LOSE WEIGHT WITH YOUR EYES CLOSED
Dreaming of throwing off unwanted layers? Science shows that a good night’s sleep has you covered
Squeezing in an extra workout, batch-cooking meals, the early-morning cycle to work... sticking to weight-loss advice would be easier if there were more hours in the day. But before you set that 5am alarm, or push back your bedtime to blanch an extra batch of broccoli, it’s worth considering what you’ll lose. Namely: the power of a solid night’s rest.
Though research in the Annals Of Internal Medicine found that low-calorie dieters achieved the same amount of weight loss whether they slept for an average of 5.5 or 8.5 hours per night, the devil is in the detail. If you lose sleep, more of the weight you cut will come from lean mass, not fat. In other words, if you burn the candle at both ends, you’ll end up torching through your hard-earned muscle. Just a quarter of the weight lost by people getting fewer than six hours’ sleep came from fat, while those who caught the suggested nightly amount of Zs lost twice as much.
It gets worse for sleep dodgers. In the experiment, both groups were assigned the same amount of food. But without a lab assistant on hand to rein in their impulses, those who underslept ate more than 300 extra calories the next day. This was attributed in part to the fact that a lack of sleep causes a spike in the hormone ghrelin, which makes you feel hungry, and a fall in leptin, which signals to your brain that you feel full. Take our advice and sleep on it.