10 Ways To Burn Fat While You Sleep (No, We Aren’t Kidding!)

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Losing weight, for most people, is incredibly frustrating. It seems that you live on carrots and salads for weeks to lose five pounds, but those same five pounds can reappear over a three-day holiday weekend!

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could lose weight while you are sleeping or watching TV? We’ve all seen those infomercials on television late at night — you know, the ones where some thin, young beautiful couple is eating cake and burgers, then they pop a pill, go to sleep, and wake up five pounds thinner?

Well, although those commercials are nothing more than wishful thinking, you actually can lose weight while you sleep. Really! Ok, so you can’t lose five pounds overnight, but you can continue to burn fat and calories while you sleep, and it’s not nearly as difficult as you think.

Keep reading: We are going to tell you the 10 best ways you can burn fat and calories while watching House of Cards, taking a nap, sleeping in late, or just relaxing outside.

1. Weight Training

Sometimes called resistance training or strength training, working with weights or resistance bands will increase your metabolism, which is something you must do if you want to burn more calories. You also need to improve or maintain muscle mass. For every pound of muscle you lose, you decrease the number of calories your body burns by 30 calories a day. This might not sound like much, but consider this: As we age, many people lose one pound of muscle every year. That means you will burn 150 fewer calories every day over a five-year period. Start doing the math, folks. This is why, even if you never increase your caloric intake, over time, you will gain weight. Lifting weights just twice a week will replace five to 10 years’ worth of muscle loss within months. Lifting weights will increase the number of calories you burn, it will increase your metabolism, and it will increase your muscle mass, which will naturally burn more calories, even when you are at rest.

2. Try Nighttime Fasting

Closing the kitchen early — and we mean very early — can help you lose weight, even if you eat more food during the day. One study, published in the journal Cell Metabolism, put two groups of mice on a high fat, high calorie diet for a period of 100 days. Then, half of these mice were allowed to nibble all day, all night, on a healthy, calorie-controlled diet. The other group was given access to all the food they wanted, but only for an eight hour period. The mice who went through their mini-16 hour fast each day stayed thin and lean but the other mice, who were allowed to eat around the clock, became obese, even when both groups consumed the same number of calories. It might seem strange at first to eat only during an eight hour period, but your body will adjust, and you will lose weight because of it!

3. Take Electronics Out Of The Bedroom

Research has shown that the more electronic devices we keep in the bedroom, the fatter we become, especially those under the age of 18. Pediatric Obesity published as study in their journal finding that kids who had computers or televisions in their rooms did not get enough sleep and had poor lifestyle habits, such as a lack of exercise. Scientists found that students that had one electronic device in their room were 1.47 times more likely to be overweight than those with no electronic devices. For kids with three devices, that number increased to 2.57 times. The same is true for adults. Keep your television, iPad, cell phone, and computer in the living room.

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