The Importance of Sleep For Skinny Fat Folks (Build Muscle & Lose Fat)

Learning how to fix the skinny fat physique can be overwhelming.

There are tons of details surrounding proper training, nutrition, and recovery, so it can be scary for beginners to decipher it all and take the actionable bits.

To that end, I want to share something less intense with you today: sleep and its importance for muscle gain and fat loss.

Read on if you’re interested in understanding how sleeping well can improve your fitness progress.

The Importance of Sleep For Skinny Fat Folks

Sleep is among the strangest things we have to do each day. Nevertheless, getting enough rest each night has a significant impact on your hunger levels, ability to build muscle, lose fat, and maintain your health.

How Sleep Impacts Muscle Gain

A big part of fixing the skinny fat physique is building muscle. Doing so adds shape to your body, making you appear fit and healthy even if you’re not extremely lean. The problem is that poor sleep can hinder your body’s ability to build muscle, even when you’re in a calorie surplus and trying to bulk.

According to research, poor sleep impacts muscle growth on two primary fronts (1):

• It suppresses the production of two essential hormones: testosterone and IGF-1
• It promotes elevated levels of another hormone: cortisol

Testosterone is a crucial anabolic hormone that plays a profound role in your ability to build muscle (2). The hormone stimulates growth by binding to androgen receptors, traveling to cells’ nuclei, and promoting muscle protein synthesis. Testosterone also impacts the mTOR pathway––the primary cellular pathway responsible for muscle growth. It inhibits proteins that can impair the pathway's functions.

IGF-1 also has functions within the mTOR pathway, contributing to muscle protein synthesis (3). Aside from that, IGF-1 is vital for the recruitment and increase in numbers of satellite cells––the precursors to muscle cells that play an essential role in keeping our muscles healthy and recovered.

In other words, not getting enough sleep prevents two important hormones from promoting muscle protein synthesis. Sadly, it doesn’t end there, as sleep deprivation also promotes catabolism (breakdown). It does so by elevating levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

Cortisol is a hormone with many important functions in the body. Levels of the hormone peak in the morning and gradually decrease as the day progresses. The problems occur when cortisol goes up and stays high for a long time. As a result, we experience water retention, high blood pressure, muscle weakness, impaired muscle protein synthesis, and quicker muscle protein breakdown (4).

Sleep’s Effects on Fat Loss

The effects of sleep deprivation on fat loss are perhaps best illustrated in a study from 2010 (5). In it, researchers examined the impact of two sleep conditions on overall weight loss and what percentage came from actual fat. Ten overweight and middle-aged subjects participated in the study. None of them had known issues related to their health or sleep.

Subjects had to go through two conditions spaced at least three months apart: spend 8.5 or 5.5 hours in bed each night. Both protocols lasted for two weeks and were combined with a controlled diet, consuming roughly 1,450 calories daily, or 700 below their maintenance. Nearly half of their calories came from carbs, 34 percent were from fat, and only 18 percent consisted of protein.

The participants slept for an average of 7 hours and 25 minutes in the 8.5-hour condition and 5 hours and 14 minutes in the 5.5-hour experiment. Subjects lost 6.6 lbs in both states, which is a significant amount to lose in just two weeks. But, here is where it gets interesting:

When folks could sleep for over seven hours per night, they lost lean and fat tissue at a one-to-one ratio, which isn’t great, but it isn’t terrible given their low protein intake and severe caloric restriction. But, when they could only sleep just over five hours, only a fifth of the weight loss came from fat.

With everything else the same, simply getting more sleep resulted in far more fat loss and better muscle retention. On top of that, sleep deprivation made the subjects hungrier, which was confirmed by their elevated ghrelin levels (a hormone that stimulates appetite).

The study wasn’t without its faults, but it illustrates the impotence of sleep well enough. A notable issue was that subjects had to lose a lot of weight quickly, which is known to cause muscle loss (6). Another drawback is their low protein intake (only 65 grams per day). It’s best to consume at least 0.7 grams of protein per pound of body weight (7). The third issue was that the subjects were sedentary. Had they done some lifting, they might have retained more muscle mass, possibly gaining some muscle while shedding fat.

Sleep for Health, Gym Performance, and Well-Being

Not sleeping well once isn’t that bad. You might feel energized and clear-minded because of elevated levels of hormones like adrenaline. But, as you’ll see in the following points, poor sleep carries a hidden danger most people don’t consider.

According to research, lack of sleep impacts athletic performance, mood, and overall functioning (8). As a result, our workout performance suffers, and we cannot exert the same effort, leading to poor results. Coupled with the direct effects of poor sleep on fat loss and muscle growth, we can conclude that not sleeping enough is bad for people who want to fix the skinny fat look.

Further, some data indicates that poor sleep can impact testosterone levels (9). Given the hormone’s importance for muscle growth, fat loss, and overall physical development, that’s another strike for sleep deprivation.

Plus, not sleeping well can significantly impact our mood, cognition, ability to concentrate, and motivation. Deprivation is also linked to poor impulse control. So, we can conclude that not recovering well makes us more likely to skip workouts and choose instant gratification. For example, instead of going for a beneficial session after work, your tired brain might conclude that watching Netflix and resting would be more beneficial.

How Much Sleep Do You Need?

Okay, we can all appreciate that sleep is essential. But how much sleep do we need per night? According to most guidelines, seven to nine hours per night is optimal for adults. A healthy eight hours would be ideal, especially for people going through more stress or following a more demanding training program.

The Hidden Danger of Not Sleeping Enough

Not sleeping enough might not seem that bad, but many people fail to realize something:

Sleep deprivation is a cumulative problem. It might start small, but poor sleep accumulates into something researchers call sleep debt. Not sleeping enough might be okay for a few days or a week, but you eventually reach a point of exhaustion where you can’t function well, and your health takes a hit.

In one paper, researchers put 48 healthy adults into one of four groups (8):

• 8 hours of sleep per night
• 6 hours of sleep per night
• 4 hours of sleep per night
• 0 hours of sleep per night

The first three conditions lasted for two weeks, and the last one continued for three days. During the experiment, all other sleep was prohibited. Researchers wrote the following:

“Chronic restriction of sleep periods to 4 h or 6 h per night over 14 consecutive days resulted in significant cumulative, dose-dependent deficits in cognitive performance on all tasks.”

Additionally, 25 percent of subjects in the 6-hour sleep group began falling asleep at random times during the day. After the whole two weeks, the same group of people showed cognitive deficits equivalent to those we see in people who’ve stayed up for 48 hours straight.

So, given the cumulative impact of sleep deprivation and its effects on muscle gain and fat loss, depriving yourself of rest would be one of the biggest skinny fat mistakes you could make. 

How to Sleep Better: Five Actionable Tactics

1. Establish a Consistent Schedule

Establishing a consistent schedule for your sleep is beneficial for reinforcing the sleep-wake cycle. Going to bed and waking up at similar times makes it easier to fall asleep in the evening and wake up in the morning. It’s best to maintain that schedule even during the weekend for the best effects.

2. Be Careful With Alcohol and Caffeine

Having alcohol in the evening - the ‘nightcap’ - can help you fall asleep more easily. But, despite that apparent benefit, alcohol can impair overall sleep quality and delay REMS (rapid eye movement sleep), which typically occurs 90 minutes after falling asleep (10). You might fall asleep quickly, but you could wake up feeling tired and irritable. Because of that, it would be better to avoid alcohol within at least one to two hours of going to bed.

Caffeine is another substance to consider. While the nervous system stimulant offers many health benefits and can promote cognition and energy levels, it can also interfere with your sleep. The substance has a half-life of around five hours and takes up to ten hours to clear from your system (11). For example, if you ingest 200 mg of caffeine at 5 PM, you might still have 100 mg coursing through your body by 10 PM, making it more difficult to fall asleep. You can still have your morning cup of coffee, but it would be best to avoid caffeine in the afternoon or evening.

3. Have a Pre-Bedtime Routine

A bedtime routine is fantastic for relaxing your mind and making it easier to fall asleep. Instead of staring at a screen and absorbing blue light that can impair melatonin production and lead to sleeplessness, save your last hour before bed for peaceful activities. For example, you can stretch, meditate, read a book, write down things you’re grateful for, take a bath, etc.

Combine a few relaxing activities, and you’ll likely feel much better and start falling asleep with greater ease. Doing so is also a great way to manage stress and reduce its negative impact on your health and well-being.

4. Optimize Your Sleep Environment

Follow these guidelines to perfect your sleep environment:

• Keep the temperature between 65 and 70 degrees F (18 and 21 degrees C).
  
  
• Sleep in a quiet room or use earplugs if there are sounds you cannot control.
  
  
• Ensure that your bedroom is completely dark because light can interfere with melatonin production and impair sleep. Blackout curtains can work, especially for people who work night shifts and sleep during the day.
  
  
• Get yourself a good mattress and pillow. The investment will more than pay for itself in the next five, ten, or even twenty years.

5. Train Regularly

A growing body of research suggests that regular physical activity promotes better sleep (12). In contrast, leading a sedentary lifestyle increases the risk of insomnia and other sleep issues.

Still, be careful with your training and avoid particularly intense sessions within two or three hours of bedtime. The stimulation caused by vigorous exercise can leave you feeling wired and impair your sleep.