Case
Name: Alice, 24, lose 16 lbs in a month.
I was a "night owl" type, preferring to work at night. Even if not working, I would be watching TV, surfing on Internet, chatting and go to sleep until very late. When working at night, I’d like to have one more meal, supplementing energy required and on the other hand rewarding myself. After one year like that, I found that my weight increased a lot. To lose weight, I abandoned the extra meal and tried to sleep earlier. Then my weight decreased 16 lbs after one month.
Principle of weight loss
The whole night’s sleep is not a luxury – but a necessity for healthy hormone balancing. Once you sleep less than 7 hours per night, the likelihood of suffering from diabetes, cancer, heart disease, stroke, depression, and chances of weight gain will be much larger.
Some researchers believe that the slow wave sleep – in-depth and dreamless sleep is ideally 3-4 hours needed per night – can regulate your metabolism. In fact, the fourth phase of slow wave sleep (about an hour later in falling into sleep) is the peak time of growth hormone release, and this very growth hormone can induce the body to burn fat. When we were young, our sleep time is about 20% in third phase and fourth phase slow-wave. But as we age, only 10% or even 5% of our sleep time is in that phase.
Sadly, only two nights of poor sleep will make your satiety hormone leptin decrease by 20%, while the ghrelin, i.e. growth hormone releasing peptide, increases by 30%. Thus, you might eat those high carbohydrate snacks, which is very bad news for the insulin level. A study conducted by the University of Chicago found that only 3 bad sleeps at nights can make the body's sensitivity to insulin decrease by 25%, an equivalent to insulin resistance due to 20 – 30 lbs of weight gaining. To block the fat storage hormone and fully release fat burning hormones, you need at least 7 hours of sleep per night. But do not forget a doctrine, that is, before going to bed, you should not eat any food, especially carbohydrates. To enter phase 3 or phase 4 sleep, your the ghrelin, i.e. growth hormone releasing peptide, must be kept at a high level. The carbohydrates reduce the level of growth hormone-releasing peptide more rapidly.
Eating any food before sleep, especially the carbohydrates will prolong the starting time of in-depth sleep. Only when the body is at the half hunger state can it release growth hormone, however the insulin following carbohydrates intake will disturb the release of such hormone. When eating carbohydrates before sleep, we should be decisive – now that we know they disturb our healthy sleep and block the beneficiary hormone for a whole day, should we eat them again? Never!
Review of weight-loss method: Getting sufficient sleep is imperative to losing weight and good health.
Rank of Easiness: ★★★★★
