Step One Is Sleep is the first step of our program. There are so many reasons for this it’s difficult to unpack them all. Having a regular bedtime and regular waking time has an organizing effect on your life. Things that we do after 10PM tend to be things that are not healthy for us. Without proper sleep you tire easily, are more emotional, and more reactive and therefore more likely to reach for food and stimulants for relief. For the data you collect in determining your best exercise and meal plan, it is important that the data be collected at the same time of day each time. This can’t be done if you are going to bed and waking up at different times depending on your whims.
Here, however, is the most important reason of all: your endocrine health is entirely dependent upon regular, deep, restorative sleep. All humans experience the deepest sleep between 10 PM and 2AM. After this, the sleep becomes more superficial. Deep sleep is governed on a clock that resides in the pineal gland deep within your brain. The pineal gland receives signals from the optic nerve in your eyes in order to know when to secrete sleep inducing hormones. (As an interesting aside: humans have always intuited the deep importance of this gland. It is sometimes called the Third Eye and Descartes thought it was where the soul resided.)
Many people will experience a “second wind” if they push through the 10 PM surge of these hormones and if that push becomes habitual we can become “night owls.” This shift to an inverted pattern causes many different problems as long-term studies of night shift workers have shown us. Among the many things that occur during this deep sleep phase is that natural anti-oxidants are released that remove oxidative stress and prevent cellular and DNA damage. Melatonin, the hormone that causes night time sleepiness, also turns out to be a powerful antioxidant and assists the body in many maintenance and “clean-up” processes. All YOU need to do? No coffee enemas, no “cleansing” supplements, no clever foot pads or other detox items necessary. You just need to get to bed by 10 PM.
As it turns out the second wind that people experience after 10PM isn’t just in their minds. (The after 10PM high is a high that I used to await anxiously as a young writer without a family. I wrote most of my plays and scholarly work in the wee hours). That night time energy is the metabolic energy that is generated from melatonin intended to be used for nocturnal bodily repair and maintenance. If you use that energy on wakeful mental or physical activities, it cannot be used on these maintenance and repair activities. So they become forestalled. The body can withstand occasional nights like this but if these nights begin to string together damage occurs. We can actually induce lupus in mice simply by depriving them of sleep. Further, TNF-1–tumor necrosis factor–is released as we sleep at night and this is disrupted in sleep deprivation, which allows cancer cells to grow unchecked by the body’s own defense against tumors.
In the study below* I quote the initial study that revealed that peak growth hormone is released during sleep–and the fact that if we delay sleep beyond the appropriate times for it we do not receive that release. KetoChix know the importance of lean mass maintenance and building and without growth hormone, this process is retarded or it is completely reversed and we become catabolic. Furthermore, even though GH initially raises blood sugar, it over all lowers it, it promotes lipolysis, lean tissue repair and building, improves liver and pancreatic function, and improves the function of thyroid hormone. It also stimulates and is connected to a cornucopia of other hormones.
In one study, those with low-levels of growth hormone are shown to have high fat mass, low lean mass, and a generally low quality of life measured on several factors.
It is also well-known to the less savory individuals in the world of health and wellness that HGH given as a supplement will increase muscle mass and have anti-aging effects, in particular boosting testosterone in men, so there is a black market for HGH.
The best and safest way to get it though, peeps, is just this: GO TO BED BY 10PM AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. Can you tolerate occasional late nights? Yes. But do not let them string together. Make before 10 your rule. Be ruthless with yourself on this fact.
Also note: while ketoadapting you may need MORE sleep in order to awake feeling rested and to get maximal weight loss results. Burning through the inflammatory, white adipose layer is taxing on the body and you should allow extra time for the body to do the hard work of ketoadapting. When blood glucose testing many start to notice a direct relationship between sleep and morning BG results.
*”Peak GH secretion was delayed if the onset of sleep was delayed.”
KETOCHIX 