ALBANY — No one ever told the Claud family that slimming down could fatten their family's bank account, but Thursday night, that's exactly what happened.

The Clauds were named winner of the family category of the Albany-Savannah Weight Loss Challenge, a three-month initiative designed to promote healthy living through fundamental lifestyle changes.

Carlita Claud, who lost 29 1/2 pounds during the competition and 17 more after, said that the challenge improved the overall health of her family while bringing them into a closer family unit.

"I'm just so excited," Claud said. "It was very challenging but changed our lifestyles and manage to bring our family closer together in the process."

For their efforts, the Clauds were issued a $2,500 check.

Mayor Willie Adams, who initiated the challenge with Savannah Mayor Otis Johnson, said that losing weight was a great goal, but that ultimately, the contest was about helping people get healthy.

Watch Your Sleep, Watch Your Weight

Ah, sweet sleep. We seem to get too little. Now researchers are finding that too much or too little sleep could lead to unhealthy weight gain .

Researchers at Laval University in Quebec looked at 276 people for six years who were part of a larger Canadian study.�

Sleep duration was determined from a questionnaire and the participants were classified into three groups: short sleepers slept five to six hours a night, the average got seven to eight hours, and the long sleepers put in nine to 10 hours of sleep every night.

Some of the findings:

Over six years, short sleepers were 35 percent more likely to gain 11 pounds than average-duration sleepers.
Over the same time period, long sleepers were 25 percent more likely to gain 11 pounds�than average-duration sleepers.