How To Burn Fat Off: Sleep More!

     There are hundreds of books and magazine articles out there that attempt to explain how to burn fat off.

While many of these books and articles advocate rigorous exercise routines, specific "fat-burning foods," and restrictive diets, none of the techniques suggested by them actually help in learning how to burn fat off.

Getting more sleep each night is one of the "missing links" that these books and magazines fail to address.

Does getting more sleep have an effect in how to burn fat off?

It's true, sleeping is one of the laziest things we do all day; however, sleep deprivation affects us in more ways than we can imagine. For instance, being even slightly sleep deprived will hurt your performance at a gym significantly. A reduced intensity level will decrease the effectiveness of your weight training and cardio routines.

Your body needs to repair your muscles after a weight training workout; less sleep will hamper the body's ability to do so. If you've learned anything about how to burn fat off, then you know that increasing your muscle mass is one of the keys to a fast metabolism.

Also, increased levels of the appetite-stimulating hormone "grehlin" are released in the body when you are deprived of sleep. This can make your diet especially tough to stick to as your cravings for sweets and other success-stealing snacks increases.

Sleeping less also leads to the consumption of more calories, simply because you are awake for that much longer. Being awake at midnight means you're most likely to indulge in unhealthy snacking.

Regardless of your understanding of how to burn fat off, you should know that consuming just a few hundred excess calories a day can completely ruin your efforts.

Over and above, sleep deprivation hinders the body's synthesis of leptin.

Leptin is the hormone in our brain that helps us control our appetite. You'll end up consuming more calories and spending more time at the gym trying to figure out how to burn fat off because you overate again; this is what happens when levels of leptin in the body are low.

There's still more?br />
Lack of sleep means that there's more cortisol in your body.

Cortisol is a hormone that is produced by our bodies and plays an active role in weight gain, especially around your waistline.

If your cortisol levels are too high, you'll end up storing more fat and losing muscle tissue. Even if you know very little about how to burn fat off, you'll still realize that this is the worst possible combination.

Talking of hormones, keep in mind that sleep deprivation also decreases your growth hormone and testosterone levels in the body.

The truth is that these two hormones in the body are the most powerful fat-burning substances.

So, how much should you sleep if you want to alter your body composition and learn how to burn fat off?

Most experts advocate getting at least seven to eight hours of quality sleep every night.

After reading this article it should be clear why those who think they're getting by with 4 to 5 hours a night are certainly negatively impacting their weight loss goals.

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