It’s 330 in the morning and there’s that buzzing again. I crack one eye open just to make sure there’s movement on the other side of the bed. Satisfied, I shut my eyes and I’m immediately transported back to oblivion.

My husband, Ryan, is not so lucky.

But he’s the-early-bird-gets-the-worm kind of guy and never complains about his ghastly morning wake-ups. He spent 14 years in law enforcement, working all kinds of shifts through the days, through the nights, and every hour in between. Because of this, he has less emotional attachment to circadian rhythms than you or I might.

Ryan chooses to get up at 330am so he can get his workout in, before he spends the rest of the day helping everyone else get their workouts in. If you don’t know him, Ryan is the owner of B7 Fitness, a Cross-Fit-like gym here in the Woodstock, NB area. In addition to being the owner, he’s also the sole coach and runs classes starting at 5am throughout the week.

While Ryan never laments about his rigorous schedule, his body lets him know that these long days come at a cost.

From a nutrition perspective, he’s hungry all the time, he wants to eat all the time (which is different than being hungry), and he has a hard time dropping the 10 pounds that he feels has settled around his mid-section.

If you’re someone who shorts your sleep on a regular basis, you can likely relate.

Read on for three reasons why lack of sleep might be impacting your nutrition and/or body composition goals:

Problem Number 1: You have a hard time pacing your meals through the day

When you’re sleeping minimally, you’re simply awake for more hours each day. This can make it difficult to stick to your planned meals, because the interval in between is longer than your hunger cues can tolerate.

Ryan is often awake for about 18 hours. When he gets up at 330, he doesn’t eat until about 7am. But his “second breakfast” comes hard on the heels of the first and he usually downs it within about two hours of his initial meal. Then he has a hard time sticking to lunch and dinner because the window between the other meals becomes too vast.

The result? An unplanned snack here and an unplanned snack there. Because of this, Ryan often ends up eating more food than his body needs energy-wise. Excess energy is stored as bodyfat, and the scale has inevitably crept up slowly over the last several months.

Problem Number 2: You have a hard time curbing your cravings

When you’re overtired, your brain will send signals requesting a quick energy hit to fuel you up and keep you going. This usually translates to craving sugary food that your all too sneaky brain knows will be digested quickly, providing a nice rush to get you over your slump.

Compounding the urge to eat foods that contain quickly accessible energy, when your sleep duration is diminished, you’ll also find yourself with less impulse control. Less impulse control means a limited capacity—or no capacity at all—to say no to those highly palatable snacks your brain is on a heat seeking mission to find.

It’s hard to resist these two forces and when you can’t, you probably eat more food than your body needs energy-wise. And just like in the example above, excess energy is stored as bodyfat, and the scale inevitably creeps up.

Problem Number 3: Your tummy isn’t what you want it to be

A night or two of less-than-ideal sleep isn’t going to be a major culprit influencing the shape of your body. But chronic sleep restriction might. That’s because it can increase the stress your body is under. Increased stress results in increased cortisol. And increased cortisol can influence the distribution of fat to different areas of your body.

Have you ever heard of the stereotypical “stress-bod”? Those who meet the description have scrawny limbs and a softer midsection. This can be indicative of the impact of cortisol on body composition.

Shorting your sleep regularly can certainly make it harder to stay consistent with your nutrition goals, which will inevitably make it more difficult to reach your body goals. And not only might you find yourself eating more, giving into your cravings more, and having a hard time losing weight around your middle, chronic sleep deprivation can have bigger mental and physical health implications as well.

The solution?

Whenever possible, aim to get the prescribed seven to eight hours of sleep. Your body, your mind, and your waistband will thank you.