A series of studies found that women who reported sleep problems were more likely to experience a major weight gain Here are some arguments why the lack of sleep could be stalling your ability to lose weight and keep it off.In a study, German researchers had a group of men sleep for 12 hours a night but didn’t allow them to sleep the next night, and then had them eat a rich meal the next morning. Then the researchers measured the subjects’ energy expenditure. When the men were sleep-deprived, their general energy expenditure was 5 percent less than it was when they got a good night’s sleep, and their post-meal energy expenditure was 20 percent less.
In another research it was shown that women who got only 4 hours of sleep at night ate 329 additional calories the next day than they did after they slept 9 hours. In another study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 11 volunteers spent 14 days at a sleep center on two occasions. During one period, they slept 5.5 hours a night, and during the other, they slept 8.5 hours. When the subjects were sleep-deprived, they increased their nighttime snacking and were more likely to choose high-carbohydrate snacks.
All these studies show that sleeping too little impacts your hormone levels in ways that can undermine the efforts of even the most determined dieter. That’s because insufficient sleep raises the levels of ghrelin, the hormone that tells you to eat. When it comes to weight gain and loss, this hormone plays a leading role.