Why Is It Hard To Lose Weight In Winter?

It’s easier to make healthy choices for food in the spring and summer. Because there are plenty of products in these seasons. Also, as the weather is clear and the days are long, you naturally feel motivated to go out and exercise. However, when the winter months come and cold weather starts, it is difficult to go outside and the product range is less. For this reason, it is more difficult to lose weight during the winter months, and many people even gain weight during the winter months. In this article, we will talk about why we cannot lose weight in winter and what we can do.

You Avoid the Open Air

As the weather gets colder in the winter months, you lose your motivation to move. Would you like to go out to the gym while sitting at home at night and if the weather is cold outside? You don’t go out as much as you go out before the weather gets colder. We go out of the house just to go to work on cold days. We do not attend the gym regularly in the summer months or do the exercises we do in the summer months. Still, there are things you can do. Try to move as much as possible. On not very cold days, you can walk your dog around. When you go out to buy bread, you can walk instead of running your car. Even if it is cold, these mini moves will burn more calories than sitting at home and watching TV series.

In addition, constantly standing in front of the TV at home makes people eat more. Studies show that those who watch TV for more than 120 minutes a day eat more fatty foods instead of vegetables and fruits. For this reason, you should try to go out, even for a short time. You can contract a friend and take walks. Contracting with your friend will motivate you. Try to drive less. Also, if you can, you can start one of the winter sports.

You Cannot Resist Invitation Meals

You eat quite a lot without realizing it at the invitations you go to or give on special occasions such as New Year’s Day and Valentine’s Day. You pay attention to what you eat throughout the week and try to eat low-calorie meals to avoid gaining weight. However, an invitation you go will be able to reset all your efforts. If you want to lose weight or not, you need to keep your calorie intake balanced on all days of the week. Therefore, the abundant calories you take on these special days will have more negative effects than you think. Of course, you won’t want to stay home all winter. You will find the tables full of delicious snacks on special occasions and invitations. However, you should remember that these snacks have empty calories.

Also, studies show that people tend to eat more in crowded settings. Of course, what you need to do is not just eat at home and not eat at parties. Only for such invitations, you can be careful to choose fruits and vegetables with high fiber content and foods with high protein content. In this way, you will be satisfied with much less food and will be able to get up by eating a small amount of the dessert that will come after the meal.

You Eat to Relax

During the winter, people tend to feel upset and have high stress levels. Factors such as indoor weather, increasing electricity bills due to cold, and your car’s struggle with snow can cause your business to accumulate. This increases your stress level. Research suggests that salt consumed can reduce the brain’s stress hormones (such as cortisol). Sugar also shows a similar effect. So it is not surprising that most of the foods we eat in stressful situations are calorie bombs. Therefore, when you are stressed and sad, you should try to stay away from eating. If you think you cannot do this, you should get a small amount of comforting food (sugary – salty) on your plates. While doing this, you can make some of your plates with protein and fiber foods and the other side with your favorite comforting foods.

Your mood deteriorates

In the winter, people enter a more depressive mood as the days are shorter and darker. The reason for the tiredness, restlessness and depressive mood you will feel in the winter months is due to seasonal emotional disorder. And this is bad news for your gut. When you feel tired, anxious or angry, you tend to relax by eating more. As we mentioned above, studies show that people in these situations tend to eat more sugary and starchy foods.

If food doesn’t help you feel better, you can go back to drinking to further improve your mood. This could mean an additional calorie load – for example, just two cans of beer can cost you 220 calories. If you do this every day, you’re getting 1,530 extra calories each week. Plus, research suggests that drinking actually makes you eat more fatty and salty foods.

Your Sleep Pattern is Disrupted

According to research conducted at the University of Pittsburgh, if your mood is disturbed, your sleep pattern is also impaired. We have to sleep more while struggling with seasonal affective disorders, and if we can’t, we will suffer from insomnia. Therefore, we have to spend more time in bed.

And even if you don’t deal with these ailments, you will feel that you need to sleep more during the winter months, although your actual need for sleep does not increase, according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Not getting enough sleep or spending too much time lying in bed all morning can change your body’s circadian rhythm, the internal clock that controls your body’s sleep cycles. Disruption of your sleep rhythm lowers the level of the satiating hormone leptin, which increases your appetite. Increasing your appetite will also cause you to gain extra weight.

Therefore, to get a better night’s sleep, you should heed the expert advice. Lying on the sofa all day will disrupt your sleep at night. For this reason, trying to move even in winter will allow you to have a more regular sleep schedule.

In summary; Due to the nature of the winter months, people tend to gain weight. To overcome this, you have to act at every opportunity and get vegetables with high fiber content and foods high in protein. Have healthy and stress-free days with you.