Thursday, October 7, 2010

Sleep Your Way to Fat Loss

Contrary to what has been believed that sleep makes one fat, a new study reveals enough sleep contributes to reduction of fat. So, dieters might as well want to strive to sleep more every night to be able to improve weight loss. The study, however, involved only 10 overweight men and women participants. The number is relatively small and the period of only two separate 2-week of study was too short to be conclusive.

In the first 2 weeks both men and women slept 8.5 hours, while they got only 5.5 sleep during the other 2 weeks. During these periods, participants lived in a sleep lab and they followed calorie restricted diet. After which, researchers found an average of 7lbs lost during both conditions. Here’s the thing, though, sleep-restricted period enabled loss of muscle rather than fat. Body tissues were shed, not fats.

Results during sleep-lab setting may be different from the real-world setting. But hey, there’s nothing to loose in trying this strategy. Besides, sleep has proven to be of great help on health, in general. So if you notice the Cherokee scrubs you bought just a couple of months ago are starting to feel tighter already, you might as well consider improving your sleep than digging into clearance scrubs for new ones. Even if positive results don’t show up soon, you’ll no doubt benefit from enough sleep physically, mentally, and emotionally.