Bad Sleeper? 3 Easy Steps Toward Better Sleep & More Weight Loss

When weight loss is your goal, diet and exercise are top of mind. But the best thing you can do to promote fat loss might just be getting horizontal.

Sleep and fat loss are more tightly connected than most people realize. Here are 7 science-backed facts about why you should hit the sack early. Then, we’ll dive into 3 steps you can take today for quality sleep tonight.

1. A Lack of Sleep Disrupts Your Hunger Hormones
   When you don’t get enough sleep:
   • Ghrelin (your hunger hormone) increases
   • Leptin (your satiety hormone) decreases

   As a result, you feel hungrier and less satisfied. This shift in hormones makes us eat more, especially the high-carb, high-fat foods.

2. Sleep Deprivation Increases Your Cravings for Junk Food Sleep-deprived brains are on high alert for sugary and processed foods. Your impulse control also weakens. Suddenly, that bag of chips or sleeve of Oreos becomes so much harder to resist.
3. Poor Sleep Causes More Muscle Loss Than Fat Loss One well-known study found something scary: Dieters who sleep 5.5 hours versus 8.5 hours lost 55% less fat and 60% more lean muscle, despite following the same diet. Sleep deprivation can shift your body to burn lean tissue instead of fat. That’s really bad news for future weight loss—read this to find out exactly why.
4. Sleep Shapes Your Insulin and Metabolism, Every Day Even one night of poor sleep can reduce your insulin sensitivity and impair your glucose metabolism. Over time, your body will start storing more of what you eat as fat.
5. Cortisol Increases as Sleep Decreases Low sleep elevates cortisol, our stress hormone that’s linked to fat storage—especially the kind that hangs out around our bellies. Chronic sleep loss mimics chronic stress in your body, making weight loss a lot harder.
6. Consistent Sleep Regulates Your Circadian Rhythm Even if your total sleep hours are the same, sleeping at inconsistent hours can impact your fat loss. A random sleep schedule can disrupt your circadian rhythm, which is tied to metabolism, hormone release, and fat storage.
7. More Sleep Means Better Recovery Deep, quality sleep will support your muscle repair, growth, and recovery after a workout. That means you’ll perform better in your workouts and burn more calories long-term.

Sleep is the elixir of life. It’s the most widely available and powerful health boost for humanity—critical for emotional regulation, mental health, productivity, learning, disease prevention, and fat loss.

The three most proven steps to better sleep, starting tonight, are:

1. Set Your Perfect Sleep Schedule—Catch These HoursSleep this long: The sweet sleep spot is 7-9 hours a night. If we slip below this number, researchers would be able to measure objective impairments to our brains and bodies.Shoot for these hours: The optimal time to fall asleep (a.k.a. the hours that lead to lower risks of heart and circulatory diseases) is between 10 pm and 11 pm.Don’t discount daylight: Natural sunlight in the day transforms our sleep at night. One study found that people who were exposed to lots of light in the morning fell asleep faster and improved their sleep quality.Above all, keep it consistent: Most importantly, keep your sleep schedule regular. Go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time as often as possible.
2. Follow a Relaxing Bedtime Routine, Like This: 

   Turn off screens and turn down lights: Lights and screens can trick the mind into thinking it’s daytime, which arouses wakefulness instead of sleep. Even just one hour of screen time before bed delays the release of melatonin (our sleepy hormone) by about three hours! One hour before bed, switch off half the lights in your house and stay away from screens.Dump your thoughts into a diary: Journaling is one of the most helpful pre-bed activities. It can help you review your day, organize your ideas, and store away racing thoughts that, otherwise, could keep you up at night. If you’re overwhelmed by your to-do list, write a quick schedule for the next day. Get these thoughts down on paper before bed, and leave them there until morning.
   Take a shower (hot or cold): Our body needs to cool down in order to fall asleep. A cold shower can do the trick—it can eliminate stress and reduce anxiety. But a hot shower works as well. When we step out of a hot shower, our temperature dips, helping our bodies prepare for bedtime. Double down on drowsiness by soaping up in scents like lavender or chamomile.

3. Create the Best Sleep-Promoting Environment: 

   Blackout the bedroom: A completely dark sleep environment is one of the best ways to improve your sleep quality. Darkness signals the brain to release melatonin, the hormone that helps us fall asleep. On the other hand, light disrupts this hormone. Hang blackout curtains for your most restorative night of sleep.Drop the temp: Your brain needs to drop its temperature by about 2 degrees to fall asleep. Lower your thermostat before bed, make sure your pajamas and bedding are cooling, and take a pre-bed shower to help your body stay cool throughout the night.Silence disrupting sounds: If you’re easily disturbed by noise or struggle with insomnia, a white noise sound machine can make all the difference. They promote relaxation, shorten the time it takes to fall asleep, and help keep us asleep throughout the night.

Besides improving your immune system, moods, mental health, and longevity, sleep will help you drop pounds of body fat. Researchers found that just one extra hour of sleep each night over three years could be equal to losing 26 pounds.

If you want to improve your health and boost your weight loss, its time to open your eyes about getting some shut eye.

Sleep is just part of the weight loss equation, though. To learn exactly how to reset your composition and never go back, join LEAN. Here, you’ll gain all the knowledge and resources you need to transform your body, one pound at a time.