How to Avoid Becoming A Puddled Mess of Cookie Dough

I remember when I was younger, the first time I made chocolate chip cookies. I was looking through the cupboard for flour when I came across a bag of a white, powdery substance.

Assuming it was flour, I measured out the needed amount the recipe called for and mixed the dough. Having made cookies before, I knew the dough seemed kind of soft and soupy, but I didn’t think anything of it, formed the dough into balls, and threw them in the oven.

When I pulled the cookies out 11 minutes later, what I discovered weren’t the soft, golden brown circles I was expecting. Instead what I found was a puddled mess.

Not sure what went wrong, I looked through my ingredients and realized my mistake: Instead of adding flour, I instead had used powdered sugar - resulting in a dough with no structure and cookies that looked like soup.

There are a lot of different ways to make cookies, but one ingredient that’s required is some kind of flour. Flour provides structure. It’s the foundation.

Sleep is the flour of our fitness program.

Ignoring sleep while training hard and counting your macros is like baking chocolate chip cookies without any flour - the end result is going to be a puddled mess.

In my last post, we talked about the impact your sleep has on your health, body, mind, and subsequently, your results.

(If you missed that one, you need to check that out here first).

In short, we discovered that not getting enough sleep is no bueno. Or, as I learned in my Swedish lessons, inte bra.

Clearly, quality sleep should be a top priority - not just for improving body composition, but for living a long, healthy life as well.

But how do you know if you’re struggling with sleep, and what do you need to do to fix it?

First, let’s quickly identify how to identify inadequate sleep. If you...

• Get less than 6 hours per night
• Wake up multiple times per night (No, getting up to use the bathroom is not normal - it means you’re not getting into deep sleep)
• Struggle to get up in the morning or don’t feel rested
• Feel groggy, tired, or foggy during the day
• Can’t get pumps while training
• See a drop in training performance
• Experience abnormally high levels of hunger throughout the day

...then there’s a good chance you aren’t getting the high quality sleep you need.

So what do we need to do to help correct it?

While everyone is going to be different (this is where having a coach to advise you becomes invaluable) here are some of the basic - but powerful - steps I use myself, and with clients, to help get the most out of each night of sleep…

1. First, ensure you’re giving yourself enough time to get the sleep you need. This means, if you have to get up by 5 am to go to the gym or go to work, that it’s lights out by 9-10 pm so you’re giving yourself enough hours. Remember, that 7-9 hour range is considered the most optimal because it allows you to rotate through enough sleep cycles to fully restore your body and mind.

2. The hands-down, best thing you can do for improving sleep consistency and quality is to maintain the same sleep and wake time every single day.

Our bodies are designed to wake and sleep with the rise and fall of the sun - our natural circadian rhythms. Mimicking these natural rhythms is one of the most important things you can do for better sleep, so aim to be in bed, and wake up at the same time every day (within an hour) - no matter what you have going on.

That means no sleeping in on the weekends to ‘catch up on sleep’. Your body doesn’t bank sleep. Once it’s gone, it’s gone - and sleeping in will just make it more difficult to keep your body in that natural rhythm.

3. Eliminate all electronics at least 1 hour before bed (preferably 2 hours).

Our TVs, computers, phones, etc emit tons of blue light. Research has shown that blue light suppresses the production of melatonin, which in turn makes it more and more difficult to fall asleep.

The absolute best thing you can do is shut your electronics off a few hours before bed. But if you do choose to indulge in some TV or perusing social media later at night I recommend the use of blue light blocking glasses like these. While not the same as completely eliminating the use of blue light, these glasses will help filter out most of the melatonin-inhibiting light waves.

4. One thing you want to avoid if at all possible is training right before bed. Training increases the production of cortisol which interferes with melatonin production and elevates your heart rate, which makes getting into a parasympathetic, rest-and-relax state, much more difficult.

5. Another thing you want to avoid is eating right before bed. While this may not impair sleep like training or blue light will, an active digestive system can inhibit sleep for some people.

Ideally, it’s best to be done training and eating about 2 hours prior to sleep.

6. One of the biggest reasons people have difficulty falling asleep is due to an overactive sympathetic nervous system. Which is understandable. There is a lot going on during the day that contributes to the increased production of stress hormones; which means higher levels of stress when we don’t want it.

The best thing you can do at the end of the day is find non-stimulating ways to wind down; such as deep breathing right before bed, reading, meditating, and even sex (sex is stimulating, but it also promotes the release of calming, relaxing hormones as well).

7. Control your sleep environment. The most natural sleep environment for our bodies is a cool, dark room. Even if your eyes are closed they can still detect changes in light, which can affect melatonin levels and make getting into deep sleep much more challenging.

Temperature also affects how we sleep. Our bodies generally prefer cooler temps during sleep, so making sure your room is not too hot will also help.

These are the most basic - but effective - steps you can take to improving your sleep. Some people may require additional steps, like getting a sleep test done to identify any deeper issues, making changes to their diet, or specific supplementation. Again, this is where having a coach to help identify your specific issues is invaluable.

For most people, however, those advanced steps aren’t necessary right away. Because most people aren’t taking the basic, bare minimum steps they could be to improve their sleep in the first place.

But, that’s no longer an excuse for you. You read last week’s email, so you now know why sleep is so important.

You read this article, and have the steps on how to improve your sleep, and thus, your results.

Now, it’s time to put those steps into action. 95% of people pay little-to-no attention to their sleep. And as a result, their progress, health, energy, training performance, and body composition suffer.

Don’t let yourself be one of them.

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