Sleep away the fat
What if I told you the secret to losing and keeping off fat was getting a good night's sleep? Great news because... That's exactly what I am telling you!! People ask me all the time... How do I get started? I want to make a change to be healthy but it's hard to change everything all at once! And I agree! It is overwhelming. So the first thing I tell people when they are starting their weight loss or health journey is to start with improving their sleep. We all know that it's super important to get a good night's sleep but do we really know why? Lots of amazing and cool things happen when we sleep! For starters...getting proper sleep helps regulate our hunger hormones: ghrelin and leptin! Ghrelin is the hormone the makes us want to eat and leptin is our satiety hormone. Just 1 night, you did read that right. Just 1 single night of inadequate sleep throws off our hormones. It increases ghrelin (the one that makes us hungry) and decreases of leptin. And guys...when I say our hunger hormone increases...when we are tired we are not eating more brussel sprouts... Oh No... We want the sugary, salty, starchy stuff! Which we all know isn't the best if our goal is to lose weight. In an interesting study done at the University of Chicago participants were given the exact same amount of calories and did the exact same physical activity over the course of the study. In half of the study they were allowed to get 8.5 hours of sleep (sounds good to me!) and in the other half they were only allowed 5.5 hours of sleep (good luck waking me up...) During the period when they were getting 8.5 hours of sleep the participants burned 55% more calories vs. when their sleep was cut short. With No Other Change!
If that isn't enough to get you to make getting enough sleep a top priority, you may change your tune after reading the rest of this.
When we sleep our immune system kicks into gear. Our bodies use the time we are asleep to repair and heal itself. Sleep also allows our brain to organize itself. While we sleep our brain basically 'files' everything that happened throughout the day. Just like when you clean up your desk after the work day and put things in their place and designated files so that the next day you come in to a clean space where you can work, our brain does every night. So if we are not getting enough sleep we end up with basically a messy brain!
It's also not just about how much sleep we are getting but almost more about the quality of sleep we are getting! We have all had those nights were we "slept" for 8 hours but felt like it was really only 1 hour. Well that's because we didn't get deep enough sleep.
Did you know that there is a time window every night were if we are sleep during these hours it does our body and health the most good?! I didn't know this either! I'm calling in the jackpot sleep time!! We get the most bang for our buck when we are sleeping between the hours of 10 PM-2AM.
When I learned this I immediately moved up my bedtime (yes I have a bedtime) to ensure that I am fully asleep by 10 PM.
So the next time you are thinking about watching just one more episode on Netflix you may just turn off that t.v. and head to bed. It will do your brain and your waistline good!
I also put together a simple little tip sheet on how to get better sleep!