The Connection Between Sleep, Food, & Cravings

We’ve all been there, craving food throughout the day, not feeling full, always wanting something sweet/salty, or just stuck in a bad rhythm of poor food choices. It’s difficult to fight the crave and it can happen for a variety of reasons, but lack of sleep is a MAJOR reason.

You can battle cravings with a lot of things like hydrating and minimizing temptations, but your first line of defense is treating sleep like a job. Show up for your 7-8 hours!

If you’re on a weight loss journey, read on to learn how sleep and hunger are related, and how you can improve your sleep through food.

DOES LACK OF SLEEP CAUSE WEIGHT GAIN?

YES! Let me tell you why...

In deep sleep, your metabolism and hormone production are regulated and brought to a healthy level for a successful new day with fresh energy.

On the flip side, lack of sleep does the opposite. With poor sleep, your body doesn’t have enough time to regulate your hormones and you have a spike of cortisol (stress hormone), and imbalanced ghrelin and leptin (hunger / satiating hormones). So, you’ll wake up more tired, grumpy, hungry, and it’s the perfect disaster.

Let’s bring that to reality for a second. Imagine you go to sleep very late and only get 4 hours of sleep. The next morning, you’re too tired to function properly, so you go straight for a pre-packed comfort food for breakfast to boost your mood. Later in the day you still feel tired so you skip your workout and order junk food because you crave it.

Now, at the end of the day you don't get to burn those excess calories as energy, so it remains stored in your body. What happens when you try to go to sleep? It’s likely that you can’t because the calorie and sugar loaded foods will keep you up even if you feel tired.

This is an easy and dangerous cycle to fall into and it is hard to escape. These habits will slowly lead to undesired weight gain. Even if you try to eat healthy and work out, a lack of sleep will still affect your life. Valuing your sleep is crucial to avoiding other health problems, so never underestimate it!

5 TIPS TO IMPROVE SLEEP THROUGH YOUR DIET

The food you eat on a daily basis can impact your quality of sleep. You’ve likely heard about not eating sugar before bed, but there’s a handful of other things to avoid consuming to get a good night’s sleep.

Limit your caffeine intake You already know caffeine is meant to wake you up and keep you alert, and that’s why we drink it in the morning. Some people resort to caffeine at night to help them stay up, but if your goal is quality sleep, avoid caffeine in the late afternoon/evening. Keep in mind drinks like green tea also have caffeine, so if tea is your drink of choice, try switching to chamomile, valerian, or other caffeine free tea.

Avoid Alcohol Before Bed Even if a few sips of alcohol allows you to get sleepy, it’s going to hurt you the next morning because alcohol will only give you deep sleep towards the beginning of your sleep, and lighter sleep for the rest of the night. This results in feeling tired the next day, even if you slept the whole night.

Limit Saturated Fats Saturated fats like dairy and red meat take a long time to digest and have been associated with lighter sleep. If you want to have a deep sleep at night, make sure you don’t eat any saturated fats before bed. (Example: Cured meats, cheese, butter, crackers, pastries)

Overall, choose healthier fats and nutrient and fiber dense foods during the day to keep your gut in good shape. (Quinoa, Salmon, Sweet Potato, Legumes, Kale, Berries, Garlic, Dark Chocolate).

Don’t Eat Right Before Bed

At least try to avoid it! Digesting your food during your sleep results in a disruptive night of sleep. It’s better to let your body use its energy to digest everything and then focus completely on getting you to sleep.

Sometimes keeping a healthy eating schedule is hard with all your other responsibilities of life, family, and maybe a social life if you can squeeze that in. When it happens that you need to eat late, try some of these: steamed veggies, white rice, protein shake, walnuts, almonds, turkey or fish, kiwi or cherries.

Avoid Spicy Foods

Some spiciness is delicious and even benefits your heart health, but having a spicy meal at the end of the day can be a whole different experience! Spicy foods can be tougher to digest and may cause heartburn which you don’t want keeping you up at night. Try holding back on the red chili flakes at dinner next time!

Overall, keep in mind the value of having a healthy diet full of lots of protein, complex carbs, and healthy fats. Check out High Quality vs Low Quality Foods for help building your next grocery list.