Read more about the connection between sleep and weight loss here!
You Can Do This! The Sleep Diet Is Here
This is the exact makeover plan our volunteers followed. It worked for them, and it’ll work for you. Ready?
The minimum amount of sleep you need for weight loss is seven and a half hours a night, our experts say. But the closer you can get to your ideal sleep time—see #4, below, to figure that out—the better your results will be. (Sorry, but sleeping more than that won’t help you drop more pounds!) And you don’t have to be clinically overweight for this to work. What to do:
1. Go to sleep and wake up at the same time every day.
Write down the time you need to get up in the morning, then count back seven and a half hours. That is the time you need to be in bed. But we’re not out to kill all your fun: On Friday or Saturday nights, you can go to bed one or two hours later than usual and sleep in one or two hours the next morning—as long as you get your required seven and a half hours.
Did you know that an extra hour of sleep will help your heart?
2. Start a bedtime routine.
Create a presleep ritual—such as light reading, a hot bath, stretching—beginning somewhere between 45 minutes to an hour before the time you’ve planned to close your eyes. Pretty soon, your body will start to associate specific actions with relaxation and falling asleep. And turn off your TV, computer, BlackBerry and cell phone before that time begins. “When your brain senses light shining in your eyes, it stimulates the wake response and lowers melatonin, the hormone that cues you to feel drowsy,” says Steven Park, M.D., author of Sleep, Interrupted.
3. Watch your caffeine and alcohol habits.
Don’t have any caffeine after 2:30 P.M. (including caffeinated tea and soda), and avoid sipping alcohol three hours before bedtime. Booze may knock you out at first, but it keeps you from getting deep sleep, says Breus. As the sleep-inducing powers wear off, you may even wake up.
Tossing and turning? The surprising reasons why you're not sleeping.
4. Experiment with exactly how much sleep you really need.
According to the National Sleep Foundation, some women require as many as nine hours of sleep a night. If you’re snoozing seven and a half hours and still can’t wake up without your alarm, you need more. Try hitting the sack 15 minutes earlier each night until you reach the perfect time for you—it may take a week or so before you reach your own ideal sleep number.
Find out what might go wrong on the sleep diet and how to fix it!
by Jenny Stamos Kovacs
Photo by Patric Shaw
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