December 18th, 2019 by Chris Chapman

As we write this, it’s the beginning of the New Year. That means thousands of people across the country are thinking about losing weight, toning up muscles, and getting in shape! If you’re one of them, you probably know the basics of maintaining a healthy diet and exercise regime already, but there’s a third factor to weight loss that you might not be aware of: sleep. You can crush it in the gym and eat as healthily as you like, but you won’t get the results you want unless you’re in a healthy sleep schedule. Why? Read on for the answers!

Why Does Better Sleep Help You Lose Weight?

Lack of sleep and weight gain go hand in hand. It’s been proven in study after study that poor sleep can make you pile on the pounds in a very short space of time. You might not realise it, but the quality of sleep you get governs virtually everything else surrounding your life; it controls your diet, your cravings, your memory, your motivation, your mood and it can even physically affect the fat cells in your body!

Sleep Affects Your Diet and Cravings

Everyone who goes on a new diet plan struggles to stick to it at one time or another. However, if you get a good night’s sleep, you’ll find it much easier to fight off cravings! If you’re sleep deprived, you’ll constantly crave comfort food and sugar to help give you a quick energy boost. This might be an extra-large cappuccino in the morning, or it could be a calorific Chinese takeaway when you get home from work. While these things won’t hurt every once in a while, if you get into a poor sleep schedule they can start to add up.

Why is this? Well, when you’re tired, the reward centres in your brain (the parts of your brain that make you feel good when you stimulate them by eating nice food or by snuggling up to a cosy blanket, for example) will desperately search for a quick boost. This means you’ll eat bigger portions of food more often while finding it much more difficult to say no. Basically, sleep deprivation not only gives you more cravings, but it also reduces your self-control and makes it harder to resist them – a nightmare combo for weight gain!

Poor Sleep Stops You from Exercising

If you’ve only had a few hours of sleep, it’s really hard to work up the enthusiasm to hit the gym! Even if you do manage to drag yourself onto the treadmill, your workout will naturally be less intense and less effective. This is because your body is looking to hang on to every calorie it can to make up for how tired it feels. As we mentioned above, a lack of sleep will leave your brain yearning for a quick hit of sugar while reducing your impulse control, so you’ll be more inclined to hit the junk food rather than the weights if you’re tired!

A healthy sleep schedule ensures you’re always ready for the gym. Half of the battle with the gym is working up the motivation to go in the first place, so don’t give yourself an excuse to skip it!

Poor Sleep Makes You Feel Hungrier All the Time

You probably know that your brain controls everything your body feels. This includes your appetite! There are two hormones that control hunger, known as leptin and ghrelin. Leptin is produced by your fat cells, and it’s supposed to tell your brain that you’ve got enough fat stored and that you don’t need to eat anymore. Ghrelin, meanwhile, has the opposite effect. It mainly comes from your stomach, and it tells your brain that your stomach is empty, making you feel hungry.

When you’re sleep-deprived, your body produces less leptin and more ghrelin. What this means is you’ll feel constantly hungry, but your body won’t tell you when it’s time to stop eating! This means it’s all too easy to gorge yourself on food, particularly at night. If you stuff yourself too much, you’ll be uncomfortably full, meaning you’ll fall asleep later and have a worse night’s sleep. This leads to a vicious cycle of tiredness and comfort food, so staying in a healthy sleep schedule is really important!

Making sure you get a healthy amount of sleep means your body can regulate these hunger hormones more effectively, so you’ll only ever want to eat when you really need to. This should make it much easier to stick to your diet regime!

Sleep Affects Your Fat Cells

Fat cells aren’t actually bad – they’re really important! However, you do need to help your body manage them properly so you don’t end up storing a load of excess fat. Unfortunately, poor sleep changes the way your fat cells work, causing them to increase the amount of fat they store.

This is due to the way sleep deprivation affects insulin, an important hormone that controls the amount of sugar, fatty acids, and other chemicals in your bloodstream. Insulin is really important as it tells your fat cells to remove fatty acids and sugar from your bloodstream and distribute them around the body to provide energy. When you haven’t had enough sleep, your body starts to resist insulin, meaning all this excess fat and sugar gets stored around your body, in your arteries, and around your internal organs. This makes your body produce more insulin to compensate, which in turn makes you feel hungrier and store more calories. The end result: weight gain!

If you’re well-rested, your body regulates insulin much better, meaning you’ll be less likely to store fat. This will also help you maintain a healthier appetite and reduce further hunger cravings.

Sleep and Weight Loss – What Can I Do About It?

You’ll notice a common theme with a lot of the above: they’re all vicious cycles. Sleeping poorly lowers your motivation and self-control while also increasing your cravings. These things combine to make you gain weight, which in turn affects your sleep, which makes things even harder, and so on!

How can you prevent yourself from getting sucked into this vicious cycle? Make sure you prioritise getting a healthy amount of sleep! It might sound strange, but if you’re thinking of rising at 4am to start a new weight loss regime, you may actually be better off spending a few extra hours asleep before you start thinking about the gym! If you’re well-rested, your body and mind will be much more prepared for your weight loss journey, meaning you’ll find it easier to kick those bad habits while staying motivated to keep up with the good ones. For more detailed info on how you can get a night of better quality sleep, check out our top tips for a better night’s sleep!