Do you eat healthily, do sports and yet you just don't want to shed the kilos?
Then you may be making a critical mistake.
If you are sticking to a healthy diet * and exercising regularly, but are still
not losing weight as you had hoped
,
another factor could be the reason
.
This is often overlooked in connection with weight loss.
Ask yourself the question: are
you getting enough sleep?
Getting enough sleep plays an important role in losing weight.
We explain why this is so here.
How is sleep related to weight loss?
When we sleep, various
hormones are
released
, for example melatonin: when it is dark, it is released more intensely and gives the brain the signal: It is time to go to bed.
We get tired.
When it comes to losing weight, however, two other hormones are important: leptin and ghrelin.
There are two opponents.
Leptin is the so-called satiety hormone
: If you have a lot of leptin in your body, you're more likely to be full.
Ghrelin, on the other hand, promotes appetite.
Basically, the body's goal when sleeping is to stay asleep.
So when we sleep a few hours, the body releases more leptin and suppresses ghrelin so we don't
wake up hungry
.
If we sleep too short, there is little or no release of hormones - short sleepers wake up hungrier than late risers.
As a result, the short sleepers eat more and are more likely to gain weight.
The hormone ghrelin also
prevents fat loss
, so it is bad in two ways if you want to lose weight.
Another factor that influences short sleepers: If you sleep little, i.e. get up earlier, the day is longer, so you are tempted to eat more or more often.
As a 2019 study that appeared in the
Journal of Neuroscience
reports, there is a direct
connection between lack of sleep and the neuronal reward system in the brain
: Those who sleep too little are more likely to eat fatty and sweet foods instead of eating healthy.
Also interesting:
How to drop the pounds: lose five kilos in one week with intermittent fasting.
Lose weight through sleep: short sleepers are more likely to gain weight than late sleepers
Another problem for short sleepers: those who have slept too little feel tired and tired, then move less during the day,
so they burn fewer calories
.
The muscles are also known to be important for losing weight.
Muscles are better than adipose tissue because they need more energy:
the more muscles, the higher the basal metabolic rate
.
That means you need more calories to live and you can eat more.
Conversely, this means that if you eat less, you have a larger deficit and lose weight.
That is why it is good to have a lot of muscle.
But even here, a short sleep is not exactly beneficial: muscles usually regenerate at night.
If you sleep too short, it can even lead to
muscle loss
.
Read more:
Eat consciously and lose weight at the same time: Slim with the clean eating trend.
How long should you sleep if you want to lose weight?
When we talk about late risers and short sleepers, we don't mean that you should stay in bed until noon.
Too much sleep is not healthy either
.
But: A sufficient sleep of
seven to nine hours
per night can be helpful when losing weight, because the body then has enough time to release the mentioned hormones and the muscles can regenerate.
In addition to the duration, the
quality of sleep
is also
important
: sleep in a darkened, cool room and make sure that you do not let any influences such as television on when you fall asleep.
(mad) * Merkur.de is part of the nationwide Ippen-Digital editors network.
Sources: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC535701/;
https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-01/kcl-sfl010818.php
Also read:
This is why it can be dangerous if you sleep more than eight hours.
What to do if you crave chips and chocolate?
What to do if you crave chips and chocolate?
List of rubric lists: © picture alliance / dpa / Jens Kalaene