You gotta check all the latest updates in Instagram before you go to sleep. And you make it a habit to be first into the office in the morning. It’s all part of everyday life. But the connection between sleep deprivation and weight loss means your everyday habits could be making it more difficult to lose weight, or, even worse, it could promote weight gain.
How Sleep Deprivation Affects Weight Loss
At first, it can be difficult to see how a lack of sleep can make any difference to your weight loss, especially if you’re on a proper meal plan like a Herbal One diet plan. But when you take a closer look at the connections, the weight loss problems due to poor sleep are plain to see.
- You Make Poorer Food Choices – When you are in “sleep debt”, or tired from the lack of sleep, your cravings for high sugar and high salt foods are more intense. Your brain is tired too. It doesn’t have as much energy to think things through and make more rational eating decisions. So you’re more likely to go for junk food than you would be if you had proper sleep.
- It literally Makes You Use Less Energy and Eat More Food – The hormone ghrelin and leptin manage your appetite. Leptin suppresses your appetite and encourages the body to burn calories. Ghrelin makes you hungry. Fewer hours of sleep reduces the production of leptin and increases your production of ghrelin.
- It Makes Your Body Think There May Be Trouble – Your body needs sleep to stay healthy. When it notices that it isn’t getting the amount of sleep it needs (about seven to nine hours a night for adults), it reacts as if you were facing a crisis. It triggers a spike in your levels of the hormone cortisol, which signals your body to conserve energy – or not burn fat – in case you need it to deal with whatever is causing your sleep loss.
- You Store Even More Fat – In addition to reduced physical activity and the fat burn that comes with it, chronic sleep deprivation can cause you to store even more fat. Not getting a good night’s sleep can play havoc with your how your body processes insulin. The result is more fats remaining unprocessed in your bloodstream. So your body stores the excess in your fat cells.
So get a good night’s sleep!
If you enjoyed this post, check out our recent article about how to keep your nervous system healthy.