Sleep

Sleep is one of the very most important things to me period. If I don't get sleep I am sluggish, grumpy, and I end up inevitibly getting sick. However in light of the weight loss topic that has been common on my and my family/friends blogs, I wanted to discuss a segment I watched on a local show called "Studio 5" reguarding sleep-- in a minute. First I want to bring up what Anna (my sis-in-law) wrote in her blog that her baby boy has RSV and that she has been up a lot at night with him and thus getting hardly any sleep. She said this made it hard to exercise and made her want to eat more. She wondered if anyone else was this way. For me-- absolutely it is and has been for a long time. When I don't get enough sleep I feel way too sluggish to exercise and in order to revive the energy that I lack I feel the need to eat. The first time this happened what when I was newly married. I was in college and up early for classes. I was also working, doing laundry, cooking and shopping for two people, and also had to fit in my studying. During the day I couldn't resist stopping by the candy counter and to get candy, I craved sugar. I gained weight. Then I remember a few years ago, I had started up jogging again when I had stopped for a while. I was getting up at 5:30 to go and going only 3 days a week 6 miles a day, but that was more than I had been doing! I was in decent shape, I also made sure to go on walks whenever I could. I even started wearing a pedometer to make sure I got in the recommened steps per day, which I easily did on the days at I ran. That year I was so tired all the time, it is practically a blur. I remember wanting to eat a lot to make up for the lack of energy. I was so tired all the time I remember just feeling like a zombie. I would try to get into bed earlier, but that meant like 9 or 9:30pm to get me the 8 plus hours I needed and that never happened. Nothing could quite get me to where I felt rested, so instead of losing weight I gained and continued to gain until it finally came to a halt too high. It stayed and has been difficult to budge since, even with sleep. So back to "Studio 5" I was watching it ther other day while exercising and was interested to hear a medical sleep expert come on and talk about sleep. She said... well here I got the exact quote from the website, "A recent study found moms who got less than five hours of sleep a day when their babies were six months old were three times more likely to be carrying eleven extra pounds at the child's first birthday than those who get seven hours." She went on to talk about the things we need to do, some of which are: make sure we have a regular time to go to bed and get up and stick with it. She didn't even recommed sleeping in on weekends, which I love to do. This last Saturday I slept in and it messed my bedtime up- I wasn't tired. She also said to not nap unless you are a mother of a new baby, then you might have to. She said adults need 8-9 hrs of sleep a night, I know I do. Some people claim to not need as much, how can that be. I had a neighbor in AZ who said she only ever needed like 4! I haven't looked up anything more on this subject, but this confirmed what I knew all along (I have heard a few other comfirmations of this idea before as well) that not getting sleep is likely to cause weight gain. Something to sleep on....