LIGHTS OUT

This post is dedicated to M.F. and V.V.   and in thanks to P. Glassford.

"America is the home of the brightest and the best and the sickest people in the world.  We hold the lead in productivity, eating disorders, SAT scores, diabetes, cutting-edge technology, heart disease, and cancer.  In our culture, people boast how little fat they eat and how little sleep they can get by on.  These two accomplishments are an outward declaration of our ambition and stamina.  Our national motto is, "You snooze, you lose".
from Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar, and Survival by T.S. Wiley

I haven't yet finished this book, but I'm well on my way to getting consistent good night sleeps.  The premise of the book is kick your carbohydrate addiction and turn off the TV and go to bed.  Back in the day when we lived in caves, carbs were hard (and in the ice age - impossible) to come by.  When we're eating lots of carbs (back then fruit and veggies) it meant it was summer time.  Summer time means pack on some pounds, cause winter is coming.  Winter would come and we would stop eating carbs.  Then we'd live off the fat stores and the cycle would start over in the summer.

As a society with places to get food 24 hours a day, winter never comes.  And our food sources, as we've been told they should by the experts come form predominately carbs.  To make a long story short (it is a whole book I'm sumarizing here), we put on fat and eventually we add so much fat that our insulin production goes into overdrive, then it shuts down... enter Type II Diabetes.  Also, during the summer, nature had us sleep less.  For one, the sun is up longer, secondly, we spent every last minute foraging for food before winter.  Eating lots of carbs tricks our systems into thinking we should be awake and we should be stressed about gathering food.  Because we can get us much food as we like, we stress over other things instead.

Sleep hasn't come easy for me for the past year.  There, my secret is out in the open.  

For the last 3 weeks, I've been kicking my carb addiction.  Those who know me, know I'm pretty sensitive to food, so I've also started eating paleo (no grains, beans, dairy).  The first few weeks were awful.  I felt like crap - especially in the afternoons.  My body didn't know how to live off fat and protein and veggies with just a bit of fruit around workouts. Eventually my system figured it out.  Now; now I wake up before my alarm, I can't stop myself from falling asleep at night and during the day, I have tons of energy.

And the cravings for carbohydrates, well - I still think chocolate melted all over a banana sounds like heaven, but I'll take the good sleeps instead.