Most of us tend to overlook the importance of sleep in our lifestyle habits. You probably didn’t know it, but one of the best times to lose weight is while you sleep. The human body is designed by nature to repair itself during the hours we are sleeping.

During sleep time, our body uses sleep to repair and strengthen our muscles, joints, and other parts that get tired and damaged through use and exertion during waking hours.

This restorative process uses energy to rebuild lean muscle mass and to help rebuild other kinds of body tissue. That is worth repeating — this rebuilding process uses energy — and if the rebuilding process is running smoothly and efficiently, that energy comes from places in our body where energy is stored – from fat.

So, in other words, our body rebuilds tissue, organs, bone, and lean muscle by burning fat while we sleep.

Here are some key factors of this process:

• Collagen is essential to the body repair process

Collagen is a type of protein. It is the most common protein found in our bodies and is found in connective tissue, tendons, skin, bones, and cartilage and plays an important role in cellular processes. Our body produces collagen naturally which can be consumed through the food we eat. Smoking, eating too much sugar and refined carbs, and long exposures to sunlight can decrease the levels of collagen in your body.

As we age, our ability to produce collagen at sufficient levels is needed to support the deep restorative sleep processes that our bodies are designed to perform decreases. This can be a major contributor that leads to a prematurely aging appearance and can definitely affect our flexibility and mobility.

• Amino acids enhance the regeneration process

The rebuilding process is also influenced by the efficiency of the amino acids normally used for this purpose. As part of the rebuilding process, amino acids help maintain lean muscle mass and allow the body to more readily consume fat for energy. This contributes to weight loss.

Again, as we age, our body’s production of efficient amino acids is reduced. A supplement such as L-Carnitine is a special amino acid that enhances the body’s normal function and helps your body convert excess fat into readily available fuel. During deep sleep, these special amino acids work like a natural “turbocharger” to help your body repair, preserve and build lean muscle while burning stored fat to supply the needed energy.

• Not eating before sleeping is important

Since the body uses deep sleep for the restoration process, it is important when using a collagen supplement not to eat three hours before going sleep. This is because we don’t want nutrient competition between undigested food and the collagen supplement’s special nutrient formula itself. If the body has to concern itself with digestion it will not absorb the collagen formula properly. Therefore your body will not be performing its natural restorative process while you sleep, but rather will be concerned with undigested foods and will actually be storing fat from the continuing digestive process rather than burning fat as the energy for the deep sleep restorative process.

This tends to put us into a “diet circle of frustration”. The less time your body spends in deep restful sleep (without competing for digestion), the less time it has to restore its natural health, and the less fat that is burned in support of this natural rebuilding process. Now we understand the key connection between deep restorative sleep and weight loss many times goes hand in hand with our overall health.

Reducing or eliminating the intake of food three hours before bedtime allows the body to use its natural fat reserves for metabolic fuel during the deep restorative sleep cycle.