Did you know that when you’re tired, you burn fewer calories? According to new research in the journal Obesity, that may very well be the case. According to their research, not getting enough shuteye can actually mess with your metabolism. So, if you want to improve your weight loss results, the key may be to make sure you’re getting enough rest.
Their study shows that if you only get four hours of sleep a night for five straight nights, your resting metabolic rate, which means how many calories your body burns when it’s at rest, drops by 3 percent. that may not seem like much. But, that’s about 42 calories. Multiply that over time, and your body ends up keeping a significant portion of fat rather than burning it.
The researches aren’t totally why this happens. But, the suspect it may be related to what is known as homeostatis. Your body wants to keep things in balance, so if you spend too much time awake, sacrificing yourself of needed rest, your body tries to balance it out the next day by retaining calories rather than burning them, according to lead study author Andrea Spaeth, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine.
Plus, when you’re not getting rest, you may me more tempted to eat extra “junk” foods when you’re sleepy. One of Spaeth’s earlier studies showed that people may end up eating up to 500 more calories following nights where they didn’t get enough sleep. The suspicision is that sleep deprivation dulls hormones that make you feel full & satisfied, and may even rev up hormones that make you feel hungry.
What’s the good news here? You can reverse this quickly – just get yourself back on a normal sleep schedule! Normal metabolism can be restored after a 12 hour recovery period. So, if you’ve been giving up sleep to get extra work done, more stuff done around the house, or to get an extra workout in, you might want to re-evaluate your schedule – and make sure that you are getting adequate rest while you work on your weight loss program!
