Is your lack of sleep making you fat? - Atlanta News, Weather, Traffic, and Sports | FOX 5

If you're losing sleep and gaining weight, the two may be connected.  Sleep deprivation may be sinking your diet, but there may be a way to break that cycle.

In a new study out this week at the 2012 Sleep Conference in Boston, researchers found that being starved for sleep makes it much harder to resist junk food.

FOX 5 spoke with several people about how much sleep they get.  Most said they average 6 hours of sleep a night.
    
"I just think there's not enough time to get everything done in a day, so people compromise sleep," said Susan Finch.

When we crave sleep, many of us eat.

"To wake yourself up, drink too much caffeine. And I think all that just starts to snowball day after day.  You start to get out of shape and unhealthy," said Finch.

Research shows sleep deprivation can cause hunger hormones to go haywire. Sleep-starved people secrete more ghrelin, the hormone that tells you to eat, and less leptin, the hormone signals you to stop.

Dr. Sharon Horesh-Bergquist, assistant professor of medicine at Emory School of Medicine, says when we're tired, our hunger kicks into overdrive and it's not just for more calories.

"But we start craving carbohydrates.  When we hit the vending machine, we want to get the chips, the chocolate, and try and feed those cravings," said Dr. Sharon Horesh-Bergquist.
    
A Mayo Clinic study found volunteers who didn't get a good night's sleep ate 550 more calories the next day.
    
"The first thing to decide is if you're getting enough sleep.  The average adult needs 7 to 9 hours of sleep," said Horesh-Bergquist.

If you're not getting that, try going to bed an hour earlier, and turning off your technology.

"You can't just look at your spouse, look at your best friend and think, ‘Well, they sleep 7 hour a night, that's how much I should be getting.' You need to sleep the amount that just makes you feel good," said Horesh-Bergquist.

Before you turn to a glass of wine or two to help you sleep, there's one more study you need to know about. Researchers found two or three drinks caused volunteers to sleep 47 minutes less than they did when they didn't drink. So that drink or two may make you fall asleep faster, but you won't sleep as well.