I promise I will eventually get to the part where I drone on and on incisively about myself and my weight loss journey, but for now I am still trying to set up the basics. I will remind you, yet again, this about a healthy lifestyle, it's more than a weight change. To lose the weight, and keep it off your whole life is going to have to change. So here, I cannot stress the importance of sleep!
If you're like me, you probably don't get a whole lot of sleep. Typically we wake around seven except for the two days a week I have to work early. One kid goes to sleep between 8:30-9 and the other goes to sleep between 9:30-10. After they go to sleep is when I get to clean up a bit and work out. I'm not normally done working out until 11 or later. Following my work out is the ritual of...what's it called, oh yeah, sitting on my ass. When I'm done doing that comes the changing clothes, washing my face (if you don't do this you WILL start to break out. Exercise is great for you, but all that sweat is not great for your pores. Wash your damn face!) brushing teeth, blah blah blah, and actually getting into bed we're creeping up on the midnight deadline. If you're anything like me you probably don't fall asleep right away either. I have some beautiful anxiety issues that escalate to the peak at night when I have nothing else to distract me. Though even they have gotten better in the past two weeks, I'm usually closer to the 12:30-1 mark than the midnight mark when I finally do fall asleep.
There are over two dozen studies stating that people who sleep less tend to weigh more. I'll admit, I'm no sleep expert or doctor of any kind. These are the results of 16 year study on the connection between sleep and weight. The study showed that people who were overweight slept 16 minutes less per day than people who were in a healthy weight range. Yep, 16 minutes apparently makes that big of a difference. Another study showed that women who sleep 5 hours or less a night were nearly a third likely to gain 30 or more pounds than someone who slept 7 or more hours. There was also a study in which one group was permitted to sleep as usual and the other was asked to sleep about 1/3 less than usual (about an hour and 20 minutes less a night). The group who was asked to sleep less consumed about 550 calories more a day than they did when getting their usual amount of sleep.
Think about it this way, you're tired, so what are you going to do? You're going to grab a cup of coffee! Maybe even a donut too! You have a harder time getting out of bed and as a result are running late to work, do you think you're still going to make yourself an egg or even a bowel of cereal? No, you'll likely run through the drive through and hit up some breakfast burritos and hash browns. Also, if you're extremely tired you're pretty much going to have to force yourself to work out, and without all the energy and motivation a good work out deserves you'll probably deliver a lackluster performance too.
I'm not quite familiar with the logistics of everything and I'm not dedicated enough to actually look it up. But what I do know is that sleeping is important in this journey, there is a saying in the weight loss world: "Sleep more, eat less." If at all possible, add 30 minutes to your typical sleep schedule. Not only will your weight thank you, but your mind probably will too. Sleep is good for you, and in more ways than just for weight loss. Studies have show a link between inadequate sleep and heart disease and diabetes, along with a lower pain threshold. Not getting enough sleep can even put a damper on your sex life and make you just downright grumpy.
It's something I'm actually still working on. But there you have it. Go take a nap.
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