The 3 Most Common Obstacles to a Good Night’s Sleep That Prevent Weight Loss Efforts
Sleep is very essential for your health and well-being. You can’t sweep it under the rug when it comes to losing or gaining weight.
Sleep plays a vital role in the repair and restoration of the entire human body. They say that sleep is the best form of rest. With a good night’s sleep, therefore, the body is rejuvenated for the next day’s activities.
When I was a child, I hated the night. You know, kids are buzzing with a lot of energy and I think that was the challenge I had. I played a lot and enjoyed the plays so much that I didn’t want the night to come.
Today, as a busy adult, I am beginning to appreciate why Providence in Its infinite wisdom made it day and night. It would have been quite a struggle to lose weight and therefore difficult to maintain optimal health.
There are too many distractions or interruptions to get a peaceful night’s rest. However, let me share with you the 3 most common impediments to a good night’s sleep.
(1) Eating heavy meals late at night
Filling up on heavy meals late at night is a recipe for losing some night’s sleep. It causes digestive discomfort that interrupts sleep, which hurts your attempt to lose weight. When you eat late at night with large amounts of food in your belly with the consequent increase in metabolism rate, it becomes more and more difficult to fall asleep. To stay on top of your weight loss game, try to eat low-fat meals early in the evening around 6 pm at night.
(2) Alcoholic Beverages
They say alcohol increases urgency but weakens performance. But let me chalk it up to something else: sleepiness. Alcohol tends to induce sleep initially, but causes intermittent or early awakenings in between. It contains a lot of carbohydrates. The high calories from alcohol coupled with sleep interruptions culminate in weight gain. And that’s why so many alcoholics develop potbellies that they work so hard to burn off those belly fats. Stay away, therefore, from those bottles to lose weight and be healthy.
(3) snorers
Sometimes one of the biggest interruptions to your sleep comes from your bed partner. A couple of years ago, one of my next-door neighbors used to snore a lot. The neighbors complained but his wife was undoubtedly the most vulnerable. Can’t get used to this! Unfortunately, alcohol and late-night eating make snoring worse. Thank goodness we had gone our separate ways!
Today, fortunately, snoring has a solution. You should check this! If you’re sleeping with a noisy bed partner, I recommend wearing earplugs to drown out the snoring.
Research has shown that deep sleep provides the platform for more calories and fat to be burned. In short, therefore, to lose weight, you need to get enough sleep. And that’s why you need everything in your power to remove all the obstacles that prevent sleep, since they have a direct relationship with your desire to lose weight.