Hungry? Sleepy?

[soserious]

Hey, I think I know the answer but I`m unsure.
So, a lot of times I cant sleep- I`m lying in bed or on my futon or wherever and I`m awake the whole night (yeah, everone knows I got chronic Insomnia already) but it`s not that, I just wonder if I`m being silly with myself sometimes;
sometimes go something like this-

awake, but so very tired, unable to fall asleep, then I think, actually LISTEN (I rarely listen) to my body and hear what it`s telling me- it tells me "I`m freakin starvin here! feed me quick!" Sometimes when I have the food and the wearwithall to feed myself something quick and acceptable I find that I start to fall asleep and I do sleep.
Sometimes I buy a bunch of shopping and eat sugary stuff, some micro ready meals and a bunch of other food healthy and not so healthy, and for a few days I eat and I eat at night before bed and I lay down satiated- no hunger, and I generally drop off to sleep.
Huh.

Often times I`m physiclly or mentally riled up and cant sleep, but atleast 1/3 of the time I`d say it was hunger. So my question is to you- What do you do whn you`re hungry and trying to sleep? If you simply try to ignore it how successful are you? Sometimes I eat a banana or two but that often backfires (it`s kind of sugary and not satisfying like say a cottage pie or lasagne might be, e.g a hot square meal)

I`m going food shopping today (even though I got £3 in my account :lol: I`ll figure something out) and I intend to buy some healthy and not so healthy food, with the intention of NOT being hungry before bed.
Here I am awake and fatigued all night, chest pains and off schedule because I am so hungry.
My cupboards aren`t totally bare, at all. But the time and effort to prepare a square meal is an hour or more, so is it ok to buy and use ready meals in these instances?
(I want to know how YOU deal with the same situation, thats all)

I understand that its fine to make meals and then freeze them and reheat them in the microwave for quick meals, I`ve just never really trid it (I froze some vegetables I put together though. In a big pirex bowl) What would y`all use as containers? I prefer not to use plastic if possible.

Tonight was my own fault, I undereat mostly anyway, even when I put on fat. It`s O.K, I understand what goes wrong in these situations and am adult enough to accept and try to correct this. I am just curious about other peoples experiences with such things (I was even asking family what a typical breakfast/ lunch and dinner might be for them) I feel I need to re-educate myself on proper sensible meal timings and selection and preparing.

I was supposed to call my recruiter todaya nd book a BARB test, maybe for tomorrow, but I dont want to risk turning up stupid from tiredness and hunger- I need a very good score and those questions are so easy that they`re hard.
It`s cool, I`ll overcome, wether I ultimatley make it in to the military or not.

Man, I was watching the DVD for the armya nd it was showing Logistics/Chef- I saw someone dish up a big portion of some kind of mash potatoe with cheese and a meat filling or something, DAMN it looked good.

SS :mrgreen

p.s, I`m writing my list now, anyone got any sensible suggestions?

[Officespace2801]

Well, I find eating a hardy sandwich about an hour before bed helps put me to sleep the most. It can be deli meat or grilled chicken breast (my preference) or whatever, but I find eating it on a whole wheat bun will really fill you up and make you feel tired.

For your sleeping problem in general, I'd suggest two things.
1) No pop (soda for everyone else in the world) after say 7pm, unless there's a pre-planned reason you'd have to. Well, cutting out pop all together is probably a good idea, but this is a good start.

2) No TV/computer for one hour before bed. The bright lights stimulate your body, convincing you it's daytime and that you ought to be awake. Read a book/newspaper, do some cleaning, whatever...just turn off the TV.

[soserious]

I dont drink pop, or teas or coffees or alcohol.
Actually I tried that sandwich/bun thing- tasted GREAT especially with fresh tomatoe and cucumber, but I kept waking up with hunger (it wasn`t satiating for me- I have a fussy gut or something, a lot of foods are as if I`m eating sugar, including all breads, milk, cereals, cottage cheese, yoghurts, fruits,- the list goes on. ) Hence the craving for a square meal- especially with meat and potatoe/mashed or otherwise.

I`m more curious about what other people do though, as opposed to their advice to me. I`m grateful, I just dont want to alter the initial information from it`s purest form. Except I hear that one can`t observe without changing in some way that which they observe.

[MagnumXL]

Have you tried those already made for oven pizzas? Those things fill you up and they have deals on them like 3 for $5 USD. They arent the healthiest things in the world but they will definitely fill you up for the night.

[soserious]

Yeah, I actually got 4 today.

[zeolite]

I know you've already mentioned milk ss, but I try to drink 6 pints per day. That'll give you 2000 calories. There's loads of info about it on bodybuilding.com. They reckon that ideally your diet should be 50% carbs, 30% protein and 20% (polyunsaturated) fat. This is almost exactly what milk. Also according to bb.com, milk contains some chemical that means that it is digested slowly by the body so if you drink some before you go to bed then it will keep your stomach happy than most other food/drinks would.

Officespace, I find the exact opposite with fizzy drinks. They make your stomach feel full before you go to bed. I personally don't find that the sugar keeps me up much and the feeling of a good night's sleep is often better than the feeling of having lots to eat.

Recently I've been eating a lot of boiled rice (on its own) before bed. That might sound a bit strange, but it's the easiest thing to prepare, with lots of salt it tastes great and it's good for you (except all that salt maybe). Baked beans are good aswell. Beans on toast is a good way to fill that takes minimal preparation.

So basically ss, what I personally do is have lots of basic food. I drink LOTS of milk and have lots of beans and rice and I feel really healthy at the moment too :D

[MagnumXL]

chemical that means that it is digested slowly by the body so if you drink some before you go to bed then it will keep your stomach happy than most other food/drinks would.



Yeah its the protein thats inside of milk. Casinate protein (I cant remember the typing, I got a bin of it next to me from when I used to lift a lot) Its slower digesting so it releases amino acids throughout a couple hour period. I dont know if I personally recommend just drinking milk. Do you eat other shit or do you just drink milk?

[zeolite]

Aswell as the milk I try to have at least 1 (usually 2) proper meals every day. I don't really eat any other snacks.