Sleep (More) to Lose (More)Weight

Ollie Jowett
Nov 6 · 7 min read

Now I know what you’re probably thinking:

“How does sleeping help you lose weight? You‘re not burning any calories??.”

Well you’re not eating any either 😉

Joking aside, how can sleeping help you lose more weight?

It turns out in many ways and by the end of this article you will learn why ‘getting more sleep’ isn’t a matter of want but a matter of need if you want to lose more weight.


Sleeping: That thing we do at the end of the day.

Whenever I ask a coaching client “Why do we sleep?” they often struggle to give me an answer.

Why do we sleep? Do you know?

If you didn’t know, we sleep not because it’s ‘that thing do at the end of the day’, but actually, for survival.

In fact, the longest recorded duration that someone went without sleep was a mere 11 days (and started hallucinating after 3 days).

That’s pretty scary.

Now I’d be surprised if anyone reading this went more than 1 or 2 days without sleep but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if you told me you go every night with disturbed or disrupted sleep.

That’s because most of us suffer from poor sleep: either from the quantity of sleep we get and/or the quality of sleep.

And unless these are resolved, we can probably forget about ever successfully* losing weight.

*and by successfully losing weight, I mean, losing weight and keeping it off. Most people can lost weight but few people can keep it off…that’s because they don’t address important factors in their 168 hours such as their sleep.

Sleep is a pretty big deal when it comes to losing weight as it accounts for around 56 hours of our 168 hours (the number of hours in a week).

That’s more than the number of hours we go to work, workout or watch Netflix. Yet arguably we prioritise our work, workouts and Netflix over sleeping.

The importance of sleep however shouldn’t be mistaken, in fact, it should be at the top of our ‘to-do-list’ each day if we are to lose more weight.

Sleep is like taking your car (that is your body) to the garage to get looked at and repaired by the mechanic (your hormones and bodily systems) each night so that we can run and perform as we should the next day.

If we don’t take tour car (body) to the garage (sleep) then sooner or later your car is going to break down.

Furthermore, if we ignore the warning lights that come up on the car’s dashboard when we get poor sleep (tiredness, moodiness, poor energy, cravings), then we are sooner or later going to break down.

The solution? Sleep!


Increasing the Quantity of our Sleep

“I wish I could get more sleep but there aren’t enough hours in the day”

This is what online client Jessica said to me during our coaching call yesterday.

I explained to Jessica that “whilst we might see sleep as something we want more of, really, it’s actually something we need more off.”

Yet sleep is made to be our last priority.

We try and cram as much into our day as possible at the expense of sacrificing sleep in attempt to be more productive.

But the irony of this is that we are usually less productive the following day because we feel so tried and drained that we can’t concentrate.

Instead of seeing sleep as the ‘thing we do at the end of the day’ we need to see sleep as the thing that starts our day’.

The consequence that getting insufficient sleep has on our weight loss creates a cascade of problems for us including:

  • Your hunger increases
  • Your appetite increases
  • Your motivation decreases
  • Your willpower diminishes
  • And your vision for your goals become clouded

When we prioritise sleep, we wake up in a better mood leading to more motivation, find that we have an abundance of energy allowing us to train harder in our workouts, and, we crave less sugary foods allowing us to stick to our diet better.

That’s how sleeping (more) can help you lose (more) weight.

Plus the fact, you literally can’t eat and sleep at the same time also helps too.

So how much sleep do we need?

That’s a great question you ask….

Whilst it varies from person to person, science suggests that we need 6–8 hours of sleep per night.

But hold your horses…because more sleep doesn’t equal better sleep.

And whilst we must look to increase the quantity of sleep we get, we must also improve the quality of our sleep if we are to consider ‘optimal sleep’.


Improving the Quality of our Sleep

For some the problem is getting enough sleep but for others it’s getting a good night of quality sleep.

Stress, children, anxiety, caffeine, blue light and eating too late at night ALL affect your quality of your sleep and more.

After addressing coaching client Jessica’s lack of sleep (she went from an average of 4 hours of sleep per night to 7 hours of sleep per night after making just a few simple changes to her daily routines) I wanted to zone in on the quality of the sleep she was getting.

I got Jessica to keep a sleep diary reporting the time she went to bed, the time she got up and to report if she woke up at all during the night along with rating the quality of her sleep based on a scale of 1–10 (1 being dreadful as if she hadn’t slept and 10 being sound asleep, not waking up at all).

The results?

Jessica was waking up an average of 9 times per night with one night reporting to have woken up 13 times during the night. This was eye opening at just how poor the quality of Jessica’s sleep was despite increasing the quantity of her sleep.

So what if you’re like Jessica and have awful sleep? What can we do?

The good news is that there is a LOT we can do starting with these following tactics:

  1. No Caffeine after 4pm

I love coffee more than anyone (fact) but I don’t love it when it keeps me wide awake at night.

That’s because caffeine is a stimulant that makes you more mentally alert by blocking the receptors in your body that make you feel sleepy (clever, huh?).

Whilst that’s great in the mornings as you struggle to wake up, that’s not so great in the evenings when you’re trying to sleep.

For this reason, I suggest that you don’t consume any caffeinated beverages after 4pm (coffee, tea, energy drinks, cola) as these will disrupt sleep.

4pm is a good cut off point as caffeine remains in the blood stream for up to 6 hours, meaning that if you go to bed at 10pm, then the effects of caffeine will have worn off since your last coffee.

2. Make Your Bedroom a Sleep Sanctuary

The best way to get a good nights sleep is to actually create an environment that is conducive for good sleep. Here are some suggestions to add to your sleep sanctuary:

  • Buy black-out curtains to block any light coming through
  • Use a sleeping mask if sensitive to light in the room
  • Use ear plugs if sensitive to sound
  • Keep electrical devices away from you bed
  • Have an air purifier in the room
  • Sleep naked or in loose underwear
  • Keep the room cool
  • Sprinkle a few drops of lavender onto your pillow

All of these are great ways to creating a sleep sanctuary that allows you to fall asleep once your head hits the pillow.

3. Avoid Blue Light 1–3 Hours Before You Go to Bed

What do most of us do before we go to bed?

We watch TV, go on our mobile phones, scroll through social media or do some work on the laptop.

Whilst these are all cool to do, they’re not so cool to do before bed – largely because of the blue light these devices emit from the screens.

“Blue light? How does this affect me?”

There’s a hormone called ‘melatonin’ which is known as the ‘sleeping hormone’. This is the hormone produced that makes us feel sleepy and prepares our body for sleep.

Except, blue light blocks melatonin production meaning your body doesn’t naturally shut off and consequently disrupts your sleep – that’s bad.

In fact, blue light can affect melatonin production for up to 3 hours, meaning if you’re on your phone at 10pm at night, this could result in not falling asleep until 1am – not good.

Now I’m aware that it’s 2019 and that mobile phones and social media play a big part of our lives.

For this reason, if you ‘can’t’ avoid using these devices before bed then I suggest investing in a pair of Blue Light Blockers which are tinted glasses you can get on Amazon for around £10/15 And help block out this blue light meaning your melatonin production can do its thing, undisturbed!

These are just a few examples of what we can do to improve our sleep and how it helped Jessica and many other of my coaching clients lose weight.

In fact, the suggestions listed above were the exact adjustments I made to Jessica’s sleep who now only wakes up once per night to go to the toilet. That’s an incredible improvement from the previous 13 times she would wake up during her sleep.


The Bottom Line

The importance of sleep, including the quality and quantity of sleep we get, shouldn’t be disregarded, in fact, it should at the top of our priority list.

Once we change our perspective of seeing sleep as ‘the thing that we do at the end of the day’ to ‘the thing which makes up the majority of our 168 hours’ and therefore see it’s significance and make it a priority, very quickly not only will you see a surge in your weight loss but also to your health.

Don’t settle for poor sleep.

Yours in health,

Ollie Jowett

P.S – if you need help addressing your sleep or any other area that makes up your 168 hours then I’d love to help you.

Written by

I’m on a mission to changing the way we spend our 168 hours in a week to allow us to live a life richer in Health & Happiness.

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