Can you lose weight while you sleep? If you get the proper amount of sleep, will that mean you will lose more weight than if you don’t? Hey, there was a time when if that was true I would have never left my bed. What I am really getting at here is when you are sleep deprived, you are ruining your chances for optimal weight loss when pursuing a diet.

The part about sleep deprivation that really affects your nutrition is that when you are tired, you may not make healthy food choices. When people are tired they resort to sugar and caffeine to pick them up, as opposed to when they get the proper amount of sleep they are better at keeping to their nutrition and exercise plan. In this case you can’t lose weight while you sleep.

Research has shown a relationship between hormones and sleep, and how they affect eating behaviors. Two particular hormones are involved: one involves the feelings of hunger and the other tells your brain to stop eating. When you don’t get enough sleep, the levels rise and fall below normal levels resulting in cravings and not feeling full. Craving food and being hungry, at the same time, is not what you want while trying to pursue an optimal exercise and eating plan.

So, how can you lose weight while you sleep? By getting more sleep, right? If you get eight hours of sleep a night, you can recover physically in the first four hours and mentally in the remaining four hours. If you cut two hours out of your needed eight hours, your body cannot repair itself and therefore can’t effectively shed the weight you are trying to lose. So, this is in effect how you can lose weight while you sleep. By getting the needed eight hours your body requires!

Try these few things to help you get to bed at night, and more importantly, to get to sleep! First, don’t watch TV in bed. I know that’s heresy these days, but if you are a busy person, and you need to get eight hours of sleep, watching TV in bed will possibly get you fired up instead of making you sleepy. Read a book or magazine for a little bit to send you off into dream land.

Don’t drink caffeine drinks after lunch time if it affects you in the sleep department. It does for most people. Also, avoid sugary foods before bed. A spike and then crash of your blood sugar might wake you up early.

Lastly, quit working long before the bed time hour. You risk taking thoughts to bed creating “work-mares” that will disrupt a good nights sleep. You can’t get the proper amount of sleep if you are lying in bed with your mind racing over things at work.

So, if you want to see fat loss from your exercise and optimal nutrition eating plan, than you had better be sure to get eight hours of sleep each night. Franz wishes you sweat dreams!