How Sleeping Too Little May Keep You From Losing Weight

Stress and the demands of everyday living have us all struggling to stay on track. We skip our workouts, sleep less, grab food on the run, all to keep up with the hectic pace of living.

With so much going on, cutting back from seven or eight hours of sleep might seem like the answer. You may say if you only sleep six hours, that gives you two more hours to be productive, right?

Well, not really.

First off, your brain is TIRED when you don’t sleep.  You‘re operating in a fog, and making the best decisions is pretty much impossible. When you stop by the break room, nine times out of ten, you will grab the donut to go with your coffee because you’re so beat you THINK you need the one-two punch of sugar and caffeine to get you going. Your brain’s reward centers are revved up from lack of sleep, and your food cravings are in overdrive.

Studies consistently show us that when our bodies don’t get enough sleep, we opt for quick-fix, high-carb snacks to keep going. One study even showed that participants who slept less than eight hours chose snacks with twice the fat content of their well-rested counterparts.

Second, crappy choices, bigger portions, and no impulse control in the kitchen are bound to produce weight gain. In addition to changing how your brain functions, sleep deprivation has a powerful effect on hormone production. Hormones plus dieting generally equal disaster. Cortisol, leptin, and ghrelin are the three hormones most commonly connected to weight control.

Cortisol

Cortisol is your stress hormone, and it suppresses your metabolism. Your adrenal glands produce it, and if you aren’t well-rested, your stress will skyrocket. Cortisol tells your body to save its energy, which means it’s going to hang on to fat. There is a debate on whether cortisol directly affects weight loss, but for anyone with emotional eating habits, higher cortisol levels are a recipe for disaster. Stress makes us seek comfort, and for many of us, food is a go-to for feeling better.

Leptin

Leptin is a hormone produced in your fat cells. It tells your body when to stop eating and to burn more calories. When you are tired, your body produces less leptin, so your appetite is out of control, and your metabolism tanks. Not recognizing our body’s hunger signals is difficult enough without the added magic of hormones confusing our wants and needs.

Grehlin

Grehlin is a hormone released by your stomach that makes you hungrier, slows down your metabolism, and decreases your body’s ability to burn fat. When you are sleep-deprived, your body produces more ghrelin.  That means you are tired, want to eat a whole lot of garbage, and aren’t programmed to burn it off.

Insulin

Insulin is the hormone your body uses to convert food, particularly sugar and starch, into energy. Four days of poor sleeping can be enough to hamper your body’s ability to process insulin.  This means your body can’t process the fats in your bloodstream, so it just stores them as fat.

Research proves that dieters who cut back on sleep over two weeks dramatically reduced the amount of weight they lost from fat even when their eating patterns and intake didn’t change. Lack of sleep killed their metabolism, and that equaled weight gain. If you aren’t sleeping enough, you are disrupting your metabolism, which will make you gain weight or have trouble losing weight.

Set yourself up for success with proper sleep hygiene.  That’s how you’re going to win at weight loss.  If you need help with your sleep hygiene, I can help.  Check out one of my upcoming sleep workshops or schedule a call with me so that we can discuss your concerns and set a plan in place to get you sleeping better.