The past few nights I have had a little trouble going to sleep. Typically a few pages of reading in a technical book is enough to knock me out but lately that hasn't worked. A quick check with a ketostick two nights ago showed that not only was I in ketosis but I was in the "large" range.
This is a known side effect of heavy ketosis: sleeplessness. Gary Taubes touches on it in Why We Get Fat: during the day, as we eat a carb-filled meal, we store the triglycerides as fat; at night, the reverse holds, our bodies rely on the fat stores for energy as our insulin levels drop. Thus, the hours between dinner and breakfast are the times when we're most likely to burn fat for energy and convert fat to ketones in the liver for brain functions. I can't seem to find a straight answer online (just plenty of people who are also restless at night) but I wonder if it is because our body's ability to convert fat to fuel is now (at night) almost "too good" -- when we normally would have been winding down on a heavy-dinner belly of turkey and potatoes, our bodies are instead pulling fat stores out and burning them because well, I won't be needing these any more.
I think this is happening because of how I've been proportioning my carbs throughout the day. I eat nearly zero at breakfast (usually bacon and eggs), some minimal throughout the day (snacking on peanuts), the majority of my carbs at lunch and then again, essentially 5 or less at dinner, say a meat and a green vegetable. In retrospect, this is probably me being overly cautious at dinner, fearing I've run out of carbs for the day even if I have not. Consequently, my insulin levels likely peak in early afternoon (as opposed to 7 or 8 PM) and thus by 10 PM, I'm deep in ketosis. My remedy has been to go get a spoonful of peanut butter and wash it down with a glass of water. Maybe the small number of carbs temporarily halts the fat-burning stage, long enough for me to zonk out. I don't really want to take another pill (most people suggest melatonin) as I'm already taking a multivitamin and potassium. I didn't sign on for a load a pills, just a plate of meat. So I should probably add in a few more carbs at dinner or move some up from lunch. Still I hope this passes soon or I may have to break out some old grad school text books.
This is a known side effect of heavy ketosis: sleeplessness. Gary Taubes touches on it in Why We Get Fat: during the day, as we eat a carb-filled meal, we store the triglycerides as fat; at night, the reverse holds, our bodies rely on the fat stores for energy as our insulin levels drop. Thus, the hours between dinner and breakfast are the times when we're most likely to burn fat for energy and convert fat to ketones in the liver for brain functions. I can't seem to find a straight answer online (just plenty of people who are also restless at night) but I wonder if it is because our body's ability to convert fat to fuel is now (at night) almost "too good" -- when we normally would have been winding down on a heavy-dinner belly of turkey and potatoes, our bodies are instead pulling fat stores out and burning them because well, I won't be needing these any more.
I think this is happening because of how I've been proportioning my carbs throughout the day. I eat nearly zero at breakfast (usually bacon and eggs), some minimal throughout the day (snacking on peanuts), the majority of my carbs at lunch and then again, essentially 5 or less at dinner, say a meat and a green vegetable. In retrospect, this is probably me being overly cautious at dinner, fearing I've run out of carbs for the day even if I have not. Consequently, my insulin levels likely peak in early afternoon (as opposed to 7 or 8 PM) and thus by 10 PM, I'm deep in ketosis. My remedy has been to go get a spoonful of peanut butter and wash it down with a glass of water. Maybe the small number of carbs temporarily halts the fat-burning stage, long enough for me to zonk out. I don't really want to take another pill (most people suggest melatonin) as I'm already taking a multivitamin and potassium. I didn't sign on for a load a pills, just a plate of meat. So I should probably add in a few more carbs at dinner or move some up from lunch. Still I hope this passes soon or I may have to break out some old grad school text books.
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