Are you stuck trying to figure out why you’re gaining weight — or why it’s so difficult to lose those extra pounds that just seemed to sneak up on you despite not changing your diet or exercise habits?
This is often referred to as Weight Loss Resistance - and it’s exactly how it sounds: weight that just won’t budge no matter what you do!
Here’s one surprising reason why you might be gaining weight or experiencing weight loss resistance: lack of good quality, restorative sleep.
In fact, there are actually science-backed reasons why a lack of sleep can be a strong contributing factor to not being able to maintain a healthy weight.
So, why does lack of sleep causes weight gain anyway?
Well, if you thought unsightly dark circles under the eyes were the worst outcome from cutting corners on sleep, you might want to think again. Sleep is of the utmost importance to nearly every bodily system, and losing out on it, even just a little, creates a vicious cycle in your body.
But, could your bad sleep habits be messing with your weight?! Let’s explore all of the different ways this concerning phenomenon could be going on in your bedroom every night!
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AUDIO TRANSCRIPTION
(00:01):
Can the lack of sleep cause or lead to weight gain. Welcome back to the thriving thyroid podcast, where we choose to become empowered patients and take our health into our own hands. Hi, I'm Shannon Hanson, a Christian entrepreneur, a mom of three. And after dealing with my own health mysteries, I made it my mission to learn everything I could about the thyroid. I soon became certified as a holistic wellness practitioner, a functional nutrition practitioner and a functional diagnostic practitioner. And so much more. After that, I founded the revolutionary thyroid program, the hands, a method as a health professional and a mom. I fully understand the importance of having a fun, simple, and sustainable plan for achieving a responsive thyroid. So I share actionable and practical strategies for developing a responsive thyroid so that the ambitious moms and women can gain freedom from fatigue and lose the thyroid weight once.
(01:05):
And for all each week, I will be here for you along with my guest experts, we will be sharing simple and tangible tips that work for not only your thyroid, your hormones, your family, and your mindset, so that you can get back to living the life that you envision for yourself. Welcome to the thriving thyroid podcast. All right, you guys welcome back to the thriving thyroid podcast with me, your host Shannon Hanson. I am super excited today and the episode coming out on Thursday, we're gonna be talking now sleep. This is an, if you guys have been around here for any length of time, you have heard me talk about my journey with sleep. I will do some recaps, but when I was really, really struggling with my hormones, when my energy was the lowest, when I was having fibromyalgia type symptoms, just this deep muscle ache and pain and feeling, not myself and not really knowing what to do or how to change.
(02:10):
And I remember over and over again, telling my husband, I just need to take care of myself. I just need to take care of myself. And he is like, yeah, do it like do whatever you need to do. I'm here to, to help you and support you. And at that time it was like nothing was working really. Like, it really felt like nothing in my life was working. I was eating healthy. I was eating clean. I was taking supplements. I was quote unquote doing all of the right things for my health, except things continued to get worse for me. And looking back, I now realize and recognize that a lot of it had to do with the lack of sleep that I was participating in. I had had three kids about five, six, and under, right. So the oldest was like around that five, six mark and my <laugh> baby.
(03:11):
Her sleep was really inconsistent. She was a good sleeper when she slept, but sometimes the, the lack of schedule and routine really messings up. So if she took a really late nap, then she'd be up in the middle of the night and guess who's with guess who's with the babies, right. Still having to get up and get everybody dressed and ready. And, and thankfully it wasn't a long period of time, but, but that played a role in my sleep. There was other periods of time where maybe I wasn't doing all of the right healthy things, but again, my sleep was suffering. I was my husband was going to school full time. Money was pretty tight, especially going from what we were making before to him going back to school full time and not working in his trade and profession. And, and honestly, you guys, it was the best move for our family long term, but it didn't mean that there wasn't some struggles along the way, and to help with the financial situation, I started a business and I sold things, handmade items on Etsy and all of those fun things.
(04:23):
And so because of that, I would also stay up super late at night, working after everybody else was asleep. So once again, these different points in these different periods in my life sleep was a big key player. So it didn't matter if I was eating healthy exercising, you know, doing all the quote unquote right. Things. If your sleep is off, it's going to impact things. And once I started to prioritize my sleep, which was super hard to do <laugh> because I I'll be honest. I enjoy those moments in the evening when it's just me and nobody is thinking about me or touching me or wanting me or calling my name, you know, it's those quiet moments that I'm like, ah, yes, like I can watch the TV show that I want to watch and I can do what I want to do at this point.
(05:25):
And having a new baby again has brought back a lot of those same feelings, thoughts where it's like, but I just want peace and quiet where nobody wants me and nobody needs me, but I'll be honest. I haven't been the best with prioritizing my sleep, but I am much better than I was with previous kids and not staying up till nine, 10. I'm like the kids have to go to sleep. So I have a couple minutes <laugh> by myself uni essentially uninterrupted. So I did make it in bed last night by 8 39 o'clock. Which would have never happened before. So counting that as win. So let's dive into can the lack of sleep cause weight gain. So if you guys are stuck trying to figure out why you're gaining weight or why it's so difficult for you to lose those extra pounds, that just seems to sneak up on you and not budge, regardless of changing your eating habits or your exercise.
(06:35):
This is often referred to as weight resistance. Talk about this a lot. And this is exactly how it sounds weight that won't budge. No matter what you do here is one surprising reason. You might be gaining weight and experiencing the weight lost resistance because of, so number one, lack of good quality and restorative sleep surprise, surprise. In fact, there is actually science backed reasons why the lack of sleep can be a strong contributor to not being able to maintain that healthy weight. So again, when we're looking at thyroid, if you guys are struggling, please, please, please prioritize at sleep. We have a client right now inside the Hansen method and she is struggling to prioritize her sleep. And we've talked to her over and over again. We're like, you have to do X, Y, Z. These are the things that are going to contribute to better and improved sleep.
(07:39):
And until you do those things, it, weight is going to be very, very difficult for you to maintain. So getting off the phone earlier wearing blue light glasses, I'm actually wearing them right now while I am recording having a good sleep hygiene you know, all of those, all of those contributing factors. And we'll talk about those more. So if you thought UN dark circles under your eyes were the worst outcome from cutting corners. When, when you're sleeping, you might want to think again, sleep is the utmost important to nearly every system in the body and losing out on it. Even just a little creates this vicious cycle inside your body. So for example, when healthy weight healthy, hold on, for example, where a healthy body weight may be, the concern, the more sleep deprived you are, the higher, higher, your levels of stress hormone, AKA cortisol will be, which tends to increase your appetite.
(08:52):
You guys are going to be craving those processed carbohydrates because your body is looking for fuel. And where do we get our fuel from, from those carbohydrates and the processed sugar, which of course will lead to more cravings throughout the day and then a crappy night's sleep. <Laugh> right. So and okay. So here is an additional tidbit. When we raise our insulin levels, when our blood sugar is out of balance, you're also gonna be waking up in the middle of the night, possibly hungry. Okay. When my clients tell me, Hey, I wake up in the middle of the night and I'm so hungry, don't go grab some chips or carbohydrates or crackers or something quick and easy. No, if you're waking up in the middle of the night, your body needs extra protein, protein, you need protein. <Laugh> protein, especially in the form of trip tofa trip tofa is a protein that will convert into number one, serotonin and serotonin is that happy feel good hormone. And then it will convert into melatonin, which helps you sleep. So, and additionally, when we are overtired the mitochondria, those little cellular factors that turn food and oxygen into energy, which equals your metabolism center, right? So when that mitochondria is overtired, it actually starts to shut down. This causes glucose to stay in your blood, and then you will end up with higher blood sugar levels.
(10:40):
So when our body, so let's say the mitochondria, right? These tiny little factors when the mitochondria becomes damaged, because of the lack of sleep, the lack of eating healthy food, all of these things, the mitochondria is actually very, very sensitive to damage. And when they aren't working properly, you will suffer from low energy memory, loss, pain, rapid aging. So this is one of the things that we're looking at when we work with you inside of our program, do you experience premature aging, gray hairs, wrinkly skin, you know, all of those different things. And fatigue is probably the most common side effect when we are looking at poor mitochondria function. And in fact, the reason that we poop out at, you know, different ages, menopause perimenopause even earlier, is because this constant insult salt and injury to our mitochondria, this is why we see women go at perimenopause and postmenopausal begin to have more and more thyroid dysfunction.
(11:50):
Okay. So when we tune up our metabolism, that's the first order of business to, to finding out or fixing the damage of our mitochondria things like toxins and infections and allergens and stress. But the biggest insult over time is eating too much high calorie foods that are low in nutrition in short meaning empty calories. So when the body is burned or metabolized with oxygen in the mitochondria, our body processes is processes. This waste in the form of free radicals, which creates this chain like reaction of resting or oxidation, unless we have enough antioxidants in our diet, where do antioxidants come from? Whole foods, fruits, vegetables, those types of things that help build up those antioxidants and thus protect our body and our cells from that mitochondria damage. Okay. Let's flip back over to insulin. So insulin is that blood sugar that we need to be looking at and can rise from the crappy empty calorie type foods.
(13:15):
It can also rise because we're not sleeping well. So insulin is that hormone whose job it is to signal the muscles and the fat and the liver to can to absorb the glucose or the sugar from the bloodstream to be used as energy. So a study at Ann L's internal medicine reports that skimping on sleep can cause fat cells to become less insulin sensitive up to 60%, meaning they lose their AB ability to absorb and to utilize that insulin inside the body. So yet there is another reason that you might be packing on the pounds when you are lacking. Sleep is because your body goes into that survival mode much like when we are depriving our body of too little energy and two little calories, therefore our body goes into that survival mode and that equals ex extra <laugh> extra fat storage. And the body thinks that it's better for, for this to happen and for you to be fat than dead.
(14:32):
And our body at the end of the day is just trying to keep you alive. It's just trying to keep you protected. And so going back to the client that we're working with, she is eating foods that she's struggling like essentially empty calorie foods. She's not sleeping. And so she's currently in this rat race <laugh> right. Of repeating the same cycles. And this is once again, where we have to work on that mindset of how are we going to break these, these chain reactions and she'll do really, really good right now. She's actually in a really good place. Things are going really, really well for her. A lot of her stress has come down, but then in six months, three months, two months, it really just depends. Life will take another turn. And, and then she's kind of right back into that same cycle. And so this is where, and I, I think we can all agree that we've been in these places where we're doing really, really good, and then life happens and stress happens.
(15:40):
And then we fall into old habits. And the big thing that we need to focus on in situations like this is being able to get up and to consistently move forward, right? The place that she's in now is significantly better than where she was before. And even this last time that she kind of relapsed and started eating junk food a little bit more, and wasn't sleeping as much and all of these different things, she's still coming out further ahead. And she's still noticing all of these other wins, but to the point of her, she's she, her son's getting married and she wants to lose weight. And so she's really putting forth the energy, the effort to, to make this happen. And she, so we have a, a journaling part as part of our app, and we were talking about what she was eating. And I was like, my friend, you are not eating enough.
(16:42):
This is not going to help contribute to weight gain. So yes, the quality of food is very good, but what's happening. As we look at this, she's being quote unquote good all day long, cutting calories, you know, eating four olives and, you know, three ounces of chicken and veggies, but at nighttime is when she's noticing those carbohydrate cravings and then she'll give into those cravings and that will not contribute to a good sleep. And then, and then, and then, and then, okay. Hopefully that makes sense for you guys. And let's start talking about some of the basic things that you guys can do to improve your sleep. Before we do that, I did wanna share with you guys that research says that just 30 minutes of a loss of sleep per day could make you more likely to gain weight. You guys, 30 minutes is not a lot.
(17:47):
Okay. <Laugh> and this, this is again, why I tell my clients, if you need a nap, go take a 30 minute power nap. You know sleep could argue, arguably be the most important thing that a person can do. If they're ready to start a new health optimization plan. And the first step is to prioritize your sleep sleep. Isn't just time to rest. There's actually, it's actually nourishing our body just as, when you just, as much as when you're eating healthy foods, it may require some behavioral and mindset shifts on your part, but your body and your booty will thank you for that. And what a great time of year as kids are going back to school, they're getting on a schedule, they're getting on a routine. It is perfect for us moms to also take time to prioritize ourself ourselves. So here are a few little tips that I have used for myself.
(18:52):
Number one. So when I, okay, so really quickly there is something called a reverse curve. So some of you guys are essentially peeking or you have the most energy at night. So that's when you're cleaning your house when your kids and everybody are asleep. And that's where I was, and I was stuck on that cycle. So one of the first things that I had to do was to essentially force good caffeine or good energy into myself, first thing in the morning. So I took B vitamins and a few other things that I'm not gonna tell you because you need to make sure that you're working with a professional to help you with that. And so I took, took some supplements and some herbs that gave me a good boost of energy in the morning. It didn't fix things overnight, but it was significantly better.
(19:46):
So I did that. And then at nighttime, I would drink things like Kamaal tea, or I would take a warm absence bath. And I really, really tried to, I would start turning off the lights in my home around seven so that my body could start producing that melatonin. And I would start signaling to my body that it was time to wind down. So things like camel tea peppermint tea, or lemon balm, some lavender, passion, flour, all of those things can go in there. I also like in a, in a sleepy time tea, so you guys can make your own, or you can, you know, obviously buy one from the stores. They have a few sleepy time teas that I've seen. All of those are great. The other thing that I would start doing is I would diffuse or put on some lavender essential oil V ever is one of my absolute favorites.
(20:45):
If you guys send me a DM on Instagram at thriving thyroid, and just ask me, you know, what's your essential oil sleep blend. I will tell you how to make it. But essentially it is like lavender, Roman, camo, mill V ever. I use the serenity from doTERRA and I oh, and Franken sense. So there's five oils that go in there, make the blend. And I either diffuse it or I put it on myself or the pillowcase. And that again for me signals, Hey, it's time to, it's time to go to sleep. So anyways, I hope those were super, super helpful for you guys, make sure to prioritize your sleep because you can get better sleep and that will aid in the body's ability to lose weight. All right, I'll see you on the next B before you go. I wanted to share with you guys about an online platform called full script.
(21:46):
Full script is a platform where you can purchase high quality supplementation, including brands like thorn, pure encapsulation, Douglas labs, Genestra Claire labs. And so many more. We use this platform to help our clients purchase these top quality supplements at a discounted price. You can also set up auto shipments where these supplements come into your home automatically without you having to think about it. It is one of the things that has taken the most guesswork out of my health for me currently, as I have just set up an auto shipment for my prenatals and my organ meets and all of those wonderful things for myself and for my kids. And you can go in and change it at any time. Now, if you enroll under my link in the show notes, you will get a bigger discount and you'll get access to my online protocols, protocols for painful menstrual cycles, protocols for headaches, pro protocols for your immune system, all kinds of things. Now, if you're looking for something in particular and it's not there, send me a DM on Instagram at thriving thyroid, and I may be able to put something together for you guys. So head over to the show notes, set up an account with full script. You will get all of the information and all of the details of upcoming promotions and additional savings
(23:24):
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