 empty calories are 150 more you're going to have to work off. This may not sound like much, but it adds up quickly.

Remember, though you track your calories and various other nutritional information throughout each day, and start at zero with each new day, your body doesn't start each day at a zero count. It's still carrying calories and carbs from the day before, and the day before that. To create a calorie deficit in your body can take weeks of strict dieting to achieve. THAT'S when progressive weight loss occurs.

Little snacks, and alcoholic beverages are silent killers towards your weight loss goals as they seem like nothing at the time. The bottom line is that they do add up, and alcohol takes longer for your body to break down and process. It's man made, and your body isn't technically built for processing it.

I'm not saying you'll never drink again. But if you're paying for a personal trainer, dieting, and striving to achieve health and fitness goals then going a 6 week period without alcohol should be completely worth the effort, and social alienation.

When I prepare for a bodybuilding competition I go 12-14 weeks without 1 drop of alcohol, and there's a very good reason for it. Trust me, if it didn't matter and I could get away with it. I would.

So, I don't want to hear from any of my clients how they HAD to have a drink that night they went out.

Nobody... HAS to drink They CHOOSE to, and if you choose to while dieting, you are choosing to slow down your progress and force yourself to work harder than you'd otherwise have to.