We know our bodies do most of their repair while we sleep. But did you know they do most of their fat-burning while we sleep as well?

That’s right. And if our sleep is interrupted often, it can lead to not only less fat-burning taking place, but more fat-creation.

(This is one reason we recommend BodyHealth Sleep during the 30-Day Fat Loss Challenge, a lack of sleep can prevent results.)

Here’s how it works:

During the first few hours of sleep our bodies release something called human growth hormone, and it’s responsible for a host of things including cellular repair, muscle growth, and healing.

It’s your repair/anti-aging hormone. It spurs muscle growth when you’ve done a workout, instructs healing for an injury, and ensures your bones and ligaments stay strong.

And when growth hormone is released, another hormone is released with it: IGF.

IGF stands for Insulin-Like Growth Factor. This is a hormone that works with growth hormone and helps to manage it, but is also very important for Fat Loss.

You could almost call it the anti-fat hormone.

INSULIN VS IGF: FAT-CREATION VS FAT-BURNING

We know that body fat is created when we have more sugar than our cells can use.

We eat sugar and a hormone called insulin is released to push that sugar into our cells for energy.

If there is too much sugar, then insulin causes the extra sugar to be converted to body fat and stored in our fat cells as future energy.

And, while insulin is in the blood stream, which it always is when we’ve eaten sugar… no fat burning can occur.

IGF does the opposite. IGF lowers sugar levels and insulin levels so the cells are not getting energy from sugar.

This forces your body to release other hormones that cause fat-burning. This then gives your cells energy from fat instead of sugar, so we lose body fat.

And, while insulin prevents fat-burning when it's present, IGF prevents fat-creation.

That’s how important sleep is to fat loss. It’s when most of your fat loss occurs.

When we're on a regular diet, these two hormones tend to stay in proper balance to one another.

But now look. If we ate a large amount of sugar before bed, this would raise insulin levels high.

Insulin would then prevent IGF from coming out and so instead of fat-burning we’d have fat-creation taking place.

As high levels of sugar also cause the hormone cortisol to be released, we’d also start having a harder time sleeping in general, as cortisol makes it harder to relax, fall asleep, and stay asleep.

This would lead to less fat-burning, but also to a downward spiral, because the worse our sleep got, the more cortisol would be released and the harder it would be to get good sleep.

And cortisol prevents the release of not just IGF, but growth hormone as well, so it becomes harder to heal or repair ourselves on a daily basis. This leads to us feeling tired more often.

This is one reason we cut down so heavily on sugars during the Fat Loss Protocol. We need these sugar levels down so insulin and cortisol will go down.

This allows growth hormone and IGF to be released to repair cells, burn fat, and much more.

And the way we get our body to release the most growth hormone and IGF is by working out with heavy weights and taking our PerfectAmino along with a high protein diet.

From there our sleep begins to even out and we start feeling rested again.

If you're having any trouble sleeping during the 30-Day Fat Loss Challenge, make sure to take BodyHealth Sleep. It will help get you the rest you need so your body can do what it's supposed to do.

Also check out this article which covers key things that can prevent sleep or help us get much better sleep.

And if you haven't already seen our 30-Day Fat Loss Challenge, check it out.

We're having a lot of fun, and to ensure you have everything you need we've set up special Fat Loss Product Bundles with a 15% - 30% discount for those participating in the challenge.

Just make sure to use the code FATLOSS at checkout for 15% off.

Alright, message us in the Group if you have any questions or need anything. And you can also share your progress there and see others' progress. 

INDEX TO THE GUIDE TO SUSTAINABLE FAT LOSS:

Introduction & Getting Started:

1. Introduction To Sustainable Fat Loss & The 30-Day Challenge
2. The Key To Sustainable Fat Loss: Calories + Hormones
3. The 30-Day Fat Loss Challenge: Diet & Protocol
4. The 30-Day Fat Loss Challenge: Workout

Week One:

1. The 30-Day Fat Loss Challenge Starts: Running Your Diet The Right Way
2. Body Fat Is Made From Sugar — Not Fat
3. Reversing Insulin Resistance & Speeding Fat Loss

Week Two:

1. What's Causing Cravings For Sugar & Junk Food
2. Digestion Is Key To Sustainable Fat Loss
3. Cortisol: The Hormone That Makes Fat Loss Nearly Impossible

Week Three:

1. How Poor Sleep Prevents Fat Loss
2. Estrogen Dominance Prevents Fat Loss In Women & Men
3. Raising Growth Hormone & IGF For Fat Loss

Week Four:

1. Hunger Vs Cravings: When To Transition Out Of Fat Loss
2. Transitioning From Fat Loss To Lean Body
3. How Our Corn & Soy Based Diet Prevents Fat Loss

Week Five:

1. Why Energy & Sleep Rise, And Stress Falls On The Fat Loss Protocol
2. End of The Fat Loss Challenge, On To Lean Body/Lean Bulk