Trouble sleeping while losing weight

ehimass

Hi,

I've recently lost a lot of weight. When I was fat, I could sleep 8-10 hours per night without a second thought, and slept pretty deeply.

Now, I have a hard time sleeping at all, and when I do it's rarely for more than 5 hours. I often take benadryl to fall asleep, and it helps, but I don't want to become dependent on it. Some nights I can't go to sleep at all, I toss and turn and rollover but it just doesn't happen.

Can my diet be the source of this? I'm a 6'0" 175 pound man and I've been eating around 1500 calories per day, with occasional cheat days in the 2000-3000 calorie range. I also exercise about 90 minutes per day (6x per week), which usually burns 1000 calories or so.

Am I eating too little? I still want to lose about 15-20 pounds and get to 10% body fat. I'm currently at 15% body fat. I'm afraid that will never happen if I up my calories.

Thanks in advance.

WaterBunnie

I don't sleep so well if I go under. Are you eating back your exercise calories? If not you are only really taking in about 500 calories a day which is probably taxing your health and causing anxiety. Make sure you are at least netting 1500 I'd say. Or maybe take a few weeks out eating at maintenance and see if normal sleep patterns resume. If they do then you know it's definitely the calorie restriction. Lack of sleep can be more harmful to you than being overweight - not that 175 sounds overweight at your height!

annekka

When are you exercising? Could it be that the exercise, if it's later on in the day is "revving" up your metabolism enough that it is affecting your sleep? I've had issues as of late, too. Of course doesn't help that I'm working a teacher's hours and all the classes I like to do aren't offered until 7 or 8 PM at night.

ehimass

Thanks for the replies. No, I am not eating back my exercise calories.

I usually exercise first thing in the morning, on an empty stomach, to get the "fasted exercise" effect which is theoretically more effective at burning fat.

The bad thing is, the lack of sleep makes it more difficult to maintain energy while exercising. Although the other night I didn't fall asleep at all and still got a decent 90 minute workout in the following morning.

cingle87

Im 5 7" and currently netting 1600 calories so under eating could very well be one cause of the sleep problems