How To Optimise Sleep For Fat Loss And Building Muscle

Sleep is an often overlooked aspect of your health. However, it's incredibly important for helping you achieve your goals.

If you are aiming to lose body fat then sleep deprivation can have a significant impact on this. For example:

• Increased hunger drive - your hunger hormone, Ghrelin, is very likely to increase, resulting in elevated hunger drive.
• Increased muscle loss - muscle loss may be significantly greater during periods of chronic sleep deprivation.

And if you're trying to build muscle, sleep is equally important. Here's a few things that could result from a lack of sleep:

• Decreased training performance - who performs at their best when they're knackered?
• Glucose metabolism goes down - your ability to utilise carbs is impaired.
• Increased insulin resistance - carbs can't get out of the blood stream and into muscles.
• Increased RPE - Lifting feels harder than normal

...and that's the SHORT version of the list. So here's how to optimise sleep for your goal.

1. Create a sleep routine you can stick to each day.
2. Set a specific time to go to bed and wake up in the morning, ideally allowing for 7-9 hours sleep.
3. Turn off all technology that emits blue light (ie, phones and laptops) at least 60 mins before bed.
4. Keep your bedroom for sex and sleep only. No TV!
5. Keep the bedroom cool and as dark as possible.
6. Use an activity tracker to monitor your sleep patterns.
7. Try to get natural sunlight each morning.

You can find out more about developing your sleep routine in this lesson of the Lean Life Habits course.