The holidays are over, and you’re probably in carbohydrate hell.  I say this because you’ve probably eaten the rum cakes, the fruit cakes, the cookies, the mashed potatoes, and now you might be sporting a muffin top on your pants.  If you are like me, I can tell quickly when I have gained inches around my waist or weight by just putting on my clothes and noticing how tight they are. Oh, and let’s not talk about how all you want to do is sleep because you deprived yourself of this important night activity with all of the holiday preparations, shopping, parties and family gatherings.  There’s so much to address here, but I’m going to address the sleep deprivation that you might have experienced because I am a Chinese Medicine practitioner who really believes that we must follow nature’s rhythms and cycles to achieve perfect balance with our bodies, mind and spirit.

While everyone is out bustling around with holiday “stuff”, the days are short and when it gets dark… I don’t know about you, but I am ready to start turning down for the night.  Instead, much of the world is out shopping until 11 PM at night.  Yes the department stores are ruining our natural biorhythms.  As a matter of fact, Thanksgiving night, many of the stores open at 10 PM to start their black Friday specials and some of America is up shopping in the wee hours of the night to get those specials along with the employees who work those crazy swing shift hours.

I bring this up because SLEEP can be a huge factor in weight gain as a matter of fact, women who go through perimenopuase and menopause who experience insomnia are usually the ones who experience weight gain.  So you think there might be a correlation to sleep deprivation and weight gain?

In Chinese Medicine, Winter time is associated with what we call in the Five Element system – Water Element.  Water Element is an important element because it is associated with the organs – kidney and bladder.  I want to speak more from the kidney point of view as it is an important foundational organ in Chinese Medicine. It is said that your Kidney Jing Essence determines your longevity of life itself.  So what I have learned over the years of practicing and studying Chinese Medicine that you really need to take care of the Kidney chi.  Restore it as much as possible.  If we were to equate it to Western Medicine it rules the adrenals.  The adrenals are important because they kick in when we are experiencing fight or flight.  In today’s world, we experience it more often than we are conscious because of the American lifestyle and stress – mental, emotional and physical.  You see the adrenals pump out the hormone, cortisol.  More often today, you will see people who have too much cortisol in their blood stream which shows up as belly fat thus a precursor to diabetes, heart disease, sleep issues, digestive issues and memory issues.  In return, when cortisol lingers in the body, we tend to reach for the carbohydrates – the simple carbs (which is mostly around during the holidays).  See we are coming back full circle to carbohydrate hell.  When you are in carbohydrate hell you seem to feel sluggish and sleepy and let’s not mention that you need it because you have a sleep deficit from the holidays.  So I am going to suggest that you take care of yourself by enjoying some down time, more sleep (just like the bears who want to hibernate in the winter time), meditate, get yourself an authentic Asian bodywork session to help restore your kidney chi and get you back on track to feeling well rested, restored so that you are able to flourish when the springtime of growth and expansion comes.  You will find that when you take care of yourself and follow life’s natural biorhythms, the weight will release naturally and soon you will find yourself wanting to exercise as well because you will have the energy to do so.  Namaste and Happy Winter!