In my last article I explained how you train your body inadvertently by the choices you make. With work, social and family expectations constantly demanding more and more of you, I am wondering if you have trained your body to push through the physiological need for more sleep, by eating?
Translating “SLEEP” into “I am hungry”
is not like translating tangerine into orange
You don’t fix an overheated motor by putting more gas in it. Your car’s dashboard has one gauge for fuel levels and another for the temperature. Your body has a gauge for each of these too.
Somewhere between childhood and adulthood the ability to know the difference between sleepy and hungry gets blurry. It is crucial to discern when you are hungry (under fueled) versus when you are tired (over heated). They are opposite sides of the same coin. A VERY BIG COIN. You feel good, behave better, are happier, kinder and make better choices, including food choices, when your body is properly slept. When you feel good, behave better, are happier and eating right you sleep better!
How often are you feeding an overheated body?
Are you being pulled under by the quicksand of dishonest non-foods? Dishonest non-foods play tricks on your mind, natural body function, chemistry and hormones because they are not natural. Non-foods are a quick fix to tired states because they trick your body by stressing and confusing it to power right over the physiological need for sleep.
You are likely to crave dishonest non-foods
when in truth your body needs sleep
Each time you are reaching for a dishonest non-food you might want to ask if you are really reaching for a quick fix for a sleep deprived body state. How about a power nap instead? Easy comfortable permanent weight loss requires knowing the difference between hungry and tired.
You don’t trick your body without consequences
The more you give your body honest foods from Mother Nature’s Soil Kitchen, the more you will prefer them. Your body responds more clearly to honest natural foods because your body is nature too. The one thing I hear over and over again from people who swap to honest foods is how much better they feel. You are likely to notice that eating honest foods makes it more obvious when your body is hungry versus tired.
If you are tired then spend 30 minutes sleeping rather than 30 minutes eating
Taking a nap is not being a wimp – it is being a hero for your body
When I moved to France I was surprised to realize the standard lunch break was 2 hours. Having come from the American eat at your desk as quickly as possible style lunch, I truly believed the two hour mandatory lunch was such a waste of time while making my days so much longer. After my request for a 30-60 minute lunch was denied I decided to make the best of the two hours since it was a big chunk of time each day. I scouted out my options and decided to have picnics at a small park on the canal. I put a chair, blanket, alarm clock and pillow in my car and to maximize the two hours I always brought my own lunch. Sometimes I read, walked, fed the ducks, but often I would take a nap. I didn’t yell at my body for being tired I just said “okay let’s take a nap”. That nap had massive benefits. My day flowed more casually, my work quality and efficiency skyrocketed, careless mistakes went down and I was reliably my calmer kinder self.
Adding 30-60 minutes of sleep per night is sometimes the only thing needed to lose weight. Why? A properly slept body makes better choices and doesn’t need to rely on quick fix addiction type choices that sabotage weight loss efforts.
Fueling a hungry body and sleeping a tired one as needed will have you living your life from your best kinder centered self. The benefits will touch every area of your life and exponentially improve your well-being. What is worse than a sleepy cranky toddler? A sleepy cranky adult.
My dad reminds me from time to time “The Enemy of Good, is Better”
There is this notion in America that bigger, faster, higher, longer, pricier, sweeter and more is better. American advertising gave birth to these ideals simply to increase sales and profits. Their goal is not about improving your life, it is about improving THEIR success. The blowback of this bigger, faster, higher, longer, more for less is better is a high pressure, high stakes, high performance GO GO GO society. Improvements and higher standards are not a bad thing, but it is when you are being pushed around by expectations and demands that your physiological body can’t keep up with.
Needing sleep is not a weakness
Nature and animals don’t apologize for sleeping – they sleep
Losing weight is not as easy nor as simple as eating less and moving more. Weight loss is comfortable, easy and becomes permanent when you know what to look for and make adjustments. Give me a call if you feel like your efforts are not yielding a comfortable path for you to follow. I put what you know about yourself with what I know and together we carve you a unique path to successful permanent outcomes that work for you and your lifestyle.
Blessings,
Krista
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