KyleKingsly
Member
- Joined
- Feb 15, 2018
- Messages
- 97
Having some serious sleep issues I could really use help with, I wrote a much larger thread detailing all my problems and the background that I think caused them here: Insomnia, Weight Gain, Stress, Extreme Hunger - Please Help! but no one ever commented on it sadly. So to make things easier for y'all and to hopefully get some good suggestions this time I'm going to try to be brief. In terms of background just keep in mind that I've gained around 50 lbs of fat in the past year from a combination of a pretty bad diet, a ton of stress from phenibut withdrawal and PAWS, and insulin resistance getting worse and worse over time (I'm decidedly pre-diabetic now with an A1C of 5.9%).
One thing that's absolutely destroying my life rn is my frequent inability to stay asleep for more than 5 or 6 hours at night. I keep waking up after that time with a sort of false hunger, with my stomach growling, a feeling of high cortisol, norepinephrine, or adrenaline (not quite sure which one but my guess would be probably cortisol or perhaps norep.), and overall feeling decidedly cold and weak.
I'm fairly certain these issues are related to my insulin resistance/inability to metabolize glucose properly because it's not quite a feeling of true hunger like I get when I try to eat a caloric deficit to lose weight. It's more of a feeling like my body is lacking energy even though my stomach feels fine mostly and my appetite isn't that noticeable.
I seem to be able to avoid these issues sometimes by eating a ton throughout the day so that I feel warm and sleepy after dinner, but it seems to be getting harder and harder to get to that point. I seem to be needing more and more food to feel satisfied, but whenever I try to reduce how much I eat, I feel really stressed and unfocused and definitely will wake up after not enough sleep, sometimes after only 4 or 5 hours. It seems to be a vicious cycle that just gets worse and worse whether I eat a surplus or a deficit of calories.
I don't think changing my diet around is going to help enough at this point and would really like to know what the very strongest, but yet still fairly safe, substances/supplements/herbs that could help me stay asleep and improve my insulin resistance/glucose metabolism without making me too much hungrier are.
The two main things I'm considering rn are:
One thing that's absolutely destroying my life rn is my frequent inability to stay asleep for more than 5 or 6 hours at night. I keep waking up after that time with a sort of false hunger, with my stomach growling, a feeling of high cortisol, norepinephrine, or adrenaline (not quite sure which one but my guess would be probably cortisol or perhaps norep.), and overall feeling decidedly cold and weak.
I'm fairly certain these issues are related to my insulin resistance/inability to metabolize glucose properly because it's not quite a feeling of true hunger like I get when I try to eat a caloric deficit to lose weight. It's more of a feeling like my body is lacking energy even though my stomach feels fine mostly and my appetite isn't that noticeable.
I seem to be able to avoid these issues sometimes by eating a ton throughout the day so that I feel warm and sleepy after dinner, but it seems to be getting harder and harder to get to that point. I seem to be needing more and more food to feel satisfied, but whenever I try to reduce how much I eat, I feel really stressed and unfocused and definitely will wake up after not enough sleep, sometimes after only 4 or 5 hours. It seems to be a vicious cycle that just gets worse and worse whether I eat a surplus or a deficit of calories.
I don't think changing my diet around is going to help enough at this point and would really like to know what the very strongest, but yet still fairly safe, substances/supplements/herbs that could help me stay asleep and improve my insulin resistance/glucose metabolism without making me too much hungrier are.
The two main things I'm considering rn are:
- Berberine - seems incredibly promising given its ability to replicate the effects of metformin on insulin sensitivity and activating ampk without a lot of the side effects. However, I'm not sure it's super peaty as it seems to reduce mitochondrial efficiency and also inhibits lactate dehydrogenase and pyruvate dehydrogenase (which I believe is a bad thing?). On the other hand, I really haven't seen many clear cut ways of losing fat that actually have worked for a lot of people on here, so I really don't know how to improve my sleep and stop gaining weight without resorting to methods that aren't perfectly peaty.
- Pyrucet - this is the more peaty option for sure, though I can't quite figure out if this would actually be good for someone in a pretty unhealthy state like me. I listened to the danny roddy podcast on the bioenergetic view of weight loss and it all sounds great in theory, though I definitely don't understand everything discussed fully. I've seen a lot of talk about reducing FFAs and lipolysis and increasing sugar metabolism for weight loss and reversing insulin resistance, and as far as I can tell, pyrucet should be one of the best ways to do this by far. However, it also seems to increase hunger and sugar needs a lot and I'm not sure if it would be the best option for me given that I'm already struggling with hunger and sugar issues.