12 Ways To Burn Fat And Lose Weight While You Are Sleeping

Burning fat can be one of the most difficult and challenging tasks. You can try lots of things like exercising, strict dieting or yoga, basically, any proven method that can help you shed those pounds. 

We wonder though, could something as simple as a good night’s rest be the key to losing weight? The answer is yes!  Implementing simple habits during the day can actually help you lose weight when you are sleeping and in today’s article, we will tell you how you can burn more fat while you are sleeping. So keep reading till the end.

1. Eat Citrus Fruits

Citrus fruits contain the fat-burning nutrients fibre and vitamin C. Vitamin C stimulates your body’s fat-burning capability found in the carnitine amino acid. Vitamin C also plays a role in your body’s fat processing capability. This nutrient speeds the process up by diluting the fat and then eliminating it from your body. 

Eating a variety of fibre and vitamin C-rich citrus fruits can increase your metabolism and help you burn fat. Citrus fruits include grapefruit, guava, lemons, limes, oranges, tangerines, papaya and tomatoes. Drinking juice made from these fruits can also help to burn fat.

2. Stand Up More

Something as simple as standing up more during the day can help you burn more fat when you are sleeping at night. A recent study found that standing and sitting more frequently can lead to relatively fast, and low-effort weight loss.

 

In particular, they found that standing versus sitting for six hours a day would help a ten-stone person burn an extra 54 calories a day. That may not sound too much but if you add it up over the course of a year, that’s equal to nearly half a stone. Previous studies have also shown that standing burns about nine additional calories per hour compared to sitting. Although you should not rely on standing alone to shed pounds.

3. Sleep In A Dark Room

This is something that may surprise you but research has proven otherwise.  A recent study published revealed that melatonin, which is the hormone that makes you feel sleepy, is also responsible for increasing brown fat production. Brown fat burns more calories than white fat. Your body produces more melatonin when you sleep in a very dark room so that you can create the right type of fat for optimal fat burning and weight loss.

 

4. Drink More Water

This is a very effective little trick. It works both psychologically and physiologically. 50 percent of the time when you think you are hungry, you’re actually just thirsty so instead of reaching for a bag of chips, drink a glass of water first and wait 10 minutes. Chances are, your hunger will pass. By drinking water, you are also less likely to drink sugary drinks or alcohol, which automatically reduces your calorie intake. Drinking water before a meal helps to reduce the chance of overeating because water fills you up on empty calories. One study of overweight adults found that those who drank two glasses of water before their meals lost 44 percent more weight than those who didn’t.

Physiologically speaking, drinking water also helps to speed up your metabolism. Studies have shown that drinking two glasses of water increases your resting metabolism by 10–30 percent for about an hour. So you burn more calories when you are sleeping.

 

5. Sleep In A Cool Room

This may sound a little weird but sleeping in cooler temperatures can help you burn more calories and lose weight overnight. According to a study, people who slept in rooms cooled to 66 degrees for a month increased the amount of calorie-burning brown fat in their bodies by 42 percent. Not just that, their ability to metabolize fat also jumped by 10 percent. 

Even better, their insulin sensitivity improved, potentially lowering their risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Researchers had previously found that metabolic signalling between your skeletal muscle and brown-fat tissue in the cold may make your body work harder to reach its optimal core temperature.

 

6. Cut Back On Alcohol

At night, your body burns the most calories during REM sleep. But if you drink too much alcohol, too close to bedtime, your body will focus on metabolizing the alcohol and prevent you from spending as much time in the sleep state of REM. 

 

And that’s just part of the problem. Your brain would rather burn carbohydrates, just like the rest of your body, and alcohol is basically made from fermented sugars. So, what happens to those alcohol sugars in your body? They tie up your liver, which now has to detoxify the alcohol, and stop the body from converting the fat cells to ketones, which is an interference in your body’s fat-burning process. Plus, when the alcohol breaks down, its byproducts are high in calories. So, a glass of wine with dinner is ok, but you should stop drinking a lot, a few hours before bedtime.

7. Eat Small Dinners

Similar to drinking alcohol, if you eat a big meal in the evening, your body will work to metabolize it instead of detoxing and recharging. This becomes especially problematic if you’re loading up on carbs. Eating carbohydrates can elevate your blood sugar levels. 

 

Your body secretes insulin to take the sugar you just ate and shuttle it to your cells for use. If you aren’t using that energy, like when you go straight to bed, you will store those calories as fat. The rise of insulin also creates a whole cascade of events increasing blood sugars, promoting fat storage, and preventing fat breakdown, and it interferes with your circadian rhythm for proper sleep. Instead of a hard cutoff for eating at night, swap carbs for fibre-filled, plant-based foods that will assist with your digestive process rather than give your body more work when it’s preparing to turn off for sleep.

8. Drink A Casein Shake

While proteins such as whey are perfect for a post-workout boost, their rapid-absorbing nature means they’re not as effective before you hit the hay. Instead, choose casein protein if you want to boost your overnight fat burning. Casein is a gradually digested protein that can take your body around six to eight hours to break down. This means your metabolism will be kept active throughout the night, and you’ll wake up feeling energized instead of starving.

Casein’s fat-burning credentials were confirmed in a study, which discovered a boost in overnight metabolic rate following consumption of the protein. Similarly, another study found that casein enhances overnight protein synthesis, which helps to repair and strengthen muscles. When you consider that every extra pound of muscle burns 30-35 calories every day, this is an added bonus of this super-protein that should not be ignored.

9. Eat Cottage Cheese Before Bed

Eating food before bed is often seen as taboo when it comes to dieting, but this is actually dependent on what kind of food you choose. Avoiding food completely before sleeping can actually have the opposite effect because if you wake up feeling hungry, you are far more likely to binge on food at breakfast. 

 

A small snack of cottage cheese before bed is a great choice as it is rich in -yep, you guessed it – casein protein. As an added bonus cottage cheese contains the amino acid tryptophan. A study published found that tryptophan improves the quality of sleep, and reduces the amount of time it takes to fall asleep. This means cottage cheese will keep hunger at bay throughout the night, and ensure you sleep for a decent amount of time.

10. Do Resistance Training

While sleep alone is great for encouraging weight loss, there are some exercises you can do before bed that will help the process along. One of the best approaches is some pre-slumber resistance training. 

Burning fat is all about boosting your metabolism, and resistance training are great for this. In fact, according to a study, subjects who performed resistance exercises enjoyed a higher resting metabolic rate for an average of 16 hours following their workout. This resistance training session doesn’t need to be excessive. A simple weight lifting routine will suffice, even if it doesn’t push you to the limit and leave you breathless. It’s well worth following this up with a casein shake; as mentioned earlier this will ensure consistent muscle recovery throughout the night while you sleep.

11. Drink Green Tea

The flavonoids found in green tea can boost your metabolism, and if it’s your third cup of the day, you’ll burn 3.5 percent more calories overnight, according to studies. Don’t worry about the caffeine content. Green tea will not keep you up all night. 

12. Get Rid Of Electronic Devices Completely Before Sleeping

Don’t scroll through your Facebook feed before you drift off to dreamland if you want to lose weight overnight. Studies show that nighttime exposure to blue light, which is emitted by smartphones, tablets, and even energy-efficient LEDs, disrupts the production of the hormone melatonin and that could slow down your metabolism.

 

Researchers found that blue-light exposure can suppress melatonin production for twice as long as natural light and shift the body’s circadian rhythms by twice as much. Another study found that being exposed to blue light at night increases hunger and insulin resistance which can result in weight gain, increased body fat and a greater risk of diabetes.

 

 

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