1. Personal Trainer Mike T Nelson on
How Sleep Quality Improves Fat Loss
Lose more fat by sleeping better?
What?
How is that even possible? Sounds like a snarky ad for a new
snake oil supplement, right.
It’s not, and it won’t even cost you anything!
But I thought exercise was important?
Yes, even the fine folks (sarcasm) at Planet Fitness know that if
you want increased fat loss, you need to move some iron.
That goes without saying, but this tip is not exercise related.
Read on......
Recently I've been even more fascinated with fat burning
(oxidation for the geeks).
The body is very complex, so it is not as simple, straight forward
process as the Planet Fitness crowd believes.
In my search, I found something that puts the breaks on fat
oxidation big time!

2. This is not a good thing.
Don't worry, the fix is simple and just a bit more science first.
A recent study by Hursel R, et al. measured substrate (carbs of
fat) oxidation amongst many other factors over 48 hours while
subjects were in a respiratory chamber (think of a huge room
where they account for all the calories going in and out).
What they found was fascinating!
15 subjects of average body fat (about 21%) and generally
healthy were "locked up" in the chamber for 2 whole days.
They used a crossover design, so each person served as their
own control. This is a great way to decrease outside variability
since different people tend to do different things and trying to
account for all the differences can drive you batty!
During one of their 2 days stays being locked up, they were
allowed to sleep normally (sleep was measured by EEG).
However, during the other stay, they fragmented their sleep and
only allowed them to sleep for 1 hour at a time, yet for the same
duration of sleep.
To quote the researchers:

3. "Fragmentation of sleep was accomplished with approximately
hourly wake-up calls that varied in frequency of between 500-
2000 Hz and in intensity of between 40-110 dB; subjects
confirmed waking up by turning off their alarms after 2 min"
That would suck to be awakened 8 times during one night!
This is not entirely unrealistic as many people wake up a few
times at night to use the bathroom, heard the neighbors having a
wild crazy party (and mad that they did not invite you over to join
them), had to feed the little one, etc. While it is a bit extreme, it is
not completely outside the realm of reality for many. I’m a little
nuts, so I’ve measured my sleep cycles in the past and routinely
wake up about 6-10 times a night myself.
What they found in the fragmented sleep group was direct impair
of fat oxidation, thus decreasing their fat loss results.
In plain English, waking up multiple times during the night did not
allow their body to burn body fat!
Yikes!
And it was significant, clocking in at 2xs as much of a reduction!
Fat oxidation was 61 g/d in the non fragmented sleep group and
29 g/d in the fragmented group.
If you extrapolate that out to only 1 month and use an overly
simplified calories burned model, that equals to 2 lbs a month of
fat gain!

4. Yuck!
While this was not studied here, this is great data to show that
just by increasing the quality of your sleep you can get leaner!
3 Steps for better sleep quality:
1) Try to minimize how much water you drink before bed.
2) Use ear plugs to keep down the noise or have a nice "chat"
with your neighbors.
3) Make your bedroom a cave, a bit cooler and pitch black.
These 3 tips will increase your sleep quality and improve your fat
loss results.
Summary
There you have another research tip on how you can get leaner
by just increasing the quality of your sleep!
Pretty cool and does not require much work.
For more simple Fat Loss tips, tactics, articles and free exercise
videos to re-charge your body, re-activate sore muscles and
joint, and condition your mind for extreme health, visit us at
www.MikeTNelson.com.

5. Rock on!
Mike T Nelson
References
Hursel R, Rutters F, Gonnissen HK, Martens EA, Westerterp-
Plantenga MS. "Effects of sleep fragmentation in healthy men on
energy expenditure, substrate oxidation, physical activity, and
exhaustion measured over 48 h in a respiratory chamber." Am J
Clin Nutr. 2011 Sep;94(3):804-8. Epub 2011 Jul 27

6. Rock on!
Mike T Nelson
References
Hursel R, Rutters F, Gonnissen HK, Martens EA, Westerterp-
Plantenga MS. "Effects of sleep fragmentation in healthy men on
energy expenditure, substrate oxidation, physical activity, and
exhaustion measured over 48 h in a respiratory chamber." Am J
Clin Nutr. 2011 Sep;94(3):804-8. Epub 2011 Jul 27