Did You Know A Lack Of Sleep Can Cause Weight Gain

I wouldn't have believed it 2 years a go. But I definitely do now.

I happened to see a health segment on Fox News about what the lack of sleep can do to your health. Actually there are several negative affects a lack of sleep does to your health but of course I keyed in on the weight gain information.

It’s not so much that if you sleep, you will lose weight, but if you are sleep-deprived, meaning that you are not getting enough minutes of sleep or good quality sleep, your metabolism will not function properly,” explains Michael Breus, PhD, author of Beauty Sleep and the clinical director of the sleep division for Arrowhead Health in Glendale, Ariz.

We need at least 7.5 hours of quality sleep each night. If you are getting less sleep and start to sleep for
7-8 hours a night, you will start dropping weight. I know this to be true. I was diagnoised with severe Sleep Apnea and I was very sleep deprived. Once I started using a CPAP machine, I started to sleep through the night without waking up and I started to drop weight within 10 days.

Exactly how lack of sleep affects our ability to lose weight has a lot to do with our nightly hormones, explains Michael Breus, PhD, author of Beauty Sleep.

The two hormones that are key in this process are ghrelin and leptin.“Ghrelin is the ‘go’ hormone that tells you when to eat, and when you are sleep-deprived, you have more ghrelin,” Breus says. “Leptin is the hormone that tells you to stop eating, and when you are sleep deprived, you have less leptin.”
More ghrelin plus less leptin equals weight gain. “You are eating more, plus your metabolism is slower when you are sleep-deprived,” Breus says.

Until next time .... Work on getting a good nights sleep!