When a person decides they are going to lose weight , the advice is already on the tip of their tongue. After all, it is the good old combination of diet and exercise that makes someone lose weight in health.
But there is a third very important point that we cannot forget in the process: a good night’s sleep. As pointed out by the Science Alert website , a series of researches have highlighted the importance of sleeping well to lose weight.
The advice for adults is to sleep between 7 and 9 hours a night. A 2017 survey found that sleeping less than that has a relationship with greater accumulation of body fat and an increased risk of obesity.
In addition, the study showed that sleeping less than necessary can sabotage diets that reduce calorie intake.
Another 2010 survey indicated that sleeping 5.5 hours a night for two weeks on a calorie-restricted diet led to less fat loss. That’s compared to sleeping 8.5 hours a night. In addition, it generated a greater loss of lean mass (including muscle).
A third study had similar results when sleep duration was reduced by one hour over five days a week for eight weeks.
Index of this article:
Why does sleeping less affect weight?
According to Science Alert , the answer involves hormonal changes and food selection. Sleep affects two important hormones in terms of appetite: leptin and ghrelin .
Leptin decreases appetite, so when your levels are high, your body feels full. Ghrelin, in turn, can stimulate appetite, since it is responsible for the feeling of hunger.
A 2004 study found that sleep restriction increases ghrelin and reduces leptin . Another survey of the same year involved 1,024 adults and also noted that short sleep was directly linked to higher levels of ghrelin and lower leptin.
These changes in hormone levels can make a person more hungry and make it even harder to follow a calorie-restricted diet. Worse still, there is a risk that people will be more likely to overeat, which can lead to weight gain.
The choice of what to eat
A 2012 survey indicated that the rewarding brain areas that respond to food are more active after a person has had less sleep (six nights with four hours of sleep each). This is compared to a good night’s sleep (six nights with nine hours of sleep each).
This may be why, after sleeping badly, some people make more snacks and usually consume sweet and carbohydrate-rich items.
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Insulin problems
When we eat, the body releases insulin to help deal with blood sugar (glucose). However, sleeping poorly impairs the body’s response to insulin, which reduces glucose uptake. In the long run, this can lead to type 2 diabetes and obesity.
Research has found that a single night of sleep deprivation (four hours of sleep) was enough to impair insulin response to glucose intake. This in healthy young adults.
If people who have slept badly tend to choose foods full of glucose, the difficulty of processing it, which bad sleep brings, makes things even worse.
The excess glucose that comes from your excessive consumption and the body’s difficulty in dealing with it can convert into fatty acids. Thus, it ends up stored in the form of fat, which can accumulate over time and result in weight gain.
