Sleep and body weight:  what’s the connection?

Eating and sleeping are usually thought of as mutually exclusive activities – you generally either do one or the other.  But I’ve met plenty of people who get up from a sound sleep in the middle of the night and eat.  And it’s not just a glass of milk or a couple of crackers – some get up and make themselves a big sandwich, heat up leftovers, or throw a frozen pizza in the oven.  Another client told me she often woke up in the morning to find dirty dishes in her kitchen sink – which wouldn’t be particularly alarming, except that she lived by herself and had no recollection of having eaten.  She finally had to install a lock on the kitchen door to prevent herself from ‘sleep-eating’. Read more »

We make more than 250 decisions about food every single day. Every time you open the refrigerator, watch a TV commercial, eye a billboard, or observe a friend or co-worker eating – in every instance, whether you’re aware of it or not, you’re making a decision to eat or not to eat. But what sways us to choose or not to choose? Is it taste or hunger? Cost or convenience? How or where we were raised? With so many factors that influence our food choices, it’s a wonder that we ever eat consistently at all.

For most of us, by the time we’ve reached adulthood, we’ve established a pretty basic inventory of foods that we eat day in and day out. Sure, you might arrange them differently into a variety of meals and snacks, or mix it up occasionally at a restaurant – but I’ll bet if I asked you what you typically eat, you could probably give me a fairly good picture of your usual diet.

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