I wonder if any of you who have been doing the 800 diet for some time have any advice on balancing carb intake to enable sleep while still loosing weight. I am at the end of the first round of 8 weeks of the 800 cal diet. I have managed to loose 15kg but still have at least another 20Kg to go. I found that at the start weight loss was easy when keeping down to 20g of carbs a day, but lack of sleep was a problem. I found it difficult to get to sleep and was only sleeping for 3 or 4 hours a night. I am fortunate in working from home and having the flexibility to set my own work hours. So when I started lying awake for hours at night I tried different options, like staying up until I felt sleepy (which was working out to be about 4.30am but I still woke up at 7 or 8 am and couldn’t get back to sleep.) I was feeling groggy and spaced out due to lack of sleep and reached the point where I decided not to go to a meeting because I did not feel safe to drive. Having read about the need for carbs to produce the chemicals to help you go to sleep I started having a small portion of fruit and yoghurt in an evening which means I am sleeping normally again. – but while my shape is continuing to change the weight loss has stopped.

I have been using fatsecret app on my phone to log everything eaten, and it seems that my carb intake is about 50g a day.

Has anyone else found other changes which make it easier to sleep while staying on 20g of carbs. Or have people who have successfully lost weight long term been able to do this while having more than 20g of carbs?

Has anyone else who has had a similar experience got any advice or suggestions please?

Hi JGwen.

I will also be interested to hear what others say regarding this. I wake 3 to 4 times per night. Every 1.5 to 2 hours. I have no problems going to sleep and when I wake, I usually can turn over and go back to sleep unless I have something on my mind. On those occasions I do yoga breathing which does help. I’ve not noticed any difference at all with my sleep pattern when on low carbs. Having such little sleep yourself must be exhausting for you. Hopefully some of our friends here can help you.

Kazzee

I think part of the problem may be understanding fiber v sugar carbs. The app I have been using to record food only reports on the total carbs, not the two types so I have been counting the 20g of carbs as all carbs, not making a distinction between fibre based carbs and sugar based carbs. I have only just realised that if I go back over recent days when I was coming in at an average of 50gm of carbs according to the app and break that down into fibre and sugar carbs I would be around the 25g figure of sugar carbs. So I think I was being too hard on myself when I was in the 20g total carb period.

Hi JGwen, there was just an interesting discussion on counting carbs, fibre and sugar in another thread. Essentially in the UK, and Australia, fibre is measured separately on our labels and food logging apps like Fatsecret. It’s combined in the USA. So if a label says 5g carb, 2 grams fibre, that isn’t a net carb off 3. It is a carb count if 5. The 2 grams of fibre are not considered a subset of the carbs.

As for sleep, I sympathise. Strangely I have been sleeping like a log since about 3 days into this new approach to eating 4 weeks ago, after almost of lifetime of terrible sleep. And I keep carbs down to 20 and below. Our bodies are all so different. If sleeping difficulties are new to you, I strongly recommend paying attention to setting some firm bedtime routines. There are loads of helpful websites on sleep hygiene. You may have to ease in a bit as after a few very late nights as you describe, your body is behaving In the same way it does when you change time zones. And poor old you will have jetlag. It is dreadful. I occasionally had to resort to mild medication to break entrenched patterns.

Wise move not to drive. That bone crunching tiredness and fuzziness can make everything so much harder. All the best

😳 just realised JGwen you started the carb/fibre thread. i’m the resident idiot – hopefully you’ll get used to that.

Not a bit of it, Flick! Yo are NOT the resident idiot by any stretch of the imagination. I’ve met
a lot of ladies from down under here. I find your free spirit and honesty a delight. I’m an
American, and always find you all to be a breath of fresh air. I never take myself too
seriously, and I think that our countries may share that characteristic in a very general
sense of the word.

For the sleep deprived, I share your pain, not to mention the brain fog, on occasion!
The natural supplement Melatonin is neither addictive nor does it require a prescription,
an it’s available in health food stores or in pharmacies in the States. It’s been beneficial
in helping me to get to sleep. I still can’t sleep more than 2 hrs at a time, but I no longer
find myself awake at 4:30am, still patiently waiting for sleep to commence. Perhaps
it’s something to consider?

Hi Flick, – I have been lurking for a few weeks on the forum while I started out on the first 8 weeks of counting carbs and cals. When I started researching the reason for the change in sleep patterns I came across a number of articles which report on research on the links between fibre in the diet and quality of sleep. I thought I had cracked the problem if I could subtract the fibre from the carbs value . No such luck. 🙁 By increasing the amount of fibre I have got back to more normal sleep pattens, but it has taken me back up to around 50g of carb a day, and my rate of weight loss has slowed. Strangely I am still loosing inches, even my wellies are not so tight around my calves, so not all negative. I had thought that such an intense diet would be hard and I could only cope with a few weeks, so I had to go all out for it, but it hasn’t been as difficult as I expected to stick to so increasing to around 50g of carbs a day and sticking to it for months to get towards my target weight isn’t so daunting. Apparently the body needs fibre to create Melatonin, so maybe the answer if I need to cut carbs further to reach my target weight is a supplement.

Hi
I started on the BSD in August lost about 22 lbs easily. Didn’t really worry about carbs in the beginning then read threads and tried to go lower. I must have knocked myself into ketosis as I then got up 3 or 4 times a night to go to the toilet. I then was so tired I started wanting stuff to get me through the day so it was counter productive! I really don’t think low carb works for me. There is a man on the fast diet thread simoncolov and he did 16 weeks 5/2 dropping calories and walking so general deficit and lost 1 lb a week. That and mixmmatchs threads have changed how am losing the next 12lbs . I need my sleep ,my fit bit told me in low carb I was getting 13 mins average deep sleep from normal 57 mins … slower weight loss happier healthier me no contest!

Hi JGwen and Lessmuffintop, who knew there was a relationship between fibre and sleep. Makes sense when you think about how important it turns out our gut microbiota are to so many processes, including feeling well and happy.

One of the revelations of this WOE is how well I feel (and how not hungry or having to fight off cravings all the time) so for me, tthere is no contest. If it was a choice between feeling well and getting through the day happily, or, super fast weight loss but misery, I’d take the slower road without hesitation.

Boy, you are both achieving stunning results!

Hi Flick, I agree with you about feeling well on this WoE. – i have spent years trying all sorts of diets which all felt like trying to push water up hill. Being a vegetarian counting calories but not looking at the ratio of carbs to the rest of the diet doesn’t work. You get more and more restrictive on calories for very little benefit. – I have so enjoyed watching the needle move on the scales.

This is one of the articles that I found helpful in working out why I was having difficulty getting to sleep in the first place. https://www.livestrong.com/article/482729-i-cant-sleep-on-a-low-carb-diet/ There were other articles on how slow release of carbs from fibre intake before going to bed helped promote a long high quality of sleep.