Night Owl?

What time do you go to bed?  Do you stay up too late?  Are you crazy do you know what time it is?  Yes, you there.  Yes you, the one staring blindly at the laptop screen.  Oh wait that’s me,  yes me.  I am a habitual night owl.  Between getting supper ready, spending some quality family time together, my husband’s work schedule, my “work at home” syndrome, our nightly fix of Criminal Minds and Chopped reruns and our chronic late night web surfing we never seem to get to bed before 2:00 or 2:30 a.m.  Of course at night as I rest my weary head down on my soft, comfy pillow I promise that I will start going to bed earlier the next night.  The next night comes and goes and the vicious cycle just keep going and going and going, just like that little pink bunny with the drum and the battery on his butt….er oh sorry….his back.  I know that this lack of sleep is not a good thing and so does my family, friends and co-workers who can attest to my sometimes cranky moods.

Since I have been taking Plexus Slim, I have done so well that I am trying to change little things, little unhealthy things, about my lifestyle that will make a big difference.  I literally did not change what I ate the first 2 months and lost 20 pounds and 10 – 12 inches.  I know how much my all-natural pink drink helps me but I can’t let it do all the hard work.  Well I can but let’s be real we all need a hand up sometimes not just a hand out.  Anyway one of the benefits of being a Plexus Slim Ambassador is the awesome support system of other Ambassadors and the Plexus Company support system.  We have tips and research that Plexus shares with us that has been preformed by industry leaders.

It is our most recent tip, Weight Loss Tip #13, that I would like to share with you today.

Eat Late, Gain Weight?

Study: People Who Eat After 8 p.m. Have Higher BMIs

By Brenda Goodman – WebMD Health News – Source

Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

June 14, 2011 (Minneapolis) — Checking a clock may be as helpful as counting calories when it comes to controlling body weight, a new study suggests.

The study shows that people who snack after 8 p.m. have higher body mass indexes (BMIs) than people who don’t nosh at night, even though they don’t eat significantly more total daily calories.

Previous studies in animals have found that even when calories are held steady, the timing of meals and sleep and exposure to light can impact metabolism and BMI.

The new study is one of the first to explore those relationships in humans.

Tracking Mealtimes, Sleep, and BMI

Researchers at Northwestern University in Chicago recruited 52 young and middle-aged adults.

Study participants wore sensors around their wrist that recorded movement and sleep times throughout the day for seven days.

They kept food diaries to track what, when, and how much they were eating.

Night owls tended to be late sleepers, with a midpoint of sleep that was after 5:30 a.m.

Late sleepers typically logged less sleep than normal sleepers. They also started their days later, a pattern that pushed back mealtimes throughout the day.

Additionally, they had higher BMIs than normal sleepers, ate more calories after 8 p.m., and ate fewer fruits and vegetables.

Researchers took into account factors that are known to increase the risk of weight gain, like age, sleep duration, and sleep timing.

“After we adjusted for all of those things, the one major thing that remained positive, that remained correlated, was eating after 8 p.m.,” says study researcher Phyllis Zee, MD, associate director of the Center for Sleep and Circadian Biology and a professor at Northwestern University’s Institute for Neuroscience in Chicago.

“Although those late sleepers were eating more calories, the number of calories between the normal sleepers and the late sleepers was not significantly different,” Zee tells WebMD.

The study was presented at the 2011 annual meeting of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society in Minneapolis.

Advice for Dieters

“Many of our patients struggle with night eating,” says Elisabetta Politi, RD, nutrition director at the Duke Diet and Fitness Center in Durham, N.C.

People who have trouble sleeping go for longer stretches of time between their dinnertime and their bedtime than people who sleep well. That often means they get hungry late at night. When they eat late, they’re not as hungry for breakfast in the morning.

“It creates a vicious cycle that I really feel promotes weight gain,” says Politi, who was not involved in the research.

Still, she says, there are many unanswered questions about why late eating may lead to weight gain.

In some European countries, for example, it is customary to eat dinner at later hours, which doesn’t seem to contribute to higher rates of obesity in those countries.

Still, she says, for people trying to lose weight, it probably wouldn’t hurt to curb nighttime eating. Though she says it needn’t be a rule that is militantly observed.

“It makes perfect sense to eat more when you are more physically active. You burn off the calories you eat,” Politi says, “But at the same time, we don’t want people to feel that if they eat something healthy at 10 p.m., it is going to lead to weight gain.”

This study was presented at a medical conference. The findings should be considered preliminary because they have not yet undergone the “peer review” process, in which outside experts scrutinize the data prior to publication in a medical journal.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ oh sorry please excuse me…I figured I would get in a little cat nap while you read.  Well now that I feel like I have shared some wisdom with the world I am going to take my own advice and hit the sheets.  I look forward to sharing more tips with you tomorrow.

Goodnight to all, and to all a goodnight. (Ya I know corny to the end)

Tammy