It probably comes as a surprise to learn that in order to lose weight and to lose your love handles as well as belly fat, you must pay attention to your sleep.
Sleep quality and how much you sleep can be just as important in determining if you will lose weight or not, and if it will stay off or creep back on you again! However, one of the things that are very important to your health and to maintaining a healthy weight is either barely discussed or ignored completely.
A lack of sleep or sleep disorders can make losing weight very difficult, if not impossible.
You might wonder what sleep could possibly have to do with healthy weight.
The answer is very simple: sleep and metabolism work hand in hand.
Sleep is the way that your body recharges and resets itself and all of its vital functions.
If you don't sleep the body can't recharge its batteries and the rhythms will be out of synch.
Once your metabolism is out of rhythm in any way it is very difficult to get it back to where it needs to be.
A quick anatomy lesson to illustrate how very important it is to take care of sleep disorders and to get sleep help, before it becomes too serious: The body is a remarkable machine.
The food you eat contains "body fuel", calories.
First your body takes what it needs, if there's any "fuel" left it stores this in your fat cells.
Metabolism is the word used to describe how your body burns the "fuel" in the food.
This rate of energy burn is different for everybody -- some people just have a naturally high metabolism, while others are usually a little sluggish.
At night, our body goes into a slower mode, finishing up the end of the day business, before it stokes the fire and shuts down for the night.
But having trouble falling asleep or suffering from other sleep disorders can mean that the body does not get to complete all of the tasks that it needs to, before starting a whole new day.
Imagine an office worker: imagine a pile in your "in tray" that you ought to go through before the day is done.
If you do not get caught up, things stop working correctly and there are foul ups and slowdowns to contend with.
Another issue that relates -- sleep disorders and sleep deprivation to weight gain is the lack of conscious control of your eating and poor decision making skills.
Think of the last time that you were feeling really tired and sluggish.
Did you take a nap to rejuvenate? How many of you went for a brisk, refreshing walk? No, you probably went to the vending machine and bought yourself a soda and a candy bar, felt good for twenty minutes and then crashed again.
Our bodies are demanding that we get some sleep, but instead of listening to them we just eat something to give it something to do.
Remember, once the metabolism is slowed down, it is hard to get it back up.
The most recent research that has come to light the last few years has to do with hormones and sleep.
When you sleep too little your body produces less of the appetite suppressing hormone "leptin", and too much of the appetite boosting hormone "ghrelin".
The result -- sleeping to little or not sleeping well can actually fool your body to put on extra pounds! A study published some years ago from California showed that women that slept 5 hours every night on average weighted 30% more than women that slept 7 hours.
The term "beauty sleep" comes to mind...
The study also indicated that light sleepers were more at risk of becoming obese than good sleepers.
A very surprising finding was that sleep patterns were as important in predicting the risk of becoming overweight as eating pattern or diet! It's not only eating healthy and exercising that is important, it is also sleeping well.
In order to succede your body needs sufficient sleep, otherwise you won't make it.
Learning to sleep well and the right amount of hours for you is thus one of the crucial stepping stones on your journey to reach the weight you desire!