Okay, I for various reasons, I did not get more than 3 hours sleep last night..... and I have been bingeing today! So, does anyone think these two have anything to do with the other?

It very well could be. I don't have any scientific facts or anything but from my own experience, I use to suffer with insomnia so it seemed I always ate more when I had difficulties sleeping.

Is there anyway you can grab a short nap maybe? Or do anything productive to take your mind off eating?

Good luck and hang in there

For me, when I am tired, I am much more likely to eat mindlessly.

Makes sense - you are tired, and if you have to stay awake, your body wants energy, so it's wanting food. Frequently, if I'm not careful to get enough calories in, I'm tired in the afternoons. I eat a snack and wake up!

Try fruit, or some veggies. Bell peppers have always been "high energy foods" for me.

This is a news article that might be enlightening (I can't post links so I'll post the article:

Studies find lost sleep equals gained weight

Updated Tue. Dec. 7 2004 9:56 AM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

Two new studies suggest that what's not happening in the bedroom may be a key factor into why so many of us are gaining weight.

The studies published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found a link between sleep deprivation and obesity.

They show that when we're sleep deprived, a chain reaction begins in our hormone levels that appear to lead to bigger appetites and increased levels of body fat.

Matthew Tierney took part in the study. He was asked to lose sleep for the sake of science, but says he wasn't prepared for the side effects.

"I found the less sleep I got, the more I wanted to eat. I was so hungry I wanted to eat my pillow," he says.

That's what researchers at the University of Chicago found after testing 12 men who were allowed just four hours of sleep for two nights in a row. They discovered a drop in leptin, a hormone that makes you feel full, and a sharp rise in ghrelin, a hormone that stimulates appetite.

The result was that the men ate 24 per cent more after a couple of nights of poor sleep -- and much of it starchy snack food.

"The study is important it shows a link between not sleeping enough and perhaps overeating," says study leader Dr. Eve Van Cauter, a professor of medicine at the University of Chicago.

"And this is a major problem in this country particularly because we have an epidemic of obesity."

The reasons for the hormonal changes are not yet known, but Van Cauter thinks the mechanism may have to do with a small area in the brain where neurons respond to both eating and sleeping.

A second study confirmed that body mass index goes up when people sleep less than eight hours. Short sleep was also linked to similar hormone changes that boost appetite.

Dr. Emmanuel Mignot of Stanford University in California and colleagues examined 1,000 people in the Wisconsin Sleep Cohort Study, measuring each person's sleep habits, as well as sleep on the night before the exam and leptin and ghrelin levels.

They found people who consistently slept five hours or less per night had on average 14.9 per cent more ghrelin and 15.5 per cent lower leptin levels than those who slept eight hours a night.

"People who are sleeping too short are having more time to eat and then too, they are having all these changes in hormones that stimulate their appetite," says Dr. Mignot.

Sleep is a low priority in our society. Canadians are sleeping on average about an hour less a night than we did 25 years ago.

"The more sleep a society has, the less obesity there is," says Dr. Colin Shapiro of Toronto's Western Hospital. "So there's lots of accumulating evidence that there is a link between sleep deprivation and obesity."

So the question now is will getting more sleep, either naturally or with the aid of sleeping pills help people lose weight? That will be the subject of future studies but some doctors already believe the evidence is pretty clear.

If it's proven, it would be a weight-loss tool that wouldn't cost a dime, just the right amount of time spent in slumber.

definitely has something to do with it . . that ghrelin has a lot to answer for!

This has been my experience too - lack of sleep leads me right into trying to eat to wake myself up.

Get to bed!

Oh yes! A night up with the baby can blow my whole day out of the water. I don't know what it is about sleep deprivation but it makes me super hungry too.

Hooo yeah! Fatigue will send me into a feeding frenzy quicker than you can say Bob's your uncle.

ditto on poor sleep = massive hunger. That is why I still take naps in between classes. I will go to eat the fridge and say "nah, I'm just tired" and go lay down.