People these days struggle with a lot of things. If there are two things they struggle on the most, it has to be about sleep and weight. People can obsess over these two things a lot because it is almost next to impossible to get quality sleep and maintain your ideal weight when the world is full of temptations that are meant to lure us into the easy life. Sad to say, though, that the easy and carefree life we thrive in does not necessarily help promote healthy living. Eating fast food, staying up all night and fidgeting with your smart devices, not exercising, all these things add up over time and result in weight problems. Now don’t be surprised why obesity is a major problem in the world when we do so little in ensuring our bodies are healthy and cared for every single day.
You don’t really have to starve yourself or spend long hours in the gym when simply sleeping better can actually help you shed off that excess weight. It may not be fast but it sure is effective. You see, sleep has powerful restorative properties that make us feel like we can take on the world if we only get the recommended 8 hours of sleep each night. Take note, sleep at night not just daytime sleep. Certain chemicals are released only at night that aid in sleep restoration that you miss out on if you pull off an all-nighter and decide to sleep the day after. If you are well-rested and get a decent sleep each night, you can easily do your tasks next day without having to rely on anything to boost your focus and concentration.
That extra sleep showed some real-world benefits that could help explain why lack of sleep is associated with obesity. The sleep-trained group ate an average of 176 fewer calories a day; in comparison, the control group ate only seven fewer calories every day. Best of all, those calories were cut from less healthy sources. Those who slept more cut ten grams of sugar from their diets every day, while the others changed their sugar intake by less than a gram. The newly better sleepers also ate reduced their daily carbs by 22 grams, while the shorter sleepers actually ate 3 more grams.
Even with better sleep and dietary habits, the participants didn’t show much weight change over the course of the study, but the results are consistent with past research linking sleep with a healthy weight, like one study that found people burn more fat when getting a full night’s rest.
(Via: https://www.rd.com/health/diet-weight-loss/sleep-affects-diet/)
Skip the snacks and sweets or drinks loaded with caffeine to help you get through a boring class or give you the energy you need at work because sleep is enough to keep you focused and alert all day long. As a result, you spare your body the extra calories you get from these equally addicting treats thus you can easily maintain your svelte figure. Just imagine your sleepy self trying to trudge through a day’s worth of work. You would gladly grab that snack bar or go on endless trips to the pantry to make yourself coffee because you are sleepy and don’t have the energy to do your tasks. That’s how you end up putting weight faster than you can burn it.
The amount of sleep participants got each night proved to have a positive correlation with their diets. The researchers found that those who extended their sleep reduced their free sugar consumption by 10 grams when compared to baseline levels, along with a decrease in carbohydrate consumption.
“The fact that extending sleep led to a reduction in intake of free sugars, by which we mean the sugars that are added to foods by manufacturers or in cooking at home as well as sugars in honey, syrups and fruit juice, suggests that a simple change in lifestyle may really help people to consume healthier diets,” said principal investigator Wendy Hall, from the Department of Nutritional Sciences at King’s College London.
(Via: https://www.metro.us/body-and-mind/weight-loss/sleep-and-weight-loss-healthy-eating)
It is like a positive domino effect of good things to come your way simply by getting enough snooze at the right time. You don’t have to take any special pill, buy a special workout equipment, pay for a costly gym membership, or try a crazy and potentially harmful diet that does not guarantee any success because getting enough sleep is what you need first in living a healthy life. You can easily fight off cravings for sweets if you don’t feel that sleepy during the day.
Do it for yourself and your well-being. And while it may be hard for people with diagnosed sleep disorders, you should not just give up yet and instead make sure you go see a doctor for treatment. You can try an anti-snoring mouthpiece like https://snoringmouthpiecereview.org/zquiet or https://snoringmouthpiecereview.org/snorerx to relieve the symptoms and the snoring and it will help you sleep better too. And if you sleep better, losing weight and keeping that extra weight off will come naturally so it’s definitely a win-win situation for you.
