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Sleeping Slim

It’s not unreasonable to think that eating a healthy diet and exercising regularly should help you with weight management along with general good health. But there is yet another bastion of good health and healthy weight to consider. Its name is SLEEP.

When you don’t get enough restful sleep (less than 7 hours) three negative outcomes can take place:

1. You feel hungrier. Not getting the rest you need can result in an increase in ghrelin (a hunger hormone) and decrease the production of leptin (a hormone the helps you feel “full”).
2. You eat more. Not surprisingly, if you are hungrier you will likely eat more. Missing a few hours sleep one night has been shown to cause people to eat over 500 additional calories the following day.
3. You make poor food choices. Studies have shown that when you miss sleep you are more likely to eat highly processed, high calorie foods (cookies, cake, potato chips) which may lead to unhealthy weight gain.

By getting enough sleep on a regular basis, you can improve your hormone expression and reduce hunger, resist overeating unnecessarily, and make better food choices when it is time to eat. For fun, we call that sleeping slim.

Speak to the Live Well team at Pharmasave Summerland about how you can achieve optimal health through better sleep.

Dan Cassidy – Nutritional Product Advisor