How Increasing Your Sleep Can Help You Lose Weight

Have you been training and eating greta but still not losing weight as fast as you think you should? Perhaps you need to look at how much (or how little) you are sleeping.

The other day I was working out with a personal training group early in the morning and one client was complaining about how tired she was and how hard it was to get up so early come to personal training. I asked a simple question, "How much sleep are you getting?"

She explained that with work, errands, family commitments, and cooking dinner, she never got time to relax so she ended up staying up late to read or watch tv, and didn't go to sleep until close to 12 midnight. Now, when you are getting up at 5:00 am to join your personal training sessions; that's not quite enough sleep.

There are plenty of scientific studies about sleep and weight loss connections but let's look at some real world reasons why sleep is important. One main connection is that when you are sleep deprived, you are not giving your self proper recovery from personal training and other workout sessions, and you will not repair the muscles well enough. Another reason is that if you are tired, your personal training sessions will not be as effective, thus slowing down your weight loss.

Finding the link between sleep and weight loss:

As it turns out there is a significant link to the amount of sleep a person gets and their weight. Several studies done throughout the United States tell us that people who lack sleep tend to gain more weight and have higher percentages of body fat. What could sleep have to do with your weight? Let's look at the three hormones that are being affected. Those hormones are ghrelin, leptin, and cortisol.

Ghrelin hormones indicate hunger; they tell you when your body needs to eat. Less sleep causes an increase in ghrelin levels. If you don't get enough sleep you have more of these hunger hormones telling you that you are hungry.

Leptin hormones tell you when your body is full and lack of sleep causes a drop in Leptin. If you do not have enough leptin your body doesn't recognize that you are full and you can set yourself up for overeating.

Lack of sleep can increase the production of the stress hormone, cortisol. Cortisol is best known for increasing belly fat. If your sleep is deprived; cortisol increases and you are at risk for higher levels of belly fat whether you are training or not.

Do you know how much sleep you should get?

According to a 16 year study presented in 2006 at the American Thoracic Society International Conference; women who slept 7 hours or more per night weigh less than women who slept 5 hours or less. Women who slept 6 hours per night were 6% more likely to be obese and 12% more likely to gain at least 33lbs or more. Women who slept 5 hours per night were 15% more likely to be obese and 32% more likely to gain at least 33lbs or more.

This study, along with all of the previous information, gives you some insight as to why sleep can affect your weight loss progress. If you are training hard, working out with a personal training group, eating right, and drinking enough water; try looking at your sleep patterns. With the everyday stresses in our society, sleep often becomes an after thought. Be sure to get at least 8 hours of sleep per night and take some inventory about how it makes you feel, both mentally and physically.

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