If you’re trying to lose weight, the amount of sleep you get maybe just as important as your diet and exercise. We tend to eat more (and more often) while socializing over the Festive Season. The other ‘unintended’ consequence of more socializing is that the number of hours in ‘slumber land’ gets reduced.
There is mounting evidence showing that sleep may be the missing factor for many people who are having difficulty losing weight.
Here are 6 simple sleep ‘bio hacks’ to help you lose your Festive Season ‘muffin roll’ (or more)that may be peaking out over your belt.
- Trade in your ‘night cap’ for a cup of Tea
An evening glass of wine (and other alcoholic or carbonated soft drinks) are highsugar beverages and they all affect your ability to get restorative sleep. Your ‘night cap’ may relax you, but it actually prevents your body from getting good REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, which is where dreaming occurs. REM sleep is also important for learning and memory. What’s your memory like these days?So here’s what you can do…
a. No sugary beverage (alcohol or other) two hours before bed.
b. Make a cup of chamomile, peppermint or lavender tea (which all have some sedative properties). Enjoy the ritual of sitting down to a soothing cup of tea, which in turn tells your brain to slow down and relax.Of course you’ll also be consuming less calories / kilojoules with this swop. - Your home Kitchen needs a ‘closing time’.
When you sleep, your brain does NOT sleep! It is really busy ‘detoxifying’. It flushes out the build up of a naturally occurring toxin called ‘beta amyloid’. Think of the build up of plaque between your teeth during the day. Your clever brain ‘flosses’ thisbuild up of ‘plaque’ between your brain cells while you are in deep sleep. While you sleep your brain is ‘working’ and therefore your body shouldn’t have to ALSO digest a dinner that you ate late at night.So here’s what you can do…
a. ‘Close’ your home kitchen earlier than you normally do each night. This will give you the many benefits of ‘nighttime fasting’. According to a study in the journal called Cell Metabolism ‘Closing the kitchen at 8pm and skipping breakfast may help you lose weight, even if you eat more food throughout the day’.
b. You should also consider ‘closing the home bar’ after one or (max) two glasses of sugar / alcoholic drinks per night - Increase your Tryptophan intake.
You may ask: ‘what the heck is that?’ Tryptophan is an amino acid found in most meats, nuts, chicken, fish, lentils, and eggs. It has demonstrated powerful sleepinducing effects. This is because Tryptophan is used by your body to create serotonin, which in turn increases melatonin, ‘the sleep hormone’. A study published in The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease found that just 1/4 gram (what you’ll find in a skinless chicken drumstick) was enough to increase hours of deep sleep for people with mild insomnia.So here’s what you can do …
a. Don’t lie there ‘counting sheep’, rather increase your ‘intake’ of Tryptophan at night. This translates into easy weight loss. - Trade in your large dinner plate, for a smaller side plate
Don’t go to bed starving. This presents its own sleep problems. You also shouldn’t hit the sack completely overfed and feeling stuffed. You probably recall feeling like this over December… perhaps more than once. When you eat a large meal before bed, your body is working to digest it long into the night— and you’ll wake up feeling groggy and more likely to reach for kilojoule dense foods. Hmmm, the cycle continues … another day of consuming too many kilojoules. Instead of filling up your usual dinner plate (which can result in eating a monster meal) keep portions ‘smaller’ at night.So here’s what you can do …
a. Try eating off a smaller plate/ side plate or bowl.
b. Instead of going for ‘seconds’ rather have fresh mango / paw paw, plain double thick yoghurt, a few nuts and cinnamon as dessert.
c. Top that off with tea (as per point 1) or decaf coffee and a square of dark chocolate. Now you are ‘done’ for the day, and the kitchen is closed.
Remember, you want to eat your last meal at least 90 mins before going to bed. - Let in the cold
A striking new study published in the journal called Diabetes suggests that simply blasting the air conditioner may help us attack belly fat while we sleep. Colder temperatures subtly enhance the effectiveness of our stores of brown fat (the fat that keeps you warm by helping you burn through the fat stored in your belly). Participants in this study spent a few weeks sleeping in bedrooms with varying temperatures: a neutral 23 degrees Celsius (75 degrees Fahrenheit), a cool 18.8 degrees Celsius (66 degrees Fahrenheit) , and a balmy 27.2 degrees Celius (81 degrees Fahrenheit). After four weeks of sleeping at 18.8 degrees Celsius, the Participants had almost doubled their volumes of brown fat, and this means that they lost belly fat.So here’s what you can do …
a. Make sure that your bedroom is COOL. - Have more sex
And for the last simple bio-hack, if you want to sleep better and lose more weight… have more sex. A study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine shows that for every extra hour of sleep women got, their sexual desire increased accordingly. Researcher Dr. Michele Lastella shows in her findings that ‘the more sex you get, the better you sleep, and the more weight you lose’. Start with one, or two of these Sleep tips for January 2022, and enjoy the benefits of …Balanced hunger hormone levels.
Lower Ghrelin levels – so that you don’t feel hungry.
Higher Leptin levels -ensuring that you feel full after a meal.
In other words your clever ‘ecosystem’ (aka your body) helps you to consume the right amount of kilojoules per day, and you are not feeling hungry or deprived.One last ‘nudge’ to change a few habits associated with sleep, is that an analysis of 20 studies (with cumulatively 300,000 people) found a 41% increased obesity risk among adults who slept fewer than 7 hours per night! In contrast, sleep was not a factor in the development of obesity in adults who slept 7–9 hours per night. Aim to ‘clock up’ a minimum of 7 hours per night.Sleep tight, and ‘live right’ in 2022 by keeping slim, healthy and well.