Sleeping can help with weight loss!
It is easy to think that only a diet can help you lose weight but as I feel like I say a lot, there are lot’s that you can do, that has little to do with food to help reach that goal.
Sleep is one of them.
You should be aiming for 9 hours a night. Like most of you I don’t get that much sleep, but it is good to keep trying for it.
Why? What does it do for you?
Quite a lot.
The first is you don’t eat while sleeping. So that is a fast period, or non eating period, hence where Breakfast came from for breaking the overnight fast.
Going to be early means you are eating less late at night.
But most of all, sleeping well, and being well rested gives us more energy to our will power.
Studies have shown that will power, even just the effort it takes to not eat another biscuit from the pack takes energy. The more we need, for example if there are other people in the house who either bring in or have food that we want to avoid, the amount of energy we are expending on will power to not eat the item takes it out of us. And like running a race if we don’t have enough energy we can collapse.
We don’t have enough energy we lack the will to avoid those foods we should restrict.
That is not giving you an excuse to give in, “oh I will have another bag of crisps because I am so tired today!”.
Sleeping better also helps our body to heal and recover.
Movement is part of weight loss and that takes energy but different movements, like aerobics, weight lifting, running and more can damage muscle tissue. I am not talking go to the doctor damage, but muscle tissue can tear and rest helps to heal them, along with the right diet.
In reality
If you are like me there is too much to do in a day to just start going to bed at nine pm. So how can you get more rest.
One thing to do is to try and go to bed half an hour earlier than you are now.
Reducing certain drinks and foods, earlier in the day help you to get to sleep faster, like stop drinking caffeine earlier in the day, and less sugary drinks or food in the evening.
Having a no computer or tablet hour or two before bedtime helps as well, they have blue light which stimulates us, thinking it is earlier in the day, making it more difficult to get to sleep.
I don’t expect people to change their lives, just make small changes over the next few weeks and try to increase your sleep time, aim for 9 hours. See how it helps you lose weight.