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Deimos Anomaly
07-26-2009, 07:29 PM
I've been eating a slightly modified version of Dave's off-season mass-gain diet for the past few weeks, wherein 39% of my calories comes from fats (healthy ones), 32% from protein and the rest from complex carbs . My results up to this point are very promising - I maintain my leanness while gaining in strenght.

However, for the past week or two I've had a lot of trouble sleeping at night, not being able to fall asleep or waking after about an hour. This leads to episodes of fatigue during the day which cause me to take a nap, adding to the problem of the nighttime insomnia.

At this time there are no stress-related events that would cause me to have trouble sleeping. I also don't seem to be overtraining.

There seems to be research suggesting a relation between high-fat diets and insomnia. Is anyone else on here suffering from similar problems with this type of diet?

Deimos Anomaly
07-28-2009, 06:10 AM
Anyone?

Caleb56
07-28-2009, 07:29 AM
I've been eating a slightly modified version of Dave's off-season mass-gain diet for the past few weeks, wherein 39% of my calories comes from fats (healthy ones), 32% from protein and the rest from complex carbs . My results up to this point are very promising - I maintain my leanness while gaining in strenght.

However, for the past week or two I've had a lot of trouble sleeping at night, not being able to fall asleep or waking after about an hour. This leads to episodes of fatigue during the day which cause me to take a nap, adding to the problem of the nighttime insomnia.

At this time there are no stress-related events that would cause me to have trouble sleeping. I also don't seem to be overtraining.

There seems to be research suggesting a relation between high-fat diets and insomnia. Is anyone else on here suffering from similar problems with this type of diet?
melatonin

Frosty
07-28-2009, 12:48 PM
That's not a high fat diet. For me personally I can eat 70% calories from fat and not have problems sleeping from it.

Make sure your pre-bed meal supports sleep. Any easy to digest protein that's non-stimulating, say cottage cheese and berries. Don't eat eggs or beef before bed. Avoid heavy spices or things that are spicey hot or heavy in garlic. A terrible pre-bed meal that I could think of would be steak with red pepper flakes and plenty of garlic along with some veggies cooked with garlic.

Make sure to take in slower carbs before bed, too. Rice or potatoes before bed could possibly cause your blood sugar to crash which could be one possibility for waking you up soon after you fall asleep. Poorly used GDAs could also cause this.

Deimos Anomaly
07-29-2009, 10:32 AM
Thanks for the advice. Actually I was eating eggs as my last meal as suggested in Dave's diet. 70% fat sounds crazy!

lomox
07-29-2009, 10:43 AM
Eggs? Whole eggs or whites too? How does that affect sleep?

Frosty
07-29-2009, 12:00 PM
Thanks for the advice. Actually I was eating eggs as my last meal as suggested in Dave's diet. 70% fat sounds crazy!


Try something like chicken, turkey, or cottage cheese/ricotta (if allowable) and see if that helps at all. Let us know...always good to hear what people discover to work.

Deimos Anomaly
07-30-2009, 05:36 AM
Allright, I will report back on my findings... but not for a while though: I just broke my wrist snowboarding :o