11.30.2009

Losing Weight...Let's Here it for Sleep!

Isn't it a beautiful thing, sleep?! But we don't get enough and more sleep may actually help take inches off your waist. Research shows that if you're sleep deprived, your body produces more stress hormones, which promote belly fat and also increase appetite. What's more, a new study shows that a sound night's sleep boosts levels of leptin, a hormone that works to suppress hunger. To study the sleep-appetite connection, researchers at Laval University in Quebec tracked the sleep habits of 740 men and women for 10 years. As it turns out, the benefits of just one extra hour of sleep are astonishing! The researchers found that women who got six to seven hours of sleep were 11 pounds heavier (men fared even worse—16 1⁄2 pounds heavier) than those who slept seven to eight hours a night. Blood tests revealed that short sleepers had levels of leptin 80 percent below those who got a full night of shut-eye.

So don't worry about being called lazy bones! You know a secret that helps you be thinner!

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