Give it a rest!

No, I'm afraid I'm not telling you all to quit your exercise regime.  Quite the opposite, in fact!  But I am telling you all to get some rest.  Both in the form of "rest days" (days where you don't exercise at an intense level) and in the form of good quality sleep.

Sleep plays a MASSIVE role in our overall health, and especially when it comes to losing weight.  This fact is well known amongst fitness professionals.  Everywhere I turn at the moment (websites I read, other trainers, fitness magazines I subscribe to) there's reference to the importance of sleep with regard to weight loss.  But sleep is often overlooked by your average exerciser, so I thought I'd put together a quick summary to explain why rest is just as important as exercise and diet.

Below are some of the reasons you should try to get more sleep each night.  Inadequate sleep:

• can lead to insulin resistance and contribute to increased risk of diabetes
• can increase blood pressure
• can increase the risk of heart disease 
• means low energy the next day so you're more likely to skip your workout or, at best, have a half-arsed attempt at a workout! 
• drives down leptin* levels, which makes you crave sugary foods.
• drives up ghrelin*levels, which makes you more hungry.
• reduces levels of growth hormone*, responsible for muscle growth and cell renewal.
• increases cortisol* levels which increases hunger
• messes with the body's ability to metabolise carbohydrates and causes high levels of glucose in the blood, which leads to higher insulin and - as a result - more storage of unwanted body-fat!

You'll see that there's a lot of talk about hormones*.  Below is a little more information on each of these hormones:

Leptin -  A hormone produced during sleep.  Regulates appetite, telling your brain when you're full.  So the less you sleep, the less leptin you produce, and the more you eat as your body essentially doesn't know when to stop eating.  

Ghrelin - The "hunger hormone" which stimulates the brain to increase appetite.  High levels of ghrelin also mean you're less likely to feel satisfied after eating.  More sleep = lower ghrelin = reduced appetite.

Cortisol -The stress hormone.  One of its major functions is to metabolise macronutrients (fat, protein, carbohydrate).   Studies have shown that sleep deprivation causes an increase in stress to the body, hence high cortisol levels which actually slows the metabolism.  To make matters worse, high stress levels have been shown to increase fat deposits around your middle = muffin top!

Growth Hormone - A protein that helps regulate the body's proportions of fat and muscle.  When we don't sleep enough, we don't produce enough growth hormone, which means our muscles don't get a chance to recover from a workout.  So you could be putting in all the effort at the gym, but ruining those efforts and not getting the results simply because you haven't allowed your body enough rest.  Growth hormone will increase muscle mass - and we all know that muscle is far more calorie-hungry than fat.  By this I mean that the more lean tissue you have (i.e. muscles) the higher your base metabolic rate will be and the easier you'll be able to lose weight and keep that weight down.

What's more, it's not just an old wives tale that going to bed earlier is better for you.  Surely it's the quality of sleep and the total number of hours slept, rather than when you sleep, right?  Well, actually - wrong!  Our bodies are designed to rest when the sun goes down and work & play when the sun comes up (sometimes referred to as biorhythm, circadian rhythm or simply body-clock).  Call it what you like, but we've all heard Bejamin Franklin's saying  "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise".   It seems he had a point!  Before there was electricity, mother nature intended for us to go to sleep shortly after sunset.  As such our bodies have evolved to get the most benefit from sleeping between the hours of 10pm-6am.  Our body carries out most of it's detoxification and cell regeneration between 9pm - 1am.  For more informaton on this you can go to the link below:

http://foreverhealthyandyoung.com/index.php?post=212


So there you have it.  Bad sleeping habits = bad hormones = bad weight problems.  Simple as that.  Even if you don't need to lose weight, getting adequate sleep will dramatically improve how your body functions, and set you on the path to optimal health.  Now, turn off your computer and go get some shut eye :-)