Archive for January 5th, 2009
Lack of sleep can derail your diet.
Today we’ll explore the second in a series of simple but important elements that can derail our New Year plans to get rid of belly fat.
SLEEP.
There’s a reason why Starbucks sells a bazillion cups of coffee daily: We’re a nation of tired people. A 2008 poll by the National Sleep Foundation in the USA found that adults average just six hours and 40 minutes of sleep on weeknights, less than the seven to nine hours most sleep experts recommend.
Besides leaving you bleary-eyed and grumpy, skimping on sleep may set you up for weight gain. In a study of more than 68,000 women over 16 years, Harvard researchers found that those who got less sleep tended to gain more weight (American Journal of Epidemiology, 2006). Women who slept five hours or less a night were 32 percent more likely to gain 33 pounds or more than women who got seven to eight hours of shut-eye.
It has not been proven that lack of sleep directly causes weight gain, but several studies suggest that hormonal changes may be involved. In particular, levels of the appetite-regulating hormones leptin and ghrelin change when you are sleep-deprived, which could stimulate increased appetite. So make sleep time a priority in your day planner. It’s a low-tech intervention with no downside.
Tomorrow we look at yet another detractor of our diet plans.