Thursday, November 30, 2006

You snooze, you lose?

I've always wondered at my patients who get up early--really early--to go exercise. Losing sleep to lose weight may be a losing proposition. Multiple studies suggest that short sleep duration is associated with obesity. So sleep in and skip the pumpkin latte--that's a better strategy for health.

2 comments:

Angela Baylis said...

What a great piece of advice. I am one of those people who get up early to exercise. (and usually don't get the amount of sleep I should have) I work 3 days per week and they are long days. Do you think it's better to skip those days of workouts? After work I am starving and exhausted. Thank you for sharing. I'm so glad I found your blog!

Love,
Angie

denverdoc said...

Hi Anie,

I'm glad you've found my blog as well (from our shared enjoyment of www.amountaintoohigh.blogspot.com).

I think working out before a long, exhausting day of work is a good way to come to loathe working out. I would never consider doing that--maybe a walk after work when the weather's nice, but an early morning pre-work session sounds daunting to me. Better to have an extra moment to sleep or read the morning paper!