Let’s talk about importance of sleep and why it’s one of the main pillars of InShape Lifestyle programs! Developing good sleep habits seems to be very important because lack of it makes mobilizing fat stores in the body extremely difficult.
Are you not getting enough or good sleep?
Well, the thing is, there can be a lot of reasons for this, but let’s start at the beginning and check what the 4 pillars of a good night rest are:
- Length – the average adult needs 7.5 hours for full recovery. If you are an athlete, then not infrequently 8.5. There is a lot of research on this, and these numbers are generally true for everyone.
- Depth – basically indicates the quality of sleep. It includes not only one but several processes that cover the same brain function throughout sleep. We move in and out between different phases during the night, during which the brain performs different activities depending on the depth where various brain waves dominate.
- Continuity – is it continuous or fragmented? It’s useless to be in bed for 10 hours if you only spend 7 hours actually sleeping, because you wake up all the time. In this case, you accumulate a serious sleep debt, which reduces your cognitive ability, decision-making, and even worsens the sensitivity of your cells to glucose, even after a few days.
- Regularity – this is mostly related to the circadian clock, i.e. whether you are able to go to bed and get up at roughly the same time every day of the week. Now you can say that in today’s fast-paced world, this is impossible. But remember, man’s internal clock didn’t evolve recently just to promote our current lifestyle, but a little while ago, like a couple million years, when the sun was the primary regulator of your biological clock.
But what does a bad night sleep has to do with obesity and belly fat?
In a small number of sleep deprivation experiment of healthy people, an association was found between sleep deprivation and abdominal obesity.
By the end of week 2, people with lower hours of night rest had increased their body weight by about 0.5 kg and had seen a significant increase in adipose tissue in the abdomen area. Especially inside the abdomen – belly fat!
The study found that in addition to reduced sleep time, participants ate an average of 308 calories more per day than the other group members. This translated into a 0.5 kg weight gain also led to an increase in visceral adipose tissue of about 11% (7.8 cm2).
Scientists found that sleep deprivation alters the “pathway” of fat in the body, i.e. fat is placed in the wrong place.
And here comes the moment of truth: even if a short-term sleep disorder does not significantly increase body weight, a sleep disturbance results in fat storage disorder, and it can lead to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and unhealthy body composition (visceral fat mass). Meaning: belly fat.
Source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220328165327.htm
Conclusion:
- Sleep deprivation increases body weight, especially belly fat.
- People eat more calories after a bad night sleep.
- A good night rest in quality and quantity is essential for weight management and fat loss.