Avoid being a belly woman after the Chinese New Year. This little move will help you lose weight!

I returned home during the Chinese New Year and lived a life like an emperor, with everything provided for me. The most important "exercise" after getting up was to climb onto the sofa, eat some melon seeds, peanuts, and winter melon candy while crossing my legs and watching TV. Before I knew it, my belly had become round and my cheeks were so swollen that they almost blocked my view... I don't want my colleagues to mistakenly think that I'm pregnant after the Chinese New Year, so I really have to make up my mind to implement a weight loss plan! But should you choose night jogging, doing aerobics at home, or going to the gym for weight training? How should you proceed to make weight loss more efficient?

In fact, there is a little tip that is easily overlooked but can easily improve your weight loss efficiency, that is "sleep well"! Poor sleep quality can affect appetite, physical activity and hormones, indirectly causing weight gain. Studies have also shown that people who sleep shorter hours consume more calories per day than those who sleep 8 hours a day. A large-scale health survey conducted in the United States found that people who sleep less than 7 hours a day have a significantly increased chance of obesity. And a study in Switzerland also found that the shorter the sleep time when you are young, the greater the chance of gaining weight when you reach middle age (around 40 years old).

Looking back at past studies, most agree: the less you sleep, the easier it is to gain weight!

Why does not getting enough sleep make you fat? Hormones

There are many hormones in the body that control our weight, and hormonal changes caused by poor sleep may also be one of the important reasons why night owls find it difficult to lose weight. For example, "leptin" and "ghrelin" are the two gatekeepers in charge of weight gain and loss. As the name suggests, "ghrelin" can make us feel hungry, thereby promoting appetite and increasing food intake; conversely, "leptin" can increase satiety, promote calorie consumption, and help us lose weight.

These hormones can help maintain a constant body weight, but if you don't get enough sleep, it will disrupt their work. A sleep control experiment showed that healthy adult men who slept less than 4 hours had 18% lower leptin secretion and 28% higher ghrelin than those who slept more than 9 hours. Not only that, the subjects who slept less than 4 hours also had significantly higher hunger levels, especially an increased interest in high-carbohydrate, high-calorie foods (such as sweets, heavy salty snacks or starch-rich foods). On the contrary, there was no significant increase in their desire for vegetables and fruits. It can be seen that lack of sleep will not only affect hormones, but also change your eating habits, making your body more susceptible to obesity due to "internal and external troubles."

So how many hours of sleep a day should you have to build a physique that is easy to lose weight ?

Remember to get enough sleep before losing weight! It is recommended to sleep for 7 hours

If you want to lose weight more efficiently, you must first build a physique that is easy to lose weight. Sleeping less than 7 hours will greatly increase the risk of obesity and metabolic diseases. The National Sleep Foundation has also compiled the public's sleep requirements in a journal: adults aged 18 to 64 need 7 to 9 hours of sleep per day; seniors over 65 should also sleep 7 to 8 hours.

Losing weight is not only about eating less, exercising more, but also about getting enough sleep.

There is no cheating to lose weight. You can only do it by adjusting your lifestyle and keeping a good habit of eating less and exercising more. You will see results if you persist. But don’t forget to get enough sleep at the same time to make your weight loss plan more effective!