When you think about losing some weight, maybe you don’t see fixing your sleep schedule as your priority. Well, perhaps you should consider it, especially since too little sleep can ruin your diet.
How much sleep are you getting every night? Do you feel rested when you wake up in the morning? Maybe you’re wondering what’s the connection between these questions and your weight. The fact is that poor sleep can ruin your diet because everything in your body is connected.
But how much shut-eye should you be getting? It depends. Most healthy adults need somewhere between 7 and 9 hours to recharge their batteries in the best way. For instance, I have observed my sleep patterns, and I noticed that I need about 8 hours of sleep every night, or I can’t function properly. But you might need 7 hours and a half. Or even nine. It’s up to you to discover that. Children and teens may need somewhere between eight hours and 14 hours. But it depends on the lifestyle and their bodies.
When your sleep patterns aren’t fulfilling your body’s needs, it’s easy to fall into bad habits that make you quit your diet. You lose focus and decide to get a coffee with more calories than what you’re allowed. Your body asks for fat foods, because it needs energy, and then you feel too heavy to exercise regularly, to get rid of excess weight.
So let’s break down all the reasons lousy sleep can ruin your diet.
5 reasons insufficient sleep can ruin your diet
1.Bad decisions
If you sleep too little, then you are more prone to making bad choices, according to webmd.com. Your frontal lobe will have slower activity, and that is the part of your brain which takes care of decision-making and impulse control. Being sleep deprived is similar to being drunk.
2.You get cravings
The parts of your brain called “reward centers” are activated, which means cravings will soon torment you. That leads to you consuming comfort foods, which are almost always fatty and unhealthy. According to a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, sleep-deprived people tend to have plenty of late night snacks, especially ones rich in carbohydrates. Also, sleeping too little makes you eat more substantial portions because your body is looking for extra energy sources.
3.Imbalance of hunger hormones
When you sleep, your body gets nourished. If you skip on a couple of precious hours of snoozing, you will throw out the balance in your hunger and fullness hormones, including ghrelin and leptin. Ghrelin tells your body you need to eat and when you sleep less, your body produces more of this hormone. And leptin tells your body when you’re full, so you can eat only as much as you need. When you are sleep deprived, your body produces less leptin, which tells your body to eat more.
4.Your stress levels rise
The levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, tend to go up when you haven’t had enough food. This means that your body tries to conserve energy to get you through the day. But also, because you feel stress more acutely, you are also prone to unhealthy snacks.
5.You are not hungry at mealtime
Because your body isn’t balanced when it comes to sleep, this affects the number of times a day you feel hungry. Which means that you will be tempted to have a significant dinner at 8 p.m. when we’re sure you know you’re not supposed to eat anything serious after 7 p.m. The large meal will also delay your next sleep cycle because you’re digesting.
