Can You Lose Weight By Sleep In?

1. A few kilos too heavy? Don’t immediately start dieting - wait until you hear how sleeping a bit longer can affect your weight?

2. Researchers at the Clinical Research Centre of the University of Chicago asked 12 healthy, non-smoking young men with normal posture to spend two nights in the hospital on two separate occasions. 

3. The first time they are allowed to sleep for four hours at night (from 1 – 5 am).

4. The second time they were allowed to sleep for ten hours a night (from 10 pm – 8 am).

5. Although the men had exactly the same amount to eat, they appeared to be much more hungry in the morning after a short sleep than after a long sleep. 

6. They wanted energy-rich food like ice cream, chips, and pasta. 

7. Blood tests showed that lack of sleep had confused the production of two hormones in the men.

But do these hormones really make us fat? 

• The results of 15 years of research into sleep by the University of Wisconsin were published in 2004, showing that people who sleep less than 8 hrs a night are on average fatter. 

Conclusions

• The short sleepers had more ghrelin, a hormone which stimulates hunger. 
• The level of the hormone leptin, which sends signals that we have enough to eat, was lower after a short night.
• The more ghrelin you produce, the more you stimulate hunger while also reducing the number of calories you burn (your metabolism) and increasing the amount fat you store. In other words, you need to control leptin and ghrelin to successfully lose weight, but sleep deprivation makes that nearly impossible.

References:

1. 106 Strange Science Facts, Can you lose weight by sleep in?

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_deprivation

3. http://mominhome.com/weight-loss/

Shared by Norhidayah Alias

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