Diet or Sleep?

Everyone knows that menopausal women can have trouble sleeping. Everyone knows that menopausal women can have trouble with weight gain. Two separate issues – right?

Not necessarily, since one can have a major impact over the other.

Insomnia seems to come in waves, at least it does for me. I will go for months sleeping peacefully through the night, and then suddenly I find myself wide awake at 3 a.m. Once it starts it’s usually not an isolated incident. I employ about a dozen ways of controlling these bouts; they range from taking 5 HTP (a natural aid that helps me sleep) to enlisting the meditation-like tools recommended in Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now. I don’t take insomnia lying down – literally!

I’ve been fairly successful in my war against insomnia. Sure, once in a while a night gets away from me, but that’s to be expected. In general, the odds have been in my favor.

Right now I’m on another of the many diets that have plagued my existence since late adolescence. I have been fighting the battle of the bulge my whole life, and if you take a close look at the family tree it will come as no surprise. We like to eat – a lot, and our metabolisms tend toward the slow side. For me, diet is a necessary evil.

So if I’m pretty good at fighting insomnia and I’m an experienced dieter – why am I suggesting that sleep and diet are mutually exclusive? That’s simple, when you’re on a diet you are forced to get up during the night to empty your bladder, some nights more than once. And that’s all it takes to upset the delicate ‘undisturbed sleep’ applecart.

The fight has just become a full out war. Your fight for sleep has intensified, and ironically, numerous articles have been written about how important a good night’s sleep is in order to be able to lose weight.

Oftentimes as I lie awake during the night, waiting for my next visit to the bathroom, I ponder the frustration and futility of the lose weight/sleep great dichotomy.