A report from US News & World Report discusses the relationship between sleep, exercise, and weight loss.
Basically, while you can probably get pretty decent sleep even if you’re eating junk food and sitting on your keister all day, you can’t expect to get in a good workout or eat healthy diet if you’re skimping on shuteye. That’s because, not only does poor sleep drain your body of energy, it affects energy balance and function in every tissue of your body, says neurologist Phyllis C. Zee, director of the sleep disorders center at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.
For one, sleep deprivation throws off your body’s levels of hunger-regulating hormones making binging a biological inevitability, not a matter of willpower, says registered dietitian Kelly Pritchett, assistant professor of nutrition and exercise science at Central Washington University. Specifically, it can reduce your body’s levels of leptin, “the satiety hormone,” and increase ghrelin, “the hunger hormone.”
