Losing Weight While you Sleep – Part 1
How can sleep help you lose weight?
It seems like the perfect plan, along with the magic pill which will burn kilos off you while you, supposedly, do nothing.
Losing weight while you sleep, is possible, but it is not something you can do without some work involved.
The main theory behind losing weight while you sleep is about metabolism. If you don’t sleep enough, ie less than 5 or 6 hours a night, then your metabolism cannot function properly. Your body gets tired, and so your metabolism slows down. This means your body does not process the food into energy, but instead stores it as fat.
Further to this theory, are the two hormones which determine if you are hungry or not, if you want to eat or not.
Ghrelin, is the hormone which tells you to eat. When you do not get enough sleep, you have more Ghrelin than normal, so you want to eat more.
Leptin is the hormone which tells you to stop eating. And, if you are sleep deprived, you have less leptin in your system than normal, hence the signal to stop eating is quietened.
The result is- you want to eat more, your metabolism is slower, and hence you put on weight.
So, how do you lose weight while you sleep?
The first step is about WHAT you eat. Eating healthy is the base for all weight loss and keeping the weight off. A diet which suits your lifestyle and body is the best head-start you can have to losing weight full stop, but also for losing weight while you sleep.
Then, the well-rested person has more energy when they wake up. This means your body will have a head start on burning calories than the person who is not well-rested, and who is tired. Your metabolism is already working faster upon waking too.
Another effect is, if you shop when you’re hungry, then you tend to buy more convenience food, which is not as healthy for you. If you are well-rested, burning energy, and not hungry, then you will be shopping for healthier food, which you don’t want to eat right then and there.
And, best of all, being well-rested keeps your mind focussed. It keeps you concentrating on what you are doing, and also what you want to achieve. You want to lose weight, so you are focussed, goal-orientated, and are more willing to stick to your goals, rather than being too tired to care, and just grab a chocolate bar.
