Sleep and Lose Weight

What if you could simply lose weight by getting more sleep, would you be interested? Well, new research indicates that this isn’t too far off. Researchers have found those who don’t get adequate sleep actually consume more calories than those who do. Researchers followed 12 healthy young men for two 48-hour sessions while recording their sleep, calorie consumption and activity level. They found those who got 4 hours of sleep versus 8 hours of sleep actually consumed 22 percent more calories. Thus, the lack of adequate sleep resulted in a significant increase in their caloric intake. Other studies have also found shorter sleep duration is associated with higher body mass index but this is the first to study the effects of sleep duration to calorie consumption in normal-weight individuals.