You may have a few pounds to lose or you’d like to lose a lot. Doesn’t matter, you need to get good sleep in order to burn fat. Study after study shows this to be true, but here’s at least one study to check out.

The great thing about getting quality sleep, is that it burns fat and preserves muscle mass, and down regulates appetite stimulating hormones. There’s a reason it’s called beauty rest, it’s good for your whole body, but especially important for fat burning

Is there a better combination for weight loss success?

But most people aren’t thinking about sleep when they’re wanting to lose weight, right? We’re thinking about:

• Eating less (don’t restrict calories, please! That’s another blog post.
• Exercising more
• Cutting out treats (that sucks, right?)
• Cutting out healthy dietary fat (again, please please please don’t cut out fat, unless it’s trans fats or other unhealthy fats like corn or soy oil, etc. do cut those out)

But, these are old paradigms that need to fade. What you need to burn fat and lose those pounds is: 

• A Healthy (fat burning) Metabolism*
• Healthy food in the right combinations and amounts, at the right times for YOUR body
• 7-8 hours of restful, rejuvenating sleep! (more is better!)

(*And please note that you can get #1 by paying attention to #2 and #3 and they all support each other)

There are other things, like a solid plan for navigating the mental and emotional parts of weight loss, but this is a solid foundation for the physical part. But what about exercise you ask? Yes, exercise is good for you, especially movement you enjoy, but it’s not the answer for weight loss. You would have to do a lot of exercise before you start burning fat. You first burn blood glucose (blood sugar), then your glycogen stores (sort of like human starch) and THEN you burn body fat. You’d have to exercise a lot to burn enough energy to lose the fat you want to lose. Your trainer won’t tell you, the media won’t tell you this, but I’m telling you this. The good news is, you burn fat while you sleep. You probably didn’t know that or you would add ‘more sleep’ to your to do list for losing weight.

In the program I offer, we actually recommend that you don’t exercise more than gentle walking or hiking in the first 2 weeks, as participants lose more fat this way. I know, who knew? Quality sleep is actually more important for weight (fat) loss than exercise in the beginning. Now don’t get me wrong, exercise is important for overall health, but I’m guessing you already know that, and I’m just offering a different perspective you may not have thought about just yet.

Plus, getting good quality sleep keeps your metabolism healthy by optimizing two appetite regulating hormones, Ghrelin and Leptin. Here’s a little about these hormones:

Ghrelin comes from your stomach and signals a need for food to your brain, which upregulates appetite by stimulating hunger. When sleep deprived, studies show (see above or below for links) that Ghrelin levels increase compared to those who get enough sleep, so skipping on sleep stimulates your appetite. This kind of appetite is not what we want, it’s an appetite for excess foods that our bodies don’t actually need.

Leptin is the appetite suppressing hormone. When Leptin levels are low, this indicates starvation and low metabolic reserves, which stimulates appetite. This is the hormone of survival that has kept our ancestors alive. But sleep deprivation lowers Leptin levels making our bodies think we’re at risk of starvation due to the stress of sleep deprivation. Don’t let this hormone work against you!

That means, if you want to burn fat, or be healthy at any weight, you want your Grehlin levels low and your Leptin levels high.

So, get yourself to bed and get some good quality ZZZ’s, 8 hours is optimal. Need more convincing? Check out the noted benefits of sleep for weight loss as outlined by Dr Morrell, MD.

And let me ask you this:

• What one thing can you do to make sure you get 30 mins more sleep tonight?
• How would getting 8 hours of restful sleep improve your life?

Please leave a comment below! If you’d like me to answer your questions, please leave them here for me, I’ll answer every one.

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Yours in Health,