Sleep and Weight Loss
Did you know that one of the best, most efficient ways to keep your weight down is to make sure that you are getting enough sleep? It may sound too simple to be true, but it is a proven fact that when you get more rest, it is much easier to maintain a healthy weight.
What Effect Does Sleep Have on Your Weight?
When you don’t get enough sleep, it dramatically changes certain hormone levels in your body. Among those hormones are the ones that regulate and control your eating habits: leptin and ghrelin.
Leptin’s job, first of all, is to signal to your brain when you are full; ghrelin is in charge of stimulating your appetite. Together, leptin and ghrelin keep each other in check and make sure that you get the nutrients and calories that you need each day without overeating.
However, studies have shown that when you don’t sleep enough each night, your ghrelin and leptin levels increase and decrease, respectively. Higher ghrelin counts mean an over-active appetite, and lower leptin levels result in never feeling truly full from your food, making it much more difficult for you to keep from increasing your daily calorie count as you try to appease your suddenly spiked hunger.
In a 2004 study conducted at Stanford University, researchers proved that there really is a correlation between the amount of sleep you get and your weight by examining the sleep and weight patterns of over 1,000 subjects. These subjects kept sleep diaries, documenting their amounts of sleep each night, and the researchers took regular blood samples to document their insulin, glucose, and lipid levels.
At the end of the study, researchers discovered that the participants who got fewer than eight hours of sleep each night had an increased BMI, with higher ghrelin levels and lower leptin levels than the subjects who got eight or more hours of sleep.
What are Some Easy Ways to Improve Your Sleep Cycle?
One way you can help yourself sleep better and maintain a healthy weight is to keep from eating foods that are high in protein right before you go to bed. If you must eat some sort of bedtime snack, pick something that has carbohydrates.
Carbs stimulate your body’s release of insulin, which helps to clear out your bloodstream of the amino acids that can clash with the sleep-inducing amino acid, tryptophan. When your insulin makes more room for tryptophan, the amino acid can better find its way to your brain and help you fall asleep more quickly.
You should also make sure to designate your bed and bedroom as places just for nighttime and naps. If you spend your time doing work, watching movies, and eating on your bed, your mind will get trained to be ready to do daytime, awake activities there. If you keep those things for your front room instead, you will be able to train yourself to prepare to sleep once you hit the mattress.
What Other Things Can Make Weight Loss Easier?
You can’t depend solely on a good night’s sleep to help you lose weight; you also need to be eating right, exercising regularly, and perhaps getting some extra help with a fat burner. One fat burner currently on the market is Lipozene, a supplement about which you can find out more by reading this Lipozene review.
Reap the Benefits of Good Sleep
Clearly sleep and weight loss go hand in hand–if you get more rest, you will be able to regulate your eating habits much more easily and feel more satiated with smaller portions. You will also have more energy, feel happier, and be healthier in general!