Sleep Better for Fat Loss Success

Sleep Better For Fat Loss Success

Why improving your sleep could lead to a leaner, healthier body

When life gets busy, sleep often gets pushed to the bottom of the list. There are too many other things to do. So many demands on your time. And you can catch up on sleep another day. It’s not that important, is it?

Well, yes it is. A good night’s sleep doesn’t just leave you feeling great. It also has direct implications for stress management, appetite, and even for the hormones which govern weight loss. If you sleep enough (which probably means “sleep more”), you will be healthier, happier, lighter, and leaner. The links between sleep and health are too many to list and have been proven numerous times by scientific studies.

If you are prepared to get serious about one thing, make it sleep.

Here’s why sleep is a crucial part of your fitness puzzle – and how you can improve it (even during the busiest times!)

How Much Sleep Do We Need?

Our generation is the first to experience widespread sleep deprivation. Just a few decades ago, getting less than 6 hours a night was a rarity. These days, it’s commonplace. There are lots of reasons for this (and you’ll probably recognise most of them). Job stress, longer commutes, more light in the bedroom, easier access to personal technology.

But less than 6 hours sleep is bad for your health, your hormones, and your happiness. Only a fraction of the population possess the gene which enables us to thrive on 6 hours or less. It’s very unlikely you’re in that tiny percentage of outliers.

You need 7 hours sleep – every night, consistently, as a habit. When you sleep less than 7 hours a night:

– you’ll eat worse foods (and more of them), easily tipping into a calorie excess, slamming the brakes on your weight loss attempts

– you are at risk of dying younger

– your testosterone levels drop (which has an impact on fat loss, bone density, muscle health, mood, and immunity)

– you are at more risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer

There are more than 20 large-scale epidemiological studies showing links between sleep deprivation (less than 7 hours a night!) and health risks. Adults aged 45+ who sleep less than six hours a night are 200% more likely to have a heart attack or stroke in their lifetime (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2845795/).

The Sleep Cycle

One of the reasons behind getting 7+ hours sleep is the sleep cycle. A full nights sleep means you experience the full sleep cycle, not just some parts of it. We sleep in 90-minute cycles, experiencing healthy deep sleep at the end of each cycle. NREM (non-rapid eye movement) sleep comes first, followed by REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. In NREM sleep, your brain processes memories and your body goes into a low state of energy which is great for blood pressure. During REM sleep, your nervous system and heart go through increased periods of energy, hormone production increases, and this is when you’ll experience benefits to muscle mass.

Sleep And Weight Gain

Lack of sleep also has a bad effect on how your body controls blood sugar, putting you at risk of a pre-diabetic state of hyperglycemia. Poor sleep also messes with the hormones governing hunger, satiety, and fat loss. Lack of sleep decreases levels of leptin (the hormone which helps us feel full from food) and increases levels ghrelin (the hormone which makes us feel hungry). And when you’re tired, you are much less likely to want to exercise – or even go for a walk.

5 Ways To Improve Sleep – Today

#1 Remember, sleep isn’t for the weak! Sleep helps you work better, think more clearly, feel more motivated, and be a better partner, parent, and employee.

#2 Make your bedroom as dark as possible. This means eliminating light from outside, from elsewhere in the house and – crucially – from electronic devices.

#3 No phones or tablets in the bedroom. This is a tough one, but will radically alter your sleep success. Leave your phone outside the bedroom.

#4 Create a sleep ritual to help you wind down. Turn lights down (or off), get off your phone and laptop. The blue light tells your brain to stay awake.

#5 Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day. This helps your body anticipate sleep and get into a healthy routine.

We hope this article has helped. Sleep is such an important topic – it’s the one thing we can all do which costs nothing and has undeniable benefits for our short and long-term health. Please reach out if you need our help with sleep. My email is stephen@stephen-clarke.com.  We can also recommend a great book by Matthew Walker “Why We Sleep” (it’s also on Audible if you prefer to listen).