A 150-lb. person can burn around 500 calories during an eight-hour night's sleep. Someone who is 300 lb. would burn just over 1,000. You may not be pumping iron in your sleep, but your body continues to burn energy as your heart keeps pumping and other body systems carry on their work.
Considerations
Calories are simply a measurement of the energy in food. MayoClinic.com reports that the body's main energy sources come from carbohydrates, fats and proteins. Each contains a different number of calories. Fats have about 9 calories per gram. Proteins and carbs provide about 4 calories per gram. The calories are converted to physical energy, even while you're sleeping or stored in your body as fat. Those stored calories remain as fat until you burn them off through physical activity.
Metabolism
The number of hours you sleep each night can have an effect on the number of calories you burn. Medical News Today reports that a lack of sleep may alter your metabolism and make it even harder to lose weight. Researchers in Japan compared 6- and 7-year-old children who slept nine to 10 hours a night to children who got one or two hours less sleep each night. Those who slept less were almost twice as likely to be overweight.
Cravings
Some people who don't get enough sleep start to drag during the day and may turn to food for a quick energy boost. Chances are, they'll be craving sweets or refined carbohydrates that provide energy but lack nutrients. Medline Plus reports that teens who sleep less than eight hours a night were found to be more likely to eat a high-fat diet. The study, published in the journal "Sleep," also found that the teens who slept less consumed more calories.
Counting Calories
If you're happy with your weight and want to maintain it, you need to burn as many calories in a day as you consume. If your goal is to lose weight, you'll need to burn off 3,500 more calories than you take in as food. A standard dieting goal is to drop 500 calories from your diet each day in order to lose about 1 lb. a week.
Warning
While sleeping is important to your health, trying to sleep off your pounds is probably not a good goal to set. Health professionals consistently recommend a combination of diet and exercise for weight loss and good health. You may be burning off 500 calories or more during an eight-hour sleep, but if you take a leisurely walk during the day, you could burn off three times that many calories and help keep your body in good working order.
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