Problems with sleep

[fballer12]

Over the last few years I’ve had trouble losing weight, because every time I go on a calorie deficit I can never sleep well. It’s always very light sleep and it either takes me a long time to fall asleep or I wake up around 3 and can’t go back to sleep for hours.

It’s never sustainable more than a couple of days before my health and productivity starts to deteriorate and I have to stop. Usually all it takes is for me to have a heavy meal again and I go to sleep and then stop the weight loss journey so that I can catch back up on any lost sleep.

It’s almost like my body is going into some sort of fight or flight at the idea of losing weight. Other symptoms include muscle spasms and heart palpitations. All of these start to go away again when I finally start eating at or above maintenance. Not sure if I’m going into a sort of withdrawal every time because my body is used to me binge eating(sometimes not all the time).

I’ve gotten blood panels a few times over the years and the results were in range for CBC, electrolytes, and blood sugar, so not sure what it could be.

The unfortunate thing is that I have pretty good self control and motivation, so if this issue wasn’t a thing I would have been able to lose the weight a long time ago.

Anybody ever go through something like this or have any ideas?

[RapidFail]

I've heard trouble sleeping while cutting is pretty common, but usually towards the end of a cut and/or when calories are really low. Have you tried a smaller deficit?

[fballer12]

I've heard trouble sleeping while cutting is pretty common, but usually towards the end of a cut and/or when calories are really low. Have you tried a smaller deficit?

To be honest, I don’t track calories too hard when I try to cut. For more context, I’ve always been able to see results on the scale by just switching to home cooking meals for a higher percentage of the week, rather than what I typically do which is eat out or get delivery way too often. With that said, from working out for over a decade now, I have a pretty good grasp of estimating calories in my head and making sure I’m not too low or too high. But I don’t track with a counter because I’m the type of person who gets ocd doing stuff like that and it becomes way too big of a part of my day. But maybe my calories are just too low.


Edit: I’ve always tried to estimate in my head to around 2000 calories. I just did a BMR calculator though and it looks like maybe I should be shooting for around 2400 calories a day. Those extra 400 calories might make a huge difference, as it’s a 20% increase.

[snailsrus]

To be honest, I don’t track calories too hard when I try to cut. For more context, I’ve always been able to see results on the scale by just switching to home cooking meals for a higher percentage of the week, rather than what I typically do which is eat out or get delivery way too often. With that said, from working out for over a decade now, I have a pretty good grasp of estimating calories in my head and making sure I’m not too low or too high. But I don’t track with a counter because I’m the type of person who gets ocd doing stuff like that and it becomes way too big of a part of my day. But maybe my calories are just too low.


Edit: I’ve always tried to estimate in my head to around 2000 calories. I just did a BMR calculator though and it looks like maybe I should be shooting for around 2400 calories a day. Those extra 400 calories might make a huge difference, as it’s a 20% increase.

so you only have given yourself a few days to allow your sleep to adjust with your diet? You might just need to give your body more time to get used to the diet changes.

Have you tried playing around with meal times? Or when you wake up, have a snack and go to bed, or a larger meal before bed?

Also do you even know what your maintenance is?

[fballer12]

so you only have given yourself a few days to allow your sleep to adjust with your diet? You might just need to give your body more time to get used to the diet changes.

Have you tried playing around with meal times? Or when you wake up, have a snack and go to bed, or a larger meal before bed?

Also do you even know what your maintenance is?

Yes, I don’t do well on lack of sleep. Once I start noticing I’m getting high blood pressure headaches, palpitations, brain fog/grogginess that effects my work productivity and well being, I don’t have much of a choice.

My bmr should be around 2800, but my activity level is very up and down day to day, so I never know how accurate it is(one day I could be completely sedentary and the other I could be burning 800 calories playing hockey or skiing).

[faithbrah]

Yes, I don’t do well on lack of sleep. Once I start noticing I’m getting high blood pressure headaches, palpitations, brain fog/grogginess that effects my work productivity and well being, I don’t have much of a choice.

My bmr should be around 2800, but my activity level is very up and down day to day, so I never know how accurate it is(one day I could be completely sedentary and the other I could be burning 800 calories playing hockey or skiing).

your bmr ( = staying completely still in bed for the whole day) is more like 1800 and your TDEE is 2800

[fballer12]

your bmr ( = staying completely still in bed for the whole day) is more like 1800 and your TDEE is 2800

Oh got it. So with that said, if my TDEE is 2800, what would be a good target calories to still see results but ease my body into it

[snailsrus]

Oh got it. So with that said, if my TDEE is 2800, what would be a good target calories to still see results but ease my body into it

2400