Improving Fitness with a Good Night's Sleep

by Chase Irons, Personal Trainer

This month, we've invited LSF personal trainer Chase Irons to be our guest blogger.

In my 10 years of personal training I’ve heard all sorts of bizarre and unusual questions and comments about health and fitness. A question that I get far too often, however, is something along the lines of, "How little sleep can I get by with while still being able to function optimally?" It isn't a question limited to personal training, either: at one point or another, all of us have likely wished we didn’t have to sleep so we'd have more time in the day to get things done. More than that, there are even all kinds of products on the market that claim to be able to help us keep going longer on less sleep. 

Luckily, scientific research on sleep and its effects on the body are plentiful. In a 2010 study, researchers sought to determine whether a combination of sleep deprivation and a moderate caloric deficit would affect results in body composition. For 14 days 3 women and 7 men were instructed to stay in bed for either 8.5 hours or 5.5 hours per night, and their meals were standardized at about 1,450 calories per day. Three months later, the study was repeated for another 14 days with the same participants.

At the end of the study the researchers found that both groups had a nearly the same weight loss of around 6.6 pounds. However, the 8.5 hour group had lost equal amounts of muscle mass and fat mass, while 80% of the sleep-deprived group's loss was lean mass while only 20% was body fat. That means that with all other factors held the same, only a fifth of the sleep-deprived group's weight loss was actually from body fat.

So what exactly is going on in the body to cause this phenomenon? In sleep-deprived individuals there are a few hormones that get knocked out of balance: they produce less leptin, more ghrelin and more cortisol. Decreased production of leptin can make the stomach feel empty. Increased ghrelin production triggers the body's tendency to store fat, reduce the amount of calories it burns, and stimulate hunger. Cortisol is a stress hormone frequently associated with fat gain and muscle wasting, and it also makes us crave sugary and fatty foods. To successfully lose fat we need to optimize leptin, ghrelin and cortisol, but sleep deprivation will make that nearly impossible.

Even if we stick to our diets and hit the gym, sleep deprivation makes it so that the calories we burn come from more from stored energy and less from stored body fat. Because of the muscle-wasting cortisol and the increased hunger because of the lowered leptin and raised ghrelin, it's going to take that much longer to see a positive change in our bodies.

So make it easy on yourself! Get the sleep your body needs so that you aren't working against your goals.

Additional Resources:

Insuffient sleep undermines dietary efforts to reduce adiposity, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2951287/

Impact of Five Nights of Sleep Restriction on Glucose Metabolism, Leptin and Testosterone in Young Adult Men

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0041218

Influence of partial sleep deprivation on energy balance and insulin sensitivity in healthy women.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20054188

Sleep loss results in an elevation of cortisol levels the next evening.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9415946

Sleep restriction for 1 week reduces insulin sensitivity in healthy men.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20585000

Start 2017 Off Right!

by Sally Fansler, PT

The start of a new year is the perfect time to resolve to change something. As we all know, however, a New Year’s resolution can be difficult to stick to. In fact, University of Scranton research suggests that even with the best intentions, just 8% of people achieve their New Year’s goals. So why do so many of us fail at goal-setting?

Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard digs into the issue by looking into the human psyche to examine why we tend to resist change. In order to make a change, the authors pinpoint three things that need to be addressed. The first of these is the Elephant: our emotional side, the instinctive part of us that craves instant gratification. Often the Elephant is the first cause of failure because in the short term, it’s much nicer to sleep in or eat ice cream than it is to get up early to go to the gym or eat broccoli. The second component, the Rider, sits on top of the Elephant. The Rider is analytical and strategic, but often has difficulty controlling the emotional Elephant. The last component to successful change is to make a straight and clear Path. With that, the Elephant does not pull the Rider off course and the Rider can guide the Elephant smoothly along the Path.

In physical therapy, we consistently encourage our patients to set realistic goals and make changes. A change in posture can alleviate neck pain. A change in hip strength can improve running speed. A change in overall fitness level can reduce daily fatigue. Pain can be a motivating factor in the beginning, but by changing a habit, we remove conscious deliberation from the situation, which helps us on a healthy path. Here are a few tips:

• Make your goals clear and concise. “Lose weight” is unclear and easily compromised. “Lose 10 pounds in 90 days” is measureable and specific.
• Set small, easy steps to motivate the Elephant. Many people quit because their goal feels like too much at once.
• Establish some accountability by setting up someone to report to and share in your progress.
• Celebrate small successes rather than waiting until the goal is complete.
• Focus on the present. Right now, what can be done to help move forward toward your goal?

Change is a continuous process and must be sustained over a long period of time for the results to be clear. A combination of a solid goal, a dose of motivation, and a supportive environment are the best ingredients for success.

References:

Heath C, Heath D.  Switch:  How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, Random House Inc., (New York: 2010).

“New Years Resolution Statistics,” Statistic Brain (2016), data from University of Scranton Journal of Clinical Psychology.