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There are four pillars to weight loss. Nutrition, exercise, stress and sleep. Each one is just as important as the other as they all affect each other. Sleep is no different. If your sleep suffers, so does your nutrition, exercise and stress hormones. Here's how it affect them.
Nutrition & sleep
Lack of sleep effects your diet, because when you're deprived it effects your hunger and satiety hormones and makes you
Feel hungrier: Research shows that people who get less than 7 hours of sleep have increase in their hunger hormone(ghrelin) and decrease in their satiety hormones(leptin).
Eat more: The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that if you lose a few hours of sleep that you're prone to eat an extra 559 calories on average the next day. Don't forget that it takes about 3,500 excess calories to gain 1lb of fat.
You make poor food choices: Missing out on sleep makes you prone to engorging on processed, fun foods like cookies, chips and pastries. The International Journal of Obesity studied people who 9 hours per night for 5 nights and 4 hours per night for 5 different nights. When they examined brain scans of the people who we're sleep deprived it showed that they had less active brain control than when they we're rested. So the next time you're craving that donut, ask yourself if you got a lot of sleep the night before.
Stress & sleep
Exercise & sleep
Burn fewer calories
Tips to get better sleep
So we know how sleep affects weight loss, but how do we get good sleep? Here are some actionable tips to get a good night sleep.
Avoid screens
Screens emit blue light which affects our production of our sleep initiation hormone melatonin. Not only does melatonin initiate our sleep but it also affects our hunger hormone(ghrelin) and satiety hormone(leptin). When our sleep is interrupted, so is our melatonin production and we find that we're hungrier the next day and harder to satisfy. Blue light aside, screen time is the most common reason for our sedentary lifestyle. Here are some tips to help stop the bad habit of screen time before bed.
Wear blue light glasses: these guys will help filter out the blue light preventing disruption of melatonin production.
Pick up a hobby prior to bed: The most common one is reading, but you can choose whatever your heart desires.
Out of sight out of mind: Keep screens outside of your bedroom. Having the TV while you are sleeping affects your quality of sleep. Charge your phone in the bathroom so you don't have access to it.
Stop screen time before bed: Stop screen time 4 hours before bed and give your brain some time to prepare for bed.
Put your screens on wind "night mode." The yellow / orange tint helps reduce blue light.
Remember, our screens are addictive so it's going to be hard in the beginning. Just. keep. going.
Bed time routine
Black out your room
Keep a cool Temperature
Waking in the middle of the night
Some people have no issues going to bed. They have a great routine, and can fall asleep soundly. The problem is, every night at 2:00am they wake up and they're wide awake. Is this you? Our question for you is, how do you know it's 2:00am? You need to remove all clock faces in the bedroom. No matter how bad your sleep is going to be that night, knowing what time it is is only going to make matters worse and certainly won't make it better. It can create an anxiety trigger. You look at the clock and now it's 3:00am. "I've got to be awake at 6:00am, I've got a big meeting." Next thing you know, it's 5:30am. Don't do that to yourself. Keep clock faces out of the room. Even if you have to charge your phone in the bathroom.
Ensuring you get high-quality sleep is important. Its impact extends beyond mere rest, influencing factors vital for achieving weight loss goals. Prioritize restful sleep to optimize your overall well-being and support your weight loss journey effectively.
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