If you are trying to lose weight, you might be someone who follows a diet plan, exercises, or runs a lot. But did you know that having a sound sleep is also a crucial part of the process of weight-loss?
Award winning nutritionist Loveneet Batra talks about how sleep is important for the weight-loss journey. She posted a video on Instagram in the form of a reel with the text – “Looking for the simplest weight-loss hack?… Don’t ever compromise on your sleep quality.”
She explained it in the caption suggesting sleep to be like nutrition for brain. She then went to say that if the aim for someone was to lose weight, skipping sleep was “like pocking sticks in your bicycle wheels.”
These are the impacts of having inadequate sleep:
Not having sufficient sleep could lead to increase in cortisol levels (cortisol is the stress hormone) causing more stress and stimulate hunger.
It can also interfere with the body’s ability to process carbohydrates causing the blood sugar levels to spike and lead to deposition of fat!
It can cause the levels of leptin hormone to drop making you crave more carbohydrates leading to a bad diet and hence weight gain.
It can lead to reduction of growth hormones too. These hormones help in maintaining the proportions between fat and muscle.
This is how the nutritionist linked lack of sleep to weight gain saying that poor sleep cycle leads to poorer food choices, more carbohydrate intake and less physical activity, all of which contribute to weight-gain.
Due to these reasons, Loveleen suggests sleeping at least 7 hours every night to achieve weight-loss and over health management. Other than that she also suggested to fix your sleep schedule, avoid blue light 1 hour before you go to sleep and use relation techniques like reading, meditating and having chamomile tea to have a sound sleep.
