The quantity of sleep you receive may be as significant as your diet and exercise regimen when attempting to shed extra pounds. However, many individuals aren’t getting enough sleep, which is obviously a problem.

According to the CDC, around 35% of adults in the United States regularly get less than 7 hours of sleep per night, and short sleep is defined as sleeping for less than 7 hours per night.

New research suggests that sleep deprivation may be the missing link for most of those who have failed to lose weight. 

If you want to lose weight properly and healthily, feel free to contact our weight loss specialist in Tamarac, FL. That said, let’s discuss how sleep can affect your weight in more detail. 

  1. Weight Gain Is Connected to Short Sleep

Insufficient sleep time has been consistently linked to increased obesity and weight gain risk. Interestingly, body mass index (BMI) scores reduce proportionally with increased sleep duration.

Short sleep is just one contributor to obesity, but studies show it has a detrimental effect on hunger levels, leading to a greater intake of high-fat, high-sugar foods. It may increase ghrelin, the hormone that causes hunger and decrease leptin, the hormone that causes satiety.

When your stomach produces the hormone ghrelin, it sends a message to your brain that you’re hungry. Levels are highest before eating, on an empty stomach, and lowest after eating, when one is full. 

Fatty tissue secretes the hormone leptin; as a result, it prevents overeating by sending the brain a signal of satiety.

Lack of sleep may also have unfavorable effects on the sympathetic nervous system, leading to elevated cortisol levels. In addition, it can also affect other hormone levels linked to fat storage. 

What’s more, many sleep disorders may worsen with a weight increase. For instance, sleep apnea-weight gain connection is a common problem in this day and age. The unfortunate reality is that this can cause a vicious cycle wherein insufficient sleep directly causes weight gain, which, in turn, directly causes insufficient sleep.

  1. Proper Sleep Can Help Regulate Appetite

Satisfied Young Woman Enjoys Tasty Salad in a Restaurant, Putting Fork Into Her Mouth and Closing Her Eyes.

Lack of sleep has been linked to increased calorie consumption and hunger, especially eating late at night, which may be mitigated by getting a good night’s rest.

According to several studies, those who don’t get enough sleep tend to eat more. One study found that people who didn’t get enough sleep ate far more than usual, craved sweets and fats, and ate larger portions.

As mentioned, the impact of sleep on ghrelin and leptin, the hunger hormones, may be responsible for some of the spike in food intake.

  1. Poor Sleep Means Poor Food Choices

If you haven’t been getting enough sleep, it could affect your ability to make good dietary decisions.

Sleep deprivation affects cognitive processes and may impair judgment. This could make it more challenging to make nutritious food choices and avoid unhealthy snacking. 

Additionally, sleep deprivation heightens food’s ability to trigger the brain’s reward centers. One study showed that people who didn’t get enough sleep had stronger reward-related brain responses when pictures of high-calorie meals were shown. Intriguingly, they also spent more money on meals than people who got enough shut-eye.

Another study found that people were more attuned to the smell of high-calorie foods when sleep-deprived, leading to a higher appetite for such foods.

When we don’t get enough sleep, we may compensate for our low energy levels by eating more high-calorie, high-sugar, high-fat foods.

  1. Sleep Early to Avoid Eating Late at Night

If you have trouble resisting the temptation to nibble when you should be sleeping, perhaps going to bed early may help.

If you delay your bedtime, you’ll have more time to eat, especially if it’s been a while since dinner. It’s only reasonable to assume you’ll feel hungry between supper and bedtime if you eat at around 6:00 p.m. but stay awake past midnight.

The lack of sleep may cause you to make poorer food choices. This is because low-quality sleep has been connected to increased hunger and a preference for high-fat, high-calorie foods.

The interesting fact is that eating late at night is linked to increased weight gain, a greater body mass index, and lower fat oxidation, which make it harder to lose weight. Additionally, eating too shortly before bedtime, especially heavy meals, may lower sleep quality and worsen your sleep deficit. 

Limiting food consumption before bed may be helpful for those who have trouble digesting food or suffer from acid reflux. Sleep troubles, such as the mentioned sleep apnea and weight gain correlation, can also become more severe.

Avoid eating within two to three hours of going to bed. However, if you’re feeling peckish, try eating a small serving of something protein-rich, like cottage cheese or Greek yogurt.

  1. Proper Sleep May Benefit Your Metabolism

Lack of sleep has been linked to a slower metabolism, so ensuring you get enough sleep could help prevent that.

Simply put, your RMR, or resting metabolic rate, presents the number of calories the body can burn while at rest. Many things can influence it, including age, gender, weight, height, and muscular mass.

Some evidence suggests that the amount of sleep you get can impact your resting metabolic rate. Even so, additional study is required to ascertain if and how sleep deprivation impacts the metabolic rate.

Fat oxidation, the process through which fat cells are broken down into energy, may be stifled by a lack of sleep. Muscle synthesis appears to be impacted by sleep quality, and poor sleep may lead to reduced RMR.

  1. Good Sleep Can Lead to Physical Activity Boost

Photo of Young Woman Drinking Water From Bottle.

The connection between getting enough Zs and working out is mutually advantageous. Getting less sleep makes it harder to get up and move around, and not moving around as much could make it harder to fall asleep later.

Multiple studies have demonstrated that regular exercise improves sleep quality and shortens the time it takes to fall asleep for people of all ages. 

On the other hand, lack of sleep might make you sluggish and uninterested in physical activity during the day. As a result, you can burn fewer calories during the day. This can make it harder to cut back on calories enough to cause weight reduction.

Furthermore, sleep deprivation can lower sports performance. Getting enough sleep time is, in the end, essential for getting enough physical activity.

To Conclude

Lack of sleep can hinder your weight loss efforts. Sleep deprivation has been associated with increased hunger, calorie consumption, inactivity, and weight gain.

The quality of your sleep may be to blame if you’ve been trying to lose weight with no success. After all, it’s vital for people to get between 7 and 9 hours of sleep per night.

Getting enough sleep could be the deciding factor if you want to lose weight. Of course, if you believe that some other condition may be the cause of your unideal weight, battle issues like sleep apnea and weight gain, or simply look for an individual approach to healthy weight maintenance, feel free to contact us at Gynecology & Women’s Wellness.