SLEEP FOR WEIGHT LOSS

If you want to lose weight, experts say you need to get enough sleep. 

Research, presented at the 2006 American Thoracic Society International Conference, showed that women who slept 5 hours per night were 32% more likely to experience major weight gain (an increase of 33 pounds or more) and 15% more likely to become obese over the course of the 16-year study, compared to those who slept 7 hours a night.

Ya!...you read that right!

And women who slept 6 hours per night were still 12% more likely to experience major weight gain, and 6% more likely to become obese, compared to women who slept 7 hours a night.

Hmmm....

Seems counterintuitive...doing nothing...in the form of sleeping...will help you lose weight?

"We don't have an answer from this study about why reduced sleep causes weight gain, but there are some possibilities that deserve further study," says lead researcher Sanjay Patel, M.D., Assistant Professor of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH. "Sleeping less may affect changes in a person's basal metabolic rate."

In other words...you want to increase your metabolism...get more sleep!

And consider this...when you are tired...you tend to move around less during the day. Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (a.k.a. NEAT) is the energy expended for everything we do that is not sleeping, eating or sports-like exercise. It ranges from the energy expended walking to work, typing, performing yard work, undertaking agricultural tasks and fidgeting. It may be that if you sleep less, you move around less, too, and therefore burn up fewer calories.

Another important factor to consider is the impact of sleep on cortisol levels. Insufficient sleep can cause the release of additional cortisol—​the stress hormone—and can stimulate hunger.

'Nuf said?...Let's go to bed!