Most people notice they eat more when they're tired, and it doesn't take rocket scientist to figure out that skipping sleep is a bad idea. But it turns out that missing out on these precious, restorative hours can affect your body in all kinds of negative ways, and -- most importantly -- hold you back from reaching your fitness goals. A recent study by the University of Chicago Medical Center demonstrated that people who get a sound 7-8 hours of sleep burn twice as much fat as those who get 5-6 hours.
But that's not all. Did you know …
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Missing sleep disturbs your hormone balance, causing your body to store fat rather than burning it at nighttime.
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Lack of sleep also makes your body go haywire, suppressing a hormone called leptin and making it so that you don't feel satisfied after a meal and are more prone to overeating.
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Skipping the zzzz's also causes your body to up production of ghrelin, making you feel extremely hungry as soon as you wake up.
In addition to these fun facts about all the damage you did to your body by pulling all-nighters in college, the study findings also reaffirm the rule about not eating before bedtime. Your body needs a good 3 hours to get through the initial stages of digestion, and putting it to bed while it's still expending all that energy disrupts the process, reducing the amount of dinner that gets converted into fuel and increasing the amount that gets stored away for later in the form of a little extra jiggle.
The bottom line is that, if you're serious about getting to your goal weight and building muscle, you better make it a priority to get in at least 7 hours of snoozing every evening. Read the rest and weigh in! How many hours of solid sleep do you usually get per night?