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Is sleep the secret?

09th September 2016

For many people, finding the balance between diet and exercise is tricky and no matter how hard they try to eat well and complete fat burning exercises, something just isn’t working. We have delved deep into this issue and found that normally the answer is that you need more sleep! 

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle whilst working, raising children and attempting to keep a social life is not an easy task for anybody. Often the area in our lives that makes the sacrifice is sleep. According to the sleep foundation an adult aged between 18 to 64 should be getting between 7 and 9 hours sleep per night. We believe that sleep is the key to being rewarded for your diet and fitness efforts. Here are the facts behind it...

1)      An NHS report stated around 30% of the nation are sleep deprived and when you consider that the statistic for obesity is almost identical, it is difficult to believe that the two are not related.

2)      When your body is sleep deprived its ability to properly use insulin is disrupted. Insulin resistance is a condition that is often linked with type 2 diabetes. However a single night of sleep deprivation can cause as much insulin resistance as having a high-fat diet for six months. The reason why you want to avoid insulin resistance is because this is the hormone that aids the movement and removal of fatty cells and when it is working ineffectively fat begins to store in all the wrong places. 

3)      A lack of sleep can make you have food cravings. When you enter sleep deprivation your cortisol levels rise, a hormone that is known as the stress hormone and one that is frequently related with weight gain. Cortisol activates the reward centres of your brain that make you want food whilst shutting down the areas which make you feel satisfied once you have eaten.

4)      Sleep doesn’t just effect your diet but also your exercise regime. Poor sleep not only means that you have a slower recovery time, leaving your muscles feeling tired, but it also means you have less energy to complete the workout to the best of your ability. A further increase in cortisol suppresses the production of the growth hormone, so no matter how many weights you lift in a session, the gains that you will see will be by far reduced.

The moral of the story is to get a good night sleep. Don’t allow it to be the area in your life that you sacrifice. 

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