How Your Improper Sleeping Habits Can Delay Your Fat-Loss Goals

HOW YOUR IMPROPER SLEEPING HABITS

CAN DELAY YOUR FAT-LOSS GOALS

Sleep is an inbuilt part of our life. It is a phase where the body undergoes some of the most important processes like detoxification, fat burn, repair, regeneration, regrowth, rejuvenation, and balance. It doesn’t matter how much you are exercising or how well you are eating, if your sleep is compromised, you are most likely paving the path for your body to gain unwanted abdominal and side fat. Saadiya Ahmad met with Luke Coutinho, Holistic Lifestyle Coach to learn more.

Luke Coutinho

According to Coutinho, there are still too many people taking the route of fad diets, rigorous exercise programs, dangerous fat burners, and supplements with a false belief that it will help them lose weight and keep the weight off, and yet see no results. “What were they missing out on?” he asks, “sleep is the number one gap.”

The following are the four main obstacles your body is faced with when its sleep deprived Your appetite is all over the place Sleep brings about a balance in the two

most important appetite hormones called ghrelin and leptin. Ghrelin, he says, is responsible for stimulating hunger and leptin for satiety. He adds, “A lack of sleep can disrupt the delicate balance between the two. It increases ghrelin and decreases leptin, which means our appetite is likely to be off balance.” You tend to crave more carbs and sugary foods, than well-balanced meals. “More coffee or tea too because you feel deprived of energy, alongside the sugar that comes along with it,” he says, and people blame it on willpower and lack of discipline, what your body really needs is deep sleep.

Your body is unable to detox From the unpleasant odor in our mouth in the morning to the mucus in the corners of our eyes, Coutinho reveals that these are signs that your body has undergone detoxification while you were asleep. “Cleansing and detoxification occur during sleep and the cleaner the body, the more efficient is the fat-burning process because then the liver can perform its primary job which is fat metabolism,” he says. “Now, imagine all the toxins your body holds onto when you are chronically sleep-deprived; over time, a person could also develop cellulite, which is an indicator that

your body is holding onto toxins.” Your body is unable to recover, repair, grow and heal You never lose weight while you are lifting dumbbells or doing Pilates or aerobics, he says. “While you may sweat buckets, it doesn’t mean you are losing weight. Sweating is just your body’s mechanism to cool down.” All the weight loss

happens while you sleep. “Your body undergoes some of the most critical processes important for fat-burn during a state of deep sleep,” he says. “Sleep is non-negotiable if you want to lose fat. It is how our body is designed to function, and no number of excuses for not being able to sleep well enough is going to work. If it is important for you, put in the effort and make it work.” H

Your hormones are unable to attain balance Efficient fat burn is all about hormonal harmony in your body, says Coutinho. “It’s when we are in a state of deep slumber, hormones like leptin, ghrelin, thyroxine, and insulin rebalance bring a state of homeostasis, which is a state balance,” he says, it is common, but unfortunate to find so many young girls and women with thyroid imbalances, PCOS, insulin resistance, obesity, and sleeping late at night. “Attaining hormonal balance is an uphill task when one is sleep deprived, no matter how many hormone balancing and oral contraceptive pills they may pop.” Deep sleep is also responsible for releasing adequate levels of human growth hormone, which is key to building lean muscle and reducing body fat percentage.