Ever wonder why you are so hungry the next day after a binge? Well, there are several reasons, but one of them is that you probably didn’t have a very good night sleep. Either you slept too lightly and didn’t go through all the sleep cycles or you woke up around 2 am feeling anxious. The sleep deprivation then sets off many changes in the body and they are not good.

“According to Clete Kushida, MD, PhD, RPSGT, a neurologist and sleep specialist at the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic in California, even after one bad night’s sleep the level of the hormone leptin, which controls hunger, decreases. The level of grehlin increases. It is a hormone, produced by fat cells, that causes you to feel like you need more fat calories and increase hunger.”

Eve Van Cauter, PhD, terms sleep deprivation “the royal route to obesity.” Yikes, all those calories from the alcohol are bad enough, but then we crave fatty foods the next day!