An Important, Overlooked Component of Weight Loss

As I sit here trying to keep my eyes open at 5pm on a Tuesday and preparing for a shift of midnights, I started thinking about the importance of sleep. Sleep is one of life's behaviors that scientists are beginning to understand more and more about and how it affects of aspects of our lives. This blog post explores a few ways the right amount of sleep can be a contributing factor to weight loss.

There are many factors that contribue to weight loss - exercising regularly with both cardio and weight training, making healthy choices when it comes to food and knowing which foods to avoid, and GETTING ENOUGH SLEEP!

That's right, your sleeping habits could be the key to improving your weight loss success. If you are staying on top of your eating and exercise but are not seeing the results you want to expect to see, consider looking at your sleeping patterns.

Here are a few reasons why sleep is so important:

1. Sleep Controls Your Diet - According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 35% of people are sleep deprived. Coincidentally, or maybe not, that's a glaringly similar statistic to that of the rate of obesity - They may be related after all. Less than seven hours of sleep per night, the threshold for "not enough sleep", can have negative effects on dieting. In a study published by the Annals of Internal Medicine, where dieters were put on different sleep schedules, half of the weight lost by those getting enough sleep was fat. Those that were getting half the amount of sleep only lost half that amount - even though their diet was the same! On the same token, those that were not getting adequate amounts of sleep often felt hungrier, were less satisfied after meals, and lacked the energy to exercise. In summary, those that were on a sleep-deprived diet experienced a 55% reduction in fat loss compared to those that were well rested.

2. Poor Sleep Changes Your Fat Cells - The University of Chicago coined a term to describe what happens to your fat cells when you don't get enough sleep: "metabolic grogginess", something that happens after only four hours of poor sleep. This may not seem like a long period of time, but your fat cells would beg to differ. Your body's ability to properly use insulin becomes completely disrupted; insulin sensitivity drops more than 30%! What does this mean for your cells? Well, when insulin sensitivity is at normal levels, fat cells remove fatty acids and lipids from your blood, preventing storage. When the insulin senstivity falls, in circumstances such as lack of quality sleep, the fats are not absorbed by the fat cells but rather continue to circulate in your blood which in turn causes the fat cells to release more insulin - a never-ending cycle! The problem with these extra high levels of insulin is that it causes fats to be stored in places where it should be, such as tissues like your liver, and this is exactly what causes you to become fat and eventually develop diseases like diabetes.

3. Lack of Rest Makes You Crave Food - I've already discussed how sleep can negatively affect your fat cells and thereby insulin, but two other hormones come into play: leptin and ghrelin. Leptin is a hormone produced by your fat cells that is responsible for your feeling of "full" after a meal. The less leptin your fat cells are producing, the more empty your stomach feels. At the same time, ghrelin is responsible for stimulating hunger while at the same time reducing your metabolism (the amount of calories you burn) while also increasing the amount of fat you store. Controlling these two hormones is absolutely essential to losing weight, but when you don't get enough sleep that task is virtually impossible. If you get fewer than six hours of sleep, you set the ball in motion to tigger the areas of your brain that tells your body it needs food but at the same time stimulating ghrelin and depressing leptin production, according to research published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

But wait, there's more! Other hormones, of course. This time: cortisol, the hormone frequently associated with weight gain and activates the reward centers of your brain that make you crave food. When you are sleep deprived, your levels of cortisol rise. That, in conjunction with the higher ghrelin levels leave you feeling unsatisfied after a meal. This causes you to feel hungry all the time, even after you just ate.

Other areas of your brain are also affected. The frontal love, the area that controls complex decision-making, can be affected after just one night of sleep deprivation. According to an article published in Nature Communications, this is the reason that you crave the foods you know you shouldn't be eating. Sleep deprivation can be a factor that contributes to the failure of almost all diets. In addition to the affects on the frontal lobe, the amygdala - the reward center of your brain, is affected, too, making you crave high-calorie foods that you just cannot resist and so is the insular cortex which makes it difficult to fight the urges you are having to sabotage yourself.

Bottom line: Not getting enough sleep leaves you always hungry, reching for bigger portions, and desiring every type of food that is bad for you.

4. Sleep Sabotages Gym Time - Plain and simple, lack of sleep is the archnemesis of muscle. According to a study in Brazil, lack of adequate sleep causes decrease the ability of your body to make muscle, causes muscle loss, and can lead to a higher incidence of injury. Your body will also have a more difficult time recovering from exercise because your production of growth hormone, is slowed. Growth hormone is your natural source of fact burning and anti-aging that also facilitates recovery. This happens in two ways: 1) Poor sleep means less slow wave sleep, which is when the most growth hormone is released. and 2) Increased levels of the stress hormone cortisol slows down the production of growth hormone. This seems like a vicious cycle.

Let's end with one more astounding fact: According to the American Journal of Epidmiology found that women who are not getting an adequate amount of sleep are 33% more likely to gain 33lbs over the next 16 years than those who receive a mere 7 hours of sleep.

And here's one tip: Try to aim for 7-9 hours of sleep per night and if you do have one night of poor sleep, try not to follow that up with another night of poor sleep. It seems like an easy task, but it could help make all the difference!

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#sleep #rest #recovery #weightloss