If You Don't Sleep, You Won't Lose Weight

Using evolution as an argument against sleep is specious. Most children who are older than 6 months are capable of sleeping through the night. Whether they do or not has a lot to do with parenting style - something that has changed significantly in the last 50 years or so. Not a long enough time to have any effect on our evolution.

On the flip side, I know that sleep deprivation would have an inverse effect on the number of children I would choose to have, thus decreasing the chances of my genetic material being passed on.

<facepalm>

Firstly, reacting to children rather than ignoring them at night is the norm in most cultures, including co-sleeping until the child is of a reasonable age or possibly older (making the 'men dont wake in the night' thing utter nonsense)

Also, it has only been in the last 50 years or so that we have been ABLE to 'choose' before birth control and education, both modern inventions.

Thirdly i have not shot anyone down (what a horrible turn of phrase) I have given MY opinion and then answered questions directly put to me. That is not shooting anything.

Considering the report was based on men, and not women, I don't see how your point is relative. Men don't wake up in the middle of the night to deal with children. We usually sleep right through it.

thats stupid. mothers die in childbirth- dad still sleeps? woman marries a DECENT man - that DOES get up- man still sleeps?

Cave men slept 4-5 hours then woke for 6-8 then slept 4-5 repeat wash rinse repeat. Sleeping 8 hours a night is a product of our lives TODAY- since we work 8-10 a day- sleep fits in where we can fit it. No, Im not finding sources - maybe the paleo community will say this is true for me since they know how the cave men ate - Id assume they understand the whole cave man lifestyle and sleep - or lack there of.

And any study that is on men only- isnt complete when it comes to something that we all do.

well sleep is not ALWAYS an option for everyone.. I would LOVE to be able to sleep for more then 4 hrs a night but that rarely happens, wonderful world of MS insomnia takes care of that most nights... :yawn: but I still managed to go from a size 12 down to a size 2-4... :bigsmile:

I'm not going to argue the credibility of the article I posted, there's no point in arguing with people do fight on forums for their enjoyment. I was simply sharing something I heard about this morning that I found interesting.

I would like to find the study directly related to the info I heard on the radio this morning.

Oh, and for those saying that "If you don't get enough sleep, you will eat more," how do you explain the correlation to weight gain and the people who got more than 8 hours of sleep every night? I don't think they were eating more because they were awake longer.

Well, for one thing, it's hard to be active if you're sleeping. Or they may have had other health issues that contributed to their weight issues. This why you can't really draw meaningful conclusions from correlations...

I would kill right now for some sleep. In the past week 4 nights were with less than 4 hours sleep. It's really starting to mess with my head. I am so exhausted that I can't manage to work out properly and while I don't eat more I also don't move around more so I could see where it can lead to a gain in weight.

Using evolution as an argument against sleep is specious. Most children who are older than 6 months are capable of sleeping through the night. Whether they do or not has a lot to do with parenting style - something that has changed significantly in the last 50 years or so. Not a long enough time to have any effect on our evolution.

On the flip side, I know that sleep deprivation would have an inverse effect on the number of children I would choose to have, thus decreasing the chances of my genetic material being passed on.

<facepalm>

Firstly, reacting to children rather than ignoring them at night is the norm in most cultures, including co-sleeping until the child is of a reasonable age or possibly older (making the 'men dont wake in the night' thing utter nonsense)

Also, it has only been in the last 50 years or so that we have been ABLE to 'choose' before birth control and education, both modern inventions.

Thirdly i have not shot anyone down (what a horrible turn of phrase) I have given MY opinion and then answered questions directly put to me. That is not shooting anything.

Years of sleep deprivation due to a child awakening during the night is not the norm in most cultures. In fact, it's very much isolated to ours.

BTW, while you have your face in your palm, you might want to try catching a few ZZZZZ. Sounds like you need it.

My husband and I were JUST talking about this article! We love our little baby, but unfortunately, he doesn't consistently sleep through the night and therefore, my sleep is extremely irregular. But I believe it. When I don't get enough sleep - I drink more coffee and eat more food to help myself stay awake as well, not to mention I don't have as much energy to complete my usual workout...therefore my net calories for the day are higher!

Everyone - get yo' sleep on!

oh so very true. I know a lot of people who never get enough sleep and have some lbs to shed. But saw it first hand myself many years ago when I had a job that kept me from getting real sleep. Gained just from lack of sleep, (didn't have any weight issues either just suddenly had more weight from not sleeping and eating less) I called it stress fat. Everyone is different but I would say if you have anything there you don't want and you know you don't sleep 7-8 hours or its interrupted, get more sleep. Your life does depend on it.

Your[sic] talking nonsense.

Done much travelling have you? Lived in any other cultures? Know anything about the nature of babies? Breastfeeding?

No. Didn't think so.

Lots of travel, yes, I've lived in other cultures, have two kids of my own and breastfed both of them over two years each. And I stand by my statement that most children are fully capable of self-soothing and sleeping through the night at 6 months.

And I think that your lack of sleep is making you a bit cranky. :flowerforyou:

Some interesting comments on here from alot of people.

From personal experience I used to suffer from a severe lack of sleep due to having undiagnosed sleep apnea. This was a stage in my life where I started to really pile on weight. My body wasnt getting the rest & recovery it needed which caused me to pile on body fat and limit the progress I was making in the weight room.

After I was diagnosed with sleep apnea, and started receiving treatment, giving me a full nights restful sleep my whole body composition start to change. My body fat levels reduced, and my progress in the weight room improved.

So I am an advocate for getting a good 7-9hrs sleep where possible, but that is based purely on personal experience. I maybe heavier now than before I was diagnosed, but I know my body fat % is lower, and my lean mass % is higher. The only difference between then and now is the amount of sleep I am getting.

Generally speaking, evolution knows what its talking about and would not have created a situation that was so harmful for us.

Spacious. Necrosis is an evolutionary result and is rather harmful. As are most diseases.

I would think that since everybody is different and out bodies act and react differently that each individual would be different.

The special snowflake argument.

You have not brought factual evidence either,

MMAS is an observational cohort study of health in a population-based random sample of men

Woops.

I'm not going to argue the credibility of the article I posted, there's no point in arguing with people do fight on forums for their enjoyment.

And Chivalryder wins the irony competition...

I've never had problem with sleeping - typically 7-8 hrs a night, yet I was diabetic by age 30. So much for that study.