 Hey everybody, Dr. O here. In this video I'm going to explain to you why I think of poor sleep as anti-exercise. So why do we exercise? We exercise to burn fat and build muscle. Poor sleep does the opposite. Poor sleep tells your body to burn muscle and build fat, which is the opposite of what we want. But why? Cortisol is a big part of the answer. So maybe you've heard of cortisol. Cortisol is your stress hormone. A single night of short sleep increases cortisol levels by as much as 30 to 50 percent. So cortisol being a stress hormone is part of your fight or flight response system. So cortisol mobilizes energy to prepare you to fight or to run. This would be great if stress could turn you into a fat burning machine. But it doesn't, right? We could stress and worry our way to a flatter tummy. But here's the problem. The stress response system is designed to mobilize energy quickly. The problem is that fat doesn't burn quickly. Fat's a phenomenal fuel source, but it burns really slowly, which is why fat is your primary fuel source at rest. Cortisol, your stress hormone, says let's burn glucose and muscle and save fat for when we have more time to burn it, because cortisol is telling your body that you're in the middle of an emergency and you need quick fuel. This is why well rested people lose fat and sleep deprived people lose muscle. So a lack of sleep also decreases muscle growth, right? Poor sleep turns your muscles into fuel. It also decreases the hormones that are supposed to build and protect your muscle. One of the key ones is growth hormone, right? Eighty-eight percent of the growth hormone in your body is released while you sleep. So if you have less growth hormone, there's going to be less muscle growth and also less fat burning. Growth hormone also burns fat for fuel. And then we have testosterone. Sleep deprivation and poor sleep timing lower testosterone by at least 15 percent. And this is a big problem for both men and women. We all need testosterone. It's important for all of us. So here's my before and after pictures. You'll see that I put on a lot of muscle. As I lost 165 pounds of fat, I actually increased my muscle, increased my lean mass by 15 pounds. This was a huge deal. When you lose tons of weight, you lose a lot of lean mass with it. My lean mass went up while my body fat went down. And sleeping was a huge part of the reason why. My testosterone levels, when I first started losing weight, were 285. They were considered abnormally low. My testosterone levels went up to 717 when I started sleeping more. I actually went to the doctor to start getting on testosterone replacement therapy because it was abnormally low, but they said you don't need it. Your testosterone levels are normal now. So this was a huge part of my progress because not only did I add muscle, muscle increases your metabolic rate. So my metabolic rate went up 181 calories per day while losing 165 pounds. It's shocking really. All right. So what does the science say to support this? The effect of acute sleep deprivation on skeletal muscle protein synthesis and the hormonal environment. So poor sleep basically makes every catabolic hormone that breaks your muscles down go up. And every anabolic hormone that helps build muscle or at least preserves muscle go down. So let me read a quote from the study. This study showed muscle synthesis decreased by 18% and plasma testosterone decreased by 24% after one night of poor sleep. Additionally, cortisol, your stress hormone levels, went up by 21% with a single night of poor sleep. So collectively this hormonal environment contributed to the breakdown of muscle turning it into fuel. So what are our key takeaways here? Poor sleep is hurting your weight loss efforts by forcing you to burn less fat and more muscle. And sleep is the best way to preserve and help build muscle while on a diet. So what are our action steps? You need to find as many ways as you can to decrease stress so you can maximize your fat loss. And good sleep is really the best thing you can do to manage your stress. All right, so next we have what I think is the most important video in this entire first part of the course. It's based on the science that finally woke me up to the fact that I had to make better sleep a part of my weight loss program. So I can't wait to show it to you. Follow me there and have a wonderful day. Be blessed.