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Are you overweight because you're simply tired?


Walsingham

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Story

 

I remember prepping a psychology experiment (many years ago) in which previous test subjects had shown the main impact of tiredness was getting peckish.

 

Thoughts.

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"It wasn't lies. It was just... bull****"."

             -Elwood Blues

 

tarna's dead; processing... complete. Disappointed by Universe. RIP Hades/Sand/etc. Here's hoping your next alt has a harp.

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If you have a deeper look into sleep deprivation, it's associated with ****ing up so many things in your body and mind (both short- and long-term). One of the main things sleep seems to do is regenerate cellular energy levels (adenosine triphosphate/ATP units). Not a process you want to skimp out on.

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Gee, if only I could stabilise my sleep to stop bouncing those odd weeks of insomnia....

"Cuius testiculos habeas, habeas cardia et cerebellum."

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Can't speak for anyone else, but every time my weight bounces upwards it's because I'm bored, or watching too much TV (not gaming/internet, TV/films). Something about those two states of mind make me eat more. But I'm not a stress or depressed eater (I eat less when in those conditions). I've had insomnia off and on for years, and for me personally, it doesn't = gained more weight during insomniac periods. However, it is true that the longer I'm awake, the more time my belly has to tell me "it's been 5-6 hours since you gave me anything to digest, hey" so in a 24 hr. timespan you do tend to eat an extra meal a day, perhaps. Still, that didn't make me gain weight per se, since I was also awake and doing other stuff/burning more calories than I do while just sleeping.

 

So while there may be some chemical stuff going on there re: sleep that may have an effect on some people in a lab, I have the feeling that there's a lot more to moderate-severe weight gain than that.

“Things are as they are. Looking out into the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.” – Alan Watts
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Of course, I'm not gaining huge amounts of weight.. but then I have rather bad habit of getting into a set of one actual "proper" meal for dinner, no breakfast, and some kind of light snack rather then lunch.. along with pints and pints of tea drunk throughout the day..

"Cuius testiculos habeas, habeas cardia et cerebellum."

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Well, there is that. :) But then I was considering that, and one hardly feels like hopping about alll over the landscape if you're really overdrawn at the sleep bank.

"It wasn't lies. It was just... bull****"."

             -Elwood Blues

 

tarna's dead; processing... complete. Disappointed by Universe. RIP Hades/Sand/etc. Here's hoping your next alt has a harp.

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The worst part about exercising is that it's mindnumbingly boring.

“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice.” - Albert Einstein

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I apparently can't be overweight. Can't put on weight no matter what, despite the fact that I eat more than anyone I know. I got to 80* a few months back, but it didn't last - my metabolism is apparently hard-coded to keep me at around 76*.

 

As for tiredness and getting fat, meh. The only time I've been consistently tired (sleep deprivation + strenuous physical activity) I actually lost weight, down to ~65*.

 

Interesting read, nonetheless, if a bit scarce on details. How did they compensate for the boredom of the "Big Brother" environment, if at all? What sort of exercise were they allowed? What sort of food was made available to them?

 

 

The worst part about exercising is that it's mindnumbingly boring.

Working out is boring as ****. Absolutely can't do it without music. It's a good time to get my thoughts ordered, though.

 

 

* take that, you non-SI users!

- When he is best, he is a little worse than a man, and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast.

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"I'm overweight 'cause I eat too much."

 

End of story.

 

Thank you captain obvious..

 

First paragraph of the link.

 

"On average volunteers consumed 549 more calories when they were deprived of an hour and 20 minutes' sleep a night - the equivalent of having a hamburger and chips."

Fortune favors the bald.

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I was wondering about more details as well. If "forced" to say awake longer than you generally wanted to, that could induce some feeling of restlessness or boredom, leading to reaching for more snacks. But also depends what you're doing.

 

Obviously, they didn't spend that extra hour 20 minutes running on a treadmill. I dunno...doesn't seem like a very good test. Perhaps people with more "natural" insomnia (rather than forced awakeness because you're trying to study etc) don't have such rises and falls in hormone levels when deprived of sleep.

“Things are as they are. Looking out into the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.” – Alan Watts
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There is also an increased risk of cancer in people who work night shifts.

 

First hit of a google

 

http://www.msnbc.msn...ed-cancer-risk/

Is there anything that doesn't give you cancer nowadays?

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I'd say the answer to that question is kind of like the answer to "who's the sucker in this poker game?"*

 

*If you can't tell, it's you. ;)

village_idiot.gif

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The worst part about exercising is that it's mindnumbingly boring.

 

I've never fully understood that stance because there are so many different ways to exercise. Find something that works for you. I burn a ton of calories playing hockey, for example, and I don't consider that boring at all.

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I got round that by listening to stories whle exercising, or exercising with friends.

"It wasn't lies. It was just... bull****"."

             -Elwood Blues

 

tarna's dead; processing... complete. Disappointed by Universe. RIP Hades/Sand/etc. Here's hoping your next alt has a harp.

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If you dislike sports and most anything else that actually requires a lot of sustained physical activity, it's all boring and tedious. I don't think there's ever been a "physical activity" that I found at all entertaining for more than a brief moment or three. It was always a means to an end (bicycling, walking/backpacking to get somewhere cool), not something I enjoyed for the sake of itself. Well, I do like dancing, but I don't like crowds/strangers.

 

Taking nature walks with a camera is nice, but it's not exactly much exercise when I'm stopping every 3 minutes to snap photos for 5. :D

“Things are as they are. Looking out into the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.” – Alan Watts
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  • 2 weeks later...

I got round that by listening to stories whle exercising, or exercising with friends.

 

Sadly I can't talk and exercise. I end up sitting on the equipment or slowing my walk and thinking more about the conversation than what I'm doing...

I cannot - yet I must. How do you calculate that? At what point on the graph do "must" and "cannot" meet? Yet I must - but I cannot! ~ Ro-Man

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Sadly I can't talk and exercise. I end up sitting on the equipment or slowing my walk and thinking more about the conversation than what I'm doing...

Same here. A book on tape might be heard but not absorbed. I mean, I like casual walks with friends/family but exercise doesn't work. Music is about the only thing that works for me while exercising.

“Things are as they are. Looking out into the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.” – Alan Watts
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Personally, I've gained and lost weight. I've been fat and thin. I like to eat and enjoy pretty much all food and drink, except for beer, but only because it gives me massive headaches for some reason. Harder liquor seems to be fine.

 

I don't enjoy participating in many sports, because personality wise I'm more of a loner and not very competitive so I can't seem to get motivated to chase after a ball/puck/whatever. I like watching, though that's more because I'm with friends usually eating and drinking.

 

The best exercise for me is weightlifting. It's something I do by myself which fits my personality. I enjoy the physical and mental component to it. For example it I am squatting heavy, I have to convince myself mentally that I can do it before I get under the bar. Most importantly, it keeps my diet in check because in order to progress in my lifting I have to eat right.

 

So yeah, finding some exercise that fits your mentality is important.

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