Coach J's Diet and Nutrition Advice

My energetic, ambitious wife once introduced me to the following idea:

“I’ll sleep when I die. For now, I’m going to get shit done.”

Some of you are nodding; some are groaning. How many of you have ever come to the box at Firebreather Fitness after a short night…on minimal sleep? What was your workout  that day? I’ll bet your timing was off. I’ll bet your endurance wasn’t what it should have been. I’ll also bet that if you were attempting an Olympic lift, your 1RM wasn’t as high as it should have been.

I confess: I used to come to the box in a sleep-deprived state two to three times a week. Hey, I’m a chronic night-owl (and a parent, business owner, author, blogger, entrepreneur). Like many of you, I wear several hats, and I do some of my best work after 11:30 p.m. For me, I’d stay up late Monday night, Tuesday night and Wednesday night… catching 4-6 hours of sleep, only to crash at 9:30 on Thursday night. I would chronically head into the weekend “tuckered out” and hoping for a couple of naps. What I’ve learned now is that I was really penalizing myself!

Robb Wolf says that sleep is incredibly important, only exceeded in importance by oxygen and water. He holds sleep as important or slightly more important than food!

The Washington Post hits the nail on the head, in my opinion, about sleep deprivation:

The newest study on obesity, from Columbia University, is just the latest to find that adults who sleep the least appear to be the most likely to gain weight and to become obese.

Other researchers have found that even mild sleep deprivation quickly disrupts normal levels of the recently discovered hormones ghrelin and leptin, which regulate appetite. In addition, studies show sleep-deprived people tend to develop problems regulating their blood sugar, which may put them at increased risk for diabetes.

Physiologic studies suggest that a sleep deficit may put the body into a state of high alert, increasing the production of stress hormones and driving up blood pressure, a major risk factor for heart attacks and strokes. Moreover, people who are sleep-deprived have elevated levels of substances in the blood that indicate a heightened state of inflammation in the body, which has also recently emerged as a major risk factor for heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes.

Did you hear that? Sleep deprivation = inflammation and dispruption of proper maintenance of blood sugar = weight gain and disease.

As if that weren’t enough to send you sprinting to the mattress for a solid 8 to 10 hours of sleep, here’s what researchers at Stanford University found with regard to sleep and athletic performance:

The amount of sleep an athlete gets appears to have a large impact on sports performance. Cheri Mah of the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic and Research Laboratory has been following the sleep patterns and athletic performance of Stanford athletes for years. Her research continues to show that getting more sleep leads to better sports performance for all types of athletes.

One study she authored, published in 2009, followed the Stanford University women’s tennis team for five weeks as they attempted to get 10 hours of sleep each night. Those who increased their sleep time ran faster sprints and hit more accurate tennis shots than while getting their usual amount of sleep. Mah’s research is some of the first to specifically look at the impact of extra hours of sleep on athletic performance and suggests that sleep is a significant factor in achieving peak athletic performance. This is particularly important for collegiate and professional athletes who have full schedules and often travel for games and competitions. Athletes can easily fail to get regular, consistent hours of sleep. This lack of sleep, or “sleep debt,” appears to have a negative effect on sports performance, as well as cognitive function, mood, and reaction time. Much of this can be avoided by making regular sleep as much of a priority for athletes as practicing their sport and eating right.

According to Mah, many of the athletes have set new personal bests and broken long-standing records while participating in these studies. Researchers speculate that deep sleep helps improve athletic performance because this is the time when growth hormone is released. Growth hormone stimulates muscle growth and repair, bone building and fat burning, and helps athletes recover. Studies show that sleep deprivation slows the release of growth hormone. Sleep is also necessary for learning a new skill, so this phase of sleep may be critical for some athletes. The amount of sleep an athlete gets appears to have a large impact on sports performance.

A quick summary:  sleep = growth hormone = muscle repair + recovery + growth!

So get your sleep.  And start logging your sleep here on the CoachJDietRx site–along with posting your meals daily!

Contributed by the Once-Sleep-Deprived Tin Man Skip

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