Snooze to Lose

There is one thing that I consider the overlooked factor in fatloss. It’s almost like the dirty little secret of appetite control. SLEEP.

I found an interesting article, called ‘The Dream Diet’, on WebMD which nicely summarises why getting the right amount of sleep is so necessary if you want to get lean. Having tracked my daily eating for an indecently long period of time, I know that some days it’s easy to eat well and some days I am a hungry cavernous barrel that just can’t seem to get full.

Usually these ‘eat it if it’s not nailed down’ days happen after a broken sleep or an evening where I stayed up way too long catching up on the exciting lives of my favourite bloggers, or had a few wines late in the evening (alcohol interferes with deep sleep). According to WebMD, it’s all because of those pesky hormones that regulate appetite and bodyfat levels. A lack of sleep leads to a decrease in the ‘I’ve eaten enough’ hormone Leptin and an increase in the ‘eat now’ hormone Grehlin. Appetite is increased and, with chronic undersleeping, so is bodyfat.

The article reports that bodyfat correlates closely with hours of sleep. As in, less sleeping hours = more bodyfat once snoozing time dipped below 8 hours a night. So, if you like to get up at 5.00am to secure a treadmill at the gym, then make sure you have a curfew of 10pm (easy to say, hard to do).

Interesting too is that sleep disorders and eating disorders often occur together. I know that I've frequently had issues with insomnia and even when I do fall asleep easily, I will snap awake at any disturbance.. for example, a mouse sneezing, in the house next door, under the floorboards, hiding in leaves. Obviously Miss J has no such issues. I’m sure that our little princess in the pic will be devastated when she realises she slept right through the checkout lolly display at the supermarket. It was so cute, even a spotty teenage grocery assistant (male) came over all mushy and squeaked ‘awww.. look at that….’

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To finish, today I learned something so valuable that I just can’t keep it to myself. Here it is:
Don’t inhale deeply while sprinkling paprika over your food. Lordy, the pain.