HOW SLEEP AND STRESS IMPACT FAT LOSS
While the vast majority of questions we ask clients in the weekly check in are about energy, physical activity, food intake, and hunger levels, we also ask about sleep and stress levels. These questions may seem less relevant, but the fact is sleep and stress both play big roles in overall health, and also specifically in fat loss.
Elevated stress levels and lack of adequate sleep can mess with the regulation of hormones that impact hunger levels and fat loss rate, and can also lead to mood problems that impact decision-making skills. This can create a one-two punch that makes fat loss much, much harder than it needs to be.
STRESS
Let’s start by talking a little bit about cortisol. While mainly known just as the stress hormone, cortisol also plays a role in how your body manages its use of macronutrients (carbohydrates, fats, and protein). It also helps regulate your blood pressure and sleep cycle, and impacts your blood sugar levels.
Chronically high stress levels, and therefore chronically high cortisol levels, can be associated with poor sleep, increased appetite, and suppressed metabolism. Also, on a behavioral level, when you feel stressed, you may seek out quick fixes to get some happy chemicals into your brain. High-reward foods (usually things that are high in both carbohydrates and fats) can flood your brain with dopamine, which feels especially good when you’re stressed. Something that I regularly tell my clients is that stress eating is a human instinct to try and boost those reward chemicals - it’s not a character flaw.
TIP || One of the best ways to try to combat stress eating (other than addressing your sources of chronic stress) is to find alternate ways to boost your mood quickly. My favorites? Taking a quick walk around the block, practicing belly breathing for a few minutes, playing with my dogs, or even watching dumb cat videos online.
SLEEP
Even if you aren’t chronically stressed, lack of sleep can be another big roadblock if you have fat loss goals. Sleep is also a hormone regulator, and too little sleep can cause your body to produce excess amounts of ghrelin. Ghrelin is a hormone that reduces energy expenditure (aka the number of calories your body burns) and actually encourages your body to store more fatty acids (fats you eat) as adipose tissue (body fat). Increased ghrelin levels also make you feel hungrier.
In addition, lack of adequate sleep can suppress activity in the part of your brain responsible for planning and decision making. So not only does your body feel hungrier after not getting enough sleep, your brain is also not at full capacity to be making optimal decisions when you’re experiencing that hunger. The end result? It may be a lot easier to overeat after even one night of suppressed sleep.
Short term strategies that may help you contend with this reduced ability to make good decisions are those that set you up to make easy decisions.
Since we automatically gravitate toward making the easiest choice, we can try to make the easy decision and the optimal decision exactly the same.
This may look like having high-volume foods that help manage your hunger on-hand and easily accessible. If you’re someone who does meal prep, the vast majority of your nutrition decisions are made in advance and you don’t have to wonder what to eat next when you’re feeling tired, hungry, and searching for an immediate way to feel better.
For long-term strategies, prioritize your sleep and sleep hygiene. Good sleep hygiene includes:
Cutting off caffeine intake early
Reducing your screen time before bed
Going to sleep and waking up at the same time every day
Sleeping in a room that is as dark as possible, and finding any other strategy that improves your sleep quality.
Some other options that may help: white noise or binaural sleep audio, sleep masks, magnesium supplements, blue blocking glasses, or reading a book (not a screened device) before sleep. Not every sleep strategy works for everyone, so it’s worth trying them out and seeing what helps you.
Fat loss can be challenging, but managing your stress and prioritizing your sleep can make it a little easier - both in how you feel and how your body functions. Everyone has days where they don’t get enough sleep or feel stressed, but if you aren’t at a place in your life where you can manage your sleep and chronic stress, it may not be a good time for you to work on fat loss.
If you’re feeling like your stress levels are manageable and sleep habits are solid, you may be in a good place to focus on your fat loss, performance, or optimal health goals! Take a peek at what that has looked like for our clients or learn more about 1:1 Flexible Nutrition coaching here.