Again, we return to T-Nation and one of their latest short and hidden ‘advertisement articles.’ They’ve really been pumping these out lately, with the basic principle of some little “problem” found in some study and then a backwards solution that leads the uninformed reader to buy their supplements. While the latter is complete bollocks, some of the research data can be of interest, at least if interpreted correctly, and that is where yours truly comes in with his humble rebuttals. Well, humble might not be the most appropriate word, but sometimes a more rigid approach is needed to get through some really thick skulls.
Let’s see what the T-Nation staff cooked up this time.
“Who wants to gradually gain fat, lose muscle, and have no sex drive? Not us! Here’s a common problem that causes all those things.”
Me neither, to be honest. Still, this is what happens to most of the ignorant masses, the NPCs, over time. At 50, I still feel and perform like I did in my early 30’s, however, I meet a lot of people who are only in their later 30’s or lower 40’s but look and perform like they’re in their 60’s – and it’s only getting worse.
“Have you noticed that when you get a crappy night of sleep you tend to have cravings and eat more the next day? You’re not imagining it. One meta-analysis found that when people don’t get enough sleep, they eat around 385 more calories the following day. It’s caused by “partial sleep deprivation,” which means you slept but only about 4-5 total hours.”
Actually no, and due to noisy neighbors, extreme heat indoors due to badly constructed walls and evening sun, I’ve had some nights with only 4 to 5 hours of sleep as of lately. However, I follow our species-appropriate diet of mostly raw animal meat and fat, so I’m fully nourished and much better equipped to handle stress and other challenges compared to the dumbed down masses who consume mostly slave foods made from toxic plants. If you’re nourished, you do not get cravings or even experience hunger until at least 5 days without food or more, and not even from partial sleep deprivation.
What Causes This?
- “Partial sleep deprivation causes the reward centers of the brain to get more active. In this case, the reward is fattening foods.”
Not “fattening foods,” that is a very bad choice of words, but rather fats, as in saturated animal fats, which is what we need for energy and hormone production, it is what we are actually made of.
- “Disruption of the internal body clock affects the regulation of leptin (the satiety hormone) and ghrelin (the hunger hormone). Get those out of whack and you’ll be reaching for extra snacks.”
This might happen over time, but if you’re fully nourished, you will still not experience hunger or cravings. However, there might be other problems as we need adequate sleep for detoxification, recovery, repair, and processing of information. Poor sleep is never good and should always be of concern.
With that said, in someone who do not eat sufficient amounts of animal-based foods and thus has nutrient deficiencies, this disruption of leptin and ghrelin will likely intensify the feelings of hunger and cravings, as these signals from you body is an indication that you need to eat more to get all the nutrients you need. In other words, if you experience hunger and/or cravings, you are malnourished. And remember, all modern foods derived from plants have absolutely zero nutritional value, so you can still be overfed and fat, but severely malnourished. I covered this in many articles, like my “What Makes You Fat” article.
- “Lack of sleep gives you the munchies like weed. Erin Hanlon, PhD, notes: “Sleep restriction boosts a signal that may increase the hedonic aspect of food intake, the pleasure and satisfaction gained from eating. It augments the endocannabinoid system, the same system targeted by the active ingredient of marijuana, to enhance the desire for food intake.”
This is simply the same thing as the two points made earlier. If you’re malnourished you will crave more foods as your body need key nutrients to function. If you’re sleep deprived on top of that, it will get even worse as your body is desperate for more resources.
“Interestingly, most of the subjects in these studies didn’t go for carbs as you’d expect, but more dietary fats. They also consumed less protein when sleep-deprived.”
Yes, this is what I mentioned earlier. And as for carbohydrates, it is not our preferred fuel as carbohydrates interfere with gluconeogenesis, our natural fat-based metabolism, by increasing blood glucose to very unnatural levels, which is very damaging to sensitive tissues. We should never consume carbohydrates unless faced with real starvation as a necessary solution to keep us going until we can get some meat.
Animal fats, as in saturated fat and cholesterol, on the other hand are exactly what our tissues are made of, and it’s our natural energy source and also what is needed to make all our hormones.
Partial sleep deprivation can be caused by hormone imbalances (or other factors,) however, it will disrupt your hormones. So, either way, your hormones will tank, so it’s only natural that your body will crave more nutrients, such as animal fat, to try and correct this problem. And since most repair takes place during sleep, your protein requirement will drop – which is a really bad thing, as your body will accumulate more damage and toxins over time.
Partial Sleep Deprivation Also Kills Testosterone
“Other studies found that when healthy young men sleep 5 hours or less per night for a week, their testosterone levels drop. Five hours of sleep per night decreased subjects’ testosterone levels by 10 to 15 percent in one study, and these guys were in their early 20s. Testosterone is primarily produced during sleep, mostly during the REM stage.”
Correct. Human growth hormone peaks during the early stages of sleep, but only roughly between the hours of 10 p.m. and 2 a.m., which is why it is so important to get to bed before 10 p.m. and to sleep without any lengthy and unnecessary interruptions. Then, as the surge of GH lessen, testosterone peaks, and this is why it’s important to get at least 5 to 6 hours of sleep – or you will miss out. Although sleep quality is much more important than the length of sleep, it’s still recommended to get at least 6 hours.
“Sleep deprivation also elevates cortisol. Elevated cortisol levels suppress T production by inhibiting the release of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) from the hypothalamus and luteinizing hormone (LH) from the pituitary gland, both crucial for testosterone production.”
Again, to be perfectly clear, cortisol is not a “stress hormone” as we believed in the past. Cortisol serves several functions. It helps the body with releasing stored glycogen through its natural process of gluconeogenesis, which is converted into glucose in the exact amounts needed to fuel the tissues that needs it and without producing too much that sensitive tissues might be damaged (which is the case when unnaturally increasing blood glucose by consuming carbohydrates.) In that sense, during normal conditions, cortisol mobilizes early in the morning to wake you up and to help fuel you, so you have energy to get food and have a meal, as in breakfast. When you do not force-feed yourself with toxic carbohydrates, your cortisol levels are naturally higher in the morning and forenoon, and then cortisol declines during the day to be the lowest in the evening – especially if you have a meal or two. Also, cortisol is needed for healing and repair, just like cholesterol.
So, if you cut your sleep short, your body will not have enough time to heal and repair, so instead it will try to increase the hormones that help with these functions, hence the increase in cortisol – which will also make you more alert so you can get more nutrients for your damaged body and to increase the likelihood of getting better sleep.
Now, if you have half a brain, you should understand that there is no real correlation between increased levels of cortisol and suppressed production of testosterone. Your body does not make hormones that “battles” each other. Increased cortisol above natural levels are from abnormal physiological challenges, such as in this case of sleep deprivation, which we already confirmed will lower testosterone production as you do not get enough sleep to produce testosterone efficiently (cortisol is not the cause, lack of sleep is.)
The same is true of some nutrient deficiencies or when you are exposed to extreme stress and your body need to upregulate your energy production by increasing cortisol. These scenarios lower testosterone by other mechanics, all while your body is increasing cortisol to give you more energy to get nutrient-dense food to remedy the situation. It’s not the cortisol that lowers testosterone, cortisol just happens to be increased at times when testosterone has been lowered by other factors. This should not be hard to understand.
Read more about how cortisol works in my article, “All Sugars/Carbohydrates Turn into Toxic Glucose.”
“Chronic sleep deprivation has even been linked to impaired testicular function. It causes your balls to atrophy in extreme cases.”
Not surprisingly, as testosterone is primarily manufactured in the testicles (testes) in men. If production is lowered for a longer period of time, atrophy of the tissues responsible for the manufacturing process might occur.
This however is fully reversible, but it’s not a good thing as it will take time to recover from – and you first need to fix your sleep and nutrition problem.
“The Mineral Fix”
“If sleep evades you and you’d rather not have a bigger gut and smaller testicles, consider supplementing with chelated magnesium…”
And this is where the advertisement begins. While a lot of people are deficient in magnesium, it’s only one little factor that might interfere with your sleep.
If you actually eat the food that you should be eating as a human, as according to our species, you should not be deficient in anything. So, that’s the first place to start, to actually feed your body – as many other nutrients also plays a vital role in sleep quality. Also, remove all stimulants, and that goes for the extremely toxic coffee as well.
The second step is to look at your sleep hygiene, as in the room where you sleep. It should be pitch black, it should be somewhat cold, there should be minimal noise and no electronics. You should wind- and stress down the hours before sleep, avoid all blue-light (screens,) and always go to bed in a fasted state (last meal at least 4 hours prior) and before 10 p.m. I have much more on this in other articles and a whole chapter on it in my coaching guides.
And if you need help with any health-related problem or simply transitioning from your current way of eating to our natural species-appropriate, species-specific way of eating, I’m available for both coaching and consultation.
