9 Reasons You May Weigh Too Much — Reason 4

You don't sleep enough.

All over the world, obesity is associated with sleeping fewer than seven hours a night. Often research relies on volunteers reporting their hours in bed. In one study using smartphone sleep tracking data — a more reliable source — researchers found that people with obesity slept less and had greater day-to-day body mass index variations than thinner folk.

Angelo Tremblay, an obesity researcher in Quebec, looked at the effect of sleep on the dieting strategies of healthy men and women between the ages of 20 and 50 who were enrolled in weight-loss programs.

Avoiding episodes of splurge or binge eating was the single most important factor in losing weight. But only people who reported good quality sleep for at least 7 hours a night were able to avoid those big lapses.

The quality of your sleep counts, too. If you spend seven hours in bed asleep many nights in a row and still feel tired, you may have sleep apnea or another condition causing fatigue.

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