Health and Fitness

How Biological Rhythms Impact Our Psychology in the Fat Loss Journey

Five simple and effective habits to speed up the fat loss process

Introduction and Context

Many resources focus on the physical and biological aspects of fat loss. However, psychological aspects play a significant role in the fat loss journey. These aspects overlap and need to be integrated into preventing sarcopenic obesity.

Motivation, persistence, and consistency are critical success factors in the fat loss journey. Thus, a methodical project management mentality can effectively lose fat (quickly and sustainably).

Our habits feed these critical success factors. Therefore, our success is closely related to our routines and mindset. In other words, habits determine our outcomes. However, creating patterns requires awareness, commitment, and determination.

Even though habits look psychological from the outset, they have biological and neurological elements. For example, habitual actions can thicken neural pathways in the brain through consistent use.

Habits are made up of our neurochemistry. Neurochemicals in the brain help us gain new habits, practice, and sustain them.

Our brain and the body follow patterns and work on routines. Saving energy is a survival mechanism. Habitual practices save mental and physical energy.

Habit-building is a skill used in many disciplines, such as psychology, business, leadership, health sciences, and education.

The easiest way to build habits is to create micro-habits and link them to current routines. Improving our current patterns can be easier than creating new ones. Success feeds success.

According to a research paper titled “How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world” published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, it takes 66 days to build a habit. The range is between 18 to 254 days. So, we need to be patient for at least 18 days to make a habit for success.

The brain needs rewards to act to create habits. Dopamine is a potent neurotransmitter making a significant effect on habit-building. Motivation is a critical factor in achieving our goals.

Fat loss requires motivation. I shared my experience in creating motivation in this article titled How I Sustained My Motivation: And Produced Like a Boss in These Challenging Times.

I posted several articles about my fat loss journey. Some of them gained significant visibility and raised questions by readers. The purpose of this follow-up and supplementary post is to answer a frequently asked question.

Some readers ask which actions they need to make habits to achieve their fat loss goals. In this post, I touch on the importance of biological rhythms for habit building. Then, I introduce five simple habits that can contribute to and ease our fat loss journey.

Biological Rhythms for Habit Building

Biological rhythm disorders can have a significant impact on fat loss and fat gain. In addition, they determine our daily performance.

Biological rhythms include concepts such as circadian, diurnal, ultradian, infradian, circalunar, circannual. SCN (suprachiasmatic nucleus) in the hypothalamus regulate our autonomic nervous system.

These rhythms affect our appetite, hormone levels, body temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, urine production, alertness, mood, reaction times, and, more importantly, our sleep schedule.

Biological rhythms are broad topics and beyond the scope of my article. However, you can learn more about this topic from the scientific paper “Concepts in human biological rhythms” published in Dialogues Clinical Neuroscience.

The critical point here is awareness of our biological clocks and using them in our favor. For example, to take our appetite under control, we must obey the circadian rhythm. We use daytime for activities and nighttime for resting. This simple fact can help us build our habits quickly and naturally.

Five Simple Habits to Expedite Fat Loss

These habits are critical for the fat loss process because they contribute to hormonal balance. As mentioned in previous posts, fat loss has more to do with hormones than calories.

1 — Time for Feeding and Fasting Windows

We are either fed or fasted state at a time. Both states are necessary for a healthy metabolism. Creating a balance between a fed and fasted state requires a habit.

Eating all the time does not help with fat loss. Constant insulin release prevents fat burning.

The bottom line is timing our meals to tap into fat stores as an energy source. This is a well-known method to fat loss. Our habit should be eating at a specific window and remaining fasted for an allocated time.

An excellent example of this habit is intermittent fasting, such as eating in an eight-hour window and fasting for 16 hours.

2 — Scheduling for Movement

Creating energy balance requires spending energy. Movement is a helpful way of achieving this. However, when we have low energy or experience low mood, the exercise is the last thing we want to do.

Our primitive brain is designed to reserve energy and keep us alive. However, our body needs movement to survive. Therefore, unless we make a specific effort, our brain keeps us in a lazy mode.

Planning with intention and scheduling times for exercise can motivate us. Timing is important for effective workouts. For example, we usually have more energy in the earlier hours of the day. Some of us perform better afternoons.

3 — Developing a Consistent Sleep Routine

Sleep is essential for our survival. High quality and adequate sleep are necessary for thriving.

Sleep plays a critical role in balancing our metabolism and maintaining a healthy weight. Sleep deprivation prevents fat burning due to hormonal effects. For example, lack of sleep can cause increased stress hormones.

Developing a consistent sleep routine and adhering to this can keep our biological clocks function correctly.

4 — Creating Deliberate Down Times

While the movement is essential for the body to function, rest is vital as well. As we schedule our workouts, so should we plan the downtimes.

Downtimes are needed for managing stress. However, these downtimes may vary from person to person. For example, some of us enjoy lying down, doing gentle breathing exercises, having pleasant conversations with friends and family members, watching a movie, listening to music, or meditating.

As I mentioned in this story, a 15-minute daily meditation practice significantly contributed to rapid fat loss.

Since stress plays a critical role in metabolism, planning time for rest and making it a habit can be the easiest solution to stress management.

I shared my experience of planning fun to maintain my mental health in this article: Healing Mild Depression By Scheduling And Prioritizing Fun: We need to trick the mind by planning pleasure.

5 — Hiding Food Triggers

Smell and visual triggers can activate our senses to feel hungry. Sensual cues can challenge our willpower.

Proximity and visibility of food affect our appetite. For example, according to this study, “people ate an average of 2.2 more candies each day when they were visible, and 1.8 candies more when they were proximately placed on their desk vs. 2 m away”.

An effective habit can be preventing food smells and making unhealthy foods less visible and difficult to access. This habit can reduce hunger triggers and prevent us from emotional eating.

Conclusions

Habits make our lives easier and increase the chance to succeed in our goals.

I introduced these straightforward habits that helped me achieve my fat loss goals. They are common sense, simple, and doable.

These simple actions can be challenging to manage without making them habits. However, micro-habits can enhance more prominent practices in life. More importantly, a combination of these habits can make a significant impact on our fat loss journey.

The critical point for an effective fat loss regime is scheduling our meals, workouts, rest, fun, and sleep times. We can also create a habit of keeping intriguing foods away from visibility and prevent attractive food smells.

Thank you for reading my perspectives

I’d love to obtain your feedback on how you build and maintain your habits.

Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.

Besides increasing the hormonal intelligence of my readers and writing about neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, GABA, and acetylcholine, one of my goals as a writer is to raise awareness about the causes and risk factors of prevalent diseases that can lead to suffering and death for a large portion of the population.

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Metabolic Syndrome, Type II Diabetes, Fatty Liver Disease, Heart Disease, Strokes, Obesity, Liver Cancer, Autoimmune Disorders, Homocysteine, Lungs Health, Pancreas Health, Kidneys Health, NCDs, Infectious Diseases, Brain Health, Dementia, Depression, Brain Atrophy, Neonatal Disorders, Skin Health, Dental Health, Bone Health, Leaky Gut, Leaky Brain, Brain Fog, Chronic Inflammation, Insulin Resistance, Elevated Cortisol, Leptin Resistance, Anabolic Resistance, Cholesterol, High Triglycerides, Metabolic Disorders, Gastrointestinal Disorders, and Major Diseases.

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Boron, Urolithin, taurine, citrulline malate, biotin, lithium orotate, alpha-lipoic acid, n-acetyl-cysteine, acetyl-l-carnitine, CoQ10, PQQ, NADH, TMG, creatine, choline, digestive enzymes, magnesium, zinc, hydrolyzed collagen, nootropics, pure nicotine, activated charcoal, Vitamin B12, Vitamin B1, Vitamin D, Vitamin K2, Omega-3 Fatty Acids, N-Acetyl L-Tyrosine, and other nutrients to improve metabolism and mental health.

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