i have found that over the past couple of years i have been very lethargic in the mornings. quite often i could sleep for 10 -12 hours if given the chance.
for example, last night i went to sleep around midnight and then only got the energy to get out of bed at 9.00am. however there have been some times when i could go to bed at 10.00pm and not get up until 10 or 11am the next morning.
how is this lethargy and additional sleep likely to affect someone undertaking weight loss? i know that too little sleep could increase your chances of being overweight, but too much . . . !? should i really, really try to get up earlier? i am sure i could, but would much rather sleep instead.
i am hoping that once i get into a routine and lose some weight and start eating cleaner, it will help the situation.
Well, I think I read somewhere that if you sleep 10 hours a night on a regular basis, it can actually MESS your body up. I'd say between 7-9 hours is good...maybe I should take my own advice...I usually only get about 4-5 hours a night!
I'm the same way! I can sleep 10 hours on the weekend and still not have enough sleep! And then throughout the week I'm dragging my butt to work with only 8 hours!
My problem is that no matter what time I go to sleep at night I never want to wake up. I could go to sleep at 9 pm or 1 am and it doesn't make a difference. I just can't drag myself out of bed in the morning. Lately my husband has been getting me up at 5 am to go the gym but before I started I would sleep till 9 or 10 everyday.
yeah - waking up is hard for me too - I never want to - unless its like on the weekend and I have let myself sleep till 11 or so - (or 1) and hten I just feel like I am wasting my day... but Sometimes when i work out a lot I feel so lethargic, and I literally feel too tired. alas. sleep is good. but I also like to stay up really late
I think it's too much when you end up groggy. Hard to know where that is... which is why a regular sleep routine is importaint. And no, I'm not preaching, working hard on it myself! And I don't think sleeping in on weekends or days off is a good idea either - 1 to 1.5 hrs longer, 2 hrs if you had been short on sleep, but that's it, otherwise you're just in for more sleep issues the following week.
One thing you might want to try is to eat something 1/2 hr before you go to bed -- half a bag of popcorn, some toast, some sort of carb that isn't fruit (fruit doesn't stay with you long). Maybe you let your blood sugar down too low at night if you're not eating anything past dinner (say, 7pm) and your next meal isn't until breakfast (10, 11am?) -- 15 hours later. This is something my dietician suggested to me, and I'm not sure if it works for non-hypoglycemic people, but I can't see why it wouldn't. When I remember to eat before bed, it works... But often I forget.
Otherwise, I often find that if I get too much sleep on a few successive nights, it's nearly impossible for me to get a normal amount of sleep for a while after that. I'm always tired if I sleep 10hrs+ three nights in a row... So for a couple of days after I *force* myself out of bed after 8 hours, and soon it's fixed.
My problem is that no matter what time I go to sleep at night I never want to wake up. I could go to sleep at 9 pm or 1 am and it doesn't make a difference. I just can't drag myself out of bed in the morning. Lately my husband has been getting me up at 5 am to go the gym but before I started I would sleep till 9 or 10 everyday.
How do you feel about that? I've been considering getting up early to go to the gym. I usually find I am so tired in the mornings and when I go to the gym in the evening I end up staying up wired for half the night.
-- I guess what i'm really wanting from that is to not be tired while sitting at my borring desk job.
I've always had a "problem" with sleeping. Because of the demand of my weekday activities during college I got into a habit of sleeping only 5-6 hours a day and then make it up on the weekends. Even now, it’s hard for me to get out of bed. What I realized is that too much sleep does make you less alert. I am not sure how it will affect weight loss. Except to say that once I started exercising in the morning, I get higher quality sleep and therefore I don’t need as much. The added bonus is that I have an easier time getting up in the morning.
i love to sleep as well. i always say it's my hobby.
when i was working i found that i would sleep until my alarm clock went off, even if i woke up 2 minutes before it went off. i would go back to sleep. i think that contributed to me feeling like crap sometimes. waking up, back to sleep, waking up, back to sleep. i should have just got up the first time i woke up?
now that i'm on mat leave and i'm pretty much always going to bed around the same time and waking up at the same time cause of the baby i actually find myself feeling better even though i'm getting less sleep that i used to. at least it seems that way now. of course back in the day i would go party until 2 am and get up at 7 am a few days a week.
i would say a bedtime routine is key as well as a morning routine.
marajade007, I actually like getting up that early for the gym because it gets my day started. I don't feel like I get that great of a workout just because my body is so "cold" that early. However it does wake me up and give me energy. When I first wake up I always think as soon as I get home I'm going back to sleep but I never do. I end up going back in the afternoon for a second cardio session and/or weight training session.
Oh thank goodness! I'm not the only one! I once had a roommate in college tell me it was abnormal that I slept so much. LOL Basically, if I have a sleep routine, and I stick to it, even on the weekends, I'm usually doing ok and can get up, sometimes I even wake up before my alarm goes off. I recommend at least 8 hours of sleep to start off with. If you find you need a little more than that, then go with that. I've also noticed that with the exception of walking, any other exercises that I do leaves me soooooooo tired and sleepy afterwards! So for me, doing that at night, taking a shower, and then going to bed usually works great for me.
I have found that as I have gotten older I need less sleep. When I was in my late teens/ early twenties I worked best with 10 hours of sleep. Now I am in my late twenties and I am sluggish if I get over 8 hours of sleep, but I am fine on 6. I was a walking zombie on 6 hours of sleep in my early twenties!
How much sleep is too much?
And I don't think sleeping in on weekends or days off is a good idea either - 1 to 1.5 hrs longer, 2 hrs if you had been short on sleep, but that's it, otherwise you're just in for more sleep issues the following week.
