Sleep and Weight Loss

Not getting enough sleep could be sabotaging your weight-loss efforts!  Researchers have identified several ways that sleep deprivation (even missing an hour or two on one or two nights a week) affects appetite, fat storage, and activity levels:

The hormone connection:
-    Lack of sleep decreases leptin levels (the hormone that makes you feel full) and increases ghrelin levels (the hormone that makes you hungry).  These two hormonal signals prompt you to eat more, especially foods high in sugar, fat, and salt.  In one study, 2 days of shortened sleep increased appetite for high carbohydrate foods by 32%!
-    Growth hormone, which helps your body to burn stored fat, is usually secreted in bursts during stage 4 slow-wave sleep, which happens about three or four times a night.  If you’re sleeping less and missing out on one of your slow-wave sleep cycles, you may be short-changing yourself of the powerful fat-burning benefits of growth hormone.
-    Even three nights of poor sleep has been shown to decrease your cells’ response to insulin (the hormone that increases fat storage).  This in turn makes your pancreas secrete more insulin to compensate.  More insulin, more fat storage.  It’s also a huge risk factor for developing type II diabetes.

The effects of fatigue:
-    Losing sleep makes you feel tired the next day, which may decrease your motivation to stick to your exercise plan.  Fatigue can also make you expend less energy during everyday activities, researcher has shown.  Fewer calories burned = weight gain.
-    Fatigue increases our desire for sugary foods in order to provide an energy boost.  Research suggests that our brains actually perceive these foods as more pleasurable than usual when we’re tired, so it’s harder to resist temptation.
-    How motivated are you to prepare healthy meals from whole foods if you’re feeling tired from lack of sleep?  In studies, people who were sleep-deprived ate more snacks and chose less healthy foods than those who were well-rested.
-    If TV watching is eating into your sleep time, you’re being exposed to food commercials designed to stimulate your cravings, which are harder to resist when you’re tired.
-    Some have even suggested that getting enough sleep reduces food intake simply by reducing the amount of time available for eating – if you’re asleep, you’re not eating.  With the abundance and availability of food in our modern world, this could, in fact, be a factor.

Getting enough sleep
For many people, getting a good night’s sleep is simply a matter of making a few adjustments to your schedule.  Some tips:
-    Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, even on weekends.
-    Create a bedtime routine to help wind down at the end of the day and prepare the body for sleep:  pack a healthy lunch for the next day, prepare your supplements and/or herbs for the morning, brush your teeth, read for 30 minutes, listen to a meditation CD, etc.
-    Keep your bedroom completely dark and get rid of any distractions (TV, computer, work-related reading material, etc.).  Reserve the bedroom for sleep (well, that and baby-making of course!).
-    If your schedule is so packed that you don’t feel you have time to get enough sleep, what can you let go of to make more time?  An hour of TV a day?  The need to keep a perfectly clean and tidy house?  Bringing work home with you?  Or can you get some help with work and household chores so you can get enough sleep?
- acupuncture 2 time per week for 4 weeks
- Do not eat after 7:30 pm.  If you go to bed shortly after eating then your body uses energy to digest food rather using this time to repair and recharge your body. waking up tired or feeling hung over maybe related to eating too close to going to sleep.
-Avoid the news and "stimulating or intense" reading  before bed.
- Learn self hypnosis for sleep. Or download guided imagery for insomnia and listen to it as you fall asleep.
-Busy mind... write out your worries AND your dreams/goals before going to bed. Writing worries on paper provides your mind permission to let go of them for the night.  Remember to balance your worried thoughts  with some positive goals and dreams you want to manifest. Write them down too.

If you have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, talk to your Acubalance practitioner for more advice and treatments we offer to help improve the amount and quality of your sleep.  More tips on weight loss

Lorne Brown B.Sc., CA,Dr.TCM, FABORM
Acubalance Wellness Centre
Founder and Clinical Director

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Chaput JP, Klingenberg L Sjödin AM.  (2010).  Sleep restriction and appetite control:  waking to a problem?  Am J Clin Nutr 91:822-3.
Chaput JP.  (2008).  The association between sleep duration and weight gain in adults:  a 6-year -prospective study from the Quebec Family Study.  Sleep 31(4): 517-23.
Flier J, Elmquist, J.  (2004).  A good night’s sleep:  future antidote to the obesity epidemic?  Ann Intern Med 141(11), 885-6.
Hicks RA, McTighe S, Juarez M.  (1986).  Sleep duration and eating behaviors of college students.  Percept Mot Skills 62:25-6.
Knutson KL, Spiegel K, Penev P, van Cauter E.  (2007).  The metabolic consequences of sleep deprivation.  Sleep Med Rev 11(3): 163-178.
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Schmid SM, Hallschmid M, Jauch-Chara K, et al.  (2009).  Short-term sleep loss decreases physical activity under free-living conditions but does not increase food intake under time-deprived laboratory conditions in healthy men.  Am J Clin Nutr 90:1476-82.
Spiegel K, Tasali E, Leproult R, Van Cauter E.  (2009).  Effects of poor and short sleep on glucose metabolism and obesity risk.  Nat Rev Endocrinol 5:253-61.
Spiegel K, Tasali E, Penev P, Van Cauter E.  (2004),  Brief communication:  sleep curtailment in healthy young men is associated with decreased leptin levels, elevated ghrelin levels, and increased hunger and appetite.  Ann Intern Med 141(11): 846-50.
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