Sleeplessness

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• posted by peachcake4me
  on 21 Jan 2019 at 18:34

  

  Hi All,

  First post here and wondering if anyone can shed some light?

  I have been on the 800 calorie diet solidly for 4 weeks now and all is going great 👍🏼 I have lost 16lb so far and I’m super happy! No unpleasant side effects other than I cannot sleep! I have had difficulty falling asleep but that’s not the worst the worst is when I awake in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep for anything between 1-4 hours!!!

  Does anyone have any suggestions why this might be happening and what I can do about it please as I wanted to remain on this plan for any 8 weeks! I’m going to bed exhausted!

  Many thanks in advance xx

• posted by JGwen
  on 21 Jan 2019 at 20:26

  

  Hi, I used to worry about struggling to sleep when I first went low carb. Two tips that worked for me,
  1. save your carb allowance to eat in an evening. – I have read some articles which say that your body needs an increase in insulin to convert tryptophan into serotonin which your brain needs to help you get to sleep.
  2. The other piece of advice is to put down the laptop / phone and switch off the TV etc at least an hour before you want to go to sleep. – Either have a soak in the bath, or curl up in bed with a book for that hour.
  Once I got used to eating low carb I found that I slept for less time each night, but felt more refreshed than I did when eating a high carb.

• posted by Squidge
  on 22 Jan 2019 at 21:03

  

  Hi Peachcake.

  Great weight loss – well done!

  JGwen’s advice seems good to me. ‘Switching off’ in all senses is a really good idea. I’d add to that the suggestion that if you wake in the night to get up, have a small drink of water and sit in another room for a few minutes. Don’t do anything, just sit and ideally get a little bit cold. Not shivering, just cool enough that the warmth of the bed is welcome. I’ve found that helpful.

  Remember that if you’ve made a big change to what or how much you eat, it will take time for your body to adjust. Often people who eat more than they need feel very sluggish. Once we eat more moderately we’re more awake. Again it takes time to adjust to that and to be awake at suitable times.

  If you’re not exercising much, adding that into your daily routine might also be helpful.

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