Want to avoid gaining weight? Get a good night’s sleep.

New study shows that sleep restriction can quickly adds pounds to a person.

Planning to lose weight with vigorous exercise and diet?  If so, then make sure you get some sleep at night.

A recent laboratory study of 92 healthy men and women between the ages of 22-45  

who participated in an 11-day controlled comparative sleep study found that those who were sleep-restricted packed on an average of 3 pounds by the end of the 11 day period. 

In the first two nights of the study participants slept ten hours a night, followed by five nights of sleep restrictions, and finally 4 nights of various recovery. Nine people who were well-rested served as a control group. 

Those participants of the study who were deprived of sleep gained an average of 2.9 lbs by the end of the eleven-day study. The controls who were well rested gained none.  

All participants were given three regular meals a day and access to healthy snacks. Those who were in the sleep-restricted group also received a small sandwich at 1 AM.  

Even though participants had gained weight when sleep deprived, they also reported that their appetite had also decreased, they had fewer food cravings and had also eaten less food. This contradicts previous research and ideology that lack of sleep may actually stimulate cravings for foods as the body requires quick energy from sugar sources such as carbohydrates. This flies in the face of conventional wisdom or common sense and shows how important restorative restful sleep is to the body. 

How can we benefit?  

I mentioned before people who work in shifts tend to be at higher risk for cardiac and renal disease. Therefore in the real world people should carefully plan their caloric intake over time as well as the time that they will be awake. Some suggest that eating smaller healthier meals more often when on shifts is a more sensible way to handle this problem. 

The researchers also suspect that during periods of sleep restriction, the chance to snack more often may also be responsible for the increase in weight gain though this was not entirely supported by their research.  

Nonetheless to ward off weight gain, it is recommended to keep lower fat, low sugar snacks on hand to reduce the temptation of eating high calorie comfort food and maintain regular exercise. Additionally this now sheds light on the necessity of getting restorative sleep.     

Now turn this computer off and get some sleep! 

But do come back for more articles.  : )