Jan 17, 2014 by Tatianna
Hello my Lovies,
Today I have a guest article for you guys, which is written by one of my good friends. She is a sleep expert and I wanted to invite her to Loving Fit to share some of her knowledge. Please welcome Maya Garbuz, a certified maternity and child sleep consultant.
Sleep and Weight Loss
A couple of days ago, while waiting in a line at our local all-natural foods’ store, I overheard a conversation of two women: one was bragging to the other that she has been surviving on 5-6 hours of sleep at night. The irony of the situation really struck me: here she was, buying all-natural foods for herself, obviously trying to lead a healthy lifestyle, and at the same time depriving herself from one of the three most important aspects of staying healthy: sleep.
We have all heard that healthy diets and exercise are essential for staying healthy and living long, productive lives. The importance of sleep, however, is still very much news to many.
So, let me make this really clear: if you eat healthy and exercise regularly, but don’t allow your body to restore at night, you are pretty much wasting your time.
Benefits of Good Nights Sleep
There are many physiological processes that happen during sleep: tissue regeneration, break down of fats and conversion of fats into muscle, elimination of molecules that are responsible for aging during sleep, and production of human growth hormone, to name just a few.
There is plenty of research showing that sleep plays an important role in weight management. There are two hormones that are important in weight loss: leptin and ghrelin. Leptin suppresses hunger and ghrelin stimulates appetite. Sleep deprivation lowers leptin and increases ghrelin, leading to an increase of appetite. But when a person gets enough sleep the opposite happens. So by sleeping an adequate amount of time you are helping yourself lose weight!
Getting an adequate amount of sleep at night also lowers the cortisol levels in your body. Sleep deprivation leads to increased cortisol levels, which slows down your metabolism. In addition to that, high levels of cortisol affect the building of muscle. So, sleeping enough helps you build muscle mass.
And, last, but not least, the human growth hormone is released only during sleep, so the ability of your body to build new muscles is greatly impacted by the lack of sleep.
Bottom line: for athletes and people who exercise regularly an important thing to know is that without sleep it is impossible for your body to recover. So, if you want to maximize the results of your workouts and clean diet, you must get enough sleep, which is approximately 8 hours a night. Keep in mind that we typically need about 30 minutes more during the winter months. There is also an ideal time to sleep: 10 pm to 6 am, while it is dark outside. And don’t think that by sleeping the same 8 hours between 1:00 and 9:00 am you are getting the same quality sleep, because you can trick yourself into thinking you got good sleep, but there is no tricking mother nature.
About the author
My name is Maya Garbuz, I am a certified maternity and child sleep consultant. I provide individual consultations to parents of young children and expectant mothers experiencing various sleep challenges. My consultations can be face-to-face or/ and on-line using any form of video conferencing.
If you or your children are having trouble falling or staying asleep give me a call at (608) 628-2448 or email me [email protected] and I will be happy to work with you. For more information please visit my site www.madisonsleepconsultant.com
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