Week 3 of Body Recomp – Can Getting More Sleep Really Help You Shed Pounds
| Sleep and Weight Loss…Can More Sleep Really Help You Shed Pounds? You try to do everything right in the name of weight loss. You eat more fruits, vegetables, and lean protein. You are cutting back on the number of times you eat per week. You track your steps, take HOT classes at Drip, and follow at-home workouts. Yet still, all you feel is disappointment when you step on the scale. When it comes to shedding pounds, sleep and weight loss are interlinked — in one of the best ways imaginable. More sleep helps you lose weight at a faster rate, while less sleep interferes with your body’s ability to burn fat. Sleep is an oft-forgotten aspect of weight loss, but it’s as important as diet and exercise. But before you lose hope and sacrifice weeks of strong-willed determination on half a chocolate cake, consider this: Are you sleeping enough? Getting enough of sleep can: Improve memory and learning During sleep your mind practices the skills and memorizes the information that was learned while you were awake. This process is called consolidation. So practice, sleep, and wake up a better you! Improve concentration and focus Proper sleep boosts alertness and increases concentration spans. This improves your productivity by helping you perform your tasks better and faster. Help lose fat and gain muscleIt is during sleep that your muscles repair, allowing them to get bigger and stronger. Moreover, proper sleep keeps you energized, making you less prone to skip gym sessions due to tiredness. Reduce stress levels Sleep allows your body to recover and regenerate. Stress comes in many forms, and if you want to adapt and overcome; sleep is going to be your biggest ally. Help cure depression Sleep deprivation and depression are correlated: depression leads to sleep deprivation, and sleep deprivation aggravates depression. Fulfilled sleep improves your mood and makes you feel happier overall, which prevents you from entering prolonged periods of depression. Therefore, it is important to get sufficient sleep in order to break this vicious cycle of gloom. What Happens If You Don’t Sleep Enough? Though it sounds easy enough to sleep 8 hours, many Americans don’t. In fact, about 59% report sleeping less than 6 hours per night, which is far below the recommended average for overall mental and physical well-being. But sleep and weight loss are so interconnected that lack of sleephas the power to undo all your weight loss efforts. In some cases, you might even notice you’re gaining weight despite your best attempts to stick to a strict diet plan and exercise routine. Insufficient sleep can deprive your body of the opportunity to rejuvenate and restore itself. Sleep is when the brain cleanses itself, memories consolidate, emotions are processed, tissue regenerates, stress clears, and willpower recharges. When your sleep is problematic, achieving your Body Recomp goals is exponentially harder. Your willpower is depressed, you’re likely to overeat, your mood sucks, you’re physically weaker, and much more. The bottom line: Prioritizing high quality sleep is crucial for optimal body recomposition and overall health. Make it a priority to fix first. 5 SIGNS YOUR SLEEP HABITS AREN’T WORKING FOR YOU *YOUR MIND IS FOGGY 🤯 *YOU’RE GETTING SICK MORE OFTEN🤒 *YOUR WORKOUTS ARE FEELING HARDER🥵 *YOU’RE UNHAPPY😔 *IT’S HARDER TO LOSE WEIGHT 😳 |
 |
| How Much Weight Do You Lose Overnight?While you sleep, you actually burn calories. This differs from person to person and there’s no fixed number. To put this in perspective, a person who weighs around 140 pounds can burn up to 360 calories by sleeping for 8 hours. When combined with a healthy diet and regular exercise, a good night’s rest becomes an effective way to lose and maintain weight. When You’re Tired, You’re HungryLack of sleep is just one factor that can lead to obesity or one’s inability to burn fat. That’s because it directly affects hunger levels. There are two primary hormones that control hunger: GHRELIN, which tells your brain that you’re hungry, and LEPTIN, which lets your brain know you’re full. When you get less than six hours of sleep, your ghrelin ticks up and your leptin levels drop. This results in your stomach telling your brain that you’re hungry when you’re not. The less sleep you get, the further this crossing of hormones is compounded and the stronger the hunger pangs. Getting at least seven hours of sleep will help you keep these two critical hormones in check so you’re not tricking your brain into thinking you’re hungry when you’re not. Here are the Must-Dos to Optimize Your Sleep: ✅ Aim for an average of 7-9 hours of sleep per night. Schedule it! ✅ Avoid stimulants 8 hours or more before target bedtime. ✅ Avoid screens, blue lights and bright lights within 1 hour of bedtime. ✅ Deliberately expose yourself to sunlight in the morning and sunset in the evening. ✅ Minimize highly stimulating activity and emotional stressors before bed. Make a pre-bed ritual of writing out the tasks you have to take care of. ✅ Shut your eyes 15 minutes before your target sleep time to wake up 7-8 hours later. ✅ Take slow, deep breaths as you’re falling asleep to relax the body. ✅ Stretch before lying down to encourage relaxation and ease tension. ✅ Sleep in a cool and completely dark room. Blackout all light sources, including LEDs. ✅ Get a comfortable pillow and bed. It’s worth the investment! |
 |
| Quality Matters, TooCircadian rhythms are the 24-hour cycles that are part of your body’s internal clock. It basically runs in the background to carry out your body’s essential functions. One hormone regulated by our circadian rhythms is human growth hormone (HGH). This hormone, which aids in repairing muscle and tissue, allowing your body to recover after a workout, is generally released between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. So if you are not going to sleep until 10 p.m. or later, you’re depriving your body of some of its most crucial recovery hours. This doesn’t mean you can just slide into bed at 9:50 p.m., conk out and start your recovery. Remember, it’s not just the sleep itself, but the quality of that sleep. Ideally, you want to be in REM sleep — the part of the deep sleep cycle during which rapid eye movement (REM) occurs — during that 10–2 window. This will allow your body to generate more HGH while also maximizing its recovery benefits. According to the Cleveland Clinic, REM sleep arrives about an hour and a half after you go to sleep. The first REM period lasts about 10 minutes. Each REM stage that follows gets longer and longer. So you should aim for your sleep to peak between the hours of 10PM–2AM. Sleep Your Way Past a PlateauIf you’re not getting enough sleep, and enough deep sleep, then you’re not recovering effectively from your workouts, which negatively affects your ability to perform in your next workout. This is one of the reasons many people struggle to see consistent results. Combine this with the appetite dysregulation that occurs because your ghrelin and leptin signals are getting crossed due to lack of sleep, and it’s nearly impossible to stay motivated and consistent, regardless of your health and fitness goals. It has nothing to do with your desire. It’s a sleep issue!! A lack of sleep can also make your body feel like it’s in distress, triggering production of the stress hormone cortisol. This can result in inflammation in the form of water retention. So you may feel like you’ve gained weight because your pants are tighter or your fingers and feet feel puffy, but it’s really just the result of inflammation due to a lack of sleep and poor recovery. |
 |
| So … What Can I Do? There are a few simple things you can do to help improve your sleep:Skip the nightcap: Avoid drinking alcohol within four hours of going to sleep.Power Down: Avoid blue light (phone, computer, television) close to bedtime. As your bedtime gets closer, slowly eliminate or dim the lights in the house. This will signal to your body that it’s almost time for bed, so when you hit the pillow, your body knows what to do.Be Consistent: Try going to sleep at the same time each night and waking up at the same time each morning. As with anything else, consistency is key.Stay on Schedule: Try intermittent fasting, which is simply an eating schedule. That, combined with meal-prepping, will provide a structure for you to follow, giving you another line of defense against cravings and that tricky ghrelin-leptin imbalance.Eat an Early Dinner: Closing your feeding window at least two to three hours before bed will help prepare your body for restorative sleep. Your body will be available to switch into scrub-and-repair mode because it won’t be busy digesting food.Eat Whole Foods: Avoiding high-fat foods (especially close to bedtime) and replacing processed foods with whole foods in your diet will help regulate your digestive tract, making it easier for you to sleep and to regulate your hunger hormones.Control What You Can Control: Life is hard. We know! There’s work, kids, dishes, laundry — it’s always something. We preach PROGRESS over PERFECTION so if you’re having trouble staying consistent in your routine, or if you get off track for a day, simply start again!If you’re having trouble burning fat and losing weight, take a look at how you’re sleeping. You’ll find a lot of answers, many of them simple to implement. It doesn’t have to be so hard! |
 |
| Disclaimer: As always, please consult with a healthcare provider before beginning any new exercise program. |
| Don’t forget to follow us on social as we will be posting awesome content during this 10 week recomp challenge!! |