If you truly want to lose weight then there is one practically unknown part of your life that you will need to get right. It is how you sleep - how much and how well. It can be the crucial part that determines if you'll succeed losing weight or not.
But, one of the truly important things relating to weight and health is almost completely ignored or unknown. Sleeping too little or badly can scupper your chances of losing weight.
You may well question how sleep and becoming slim, and staying slim, are related. The answer is very simple: sleep and metabolism work hand in hand. During sleep your body recharges itself and checks all your vital functions. If you don't sleep the body can't recharge its batteries and the rhythms will be out of synch. If your metabolism is out of synch it is hard to get it back in its right rhythm.
A simple illustration to show how important sleep is: Your body is a truly intricate mechanism. The food you eat contains "body fuel", calories.
After the body gets all of the calories that it needs to burn for fuel, it will start to store the excess in the fat cells which swell and make us fat. Metabolism is the word used to describe how your body burns the "fuel" in the food. Everyone has a different rate of metabolism, some burn energy quickly, some slowly.
At night, our body goes into a slower mode, finishing up the end of the day business, before it stokes the fire and shuts down for the night. If you find it difficult to fall asleep, or are sleeping badly, your body can't concentrate on the "house keeping" tasks.
Imagine an office worker: imagine a pile in your "in tray" that you ought to go through before the day is done. When you are behind things start to pile up and what should get done is not done.
Another issue that relates - if you suffer from sleeping disorders or lack of sleep you tend to "comfort eat" and not make the best decisions. Remember the last time you felt really tired and "down". Did you take a nap to rejuvenate?
How many of you went for a brisk, refreshing walk? No, you probably went to the vending machine and bought yourself a soda and a candy bar, felt good for twenty minutes and then crashed again. Our bodies are demanding that we get some sleep, but instead of listening to them we just eat something to give it something to do. Remember, once the metabolism is slowed down, it is hard to get it back up.
New research pinpoints sleep and how it affects "appetite" hormones.
Too little sleep increases levels of an hormone called "ghrelin" (boosts appetite) and decreases levels of "leptin" (which suppresses appetite).
The result - sleeping to little or not sleeping well can actually fool your body to put on extra pounds!
An American study found that women that slept at least seven hours per night were on average slimmer than those that slept five hours.
Heard of "Beauty Sleep" ...
Those that slept lightly seemed to be more in the risk zone for becoming overweight than those that slept well.
Surprisingly enough eating habits, diet and sleeping patterns were equally important in predicting the risk of becoming overweight!
It's not only eating healthy and exercising that is important, it is also sleeping well. The body needs the right amount of sleep or you will never have any success.
To find out how many hours per night you need to sleep is thus extremely important if you want to slim down and to stay slim!
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