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Chronic Fatigue - Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired?
→ 2 CommentsTags: Stress Management
What does sleep have to do with weight control? Well, obviously if you sleep all day and lie in bed most of the time and eat, you’ll probably gain weight, but sleep affects some important hormones that play a big role in weight control.
The first sleep-mediated hormone involved in weight control to discuss is growth hormone. Growth hormone stimulates the development of metabolically active muscle and lean tissue and stimulates fat burning. Two things cause the body to naturally produce more growth hormone: intense exercise and sleep.  In fact, even if you are getting frequent intense exercise, without adequate sleep - at least 7 hours per night for most adults, the growth hormone release you get through exercise is greatly reduced. This results in decreased muscle building, decreased direct fat burning, and reduced metabolic rate as an indirect effect of the diminished muscle growth.
The second major weight control hormone that is effected by sleep is the adrenal hormone cortisol. Cortisol production is increased by stress. Most people become more highly stressed without adequate sleep, and this leads to extra cortisol production. Cortisol stimulates abdominal fat deposition, which you may know as the stomach “pooch”, or that roll of fat around the middle. Getting good sleep helps reduce cortisol levels and the storage of belly fat.
 So for those of you who have been dieting and exercising but running on little sleep on a consistent basis, your lack of sleep is probably sabotaging your weight loss efforts. You may want to sleep on that and make some changes in your daily routine.
Stay tuned to this blog for more weight control tips.
→ No CommentsTags: Chronic Fatigue · Weight Control · Main
