You know the drill. It’s 11:37 p.m., and you’re just about to drift off to sleep when you remember you forget to respond to an important email. You begrudgingly get out of bed, respond to that email, which turns into completing other tasks, and finally get into bed after midnight. As you close your eyes and begin to nod off, your brain starts racing a mile a minute, thinking about that project due tomorrow and whether or not you turned the oven off. Hours later, you open your eyes to an alarm blaring—it’s already 6 a.m. You’ve gotten maybe four hours of sleep, tops. Sound familiar?

Unfortunately, this cycle is all too real for many Americans today. A 2017 Gallup poll found that 40% of Americans get less than the recommended 7-8 hours of sleep per night. And while most of us are aware of the fatigue and irritability that can come with a sleepless night, few realize just how detrimental chronic sleep deprivation can be to our health—especially our waistlines. So, what happens when we don’t get enough sleep? Let’s explore how lack of sleep can affect our health and weight loss goals.

Now that we know how important sleep is for our overall health, let’s look at how it affects our weight loss goals. When we’re short on shut-eye, our bodies produce more ghrelin—a hormone that signals hunger—and less leptin—a hormone that tells us when we’re satiated. This hormonal imbalance can cause us to overeat during the day and make poor food choices because we’re so tired we can’t think straight.

Not getting enough sleep can also impact our metabolism and ability to burn fat. For example, one study showed that just one week of sleeping five hours or less per night resulted in metabolic changes that made participants’ bodies resistant to insulin and caused them to store more fat.

Getting enough shut-eye is essential for our physical health and achieving our weight loss goals. If you’re struggling to get a total of eight hours each night, consider making some changes to your lifestyle. A few changes you can make include going to bed earlier, turning off electronic screens an hour before bedtime, or establishing a relaxing bedtime routine free of stress. Getting enough sleep will drastically improve your health. Sweet dreams!