Hi all
New here!
I’m pre-diabetic according to my gp and I’m trying to get down to a healthy weight so I can try for my second child. I had a high bmi with my first and it’s just gone higher and higher.

I have been trying to plan my meals for this diet using my fitness pal.
My carbs for the day would come to around 52/54g daily, before I add on what I call a necessity for me.

I suffer bad from frequent cases of insomnia and every time it crops up I clean up my bedtime routine and have an arsenal of remedies to get me through it like lavender sprays, valerian root etc. I also eat 1 banana before bed as part of this (for the melatonin!) and because I suffer so badly with the sleep issue I can’t bring myself to drop it Incase I start panicking about it and it affects my sleep.

A large banana takes my carbs to approx 83g. I was wondering if this seemed too high and had anyone seen a decent weight loss with a carb intake similar?

Thanks!

You can get melatonin in a pill also.
If you kept your sleep routine “cleaned up” all the time, as much as possible, then maybe you would have less episodes of insomnia.

What does a medical specialist say about your insomnia.
I have no medical knowledge but i wonder if the banana has just become a habit. If you eat the banana to you still have insomnia? I would think that much sugar would be a stimalant. Do you have caffeine or other stimulants in tea, coffee after 12 noon? Do you have a calming sleep routine. Do you go in for relaxing meditation type stuff.
I’m just thinking there must be other strategies for you.

I am going to miss bananas too. Can you work your way down … to a small banana, 3/4 of one, 1/2 of one …1/4 of one type of thing. I didn’t just get into this whole hog right off … i’ve been on about 4 weeks of preparation … starting with a 12 hour fast every day and working my way up to 15 hours and more … just to get my mind and body ready.

Sometimes a very small snack helps me at bedtime … but not a stimulating sugar.

I’m just thinking there has to be an alternative.

Hi Kittie,

Two things occur to me.

The first is that I recall reading on another website somewhere that between 50 to 100 gm of carbs a day is the level at which many people go into ketosis. So you may be lucky and the 83g incl banana may be no problem at all for you. So why not start the BSD with that and see how you go?

My other thought is that as humans we try to anticipate every upcoming issue and solve it before we start, thus making life a lot harder for ourselves than it needs to be. If this is the start of a new way of eating for life, then you know you will make adaptations as you progress. So like Shalimar says, you may decide to go smaller banana, half, quarter etc… But don’t try to impose that on yourself now before you start, just start and then manoeuvre once you are on your way.

I have recently completed the 800 BSD 8 weeks. I started out with breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, multiple double-shot coffees. To my utter surprise I finished with only lunch and dinner, no snacks, and only one single shot coffee at lunch. If you had told me this would happen I would not have believed you – and if I had tried to impose those extra rules on myself from the get go, I may have crashed and burned. Amazingly, they just happened, because my body changed. So be nice to yourself, start with the 800 calorie rule, and work with your body from there!

Good luck with the new way of eating, and with the insomnia. I have found that this way of eating has really helped with my insomniac early hours of the morning sessions (maybe the trying to do 10,000 steps a day has helped too). Keep reading, keep posting 😃

HI there – try not to put barriers in your way before they are even there. We are great ones for saying ‘I can’t do this’ or ‘it won’t work’ before we’ve even tried. If you think you need the banana, go with it for the first week. If you lose weight, fabulous (and to be honest you may well do if you stick to the rest of the diet) but if you don’t have a rethink and try to find a substitute.

I also suffer from terrible sleep and I try to do everything the ‘experts’ tell you, go to bed at the same time every night, NO SCREENS for an hour before sleep, keep a proper routine. Sometimes it’s fine, sometimes not but I stick to it.

Good luck and let us know how you get on 🙂
TC

Thanks for the reply shalimar.
I’ve not been able to find melatonin tablets readily available here in the UK.
My sleep routine is usually hit and miss, my daughter is only 2 so by the time she goes to bed, I don’t get a lot of time to myself before I need to go to bed anyway so it means cramming in my me time and cleaning the house.
I’ve suffered from insomnia since I was 15 (now 26) so ive been dealing with it for a while – my gp brushed me off and said I need to clean up my sleep routine, literally nothing else, didn’t even question my lifestyle.

The banana is a habit really, a long with a lot of other things. I’d still probably sleep without it but I know I couldn’t just stop it straight away because it would play on my mind. I do end up sleeping perfectly with my current routine and sleep aids though and the banana doesn’t stimulate me whatsoever.
I do drink caffeine up until maybe 3pm, that’s about 3 cups of coffee a day.

I’ll probably work my way up to the full diet then, and try to wean myself off the banana! I bet I sound really daft but 10 years on and off with insomnia gets you really hung up about sleep haha. Thank you for your suggestions X

Hi Kittiewhite, as you recognise, the banana may be just a habit and part of your routine. You could try just having half but if you are like me you would loathe throwing the other half away. There are lots of other foods you can have which produce melatonin it is just finding one that is handy for bedtime. For example, tuna, turkey, passionfruit, or chamomile made into tea, walnuts, almonds, cheese, milk, yoghurt, lettuce and hummus, to name just a few.

I have trouble sleeping, always have, but I also have diabetic skin irritation where I start to itch around the neck and throat at night. My doctor gives me antihistimine tablets but specifically the ones with a drowsy effect. I don’t know the long term effects so maybe not a regular thing, but just now and then to help you sleep. I have just discovered a new way to help me. I read until my eyes are drooping then I turn out the light and wrap my arms around myself like I and giving myself a cuddle, hands under armpits. I go off like a baby.

Be careful with bananas, my husband read they were really good for you (potassium) so he started eating one a day, based on his theory that more must be better. When he had his blood test for his annual checkup his potassium levels were through the roof and doctor told him to cut down to one every other day so it might be good for you to find a substitute.

http://www.healthextremist.com/have-trouble-sleeping-naturally-increase-melatonin-and-sleep-better/

I just did a quick google, here in UK melatonin tablets are only on prescription so perhaps you could talk again to your gp. However there are some suggestions in that article, cherries, chicken, turkey, almonds can all increase melatonin, so you could change your late night banana to one of those.

Or half a banana and a few almonds to begin to wean yourself off.

Oh and in the book Dr M suggests if you have trouble sleeping, eat your last meal later.

Hi Kittiewhite89, there is a lot of new research coming out about the effect of “blue light” on your sleep patterns and melatonin production. Blue light comes from your I-phone and from your computer screen and from your TV and possibly from your outside (or inside) LED lights. The American Medical Association just issued a warning about it and awareness is growing. Try to limit or completely curtail your screen use in the evenings. Use black out drapes in your bedroom. Read or do something calming at night and use regular (incandescent) light bulbs to read. Go to bed at same time as much as possible and wake up at same time as much as possible. The research on lights, of all types, but especially blue light, is alarming. It not only interrupts your sleep patterns, it affects wildlife, migrating birds, sea turtles and may cause human cancer. Check out Dark Sky website run by observatories world-wide — they are working to get our dark night skies back.

Not sure if you have tried Magnesium it helps with sleep / migraines and toilet 🙂 I use it and have no problems for sleep relaxes me 🙂

kitty you will be fine, just keep calm and keep the banana a little smaller and in your calories as everyone has said . I would also suggest no coffee after mid-day if you can do it. If you look at the research the caffeine hit lasts a long time. I could not give up my coffee but never after noon.

I also put the other half of the nana in the fridge for later. It does not look good, but will last a few days.

Good luck

Just to ask, kitty – have you tried a “white noise” app on your phone to relax you?

I have had great success with an app which I chose to play me rhe soothing sound of rain on a windowpane (there are lots of choices, even on rhe “free” apps) with the phone on very quietly under my pillow – inaudible to OH – and a timer set to 90 minutes after which it turns off.

And subsequently I now listen to podcasts – usually Radio 4 programmes – in exactly the same way. It means if I stay awake I know I have something interesting to listen to. Though in practice the more interesting the subject and the more I want to listen to it, the quicker I fall asleep.

Because I know that this relaxes me and sends me to sleep, I don’t worry any more about insomnia which is of course half the battle.

Hope this might help- worth a try? 🙂

Ahhh, those white noise apps are great! They usually have a good variety of sounds – I found that the noise of a train on the tracks would send me off to sleep very quickly! Haven’t tried a podcast or an audiobook but others have reported them to work well so I might try them out too. I don’t suffer from “true” insomnia, just worry when I can’t sleep properly.