Losing Fat While You Sleep with Shawn Stevenson

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Hey, it's JJ Virgin and welcome to the JJ Virgin Lifestyle show where I talk nutrition, exercise and mindset with some of the coolest people in the world. Plus I give you tips that you can put into fast action to up level your health so that you can go out there and live that big life you're meant to live. Now, today's show is all about losing fat while you sleep. Sign me up. Right. So I know I talk about sleep a bunch and it's just not a sexy topic, but that's not the case today. Today we're about to make it fun, sexy and easy to do with my guest, Sean Stuff Stevenson, who is just flat out awesome. I kind of stalked him because I was so intrigued with what he's doing. Let me tell you a little bit about him. He is the best selling author of Sleep Smarter and the creator of the Model Health show which is the number one health podcast in the US on iTunes. He's a University of Missouri at St. Louis grad in business, biology and Kinese. And then he founded this advanced integrative health alliance which provides wellness services for individuals and organizations worldwide. Big ones. By the way, if I said the name of the one that started with G, I think you know what I'm talking about. You'd know. And he's been featured all over Entrepreneur, Men's Health, espn, Fox News, all over the place. Plus he's a frequent keynote speaker and he just has the best way of talking about this. And I think you're going to hear something that I'm going to share about my fiance T him a little secret there that's gonna make you go sign me up. Alrighty. So today's guest is Shawn Stevenson. So let's do it. Shawn Stevenson, welcome to the show. I'm so glad you're here with me today.

I am glad as well. Thank you so much for having me.

Well, you've got a provocative title, lose fat while you sleep. I don't know, I don't think I want to do that.

I know it's that catchy marketing thing, but the reality is that this is how it actually works.

It's so important to get this out there because I view sleep like taking your daily multivitamin mineral formula. People are like, eh, that's so boring. But if you don't do those things, nothing else works. And sleep itself is just the biggest of all. I mean, if I could pick one thing to have people do when they left me, it would be get a good night's sleep. So let's talk about sleep quality and like, when you don't get a good night's sleep, how bad it is for you.

You got it. So you know my title as a clinical nutritionist, I didn't want to accept that sleep was more important. You know, especially with sleep combined with exercise, smart nutrition. The reality of sleep is definitely the heavyweight here. And here's the big hallmark for everybody and to walk away knowing that this is the truth, because I'm going to assert today the fact that this is the reality. Sleep is more important than your diet and exercise combined. And so the University of Chicago did a study and they had individuals on a calorie restricted diet monitoring everything, you know, cookie cutter stuff that conventional diets have you do. And they let them get eight and a half hours of sleep in one phase of the study. In another phase of the study, same exact diet, calorie counting, monitoring everything. But they sleep deprived them. Now they're getting five and a half hours of sleep. At the end of the study, they found that when individuals were getting adequate amounts of sleep, they lost 55% more body fat than when they were sleep deprived. All right, that's a huge number. All right, 10% is huge. That's what you're going to see with most diet programs, 55%. And I said body fat, I didn't say weight. All right, so this isn't some manipulation. They actually lost the gooey stuff that we all kind of want to try to put to the side. So how is that even possible? And that's also what I want people to walk away with. So number one, this should be lighting up some, some pathways in your brain. Like, hey, wait a minute, how you didn't, you didn't say exercise more, diet more, just sleeping more. So three important harm. Well, there's so many hormones.

I was like, okay, let's, like, let's see how you can narrow this one down. But I love the big takeaway. You just gave them because it is the most important thing. You can do everything right in diet and exercise. If you are not getting your sleep, you, you're gonna be struggling. So there's the bottom line. Now what's happening to make that happen?

Perfect, perfect. So I'll give you the guyi'll give you guys the top three most important processes, hormone related processes that are happening with great sleep. So number one, the big gun is human growth hormone, all right? AKA hgh. And so human growth hormone, we might hear this in the media. Something that is in, it's as something that people are taking, a performance enhancing drug type of thing. We're not talking about that your body produces this endogenously within, within your own tissues, within your own body for you. Specifically designed to get you the results that your body feels you are going after. And so what does this do for you? Number one, it's protective over your muscle tissue. All right? Human growth hormone doesn't necessarily cause you to gain more muscle. It protects the muscle that you have. All right? And so muscle is your body's fat burning machinery. When you lose muscle is one of the things that starts to happen for a lot of people with aging and not really adhering to this and also correlated with getting less sleep as you get older, you start to just drop that muscle tissue very quickly and start to notice you're gaining fat at a higher level and it's harder to get rid of it. Human growth hormone is muscle protective. That's number one. And also of course it's the big thing. It's also known as a quote youth hormone. So it gives you a lot more energy. Number two, melatonin. People have heard about this in the context of sleep. Obviously it's the big kind of sleep glorified sleep hormone out there. But here's something really fascinating that should probably blow your mind a little, at least a little bit. All right, so there was a study conducted and it was published in the Journal of Pineal Research and they found that melatonin actually increases your body's brown adipose tissue. All right, so also known as your bat. Okay? So your bat fat, your brown adipose tissue. So brown adipose tissue functions like muscle, even more so in its ability to burn white adipose tissue or wat. All right, so that's, that's the more gooey kind of fluffy fat that we are targeting that we want to get rid of. So melatonin increases your bat fat, that burns the body fat that we really want to get rid of. Alright? So melatonin is a powerful player here in this whole equation. And you're only going to get adequate amounts of melatonin production when you're honoring your body's sleep and wake cycles and darkness and light cycles. Last one I'm gonna talk to you guys about really quickly is leptin. Alright? So leptin is your body's satiety hormone, alright? So Stanford researchers found that just even one night of poor sleep quality led to a radical decrease in your body's production of leptin and an increase in ghrelin, which is your hunger hormone. So if we're trying to talk about losing weight, burning fat here and you're ravenous, you're hungry and you can't help yourself, your willpower and your biology are going to be in a steel, steel cage match. And your, your, your biology is basically going to drop the elbow right onto your willpower and pin them down for a three count pretty easily. So these are all things to monitor and understand with in relationship to how asleep and contributing to my ability to burn fat. And again, those are just three. JJ shows are condensed, power packed, but there's a lot more. But those are three to really hang your hat on and understand.

I'll give you just a great example of this in action. So my fiance when I first met him was sleeping five to six hours a night and I'm thinking, well this is not gonna work, you know, because I'm an eight to nine hour gal, I am a big sleeper. And he thought, okay, so I'm sure you hear this all the time, Sean. Oh, but I only need five, five to six hours. Well now he's like a major sleeper. He sleeps right alongside, you know, with me, like fall asleep same time, wake up at the same time. So he's hitting about eight and a half hours, sometimes nine hours of sleep a night. He cannot keep weight on. He's 51 years old. He has ripped like he's, you know, he's about 8% body fat and we have to weigh him every day to make sure he's not losing too much weight. And it was not like this before jj.

People are like, I want that problem.

I know.

And this is what drove me into this research and writing. Sleep smarter and really getting out there to the masses was I saw this in my practice. I work with thousands of people in a one on one context and I saw some amazing results. We had about a 50, I'm sorry, 80% reversal rate for type 2 diabetes. We had around 81, 82% reversal rate for hypertension. High blood pressure, so helping people to get off lisinopril statins, things like that. But there was always this category of people, this group of people who wouldn't get results other people were getting. And once we got their sleep dialed in, because I just wasn't asking about it, that's when the floodgates opened. They started getting those results that they've been working so hard for.

And I find with so many people, they actually just didn't realize it was so important and so they didn't make it a priority. But then there are those people who, you know, have trouble falling asleep at night. They wake up in the middle of the night. What do you do for those people?

Oh, such a great question. You know, at first I want to take some of the stress off of this because number one, sleep isn't a sexy topic.

Let's just be real about it.

But what we're doing is we're bringing a little bit more sexiness to it. But we have to understand it's not about the number of hours you get. All right? And it might sound a little bit counterintuitive or even against some of the things we've already talked about, but it doesn't matter if you're getting eight hours of sleep, if your sleep is poor quality, if you're not cycling through your normal sleep cycles, which they're depending on, which expert you talk to, four to five sleep cycles, they're all crucial to your development, to your growth, to your progress. So this is cycling in and out of REM and non REM sleep. But bottom line is this, if your sleep cycles are broken and inefficient, eight hours of poor quality sleep, it's just like, jj, I like this, use this analogy today, and I know you're one of the pioneers getting out there and talking about this is that we focused for so many years on calories, right? This calorie consciousness. If you want to lose weight, all you need to do is burn more calories than you take in. That's what I was taught in my university as well. But here's the reality. It matters, the quality of those calories, 300 calories of Twinkies is going to impact your hormones and your tissues far different than 300 calories of broccoli. So what we're doing today, a lot of people are getting what I call Twinkie sleep, alright? They're sleeping for eight hours, but it's poor quality sleep. And they're waking up still feeling like a wreck. So what we wanna do is Sleep Smarter, which is the title of the book. And so making sure that we're creating a structure to make sure we're cycling through our sleep cycle normally. All right, so how do we do that? Some quick points here. Number one, Appalachian State University did this study and they had Exercisers train at three different times in 7am, 1pm and 7pm and in the evening they found that the morning exercisers spent up to some people spent up to 70% more time in the deepest most anabolic stages of non REM sleep. So deep sleep. They also found that the morning exercisers had a 25% greater drop in their blood pressure in the evening. And they found that they had more efficient sleep cycles and they tended to sleep longer. So here's the big headline. A great night of sleep starts the moment you wake up in the morning. So getting up, just doing 10 minutes of exercise. If it's your time to hit the gym and your life is structured that way, all good. But make sure you get 10 minutes of activity in because what it does, and so I'm a big why guy is it helps to reset your circadian timing. It helps to reset your cortisol rhythm specifically. All right, so get some morning exercise in at least 10 minutes. One more tip and if we've got time, we'll do another one. One more tip. And this is super valuable, super important, is to make sure that you're getting plenty of good sleep nutrients. Alright, so we don't think about that very often, but there are specific nutrients that are basically building blocks or precursors to the hormones that are related to sleep. So one of them is potassium. I'll just throw this one out there. And this was published in the journal Sleep. They found that individuals who have trouble staying asleep, they found that potassium, low potassium was correlated with that. And once they elevated their potassium levels they were able to be more have greater sleep after sleep onset. So no waking up. So potassium sources, a lot of people would jump to bananas because of marketing. That's a lot of sugar.

Makes me crazy. Thank you for bringing that up.

You're welcome. You're welcome. Very hybridized food can't even exist in nature. Can't grow by itself because the seeds have been bred out of it. But here's the thing. Avocados, amazing source of potassium. Dulse, which is a sea veggie, is probably the highest source of potassium gram for gram of any food that we know about. So green leafy vegetables. Another one. I'll share one more. Good sleep nutrient magnesium is critical. So Magnesium is responsible.

Glad you brought that one up.

Yes. 300 biochemical processes. So basically, when you're deficient in Magnesium, there are 300 things your body can't do efficiently or at all. And so getting your magnesium levels up. And there was a study that I talked about in my book that they looked at insomniac. So these are individuals with chronic sleep issues and found that every one of them was deficient in magnesium. And it's not just insomniacs. Over 80% of our population is reported to be deficient in magnesium.

Yeah, I was going to say this is one of the key ones that we need to add more of. And I mean, how about just jumping in an Epsom salts bath before bed to help you asleep?

Exactly. We know about this. It's kind of just in our culture, like we know about that. It's traditional. That's magnesium sulfate. And your body absorbs magnesium through your skin as well. So getting it through your diet, it's always food first. They're a great source of magnesium. Anything green, green veggies, green superfoods, spirulina, things like that are great sources. But it's hard to get your levels up to the point you need because it's an anti stress mineral. We're dealing with so much stress today, so it gets zapped very quickly. So supplementation I do recommend. But if you take too much of an oral supplement, it can cause what I call clinically disaster pans, which means diarrhea. So you can.

But that's a great way to know how much to take too. I mean, we have it. I take magnesium every night and it's like. That's one of your tests. Also the form, if we do a bisglycinate, we're going to be better off than say, a citrate or an oxide. But those are good for those people that might need to have a little. They don't want to go full blown disaster pants, but they get things moving.

Yes, totally agree. So it's just finding that right amount for you. But also, like you just said, we want to do it holistically. Also get it in through your skin. They're great magnesium sprays, magnesium bath salts and Epsom salt, things like that. So once you get those magnesium levels up, it's really a great inducer of sleep and also helps to normalize your sleep cycles.

So we're up against the time. And I love. One thing I want to point out, when you talked about exercise that I think is so great is I remember a study early on that they were doing, back before all the stuff was coming out about HIIT training, where they found that people who. They told people they had one group that was supposed to work out for 30 minutes a day and one group that was supposed to work out three sets of 10 minutes a day. And the people worked out three sets of 10 minutes a Day, got fitter, leaner, and it was because if they were gonna miss it, they didn't miss all of them. They would miss some of them. You know, it's either 30. You either do it or you don't. But also they were working out harder. And, you know, one of the things people ask me is when should I work out? And I always say, when you will. But ideally, we know with people work out in the morning is they tend to not blow it off. So I love that 10 minutes in the morning, because, come on, anyone can do 10 minutes. Heck, that's easy, right? So that's awesome. Now I want to throw one at you. I have a feeling I know what you'll say, but just want to throw a little speed round at you. If there was one thing, just one thing that you do every day, what's the one thing you do that makes the biggest difference in your life?

Oh, in my life. Oh, my God.

In my life.

Wow. This is a deep question. I would say the number one thing is meditation. Taking some time in the morning to just get my inner game right. And I've been meditating for well over 10 years daily, even if it's just three minutes and I have a certain practice, I'll sit and I'll do some breathing exercises, and I've done dozens of different meditation experiments, but just do a breathing practice to activate that parasympathetic nervous system, which I tend to wake up early and just be hot and ready to go. So it's really helped to draw my energy out through the day. Much better. Then I'll do a gratitude practice, which really puts you in a great state. And then just do a little bit of visioning, just kind of mapping out my day, what it's going to look like. And then you start to see those happy synchronicities that happen through the day. And it just makes you feel good. It makes you feel more present and not in that state that a lot of us are in, jj, that, you know, especially even in our field, that they're feeling like they're always running behind something and they're missing something. So you feel so much more complete and fulfilled. So that's probably the thing for me.

Awesome. Now I want to remind everyone to go to themodelhealthshow.com right? That's the best website for you. And when they go to your website, Sean, what do you have there for them?

Oh my goodness. So I really pride myself on delivering the best of the best health and nutrition information, fitness information, but in a way that's really digestible and fun. So we've got some great videos there. Of course. My podcast is there and happy to say and just like yours, we've been featured as number one in the country many, many times. And so they'll find that there videos where we're in the studio together. Of course, you could pick up Sleep Smarter there or matter of fact, you can go to sleepsmarterbook.com to pick up Sleep Smarter. There's some bonuses there. And we have a free video series. I don't remember to tell people this often enough. And so it's 21 videos with me walking you through each chapter of the book.

So we love freebies and I want everyone to get their sleep dialed in. I'm harping on all the time. So I was so glad I could get you in here to really lay it out for them as to why this is the biggest thing that you have to take on. Like everything else pales in comparison to this. So thank you so much for joining me today, Shawn. And again, I want to remind everyone listening that you can go to sleepsmarterbook.com to get all of those bonuses that Shawn just talked about. Now after the break, I'm going to be answering the listeners questions, so stay with me.

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Welcome back. This is the time where I answer a listener's question. And today's question fits perfectly because it's about sleep and it comes from Karen in Cincinnati. And Karen says, jj, I'm a nurse and so my sleep cycles get all messed up during my Four days when I work the graveyard shift. Help. What do I do? So I'm going to share with you a little background on this. Gosh, it was about 15 years ago, I had a gal referred to me back when I owned a gym and was doing gym, you know, fitness and nutrition out of a gym in Palm Desert. And she came to me. She was 100 plus pounds overweight. She was in town visiting her brother, and she was a graveyard shift nurse and she wanted to lose weight. Now, I knew nothing about any of this at the time. And she'd been told that she'd never be able to lose weight during the graveyard shift. Since I didn't know what I didn't know, I said, that's crazy. Of course she can. Which was good, because, you know, you'll get what you expect. However, what I did with her is also very similar to what I've done with a lot of different Broadway performers, rock stars, and anchor people that have weird disrupted sleep cycles. And this is what I told her to do. Stay on the same cycle all the time. You actually have to flip your cycles and create a new schedule for yourself and mimic a different circadian rhythm, meaning that if you're going to work at 8 in the evening and coming home at 8 in the morning, that becomes your new day and day becomes your new night. And you actually have to get the light bulbs that mimic natural sunlight so that during the time you're at work, you're doing that. And then in the morning when you get ready to go to work, let's say you're gonna get home at 8am and then you're going to take all the lights down low. You're gonna do pitch black room to sleep in. You're gonna lower the temperature way down. You'll take a hot bath. So you start cooling down all the stuff we talked about with good sleep hygiene. And then she'd go to sleep, you know, probably somewhere around 9am and sleep till 5pm when she wakes up, I told her to get up, get out into the natural sunlight. If it's already dark at that time, flip on those, get a visor. They have these visors where you can use the natural sunlight visors. Flip on the natural sunlight bulbs in your house, get yourself into that light so your body thinks that you're now in daytime. Super, super important. I would drive with that visor. You know, you have to get that light all around you and then exercise, just like you heard Shawn talk about in this exercise, because it's going to help get that rhythm going and help get your stuff. Don't, don't come home after the whole shift and exercise, exercise first thing in the morning, which your morning would be your evening. Then. The biggest thing, and this is the challenge, is you have to stay really consistent. The most important thing that you should do is have the same wake time every single day and make sure you're getting your eight to nine hours of quality. And you heard this, it's quality, quality sleep. Which is why a lot of these sleep tractors are so key. It's not just about being asleep, it's about getting into the deep REM sleep cycles. So that's what I've had everybody do. Whether it's someone has to get up at three in the morning to go to a network to do their broadcast, or it's someone who's staying out till 2am because they've got a Broadway show or they've got a rock concert and they can't just take it down after they're done at 11 or 12 at night, I just have them flip and stay on that sleep cycle and then use these natural sunlight bulbs to help mimic normal physiology. But I keep them that way the whole time. And I will tell you that she lost the hundred plus pounds of weight and never was an issue again.

Yay.

I love those stories. Now if you'd like to submit a question, just go to jjvirgin.com ask and you can leave a voicemail for me. You can also leave questions on my Facebook fan page. I jump on there and grab questions off there too. I can't wait to hear from you. And by the way, one more way, I'd love to hear from you. I would so appreciate it if you could jump on Stitcher or itunes and leave a review for me. It helps a bunch and be sure to subscribe and share the show with your friends. This is JJ Virgin signing off and reminding you that you are worthy. Dare to live a life that meant matters.

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