Good Sleep for a Healthy Weight

You feel like you’re doing everything right. You’re eating healthy, you’ve cut back on sugar, alcohol and caffeine, you’re moving your body, and proactively reducing stress with mindfulness, getting out in nature and morning sunlight. You’re doing all the things, but you still feel stuck. And, it doesn’t feel good.

How is your sleep? If you have disrupted sleep, like waking at 2-3am in the morning, or feeling tired but wired at bedtime, konking out immediately after dinner because your SO TIRED, or insomnia, are major stresses for your body, which is causing distress. Distress that can keep your body from moving back into balance.

Adequate sleep helps to regulate the hormones that regulate hunger, metabolism and fat-burn. It’s essential to get enough sleep. I aim for 7-9 hours, and most often get 8 hours of good quality sleep. According to an interview that Dr. Ashley Lucas, Phd, RD, gave on the Dr. Axe Show on YouTube, there was a study of a group of individuals that slept more than 7 hours compared to a group of individuals that slept less than 7 hours. The group that slept more than 7 hours was able to eat more and weighed less than the group that slept less.

Things that could help include a protein-forward diet. What this looks like, according to Dr. Lucas, for the average middle-aged person who wants to lose weight is 0.8 grams of protein per pound of ideal body weight. For example, for a woman aiming for 140 pounds as an ideal body weight, their target protein grams per day would calculate to 108 grams, or 36 grams of protein per meal for 3 meals. Dr. Lucas explains that she has her weight-loss clients aim for 80-100 grams of carbs per day, and then fills in the rest of the macronutrients with fat. Dr. Gabrielle Lyon offers a more nuanced perspective. In her book Forever Strong, she recommends 1 gram of protein per pound of ideal body weight if an individual is in their 40's or older and if they are experiencing stressors. In her program, she suggests that clients eat 30-50 grams of protein at each primary meal, with a strong bias toward animal proteins because of the more bio-available essential amino acids available in animal proteins, specifically leucine, which is key for muscle protein synthesis (building healthy skeletal muscle).

Another thing that could help, would be a sleep routine. If you think back to high school health class, I think they called setting up a good sleeping routine, “sleep hygiene,” but that feels outdated. Let’s reclaim a healthy sleep routine by giving it a name that resonates for you. How about deep rest, or sleep ritual? I just call mine, “bedtime”, where I aim go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time every day - even weekends.

Hit reply to tell me know what you would name your ideal sleep routine.

If you’re not sleeping optimally, think of treating yourself like you would an infant, with a specific schedule. Or a toddler, who gets cranky and overwrought without enough sleep. Other sleep hacks I’ve shared in previous newsletters include, getting a daily dose of morning sunlight - at least 5-15 minutes - to set your circadian rhythm that signals to your receptor cells when to go to sleep, and wear blue light blocking glasses when its dark outside to minimize disruption of your circadian rhythm.

Dr. Lucas shared her rule of thumb: 10 - 3 - 2 - 1 - 0

10 hours before bed stop drinking caffeine.

3 hours before bed no more food or alcohol.

2 hours before bed no more screens.

1 hour before bed no more work.

0 times you’ll hit the snooze button in the morning.

Another important component highlighted by Dr. Arianne Missimer on her Movement Paradigm YouTube channel, is that oxigenation, specifically nasal breathing, is important for our metabolism. This means that we should be breathing through our nose when we’re sleeping, at rest, going about our day, and while exercising 100% of the time.

According to Dr. Missimer, oxigenation positively influences our mitochondria (often referred to as the powerhouses of the cells) and therefore our metabolism. Mouth breathing and undiagnosed breathing issues can trigger stress responses and inflammation severely affecting metabolism.

Removing as many stressors as we can, and adding in daily de-stressing, will help the body to move back into balance, including finding its set point at a healthy weight.