There is a perfectly logical explanation for why you lose those pounds while you sleep.
We have astablished the fact that in the daytime we eat, correct? Also in the daytime you are moving about and your body is fuctioning. Because you are eating while you are awake you are using those nutrients to power your body.

Ok.
When you sleep your body still has to function. Your heart still beats. Your lungs still take in oxygen. Your white blood cells are still fighting disease. Your cells are still reproducing. You're brain is still fuctioning. You are just sleeping.

But while you are sleeping you're body is doing all sorts of things. It's making repairs. If you excercised that day it's fixing the micrscopic tears in your muscles that will make you stronger. Your brain is processing all the information you took in that day. If you cut yourself the skin of the spot where you were cut is being knit back together. To top off all that work. Your body still has to function. Each and every cell still needs to be fed to stay alive.

So, when you are sleeping, you are still burning calories. A.k.a. the over night weight loss. Yes, some of it is sweat. But don't account all of it to sweat, because then you are totally underestimating your body and all it is doing. I'm sitting here wowed by how active my body is whiel I'm sleeping even. I find it very amazing that my body does all this and more.
So, I hope this helps explain your question.
~CindyLynn~

I think I'd notice four pounds of sweat, especially in warm, humid weather when it wouldn't evaporate...<shrug> I really NOTICED the moisture when my daughter was very small and would crawl into bed with me in the middle of the night... but I'm pretty sure it wasn't mine, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't SWEAT.

I'm sure we ladies don't "sweat" while we sleep....maybe we "perspire slightly" or get flushed...but we can't possibly sweat away 3-4 lbs overnight!

Maybe we should all sleep naked and do some further research! ha ha

Froufie

CindyLynn-- I'll give you that, but one pond=3,500 calories...so if my bosy burns anywhere NEAR enough to make me lose 3 or 4 lbs (even including water) I'd have to also be running a marathon in my sleep....and then some.

I think the ultimate answer is "I don't know."

How 'bout this. You eat food, you drink liquids. They have weight. As explained, sleep is when your body repairs things; uses the fuel we feed it. It's broken down and burned off as energy, and a good part of it no longer exists. The rest of the food gets flushed down the toilet. I mean, do you weigh before or after you've visited the bathroom? Try it before and try it after, I'll be there's a difference.

I don't honestly think we lose F.A.T. overnight, I think that is an ongoing occurrance; whooshes aren't fat losses that happen overnight, they are water losses (notice how much time you spend in the bathroom the day before one happens). Our bodies are burning fat for fuel on a constant basis, but fat cells are also fighting to retain shape, so water is used when fat is expelled. The water can only hold out so long and is whooshed away eventually. You don't gain 3 lbs of F.A.T. overnight and you don't lose it overnight either.

Then again, "I don't know" sounds good, too

-N

i weigh only once a week for this reason.

Just elimination of urine after your nightly sleep fast can make a huge difference. There is an old saying:

"A Pint is a Pound, the World Around." which gets to the fact that a pint of food or fluid in your body is 1 lb. Once processed and excreted (such as urinating, going number 2, or sweating and respiration from breathing) you lose that volume weight.

Although I don't remember much of my chemistry study, I still remeber that we don't convert material into energy unless we are splitting the atom. Digestion is only a chemical reaction.

A chemical reaction may either require or produce an amount of energy. This is bonding energy inside the molecules and the total weight of materials before the reaction should be equal to the total weight of materials after the reaction. I may be wrong. So please feel free to correct me.

If you believe so, then the only explanation for losing 3-4 lbs during sleep is that some material which weighs 3-4 lbs has left your body. This must have happened through breath, sweat, urine or feces.

We lose some carbon in the form of carbon dioxide in our breath which may contribute alittle to the weight loss. The rest, if not lost as urine or feces, must have been lost as sweat.

Sam

It's only funny if your hair is short -- mine (waist-length) weighs 1 1/2 lbs more when it's wet!

As someone who did plenty of sweating to make weight for high-school wrestling, believe me, I know the power of perspiration. That said, if you can sweat off 3+ lbs. during 8 hours of sleep, wouldn't make sense that you would sweat off even more (twice as much? three times as much?) during normal daytime activity? And if so, wouldn't we just perpetually lose weight because we wouldn't be able to put water/food into our bodies fast enough to replace what we lose through perspiration?

Food for thought... water weighs approx. 8.4 lbs. per gallon, so to lose three pounds via perspiration you would have to sweat out more than 1/3 of a gallon of water (and rinse off the salts left behind by evaporation, of course). Is that really possible while you are sleeping?

Inquiring minds need to know.

Yeah, its interesting how it works. Glad I officially weigh in every Friday MORNING. I have noticed I can lose a lot during the day if I'm mowing the grass and sweating buckets full and come in completely saturated. It can be several pounds lost in just a few hours.

I never thought about making sure I weigh myself with dry hair. I have very long hair 1 1/2 lb is a lot. LOL

Yes I'm a female and I admit I do sweat a lot at night. My husband is naturally hot to the touch and he loves to cuddle. So I can't help but sweat. But it's not helping me loose all that much weight. Ha Ha

Deana

So, if I lose 3 pounds after sleeping for eight hours, do you s'pose I'd lose 9 pounds if I stayed in bed the whole day? I can see some fascinating research possibilities.

yes, you will lose nine pounds if yu stay in bed all day. But you'll need rubber sheets and a snorkel!