Exercise vs. Sleep - A Shifting Opinion

When my younger brothers were kids, they used to debate which Japanese low-budget movie monster would win in a face-to-face smack down between Godzilla versus Megalon. Now I could care less whether the huge land lizard (Godzilla) or the undersea creature (Megalon) won the battle for world domination…and have to admit that I’m scaring myself a little with the strong recall of details. The point is that some debates continue for decades, just like the conundrum of exercise versus sleep.

For years after losing weight, the morning exercise session won hands down. It was part of my original blueprint for becoming healthier. Didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to realize that going to the gym before work minimized my chances of skipping exercise. It took about a month for me to “retrain” myself to get out of bed when the alarm sounded. At first, I was angry to see any number starting with five on the alarm display. But strategically placing most unattractive photo ever taken of me next to the snooze button would prevent me from rolling over and going back to sleep. Packing my gym bag and outfit for work the night before also helped.

Sure, I was skimping on sleep several nights a week as a consequence. I averaged six hours or so for a while, occasionally vacillating back and forth between the heaven of seven hours and the tired haze of five hours of slumber too. That routine worked beautifully for many years, through married life and the past post-divorce decade. But when I hit my early 40’s, something changed. All of those years caught up with me hard. Some mornings I just couldn’t get out of bed at all, or had to drastically shorten my exercise time. Started shifting to night workouts once a week just to catch up on my rest. I resented the change in my body clock something fierce. That is, until I started doing research for my book - and learned that sleep was just as important for your wellness as working out or good nutrition.

Let’s throw some statistics in here to make it official. In May 2009, a new study conducted with nurses at Walter Reed Army Medical Center found a link between sleep and weight. http://tinyurl.com/yzqpma2 Participants who got less than six hours of sleep per night had an average higher body mass index than longer sleepers. Here’s another one just released this August, where findings indicate that not enough sleep can contribute to weight gain - http://tinyurl.com/ylbv2dp.

I know this news isn’t surprising to some people. One of the women I interviewed for the book, Stacey Grieve of Toronto, credits improving her sleep quality as one of the contributing factors in maintaining a 135 pound weight loss for more than seven years. But it was revolutionary for me. Take this morning, when the alarm clock blared at about 5:30a. It was raining hard in Atlanta – not the Noah’s Ark quality that produced the floods several weeks ago, but still enough to make my warm bed even more comfortable. My body was still worn out from traveling to San Diego last week and a very social weekend. I reset the alarm for another hour of slumber and hit the office early instead. While my gym bag sits cautiously optimistic in the backseat of my car, it’s okay if I end up not going tonight. Will just eat a little healthier and go gangbusters tomorrow way before the crack of dawn instead. How about you - who usually wins the smack down between sleep and exercise?