JJ Virgin explains how one bad night of sleep triggers a cycle: you reach for coffee and sugar, which disrupts sleep further, increases hunger, and makes your body store carbs as fat. Sleep becomes even more critical as you age because your body's repair capacity declines.
And you've probably seen that just one poor night of sleep and you just feel a little off the next day. And then it starts to compound itself because you have one poor night of sleep. Maybe you get a little more coffee under your belt to help you through the day. Maybe even get a little sugar in there. I hope not. And then at night you're going, I'm not leaving anything to chance. So you have a glass of wine or two, which then sets up the whole bad cycle again. Now you're not sleeping well, and when you're not sleeping well, you're actually hungrier. We've all noticed it. And you're more insulin resistant. That is a very bad combination because when you're hungrier— and I always say you're not hungrier for salmon, right? You're hungrier for those carbs. And now you're more insulin resistant. That means you're better at storing those carbs as fat. So again, you don't need less sleep as you age. It is just as important. I'd say, argue, even more important because this is when we're really working on all of that recovering, rebuilding. We don't want to be breaking down more than we're building up. So focus on prioritizing your sleep.
