I am T1 and also suffer with insomnia. Because of this I rarely ever gets more than a few hours of sleep a night.
The issue with this is that when I eat my evening meal at 7.30ish I am then starving by 1 or 2 am if I am unable to sleep. This can sometimes lead to eating which is of course bad for Blood levels as well as the waste line.
Anyone else have a sleep pattern that makes control sometimes an issue?
Please don't say get more sleep as this is going to be unlikely as I have been this way for years.
Hi Mr Bailey . . .
Apologies if this is something you already do, or already tried . . .
I am T1 since 2000. I have generally always followed a Low-Carb/Paleo type of diet. Up until around 2 years ago I used to get Insomnia on a fairly random but fairly frequent basis. I can certainly relate to things being harder to control when it strikes. Watching TV through the night because I felt I had no chance to get to sleep, it was too tempting to eat.
Things really changed for me when I did some research and discovered that I probably had a Magnesium deficiency. Muscle cramps and Insomnia are 2 common symptoms of this. I also discovered that Insulin cannot be used very well by the body when there is a Magnesium deficiency - Magnesium is a necessary part of many biochemical reactions in the body, including Insulin absorption.
When I took action to ensure I was getting enough Magnesium, this had several positive effects for me. The muscle cramps in my leg, which were driving me a bit mad, stopped. And I found that the Insomnia really tailed off over just a few weeks. It has never returned. And my Insulin dosage reduced quite significantly. (Now my body could actually effectively USE all the Insulin I was injecting).
At first I took Magnesium supplements. As my research continued, I discovered that eating more Organic and higher quality food really made a difference also. Even many healthy foods these days are grown on farms which don't rotate the soil (they grow the same crop in the same location year on year) and chemicals are used to keep the bugs off. This has the result that the soil, which should be full of the natural fertiliser of countless insects and small creatures, is really devoid of any nutrients. A similar problem occurs for much of the inexpensive meat that we buy, where the animals have been fed on cheap grain (devoid of nutrients) instead of their natural diet (eating grass, or foraging).
If you didn't try it yet, then I'd certainly suggest to try supplements of both Magnesium and Calcium, and/or to switch to more Organic produce if your circumstances allow.
This might help for sleep, it might also help for the hunger issue. I've found that when eating whole foods on a Keto (LCHF) diet, I really don't get hungry any more. The body has a natural switch-off signal when eating real, whole foods. When eating processed and/or high-sugar foods, there is no switch-off signal and we tend to eat more of them, AND get hungry again a few hours later when blood-sugar comes crashing down.
Regards,
Antony
(edited for 1 correction)
