Re: Low Carb and Trouble Sleeping

[Guest guest]

> Is it a normal adjustment to low-carbing to have trouble sleeping? I

> figured I'd try out low-carbing for a little while, which I did

> yesterday, but I couldn't fall asleep. After an hour, I had a glass

> of orange juice and I fell asleep quickly. I've had trouble sleeping

> in the past from not eating enough carbs.

>

> I basically did similar to my meal on Monday but took out the pizza,

> ice cream, and OJ. And I made " cream of chicken soup " by pouring

> cream into my chicken soup until the broth turned white. It was good!

>

> Should I expect to adapt? If so, what's the best solution for a

> transition phase? To keep my carbs close to zero as possible and then

> try to concentrate 30g or so before sleep?

>

> Chris

That's what I would suggest. It has been effective for me.

[Guest guest]

.... Should I expect to adapt? If so, what's the best solution for a

> transition phase? To keep my carbs close to zero as possible and then

> try to concentrate 30g or so before sleep?

I wonder why you are low carb?

B.

[Guest guest]

On 7/20/05, downwardog7 <illneverbecool@...> wrote:

> I wonder why you are low carb?

I just thought I'd try it, I guess. I was interested in the

discussion on athletic performance. Also, it occurred to me that it

might be a quick-and-easy solution to lose that little bit of stubborn

fat around my lower abs and kidney area. Also, note that my diet

right now essentially IS very low-carb minus the pizza or ice cream.

So, short of going out and buying some potatoes, low-carb is

unambiguously healthy given what's in my fridge and freezer at the

moment than not-low-carb!

Chris

[Guest guest]

On 7/20/05, Masterjohn <chrismasterjohn@...> wrote:

> Is it a normal adjustment to low-carbing to have trouble sleeping? I

> figured I'd try out low-carbing for a little while, which I did

> yesterday, but I couldn't fall asleep. After an hour, I had a glass

> of orange juice and I fell asleep quickly. I've had trouble sleeping

> in the past from not eating enough carbs.

>

> I basically did similar to my meal on Monday but took out the pizza,

> ice cream, and OJ. And I made " cream of chicken soup " by pouring

> cream into my chicken soup until the broth turned white. It was good!

Ahhhhh....so you did catch that? LOL!

> Should I expect to adapt? If so, what's the best solution for a

> transition phase? To keep my carbs close to zero as possible and then

> try to concentrate 30g or so before sleep?

Perhaps I'm missing something. Why do you want to keep your carbs so

low? Do you want to be in bdk (ketosis)? Even so I doubt it would be

necessary to be that low in carbs given your activity level and

metabolism. I would use the ketostix to see how many carbs you can eat

before leaving ketosis if that is your goal.

In my own case IIRC I think I could get up to 70 carb grams with lots

of actvity before leaving ketosis but I could be remembering that

wrong. Without any activity is was around 40 grams. I do know with

lots of activity my carb levels can get pretty high without any weight

gain and looking pretty lean even though I wasn't in ketosis. That was

my experience while following Atkins.

[Guest guest]

>Is it a normal adjustment to low-carbing to have trouble sleeping? I

>figured I'd try out low-carbing for a little while, which I did

>yesterday, but I couldn't fall asleep. After an hour, I had a glass

>of orange juice and I fell asleep quickly. I've had trouble sleeping

>in the past from not eating enough carbs.

>

>

No, why can't you be normal, lol? Most people - like I remember myself

being low carb initially - are zapped for energy and welcome sunset as a

chance to sleep it off. But hey, your ketogenic anyway. Maybe you

don't have to go as low as us normal people owing to your zippy

metabolism. I'd forget juice though and have melon and/or legumes

and/or almonds and/or something with a bit of slow release carbs.

Deanna

[Guest guest]

Chris-

>Is it a normal adjustment to low-carbing to have trouble sleeping? I

>figured I'd try out low-carbing for a little while, which I did

>yesterday, but I couldn't fall asleep. After an hour, I had a glass

>of orange juice and I fell asleep quickly. I've had trouble sleeping

>in the past from not eating enough carbs.

There can be an adjustment period, but this really strengthens my

recommendation that you read _Mastering Leptin_.

-

[Guest guest]

I can't get my mind around the leptin concept.

Can you give me the " Leptin for Dummies " version?

--- In , Idol <Idol@c...>

wrote:

> Chris-

>

> >Is it a normal adjustment to low-carbing to have trouble sleeping? I

> >figured I'd try out low-carbing for a little while, which I did

> >yesterday, but I couldn't fall asleep. After an hour, I had a glass

> >of orange juice and I fell asleep quickly. I've had trouble sleeping

> >in the past from not eating enough carbs.

>

> There can be an adjustment period, but this really strengthens my

> recommendation that you read _Mastering Leptin_.

>

>

>

>

> -

[Guest guest]

On 7/20/05, Masterjohn <chrismasterjohn@...> wrote:

> Is it a normal adjustment to low-carbing to have trouble sleeping? I

> figured I'd try out low-carbing for a little while, which I did

> yesterday, but I couldn't fall asleep. After an hour, I had a glass

> of orange juice and I fell asleep quickly. I've had trouble sleeping

> in the past from not eating enough carbs.

Nutritional and environmental possibilities. OJ is a protein type no

no because of the acid. Aren't you a Capricorn? Moon almost full in

Cancer, Capricorn's opposite right now. Don't know how many here have

trouble sleeping with new or full moons. I do inconsistently. Not all

have same effect. I'd consider the full moon more than the low carb.

Low carb made me borderline depressed.

Wanita

[Guest guest]

> this really strengthens my

> recommendation that you read _Mastering Leptin_.

>

AACCKKK. Incredible. I've been reading this book myself (very slowly, I

might add) and I'm already coming to the same conclusion. A must read for

anyone interested in diet. I don't yet know enough to have an intelligent

conversation about it, though.

I just happened to open this single post after a couple of days of being

away from the computer. Looks like you all have been busy while I was gone.

355 unread messages.

Ron

[Guest guest]

I'm sorry I really screwed that last post. Let me try again... read the part

about carnitine..

Hi Chris. Sleep was a big problem for me when I first went low-carb for a

candida overgrowth type diet. What worked for me was to take 5-htp

tryptophan along with a little bit of starch about a half hour before

bedtime. If you include any starch at all in your diet, have it at night.

I would also consider taking another amino acid - carnitine - during the day

on an empty stomach. It helps protect you from ketosis. A great body-builder

amino too..

FYI, yet another pair of amino acids, tyrosine and phenylalanine, will help

with mood, sleep and appetite control.

All of these drugs are great for dieting, sleep and mood and work best if a

complete blend is also used. I get my free-form aminos from Jomar Labs

http://www.jomarlabs.com/main/index.asp I use their Pure Form 20 as my

complete blend.

But even you just do the starch at bedtime and the 5-htp tryptophan you

should feel results right away..

I can explain these if anyone wants but now I *really* have to run out

again. Late!

~Robin

[Guest guest]

Ron-

>AACCKKK. Incredible. I've been reading this book myself (very slowly, I

>might add) and I'm already coming to the same conclusion. A must read for

>anyone interested in diet. I don't yet know enough to have an intelligent

>conversation about it, though.

The book, unfortunately, has some extremely grievous flaws, but it also has

some tremendously worthwhile information that's not easily available

anywhere else.

I guess that's the story of the world, though -- there's no perfect source

of information. Everything comes with problems and caveats and mistakes,

and you have to gradually piece together the truth from a wide variety of

different and often conflicting sources.

-

[Guest guest]

-

>I can't get my mind around the leptin concept.

>

>Can you give me the " Leptin for Dummies " version?

Hmm, well, I'll see what I can do. I don't have much time, though.

Basically, your fat cells secrete leptin, which is a hormone that has a lot

of functions in your body. One of them is to tell your brain how much fat

is on hand: all else being equal, the more fat you have, the more leptin

you produce. This is one of the key signals that your brain (specifically

your hypothalamus) checks in order to decide what to do with your

metabolism (rev it, shut it down, etc.) and how to set your appestat.

Unfortunately, it's easy to become leptin-resistant. Just as eating too

much sugar and other carbs eventually causes your body to become partially

" deaf " to insulin, releasing too much leptin can cause your body to become

resistant to it too. And since insulin stimulates the release of leptin,

the two conditions are tightly related. Worse yet, since MSG damages the

hypothalamus, you can actually take a short-cut to becoming

leptin-resistant. (This is almost certainly at least one reason MSG

consumption causes obesity in many people.)

As you can conclude from the insulin-leptin relationship, leptin levels

aren't supposed to be the same throughout the day. In fact, your body is

supposed to have a sort of rhythm, with peaks and gentle slopes, and that

rhythm is tied into an enormous variety of other systems in your body. It

wouldn't be particularly ridiculous to think of leptin as one of several

" master " hormones, in fact, which is why insulin and leptin problems have

so many complications even if the connections aren't always

obvious. (Leptin is involved in the release of growth hormone, for

example, which is one of the most important hormones in your body.) This

is one of the reasons that snacking is such a bad idea. Snacking keeps

hitting your body over the head, so to speak, with insulin and then with

leptin, keeping levels unhealthily high and pushing the whole delicate

system out of whack.

Hence the rule offered in _Mastering Leptin_ that you should always make

sure to go a minimum of 5-6 hours between meals, with no exceptions, and at

least 11-12 hours between dinner and breakfast, in order to restore and

maintain the correct leptin rhythm. Sleep, particularly in the later

hours, is prime fat-burning time, but eating too soon before bed postpones

and even prevents this and also messes up the release of growth hormone,

which is why you need an appreciable amount of time between dinner and bed

-- the larger the meal, the longer the time. If you're getting hungry

before bed or during the night, or if you're having trouble sleeping

because of any kind of food issues, it's a strong signal that your whole

system is disturbed and needs serious adjustment.

Where s goes wrong in _Mastering Leptin_ is in his treatment of

carbs and dietary saturated fat (which he foolishly says is healthy but

should be kept to a relative minimum) but that's food for another post. I

highly recommend the book despite some serious caveats, though, because

there's no other resource I know of which so thoroughly elucidates the

tangled web of bodily systems leptin is involved in, even though there's

vast work on the subject yet to be done.

For the sake of comparison, here's what Rosedale says on the subject of carbs.

>>I have been asked to summarize in a single sentence what would best

>>promote health. It is this: Health and lifespan is determined by the

>>proportion of fat versus sugar people burn throughout their lifetime. The

>>more fat that one burns as fuel, the healthier the person will be, and

>>the more likely they will live a long time. The more sugar a person

>>burns, the more disease ridden and the shorter a lifespan a person is

>>likely to have.

and

>>However, most people become very adapted at burning sugar; your body

>>continues to want to " keep playing " sugar, to burn more sugar, even when

>>you are not eating. When you're sleeping at night, your body then prefers

>>to burn sugar and it gets that sugar by breaking down proteins in your

>>body, which means lean body mass, which includes muscle and bone. I call

>>that metabolic momentum.

>>

>>Your body continues to like to do what it has become accustomed to doing.

>>If you have burned sugar throughout the day, you prefer to burn sugar at

>>night even when you are not eating. Your body does not store very much

>>sugar and prefers to hold onto much of it and, therefore, you'll continue

>>to manufacture sugar by a process called gluconeogenesis from lean body

>>mass. You store fat -- and, in many people, lots of it -- in your

>> " cupboard " and not very much sugar, because fat is the fuel that your

>>body would prefer to store and later to burn to stay healthy.

>>

>>However, when you eat sugar and fat together, your body will burn sugar

>>first. I believe that it burns the sugar off because that is one way to

>>get rid of it. Sugar causes damage by glycosylation and having it around

>>too long is extremely damaging and accelerates aging.

This is ironic, since his dietary recommendations are fairly serious out of

step with his own conclusions. In fact, I can't recommend one of his

articles on Mercola's site highly enough.

http://www.mercola.com/2005/jul/7/muscle_fuel.htm

Here's the opening:

>>Some of you may be thinking, " I may eat a lot of starchy carbohydrates,

>>but at the same meal, I am also eating protein and fat. Why am I just

>>burning sugar and storing fat? " It's a good question, and it gets to the

>>heart of the vicious cycle.

>>

>>Let's assume that you are following the current dietary recommendations

>>that tell you to eat more than half of your daily calories in the form of

>>carbohydrate. You fill your plate with a cup or so of pasta, topped with

>>meatballs, some tomato sauce and cheese.

>>

>> From the minute the pasta is in your mouth, it begins to be broken down

>> into simple sugar. Your body can only store a small amount of sugar at a

>> time in the form of glycogen that is stored in muscle and liver. What's

>> not stored as glycogen is burned off as quickly as possible, forcing you

>> to burn sugar, but your cells can only burn so much off at a time.

>>

>>What happens to the rest of the sugar that isn't being stored or burned?

>>It is converted into saturated fat. What about the protein and the fat in

>>the meal that you just ate? Some of the protein is taken up by the cells

>>for repair and maintenance, but your cells can only utilize a small

>>amount of protein at a time. The rest, largely, is turned to sugar and

>>stored as saturated fat. That leaves just the fat that is not burned when

>>sugar is around to burn, which gets stored away as more fat.

>>

>>Why isn't the protein and fat burned as fuel? Because you must first burn

>>up sugar if it is available. If you eat sugar and fat together, you have

>>to burn sugar first before you burn the fat. Furthermore, your cells get

>>used to burning a particular fuel, in this case, sugar.

>>

>>When you are younger, your metabolism is more flexible, and you can

>>switch fuels more easily. As you get older, your cells get stuck in a

>>rut, and if they are used to burning sugar, they will look for more sugar

>>to burn when they need fuel.

I haven't read Rosedale's book, but s suggests keeping dietary

saturated fat down if you're overweight because you want your body to burn

its stored fat rather than relying on food instead. From my research and

experience, though, that's a grave mistake. Your body burns what it's

trained to burn, what it's used to burning. So eating saturated fat and

minimizing sugar (which includes starch, since it's broken down into sugar)

is in fact a terrific way to train your body to burn saturated fat! (This

raises an interesting question about whether coconut oil and other unusual

MCT sources are really so great in the long run, but this time I mean it --

food for another post.)

I'd also like to point out that metabolism of fat is a comparatively clean

process while metabolism of sugar produces more oxidative stress, free

radicals and general systemic damage. Furthermore, much of what we know as

aging is simply glycation -- the cross-linking of proteins by sugar. IOW,

if you want to stay as youthful and healthy as possible, it behooves you to

AVOID sources of sugar, train your body to burn fat, and of course avoid

unnecessary unsaturated fatty acids, not to mention consume plenty of

antioxidants and other compounds which prevent and even reverse glycation

and lipid peroxidation. (Obviously this is in addition to all the usual

admonishments about eating nutrient-dense foods, getting enough of the

right kinds of exercise, etc. etc. etc.)

Hope this helped.

-

[Guest guest]

,

Thanks for the summary! It's full of excellent nuggets.

I appreciate your taking the time to write it.

:-)

[Guest guest]

> Is it a normal adjustment to low-carbing to have trouble sleeping? I

> figured I'd try out low-carbing for a little while, which I did

> yesterday, but I couldn't fall asleep. After an hour, I had a glass

> of orange juice and I fell asleep quickly. I've had trouble sleeping

> in the past from not eating enough carbs.

>

Hi Chris

I've read that insulin is a precursor to serotonin, which is necessary

to fall asleep.

Before I went low carb, I used to take 30-45 mins to get to sleep - I

thought this was normal. When I went low carb, I started falling

asleep within minutes. A couple of years ago, I discovered that I now

NEED a few carbs to help me fall asleep!

>Should I expect to adapt? If so, what's the best solution for a

> transition phase? To keep my carbs close to zero as possible and then

> try to concentrate 30g or so before sleep?

>

Yes, carbs in the evening would probably help you sleep.

Jo