Did you know you can sabotage your hard-earned weight loss efforts by neglecting one critical element in the pyramid of weight loss? Weight loss is not just about eating less and moving more.
While nutrition and movement might be two points of the weight loss pyramid, there is also a third. This third element encourages your body to incorporate your nutrition and movement, with very little effort on your part.
Well, you do have to put down your phone and turn off the tube.
If you had 30 minutes of free time to do anything you wished, what would you choose? To surf the Internet, cook a meal, play with your kids, or chat on the phone? When it comes to weight loss, the best answer is to sleep.
That’s right. Skinny people SLEEP.
As a mom of a toddler, I am all too familiar with sleeplessness. My daughter did not sleep a full night until she turned two years old. In the meanwhile, I became a ghost of myself. I barely slogged through my workday, and I often made poor eating choices. I almost never had energy and I was usually cranky.
Before I had my daughter, I would always go to bed by 9:30. That might seem horribly early to some. But, I knew I was going to wake up at 5:30 to lift weights. If you lift weights, sleep is critical to building muscle. Without proper sleep, you won’t get amazing results.
I also know that I am useless without 8 hours of sleep. I am an overall happier and slimmer person when I get my ZZZs.
Did you know that the average American only gets 6 hours of sleep at night? I’m not suggesting you drop right now and get some ZZZs. Luckily, daylight savings time automatically bought you one more hour of sleep. Can you find a way to get in 30 minutes more sleep?
Still not convinced? Check out this infographic for the many benefits of sleep!
6 thoughts on “The Little Known Secret to Weight Loss”
I know this is a big component of why it’s hard to shift some weight I don’t get nearly enough sleep! I’m working on it!!
Thanks for commenting, Tammy. Sleep is tough for all of us in this overextended, device at all times society. A couple of things that really help me are:
Turning off the devices (all of them) at least half an hour prior to bed and doing journaling or reading to wind down for bed. Keep your bedroom screen-free, and use some good mood lighting (nothing fluorescent).
Also, instead of a blaring loud alarm clock, wake up to music. Best of luck!
This is so true! Sleep is the best medicine for anything and it makes sense you need a full nights rest to work out and burn energy while building muscle. I used to operate on 5 hours of sleep or less every night. A year ago my husband and I quit our jobs, sold our house and moved to Costa Rica. Now I go to bed and rise with the sun, and get 9-10 hours of sleep each night and it is life changing!
Hi, Kari,
No wonder you are a “happy coconut” 🙂 Who wouldn’t appreciate not just the extra rest, but the change of environment to Costa Rica. Good for you to focus on improvements all around!
Comments are closed.