I find that when I get very little sleep, I want to eat like a beast the next morning. Such as this morning—when I chose to devour two delicious sausage burritos and a cup of coffee from McDonald’s. It doesn’t seem like much, but that’s only because I stopped myself from also ordering an Egg McMuffin and a yogurt parfait. :\
I thought it was just me, but then I read something that makes me feel a bit better about myself. Apparently, lack of sleep increases cravings. There was an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that mentioned a study done on a group of healthy, young, male college students who were asked to sleep only four hours a night for several days straight. After only two days, these guys found themselves craving high-calorie, high-density, high-carb foods the next morning. The study found that poor sleep disrupts two hormones associated with appetite: leptin (which tells the brain there’s no need for food) and ghrelin (which tells the brain it’s time for food). Sleep and insulin assist the two hormones in working together. Therefore, poor sleep causes the two to become jumbled—eventually increasing leptin and decreasing ghrelin—while also increasing cortisol (the stress hormone which also increases belly fat) and making it difficult for our body to use insulin (in a way similar to diabetes). So yeah. All in all, lack of sleep = the road to becoming a fattie.
I think I’m going to be on that road for at least the next week. *sigh*
FATTIE RATING: 4.25
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