Are You SAD About Winter Weight Gain?, Weight Loss : iPedia

As spring arrives many of us are left with a legacy from the short days and long nights of winter - a whole heap of extra pounds we could do without. And it's not all due to overeating during the festive season. It seems that whether we have lots of parties to attend or not, we are all programmed to eat more in winter.

It's all to do with our brain chemistry and especially the feel-good hormone we produce called serotonin. This hormone helps us feel calm, balanced and in control of our emotions and without it we start to feel down and depressed. But levels of this hormone drop in the population as a whole in winter and as the nights draw in and the amount of daylight we all receive diminishes, we are increasingly attracted to eat sweet and starchy

Of course, a sudden intake of sweet or starchy food causes blood sugar and then insulin levels to peak and we actually experience a rapid drop in blood sugar as insulin does its work and reduces the glucose level in the blood. As a result, we crave sweet and starchy food even more!

Whereas all of us experience this drop in serotonin levels to some degree, some 5 to 10% of the population - those who suffer from seasonal affective disorder (or SAD) - have an acute form of this problem and may gain anything up to 30lbs in weight each winter. It's also thought that some 25% of the population suffer a milder form of the disorder. SAD affects not only your eating patterns but leaves you feeling depressed, lethargic and sleepy - none of which contribute to anyone maintaining their summer shape.

It's all very well, knowing why we gain weight each winter, but what can you do about it?

During winter it's important to maintain a balanced diet, keeping blood sugar on an even keel, even if you find you need to eat a bit more than in the rest of the year. If you choose your carbohydrates in the form of whole grains and vegetables and always eat some lean protein with every meal or snack you will take yourself out of the high-low blood sugar trap and will gain less weight.

You will probably also find that with the arrival of spring, the pounds drop off more easily because you will be less attracted to heavy winter foods and are happier to eat salads, fresh vegetables and lean proteins so the start of spring is a great time to lose weight for summer.

Janice Elizabeth Small is a

Food is any substance, usually comprised primarily of carbohydrates, fats, and/or proteins, that can be consumed by animals (including humans) for nutrition or pleasure. Almost all foods are of plant or animal origin. Many cultures have a recognizable cuisine, a specific set of cooking traditions, preferences, and practices.
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health and wellness writer and slimming coach. She became interested in seasonal affective disorder after seeing the effects of winter on herself and her clients.

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Health is a term that refers to a combination of the absence of illness, the ability to cope with everyday activities, physical fitness, and high quality of life. In any organism, health can be said to be a "state of balance," or analogous to homeostasis, and it also implies good prospects for continued survival. Wellness is a term sometimes used to describe the psychological state of being healthy, but is most often used in the field of alternative medicine to describe one's state of being.
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information about Seasonal Affective Disorder symptoms, causes and treatment see her site at http://www.allaboutSAD.com

Information as a concept bears a diversity of meanings, from everyday usage to technical settings. Generally speaking, the concept of information is closely related to notions of constraint, communication, control, data, form, instruction, knowledge, meaning, mental stimulus, pattern, perception, and representation.

Many people speak about the Information Age as the advent of the Knowledge Age [citation needed] or knowledge society, the information society, and information technologies, and even though information science and computer
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Are You SAD About Winter Weight Gain?

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