Get to sleep!

Here is an interesting article on the effects of sleep deprivation- effecting insulin resistance:

One Sleepless Night Can Induce Insulin Resistance in Healthy People

What is insulin resistance? Let's ask the nice people down at wikipedia:

Insulin resistance (IR) is a physiological condition where the natural hormone insulin becomes less effective at lowering blood sugars. The resulting increase in blood glucose may raise levels outside the normal range and cause adverse health effects, depending on dietary conditions. Certain cell types such as fat and muscle cells require insulin to absorb glucose. When these cells fail to respond adequately to circulating insulin, blood glucose levels rise. The liver helps regulate glucose levels by reducing its secretion of glucose in the presence of insulin. This normal reduction in the liver’s glucose production may not occur in people with insulin resistance

So, what does this have to do with us?

Ever notice how when you wake up after a night with a few calls that interrupted sleep or just when you had a bad sleep at home the tendency to drink coffee and each sugarry/starchy carbs goes up? In fact you may even crave them? Not too surprising right? Energy is low so I want to get a quick boost to get going.

Here is the problem- if you are sleep deprived to a certain degree and according to the above info now "more" insulin resistant when you eat those carbs your body has a hard time dealing with them- blood sugar goes up and insulin is unable to regulate glucose levels in the blood. NOT GOOD.

Why not good?

On the surface- you will get fat(ter)- particularily in the upper back and midsection (around the organs)

In the head- your ability to control appitite decreases- insulin is a huge player in appitite regulation

On the inside- cholesterol levels rise and triglycerides rise and so does the incedence of Type 2 Diabetes

Not sure about this? Google terms like "sleep deprivation insulin", "insulin resistance body fat", "insulin appitite regulation"

The approach-

Hard night?... or anytime really...

- keep carb choices as veggie as possible- as opposed to grains/fruit etc to help manage BGL

- If you're gonna work out, keep it fairly tame, this is a bad day to go smash yourself with a 40min CF killer

- GET TO BED, sure at work we don't have a choice about how much sleep we get but you do at home. Shut the TV off and hit the rack.

- the time for taking in those starchy carbs like sw. potato/rice etc. is right after that workout... but take it easy. You don't want to undo the good!