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WELLNESS
5 Ways Sleep Can Help You Lose Weight
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If you’re trying to lose weight, the amount of quality sleep you get may be just as important as your diet and exercise. It is often said, there are three pillars of health: sleep, diet, and exercise.
If you're trying to lose weight, there are certain things you likely should do. You give up on sugar and junk foods in favor of eating more vegetables, lean protein and complex carbohydrates. Hit the gym regularly and try to move as much as possible throughout the day. What you may not realize, however, is that getting enough quality sleep is a very important part of losing weight.
The recommended sleep duration for most adults is eight to nine hours a night, but many people often sleep for less than this.
Many studies show that sleeping less than the recommended amount is often linked to having greater body fat, increased risk of obesity, and can also influence how easily you lose weight on a calorie controlled diet.
Sleep may be the missing factor for many people who are struggling to lose weight. Now let’s get started, here are 5 ways getting enough sleep can help you lose weight.
1. Poor Sleep Can Cause You to Make Poor Food Choices
Poor sleep is commonly linked to weight gain because it makes you more likely to make poor food choices and grab high calorie energy fixer- uppers.
Have you ever had a conversation like this? "I really shouldn't have that extra piece of cake… then again, one slice won't really hurt, right?"
As it turns out, sleep deprivation is a little like being drunk. You just don't have the mental clarity to make good complex decisions, specifically with regards to the foods you eat—or foods you want to avoid.
If you’re feeling sluggish because of a lack of sleep, you might turn to food for the energy to power through the day, in addition, when you are sleep-deprived, people often tend to gravitate towards certain types of foods – usually those that give a rush of energy. These foods are more likely to be simple carbohydrates, or higher in sugar or fat.
Donuts, sugary muffins, chocolate bars, and potato chips, while these types of foods may provide an initial rush, they will leave us with a crash later and eventually lead to weight gain.
Sleeping helps refresh your mind and your decision-making processes. Exhaustion reduces your mental clarity and judgment, so you’re more likely to reach for that donut in the office when you would normally have a piece of fruit.
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2. Lack of Sleep Ruins Gym Time
Not getting enough sleep can impact your time at the gym. A lack of sleep can cause daytime fatigue and sluggishness, making you less likely and less motivated to exercise. In addition, you’re more likely to get tired easier and earlier during physical activity.
Lack of sleep may decrease your exercise motivation, quantity and intensity. If you're someone who doesn't particularly enjoy exercise or hitting the gym, not prioritizing sleep will make something you don't particularly enjoy almost unbearable. When you're suffering from sleep deprivation everything you do feels more challenging, and more specifically your workouts.
Not to mention, if you’re exhausted, you’re much more likely to skip the gym. Even if you do make it out, you won’t have the energy to train to the best of your ability. A decent night’s sleep will help keep you energized and motivated through your workout. Proper sleep is vital to help you perform optimally during training sessions, boost endurance, and enhance mindset for the best results.
It can be difficult to get enough sleep every night. Between work, family, responsibilities, planning and cooking healthy meals and consistent exercise, sleep can get put on the backburner. But if you really want to be healthy and lose weight, make your nightly shuteye a priority.
3. Lack of Sleep Affects Muscle Growth
No matter what your fitness goals are, having some muscle on your body is important, as having muscle helps you burn fat and stay young.
A lack of sleep makes it harder for your body to recover from exercise by slowing down the production of human growth hormone—your natural source of anti-aging and fat-burning that also facilitates recovery. Human growth hormone is one of the primary compounds that allows muscles to recover and grow.
Your body and muscles need time to repair while you sleep so you can push yourself the next day. You produce the most growth hormone while you're sleeping, which helps burn fat as well as repair and build muscles so you can increase strength and lose weight.
And since the more muscle you have, the higher your metabolism, not sleeping enough could be affecting how effectively your body burns through calories. You won’t have as much muscle if you’re not getting enough sleep.
4. Lack of Sleep Makes You stressed out and Gain Weight
Not getting enough sleep also makes you more stressed out which in turn makes it more difficult for you to control your appetite.
Cortisol is the stress hormone that is frequently associated with fat gain. When you don't sleep enough, your body will produce more of this stress hormone that activates the reward centers in your brain that make you want food.
Many Studies show exactly how sleep loss creates an internal battle that makes it almost impossible to lose weight
Cortisol activates the reward centers in your brain and makes you crave food which means that you’ll need to eat more food than you normally would in order to feel satisfied.
At the same time, the loss of sleep causes your body to produce a combination or hormones that shut down the areas of your brain that leave you feeling satisfied after a meal.
This means you feel hungry all the time—even if you just ate a big meal and creating a vicious cycle. Not enough sleep means you're always hungry, reaching for bigger portions, and desiring every type of food that is bad for you—and you don't have the proper brain functioning to tell yourself, "No!"
5. Lack of Sleep Hampers Your Metabolism and Contributes to Weight Gain
So it’s not so much that if you sleep, you’ll lose weight, but it is that too little sleep hampers your metabolism and contributes to weight gain.
If you are chronically sleep-deprived and consume more high-calorie foods, it's likely those calories will be deposited as fat around your middle.
Poor sleep can cause cells to become insulin resistant. Insulin is a hormone needed to change sugar, starches, and other food into energy and so sleep deprivation can make your metabolism become groggy.
Here’s why that’s bad, when your body doesn't respond properly to insulin, your body has trouble processing fats from your bloodstream, so it ends up storing them as fat.
Countering an occasional sleepless night with sweets the next day won't necessarily set you back too far, but you may gain weight if sleep deprivation and overeating become your daily routine.
The Bottom Line
The connection between sleep and weight gain is hard to ignore. Along with eating right and exercising, getting quality sleep is an important part of weight maintenance. Establishing healthy sleep habits can help your body maintain a healthy weight.
Good sleep hygiene isn't just for people who are overweight or working on weight loss - it's important for everyone.
Getting a more quality sleep can help you lose weight, but it’s also going to help you focus better: It is going to help your mood, help your irritability, make you a safer driver, and more productive at work.
While there's no hard number that applies to all people, a good rule of thumb is to receive between seven and nine hours of sleep per night, and to make sure that one poor night of sleep isn't followed up with a few more.
It might not seem like much, but it could make all the difference and mean more than any other health decision you make.
The argument about how the best way is to achieve a healthy weight always revolves around what you eat and getting lots of exercise. If you want to look better, the most common suggestion is to eat less and move more.
But it's not always that simple. Between living your life, working, and exercising, you're forgetting to get enough quality sleep. Or maybe, more importantly, you don't realize that sleep is the key to being rewarded for your diet and fitness efforts. If you aren't getting good sleep, it's hard to eat well and it's hard to exercise. And the same is true the other way around, they're all related.
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