Wouldn’t it be great if you could sleep your way slim? To have that excess fat melt away while you get some shuteye! In this article you’ll discover some simple things you can do to burn fat while sleeping.
To burn fat you while sleeping there are two things you need:
- Increase the amount of energy your body uses while you sleep
- Get your body to actually use fat as its energy source instead of the often more readily available glucose.
Does your body burn calories while sleeping?
So, do you even burn calories while you’re sleeping?
Actually, you may be surpirized at the amount of calories you burn during sleep. How many depends largely on your body weight. A 150 pound person might burn about 46 calories an hour at rest… even when sleeping. This means a solid 8 hours of sleep can burn about 368 calories.
This is because, even while you’re asleep, there’s a lot going on inside your body. You’re breathing, your heart is pumping blood, food is being digested, cells are growing and being repaired. For all of these processes your body uses energy, a.k.a burns calories.
The total energy needed for all these essential functions is known as the basal metabolic rate (MBR). The higher your metabolic rate, the more calories you burn while sleeping.
Calculating your metabolic rate
You can calculate your approximate MBR using the following formula:
For men: MBR = 66 + (6.2 x weight) + (12.7 x height) – (6.76 x age)
For women: MBR = 655.1 + (4.35 x weight) + (4.7 x height) – (4.7 x age)
If, like me, you’re not very mathematically inclined, you can just use one of the many online MBR calculators… like this one
Of course, this is only an approximation. The formula only takes into account your weight, height and age. There are other important factors that effect your metabolic rate, such as: your diet, body composition (fat vs muscle mass), sleep quality and genetics.
Okay, so we’ve determined that our body burns calories while we sleep. We also know that the amount of calories we burn depends on our basal metabolic rate. The question now becomes: how can we increase our metabolic rate so we burn more calories while we’re asleep?
How do we crank up our basal metabolic rate? By boosting our metabolism! So, let’s look at some ways to do just that so you can start burning more fat while you’re sleeping.
Ways to burn more fat while you sleep
Want to wake up slimmer? Here are some things you can do:
Get more sleep
Well… duh! If I sleep longer I’ll burn more calories while I sleep… thanks captain obvious! But wait, there’s actually some science behind this… backed by research.
A study posted in the ACP Journals found that just three hours of sleep burned as much as 400 extra calories. It compared two groups of overweight non-smokers for 14 days. One group clocked 5.5 hours of sleep per night, while the other logged 8.5 hours.
Both groups were on a calorie restricted diet and ate roughly 1,450 calories a day. After two weeks, people in the 8,5 hour group lost more fat than those in the group who slept less. What’s more is that over half of the weight loss during those 8.5 hours of sleep was fat. For the 5,5 hour group only one-quarter of the weight loss was fat.
Conclusion: you literally burn more fat when you sleep longer.
But that’s not all that happened. The people who slept less lost 60% more muscle during sleep than the 8,5 hour group. As we saw earlier muscle mass is one of the factors that determines our metabolic rate.
Also, those in the 5,5 hour group had produced more of the appetite-stimulating hormone ghrelin while they slept. In other words, they woke up hungrier!
So, if you want to burn fat while sleeping, preserve muscle and wake up less hungry… make sure you get your 8 hours of sleep every night.
Try this delicious, healthy drink that will help you burn fat while you sleep. It’s packed with healthy nutrients.
Sleep naked
According to different studies, another way to start burning more fat while you sleep may be to start sleeping naked. There are a couple of reasons for this:
You fall asleep faster
Your body temperature plays an important role in how you fall asleep. It’s part of your biological (circadian) rhythm that acts as your body’s built in “clock”. Research shows that temperature effects your circadian rhythm and your sleep.
Sleeping naked helps your body cool down. Cooling down tells your body it’s time to go to sleep. So, sleeping naked can help you fall asleep faster.
The faster you fall asleep, the more time you have to actually sleep versus laying awake. As we saw earlier more sleep leads to more fat loss, besides having numerous other weight loss benefits.
You sleep better
As well as helping you fall asleep faster sleeping naked may also help improve the quality of your sleep. Poor quality sleep can lead to increased stress and anxiety. This in turn can increase the risk of overeating and weight gain.
Increases brown fat
Research suggests that keeping your body cool at night has a positive impact on your metabolism and leads to the formation of more brown fat.
The study exposed a group of men to a cool temperature of 19 °C (66 °F) for 10 hours every night. After a month of exposure to this mild cold, the participants had a 42% increase in brown fat volume as well as a 10% increase in fat metabolic activity.
Besides weight loss sleeping naked is said to have numerous other benefits such as boosting your self-esteem, improving skin health and even improving your relationship (1).
Eat some sleep inducing foods
Ever felt like you couldn’t keep your eyes open after eating that plate full of turkey at Thanksgiving dinner? That’s because turkey is one of natures sleep inducing foods!
Tryptophan is an amino acid that has powerful sleep-inducing effects. Turkey is rich in Tryptophan. You’ll also find it in other foods, including: chicken, fish, lentils, eggs, and nuts.
A study published in The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease found that just 1/4 gram of L-tryptophan at bedtime was enough to increase hours of deep sleep in mild insomniacs significantly. And, as we saw earlier, quality of sleep has a significant impact on weight loss.
Drink a protein shake before bed
Protein is an essential building block, used by your body to repair, grow and maintain tissues. It also happens that your body expends a lot of energy breaking down protein, which leads to an increase in your metabolism.
Study has found that drinking a protein rich beverage like a protein shake 30 minutes before you go to bed helps in muscle recovery and boosts your overnight metabolic rate.
The best form of protein to take before bed is casein. The reason for this is that casein (a protein derived from milk) is slowly digested. This results in a longer metabolism boost while you sleep. Casein powder is the obvious choice as it’s easy to mix into shakes or other beverages.
You can also eat some cottage cheese as a pre-sleep snack. Not only is cottage cheese rich in casein, it also contains tryptophan… yup, that natural sleep inducer we mentioned earlier.
Do some resistance training
If you want to burn fat while sleeping, try lifting some weights while you’re awake. Besides its many other benefits resistance training is a great way to boost your metabolism and increase your daily energy expenditure.
One study found that even minimal resistance training (11 min per session) improves daily energy expenditure and fat oxidation.
Whether you hit the gym or stick to simple bodyweight exercises, regular resistance training is one of the best things you can do for yourself if you want to maintain a strong and healthy body. This is especially true as you grow older.
Resistance training is also a great way to increase growth hormone (HGH). Growth hormone is plays an important role in muscle growth, fat loss, anti-aging, longevity, and the regeneration and repair of the cells in both your body and brain.
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Have some chamomile tea
If you’re looking to burn fat while you sleep, consider having a cup of chamomile tea before bedtime. There are numerous studies that indicate chamomile will help you sleep better.
This 2016 study found that new mothers who drank chamomile tea every day for two weeks not only slept better but also tended to have fewer symptoms of depression than those who didn’t drink the tea.
As we saw earlier both quality of sleep en stress levels can affect your metabolism, lead to increased production of homones like the appetite inducing ghrelin and lead to overeating.
Research also suggests that chamomile has beneficial effects on glycemic control, helping to balance blood sugar and insulin levels.
Don’t eat carbs at night
Another thing you can do to wake up leaner is to stop snacking on carbohydrate rich foods after dinner. Try consuming the bulk of your carbohydrates during the day and restrict it in the early evening.
Doing this will significantly reduce the amount of glucose for your body to use as energy. This increase the chance that your body will have to start using fat for energy while you sleep.
Conclusion – How To Burn Fat While Sleeping
Even while you’re sleeping you use a substantial amount of energy to maintain essential functions in your body like breathing, blood circulation, cell repair and digestion. The amount of energy your body uses in rest is known as the basal metabolic rate (MBR).
To burn fat while you sleep there are two things you want to do:
- Increase your metabolic rate
- Get your body to use fat for energy
In this article we looked at some things you can do to accomplish both. Applying them won’t just help you burn more fat while you sleep but also improve the quality of your sleep. This has numerous other health benefits besides weight loss.
