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Over the years, people have tried some crazy (and dangerous) things in the name of weight loss. Cotton balls are just one of the latest.

In the cotton ball diet, those in search of a smaller waistline eat cotton balls soaked in juice to curb their appetite and dramatically cut their daily calorie intake. But eating cotton balls isn’t just unappetizing. It’s potentially deadly.

Eating cotton balls — or any non-food item — in an effort to lose weight isn’t a diet. It’s disordered eating. And like eating disorders such as bulimia, anorexia, and bingeing, the cotton ball diet comes with serious potential health risks.

Eating disorders typically stem from body dissatisfaction. Nearly half of people treated for eating disorders are also living with mood disorders such as depression, 

So how are models sustaining an energy level if they’re simply eating cotton balls dipped in orange juice? 

My best guess is that they’re sustaining on caffeine and/or other supplements, but I can’t imagine they can sustain very long. Your blood pressure is so low and out of whack when you’re not eating, so they probably eat a few cotton balls and the orange juice spikes their energy, and then they’ll crash. They can’t be eating more than 500-800 calories a day on a diet like this.

What are some of the possible side effects from a cotton ball diet?

Well, there’s got to be malnutrition going on, and it’s likely that if they keep a diet like this up, their bodies will go into starvation mode, meaning their metabolism will slow down and their body will process any fat and protein available, which leads to becoming dangerously skinny. Plus, because cotton is not meant to be digested, it could be harmful to their oesophagus and intestinal tract. There’s likely to be constipation, which they might be combating with laxatives. I would absolutely not recommend this to anyone.

Research indicates that just one day of eating foods low in fiber but high in unhealthy saturated fat and sugar can result in reduced duration of slow-wave sleep, often referred to as “deep sleep,” which is the stage of sleep that restores physical and mental energy plus much more.

Healthy eating leads to healthy sleeping.

A diet low in fiber and high in saturated fats could take a toll on your sleep by decreasing the amount of deep, slow-wave sleep that you get during the night. Meanwhile, eating too much sugar could result in more midnight wake-ups. On the other hand, a healthy balanced diet that’s high in fiber and low in added sugars could help you to drift off faster, and log as many as two extra hours of sleep a week.

Diet-induced heartburn can keep you up at night.

Anyone who has suffered from gastroesophageal reflux (GERD) knows just how miserable it can be to go to bed with heartburn. In fact, people with nighttime heartburn are more likely to have sleep problems and disorders like insomnia, sleep apnea, restless legs syndrome, and daytime sleepiness. Luckily, the right diet can make a difference. Steer clear of large fried or high-fat meals, spicy foods, alcohol, and soda—especially close to bedtime. Your sleep—and your waistline—will thank you.

The best diet for sleep is also good for your total health.

For your best night’s sleep, strive to eat a balanced diet that emphasizes fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat proteins that are rich in B vitamins, like fish, poultry, meat, eggs, and dairy. B vitamins may help to regulate melatonin, a hormone that regulates your sleep cycles.

Losing weight can lead to better sleep

Eating well is the first step to losing weight. And that can pay dividends when it comes to your sleep. A reduction in body fat, especially around your midsection, makes you less likely to struggle with sleep problems like sleep apnea, restlessness, or insomnia, and less likely to fight sleepiness during the day.

Before reaching for the sleeping pills, try looking around your kitchen. These nutritionist-backed approaches may help you fall — and stay — asleep

1. Walnuts contain their own form of melatonin, a hormone that helps our bodies regulate a healthy sleep-wake cycle. Try snacking on a small handful about 20 minutes before bed to help you relax and reach a deeper state of restful sleep.

2. When we fall asleep, levels of serotonin rise and adrenaline levels fall. Serotonin, the relaxing hormone, is partly made from the amino acid tryptophan, which is activated by vitamin B6. Vitamin B6 is found in a wide variety of foods such fortified breakfast cereals, potatoes, fish, chicken, bananas, beans, peanut butter, and many vegetables

3. Bananas help fight insomnia in three powerful ways. They are packed with magnesium, serotonin, and melatonin, which all help promote sleep in their own way. Melatonin helps to naturally regulate your body’s sleep-wake cycle.

4. Basil plant actually contains sedative properties, which can help you fall asleep and stay asleep. And as a bonus, it not only helps promote sleep, but is great for reducing indigestion, which is itself a major sleep-interruptor.

5. Food high in magnesium. Up your intake of foods like seeds, nuts and leafy greens for a better night’s sleep, since research has shown that even a slight lack of this mineral can prevent your brain from ‘turning off’ at night. A supplementation of 500mg of magnesium appears to improve insomnia in the elderly — in food terms, that’s about ½ cup of pumpkin seeds and 1 cup of cooked leafy greens daily.”

6. Enjoying a small and nutritious snack could help you fall and stay asleep. “Getting in a small snack an hour before bed helps to stabilize blood sugars. When blood sugar is low, or even too high, we become anxious and irritable, which will not promote sleep. Make sure you steer clear of anything greasy, fried, caffeinated or sugar-laden. Have an apple with a tablespoon of nut butter or half a banana with four crushed walnuts.

7. Milk may help control melatonin production since it is a great source of calcium, a mineral that plays a role in the regulation of melatonin in the body.Milk is also rich in the amino acid tryptophan which has a calming effect on the body.

• You can add a pinch of nutmeg into your milk
•  You can also add some crushed almonds(blanched is better), a pinch of nutmeg, and  a pinch of cardamom.

8. A mug of chamomile tea.
9. A bowlful of cherries can also help send you off to good sleep. Cherries are one of the few natural foods that contain melatonin. Melatonin is a hormone produced by the pineal gland in the brain. 

10. Add one teaspoon of Brahmi and Ashwagandha powder in two glasses of water. Boil them and then reduce it to one glass and drink it daily at least once for best results.

Active compounds of licorice can also help you find your way out of the sleep woes, as per Ayurveda. Have one teaspoon of licorice root powder with a glass of cold milk every morning on an empty stomach.

I have a sweet tooth. I look at brownie with dollop of ice-cream and I forget immediately how much sugar and refined flour it will have that can probably be half of the calories that I need in full day. Dietary guidelines advise that people limit added sugars to less than 10% of their daily calorie intake. For a daily intake of 2,000 calories, added sugar should account for fewer than 200 calories. World Health Organization (WHO) advised that people eat half this amount, with no more than 5% of their daily calories coming from added sugar. For a diet of 2,000 calories per day, this would amount to 100 calories, or 6 tsp, at the most. One must limit our sugar consumption as it may result in below issues:

• Tooth decay: very common in kids especially when they too much of sugar. Sugar feeds bacteria that live in the mouth. When bacteria digest the sugar, they create acid as a waste product. This acid can erode tooth enamel, leading to holes or cavities in the teeth.
• Weight Gain and Obesity: Rates of obesity are rising worldwide and added sugar, especially from sugar-sweetened beverages, is thought to be one of the main culprits. Sugary beverages don’t curb your hunger, making it easy to quickly consume a high number of liquid calories. This can lead to weight gain. Drinking a lot of sugar-sweetened beverages is linked to an increased amount of visceral fat, a kind of deep belly fat associated with conditions like diabetes and heart disease
• Acne: Sugary foods quickly spike blood sugar and insulin levels, causing increased androgen secretion, oil production and inflammation, all of which play a role in acne development.
• Heart Attack: Evidence suggests that high-sugar diets can lead to obesity, inflammation and high triglyceride, blood sugar and blood pressure levels — all risk factors for heart disease. Additionally, consuming too much sugar, especially from sugar-sweetened drinks, has been linked to atherosclerosis, a disease characterized by fatty, artery-clogging deposits.
• Type-2 Diabetes: prolonged high-sugar consumption drives resistance to insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas that regulates blood sugar levels. Insulin resistance causes blood sugar levels to rise and strongly increases your risk of diabetes.
• This can also lead to higher risk of cancer, can lead to depression, fatty liver and fasten skin ageing process.

So many times, we hear someone say people with high rate of metabolism are blessed because they can eat better and their body consume the energy that is produced. Metabolism is the process your body uses to get or make energy from the food you eat. Food is made up of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. Chemicals in your digestive system break the food parts down into glucose(sugar) and acids, your body’s fuel. Your body can use this fuel right away, or it can store the energy in your body tissues, such as your liver, muscles, and body fat.

A metabolic disorder occurs when abnormal chemical reactions in your body disrupt this process. When this happens, you might have too much of some substances or too little of other ones that you need to stay healthy. There are different groups of disorders. Some affect the breakdown of amino acids, carbohydrates, or lipids. Another group, mitochondrial diseases, affects the parts of the cells that produce the energy. You can develop a metabolic disorder when some organs, such as your liver or pancreas, become diseased or do not function normally. Metabolic disorders can be caused because of below reasons:

• Metabolic Pathways: Food is broken down in a series of steps by cellular enzymes (proteins that catalyse the conversion of compounds called substrates) into products with a different biochemical structure. These products then become the substrate for the next enzyme in a metabolic pathway. If an enzyme is missing or has diminished activity, the pathway becomes blocked, and the formation of the final product is deficient, resulting in disease. Low activity of an enzyme may result in the subsequent accumulation of the enzyme’s substrate, which may be toxic at high levels. 
• Genetic Mutations: The molecular blueprint for nearly all enzymes, structural proteins, cellular transport proteins, and other constituents that are responsible for carrying out the complex reactions involved in metabolism is stored as deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) in the nucleus of the cell. A small amount of DNA of critical importance to metabolism also is contained in cellular organelles called mitochondria. DNA is organized into smaller units, termed genes, which direct the production of specific proteins or enzymes. When a gene is mutated in such a way as to produce a defective enzyme with diminished or absent function, it can lead to metabolic disorder.
• Inheritance: Sometimes children gets metabolic disorder from their parents. There are higher chances of metabolic disorder being transferred from father or mother to their offspring. Child can show this disorder from beginning or may show symptoms later in life, depending on which kind of disorder it is.

What one should be aware of there body language. Body does show us sign and symptoms if something is not right with it. One has to observe and read these signs and consult doctor. One should not ignore them for long till they become diseases.