Sleep to Lose Weight? | Healthy Program For Weight Loss

Friday, July 24th, 2009 | Author: admin

If you want to lose weight, you need to get enough sleep no matter what type of program for weight loss you are joining. It is true. A lot of people never know that there may be a very simple reason that cause them crave for carbohydrates and thus fail to lose weight — insufficient sleep.

Effect from Insufficient sleep

Decrease in leptin levels, which causes the body to crave carbohydrates. This same hormone is also produced when you eat foods that contain fat which I mentioned in the diet article. As the results, this is a big problem if you are trying to lose weight.

Increase of production of ghrelin, sometimes named as hunger hormone. Increase of this hormone will also cause you to consume carbohydrates. When you feel hungry and do not eat, you tend to eat much more calories in your next meal, and you will find hard to lose weight at any program for weight loss.

Decrease in growth hormone level, a protein that helps regulate the body’s proportions of fat and muscle.

Increase in the stress hormone, cortisol. Cortisol will stimulate the release of glucose, fats and amino acid for extra energy production. When it is at high level, it will trigger signaling mechanisms within the brain to increase our appetite and tell the fat cells to store as much fats as possible, usually at the abdominal. This will also made you fail to lose weight in any program for weight loss.

Increase in fat storage. Insufficient sleep interferes with the body’s ability to metabolize carbohydrates, and leads to high level of blood sugar. This promotes the overproduction of insulin, which can lead to the fat storage and insulin resistance, a critical step into the development of diabetes.

Researches done

Studies published in The Journal of the American Medical Association and The Lancet revealed that lack of sleep might increase hunger and affect the body’s metabolism, which might make it more difficult to maintain or lose weight.

A research done on a group of men by University of Chicago revealed that after as few as two nights of restriction of sleep for 4 hours a night, the leptin level was decreased by 18% while the ghrelin amount was increased by 28%. These will increase your craving for food and thus make it more difficult to lose weight.

Another study presented at the 2006 American Thoracic Society International Conference included nearly 70,000 middle-aged women. The report revealed that women who slept 5 hours per night were 32% more likely to experience major weight gain, approximately increase of 33 pounds or more and 15% more likely to become obese over the course of the 16-year study, compared to those who slept 7 hours a night. Even women who slept 6 hours per night were still 12% more likely to experience major weight gain, and 6% more likely to become obese, compared to women who slept 7 hours a night. This prove that insufficient sleep will cause you gain weight, rather than lose weight.

(Note: 1kg = 2.2046 lbs)

If you are really serious to lose weight in any program for weight loss, please don’t overlook sleeping time in your daily lives. Besides, you can also increase your successful rate by adjusting your food and nutrition, performing right exercise as well as making use of some supplements.