Burn Calories While You Dream
The idea of shedding pounds while you're tucked under the covers sounds like a total fantasy, but your body is actually a busy little furnace during the night. While you're resting, your system is hard at work repairing muscles, balancing hormones, and processing the energy you consumed throughout the day. By making a few small tweaks to your evening routine and your bedroom environment, you can actually nudge your metabolism to work a bit harder while you're off in dreamland.
1. Lower the Thermostat
Turning down the heat before you crawl into bed is one of the most effective ways to trick your body into burning more fat. When you sleep in a cooler room, around 66 degrees, your system has to work harder to maintain its internal temperature. This process activates "brown fat," which is a type of tissue that burns through calories to generate heat while you're totally unconscious.
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2. Ditch the Nightly Nightcap
You might think a glass of wine helps you relax, but alcohol actually messes with your body's ability to burn fat while you snooze. Drinking late in the evening prevents you from reaching the deep REM cycles where the most significant metabolic work happens. Since your liver is busy processing the nightcap, it puts calorie burning on the back burner.
3. Block Out Every Light
Even dim light from a clock or LED streetlight can affect your body’s production of melatonin, a hormone that impacts your metabolism. Studies show sleeping in complete darkness balances out your hunger hormones, so you won’t wake up famished in the morning. Grab yourself a set of blackout curtains.
4. Try a Casein Protein Shake
If you're feeling a little hungry before bed, a shake made with casein protein is a smart choice because it's digested very slowly over several hours. This steady stream of amino acids helps your muscles recover and stay active throughout the night, which keeps your metabolic rate slightly elevated. You’ll wake up feeling more satisfied and less likely to overindulge at the breakfast table.
5. Put Your Phone Away
All that blue light coming from your phone or laptop inhibits your ability to sleep and puts you at risk for weight gain. Blue light wavelengths trick your brain into thinking it’s still daytime by suppressing key hormones your body needs to regulate energy. Put your phone down for an hour before bed and allow your mind and body to naturally unwind.
6. Keep a Regular Schedule
Your body’s internal clock, also known as your circadian rhythm, dictates when you feel hungry or satisfied. An inconsistent sleep schedule can trigger your body to release cortisol, a stress hormone that tells your belly to store fat. The more consistent you are with your sleep schedule, the easier it will be for your body to metabolize all day long.
7. Avoid Large Late Meals
Digesting a big meal right before bed means your body will spend more time focusing on digestion when it should be repairing itself overnight. Eating too close to bedtime will also spike your insulin levels, telling your body to store calories as fat.
8. Use a Weighted Blanket
Weighted blankets may help reduce your stress levels before bed by providing deep pressure to your body. Reducing stress before bed means your cortisol levels will be lower when you wake up, making life easier for the fat-loss fighter in you. You’ll also sleep more soundly knowing your body is receiving the proper amount of deep, reparative sleep.
9. Sniff Some Peppermint
Studies show smelling certain aromas such as peppermint and lavender can help reduce appetite and calm your nervous system. One study showed participants who smelled peppermint every two hours consumed fewer calories that week than those who didn’t. Try spraying some diluted peppermint oil in your room.
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10. Hide the Salt at Dinner
Salt causes your body to retain water weight, which means you’ll feel puffy and heavy as soon as you wake up. Water weight isn’t technically fat, but it’ll still feel like a fat 5 lbs. on the scale in the morning.
11. Sleep Unclothed
Getting rid of those heavy pajamas can help keep your skin temperature lower, which encourages the production of calorie-burning fats. It’s a very simple lifestyle tweak that prevents you from overheating and waking up in the middle of the night. By keeping things breezy, you’re essentially helping your body stay in that prime fat-burning zone.
12. Take a Hot Bath
Taking a hot bath an hour before bed will cause your body temperature to rise then drastically decrease once you get out of the tub. This trick tricks your body into thinking it’s time for bed and allows you to fall asleep faster. This tricks your body into thinking it’s time for bed and allows you to fall asleep faster. Getting better sleep will always benefit your weight.
13. Do Some Light Stretching
Doing light stretches or beginner yoga poses before bed can relieve any stress built up in your muscles. Stretching helps slow your heart rate and prepare your body and mind for a long night of recovery and cellular repair.
14. Drink Some Chamomile Tea
It tastes great and is loaded with properties that increase your body’s levels of glycine, which relaxes your nervous system. You’ll feel less inclined to stress over everything you couldn’t get done that day, and you’ll have fewer worries about midnight munchies.
15. Resistance Train Earlier
Weight training increases your metabolic rate for hours after you step away from the iron. This means you’ll continue to burn calories hours after your workout, even while you sleep! Make sure not to lift too late so that it interferes with your sleep schedule.
16. Practice Mindful Breathing
Deep belly breathing before bed initiates your body’s “rest and digest” response. When you feel stressed at night, your body produces hormones that send calories straight to your belly fat stores. Spend just five minutes focusing on taking deep breaths from your stomach, and watch your body unwind before bed.
17. Eat a Little Cottage Cheese
That creamy bedtime snack is a favorite because it contains tons of casein protein. Cottage cheese also contains tryptophan, which helps your brain produce serotonin that can help you relax at night. Eat a few spoonfuls before bed and keep your body full of muscle-building amino acids.
18. Avoid Intense Cardio Late
You should still get your heart rate up at night if that’s your workout schedule. However, any exercise that leaves you sweating and wide awake before bed should be done earlier in the day. Not only will exercising late affect your ability to sleep, but it’ll make it hard to control your blood sugar in the morning.
19. Ensure You Get Enough Hours
Getting the proper amount of sleep each night is critical for maintaining a healthy weight. When your body doesn’t reach its restful state for long enough, you’ll produce more ghrelin the next day. Ghrelin is the hormone responsible for sugar and fat cravings, so make sure you’re sleeping enough!
20. Limit Fluid Intake Before Bed
Nothing is worse than waking up in the middle of deep sleep to use the bathroom. Every time you wake up, you lose valuable time in your body’s healing and repair process. Sleep better by reducing your liquid intake at night and eliminating those midnight wake-ups for optimal weight loss.
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20 Ways You Can Lose Weight While Sleeping
