Just wondering if sleep is more important than training for weight loss?
Just wondering if sleep is more important than training for weight loss?
Well sleep is important for recovery and recovery is important for training and training is important for burning calories and burning calories along with keeping a lid on calories ingested is important for weight loss.
But I wouldn’t say sleep trumps training for weight loss, just that it’s part of the bigger picture. I mean do nothing but eat and sleep and you’ll have to be on a starvation diet to see much if any weight loss. Eat, sleep, recover and train and you can both improve fitness and with some attention to caloric balance you can steadily lose weight.
Can you do both?
Sleep is extremely important for weight loss. If you leave it out of the equation, you will find it very hard to lose weight in the long run, and even in the short-run beyond a period of increased adrenaline. For one, sleep deprivation increases your appetite because your body is craving more energy. Beyond that, adequate sleep is important for lowering stress levels, which will ultimately result in weight loss. Sleep deprivation will also lead to exhaustion, which will negatively impact your training. I could go into more specifics but that’s a basic overview. It’s not just a calories in-calories out model. We’re not machines. Sleep has a huge impact on your hormones, and hormones will absolutely affect your waistline, training abilities and overall health. (And by the way, it’s for similar reasons that calorie restriction results in weight gain over the long run as well, after a short-term loss - your body goes into starvation mode, hormones and chemical signalers adjust and your metabolism drops. Always better to coax the body, take care of and work with it rather than forcing it.)
it depends on how much sleep you are getting. The body needs sleep for recovery and reduction of stress, without sleep your body is high in cortisol that slows weight loss and may even lead to weight gain. Is a lot of the weight you want to loose belly fat? There seems to be a connection between belly fat and cortisol, so an increase in sleep might help there.
There’s no one right answer for everyone. If you’re getting 7 hours of sleep and training 20 hours a week, then sleep is probably better, if you’re getting 7 hours of sleep and training 7 hours during the week, then training is probably better. But if you’re getting 5 hours of sleep (a night by the way) then no matter how little training you’re doing, sleep is probably better.
perhaps the most obvious advantage of sleep has been overlooked here so far:
you can’t eat while sleeping
this is only partly meant as a joke btw: After a typical end of day workout (typically a swim, where I get home at 10pm), I tend to get the munchies if I stay up too long afterwards. If I try to go to bed asap, I avoid these additional calories, while not being extra hungry in the morning.
This is just me but when I’m short of sleep I don’t train as fast.
When I don’t train as fast I think I need more fuel for workouts and then tend to overeat.
jaretj
I am fat because I eat and I eat because I am fat . It is a viscous cycle.
Most of my fat that I have is concentrated in the belly. I say I have 5-10lbs to lose and 5 of it is in my belly. I get 2 nights of 5.5hrs of sleep and a few nights of 7hrs. Would I be better off cutting my 2 hour workout short on those days to get 6.5 hrs of sleep? And cut it 1 hr short on the 7hrs days as well?
Idk I rarely get 4-5 hours a night myself.
In my experience, I don’t think so. Also, like others have implied, they lose weight fine on less sleep. I would watch calories in/out and you should lose the weight slowly. Nothing drastic or complicated, what worked for me was, eat breakfast and lunch, substitute dinner with 1 apple and 2 bananas. Reducing my calories at dinner helped alot.
Proper REM sleep is important for weight loss in my experience; if get less then optimal sleep for a stretch I tend to over eat.
Just wondering if sleep is more important than training for weight loss?
Maybe not more important but it is AS important as training and weight loss in general.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DTVMHQwA_7A
from someone who rarely gets a decent night sleep… I’ve found it helps weight loss for me personally