Snoozing May Help Women Shed Baby Weight
One thing I’m pretty hot on with all my pregnancy fitness coaching clients is how much sleep they are getting and what quality of sleep they achieve on a weekly basis.
Sleep is one of the prime factors you need to consider in your pregnancy fitness program as it is one of the main regulators of your pregnancy weight gain. Just check out these figures from an article I found on Yahoo Health:
“One study of new mothers found that those who slept five or fewer hours a day six months after giving birth were three times as likely to hold onto those extra pounds as were women who got seven or more hours of sleep.”
Granted they are talking about new mothers but good quality sleep during pregnancy is just as important to control the pregnancy pounds as it is afterwards. Excessive weight gain during pregnancy leads to long-term weight gain. Finnish researchers showed that around 20% of women retain at least 11 pounds, 6-18 months after giving birth.
So why is sleep so important?
Sleep is the mechanism we use to switch off all other body processes and focus on regeneration and repair. That includes hormone balance and appetite regulation. Hormones are responsible for controlling appetite and telling us when we are full. If we don’t get enough sleep then our hormone production goes crazy! (Not a good thing when you consider that your pregnancy hormones are already causing enough disturbance as it is!)
Leptin and Grehlin are hormones that help the body control appetite and weight gain and loss. Leptin suppresses appetite, while Grehlin increases appetite and may prevent you from controlling your pregnancy weight gain.
If you regularly miss out on sleep, levels of Grehlin increase, causing greater appetite, and levels of Leptin decrease meaning you won’t know when you are full up. Regardless of pregnancy diet and exercise, it’s possible that some maternal obesity is caused, or made worse, by sleep deprivation
But it’s not just the amount of sleep you are getting, it’s also the quality. Melatonin is a hormone that controls our body clock and tells just how much sleep we need, how long to sleep for and when to sleep. Melatonin production is at it’s peak between 10pm and 2am. So if you are regularly burning the midnight oil and getting to bed later than 10pm, then no matter how strict you are on your pregnancy fitness plan, you just won’t get the results you want.
So this week try your very best to get to bed no later than 1030pm on at least 6 nights out of 7 and make it a habit. Not only will you feel much better for it, your baby will thank you for taking special care of her too.
