Sleep and Burn Fat
by Jean-Luc Boissonneault
When you sleep your body produces growth hormone. A release of growth hormone will help you burn fat and gain muscle. Remember that your body does not improve during exercise but in times of rest and especially sleep.
Now I am often asked how many hours one should sleep in a night and I say it is not so much the amount of time you sleep as much as the amount of sleep you get before midnight and the quality (uninterrupted sleep) that is important. It is very easy to interrupt the release of growth hormone so it is important to try to get as good quality sleep as you can.
If you have trouble having quality sleep, make sure you are exercising and try to avoid eating and drinking a lot of water right before bed. When you sleep, you are basically fasting for over 7 hours so its also very important that if you want to maintain muscle mass to try to eat a few hours before bed and try to consume a slow acting protein such as casein protein to avoid a negative nitrogen balance which means you will help burn fat while maintaining your muscle mass.
