One Big Health Nut

When you decide to take action and lose weight, you would normally consider increasing the amount of time you exercise and changing your eating habits.  But have you ever considered increasing the amount of sleep you get each night?  If not, you should! Research has found that sleep deprivation adversely affects the components of your body integral to weight loss.   

When your body is deprived of sleep, your glucose metabolism is affected.  Your body will slow glucose metabolism by up to 40%.  The adverse affects of sleep deprivation is evident after only one week of restricted sleep.  Glucose and glucose reserves know as glycogen are the central energy source.  If your body is unable to efficiently metabolize glucose, the energy reserves necessary for exercising will be unavailable.  This will cause your body to suffer fatigue.  Athletes and weight lifters will suffer muscle failure. 

Coritsol levels are also affected by sleep deprivation.  Cortisol is a stress hormone that can interfere with tissue repair and tissue growth.  Lack of sleep will result in elevated levels of cortisol.  High levels of cortisol have also been linked to memory problems and long term insulin resistance.  Weight lifters will find that the increased cortisol levels caused by sleep deprivation can inhibit the body’s response to heavy training and cause overtraining.   

The lesson here is that sleep deprivation can impede results for people at all fitness levels.  Individuals who are trying to lose weight and those that are trying to increase muscle mass will observe limited results from their efforts without sufficient sleep.  The body cannot efficiently function without a proper amount of time to recover from all the day’s work.  Research has shown that chronic sleep deprivation can lead to long term effects.  So if you want to achieve your goals, whatever they may be, you will make sure that you do not forget to add ‘get more sleep’ to your weight loss or fitness ‘to do’ list.