The Secret to Weight Loss Is Right in Your Bedroom

So, are you wasting your time at the gym? Should you just be hitting the sheets instead? Well, the gym is a good idea when you're awake and energized naturally, but you'd be surprised by how much impact sleep can have. In fact, researchers say that getting enough sleep has an equal effect on your weight and wellbeing as diet and exercise.

Researchers also took a group of people who had been on diets and losing weight, but told them to cut back on sleep for two weeks. What they found was that the amount of weight they lost decreased by 55 percent, even though their diets were staying exactly the same. Participants reported feeling hungry and unsatisfied after meals, and lacked energy.

Researchers at the University of Chicago say that sleep deprivation can cause you to be "metabolically groggy." What this means is that your body stops being able to properly process insulin, which transforms foods into energy. Studies report that this can happen by more than thirty percent in as short as four days of inadequate sleep. If insulin is not converted into energy, fat will be stored instead.