Waking Up in the Middle of the Night

Right so I have been training fairly hard (read 4-6 times a week) for the last 6 months or so. Have lost about 9kgs in BF in the first six weeks and then had to rehab my shoulder and stuff so couldn’t continue on a calorie deficit. Now that the holidays are over I am doing some higher volume work and HIIT sessions to try and burn some more of the holiday/uni/beer weight off. I am progressing fairly well, however I find that days when I train hard I have to get up 2 or 3 times in the night to pee.

I don’t feel like I drink an excessive amount of water/fluids.

I don’t have any major health issues.

Currently at 140kgs and 35% BF (too high I know, I’m working on it, not sure how much faith I put in my scales either as I always wake up with dry skin so probably makes them less accurate) and I’m 6’4".

I’m wondering whether it might be something to do with my metabolism burning fat (lipolysis → water) or something else.

Anyone else had this?

Are you diabetic? Are you taking any fat burners that contains diuretics? Do you drink alcohol after dinner or before bed? Lots of fluids before bed? Urine color? Burning during urination? Whats your fluid intake on a daily basis?

I don’t sleep well if I push it in the gym especially when I squat and deadlift. It’s usually the day after actually. I assume because of DOMS. Z12 has helped me as well as no caffeine after noon. I train around 5:30 PM and am about 93kg @ 5’9" for what it’s worth.

You could try AM training if you usually train at night. You might just be too hyped up to sleep soundly.

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
I don’t sleep well if I push it in the gym especially when I squat and deadlift. It’s usually the day after actually. I assume because of DOMS. Z12 has helped me as well as no caffeine after noon. I train around 5:30 PM and am about 93kg @ 5’9" for what it’s worth.

You could try AM training if you usually train at night. You might just be too hyped up to sleep soundly. [/quote]

I feel like you didn’t read the OP, just the title. He’s talking about having to pee at night.

Yes, I experience the same thing whenever I cut a substantial amount of weight. With an enhanced metabolism your body produces an increased amount of waste in the form of water from cells, urea from protein digestion and ketones from burning fat as energy. This waste has the effect of increasing the amount of urine you expel when dieting.

[quote]jskrabac wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
I don’t sleep well if I push it in the gym especially when I squat and deadlift. It’s usually the day after actually. I assume because of DOMS. Z12 has helped me as well as no caffeine after noon. I train around 5:30 PM and am about 93kg @ 5’9" for what it’s worth.

You could try AM training if you usually train at night. You might just be too hyped up to sleep soundly. [/quote]

I feel like you didn’t read the OP, just the title. He’s talking about having to pee at night. [/quote]

Oh shit, my bad…

Certain foods, such as asparagus and green peppers are natural diuretics. If you’ve been loading up on vegetables as part of your dieting strategy, this could play a role.

Cable tie zipped up tight around the old fella just before bed and you’ll be right. Takes about a week to get used to it and ignore the need to pee.

[quote]jskrabac wrote:
Yes, I experience the same thing whenever I cut a substantial amount of weight. With an enhanced metabolism your body produces an increased amount of waste in the form of water from cells, urea from protein digestion and ketones from burning fat as energy. This waste has the effect of increasing the amount of urine you expel when dieting.[/quote]

Thanks for this, I assumed it might be something along these lines. Fat burning (hopefully) and increased protein etc is likely to be causing most of the issues. Before I started training this often/hard I doubt my protein levels were as high as they are now and my carbs were definitely too high.

Best thing to do is get rid of as much of it asap and then get back to sleeping better.

I do find that sleep quality is affected though and it might be worthwhile training in the morning (I am just not a morning person though).

Up at 7:30 at work for 9:00 and then in the gym for about 18:15 ish. Train till about 19:45 roughly and then walk home for about 20:30 dinner and then bed about 22:30 0r 23:00. I personally don’t think that is enough time between eating and sleeping, which might also be having an effect on the frequency of the nighttime peeing trips.

To answer the thermogenic question I take MyProtein thermo extreme (usually one or two before training at about 18:00). While this might be a little late it doesn’t seem to make me less tired later on.

[quote]johned87 wrote:
I take MyProtein thermo extreme (usually one or two before training at about 18:00). While this might be a little late it doesn’t seem to make me less tired later on.[/quote]

This might have been relevant in your OP. This contains caffeine and bladderwrack, a.k.a. diuretics.

Stop taking MyProtein thermo extreme, see what happens.

OK so I stopped taking the thermo-extreme for about a week and while it might have made a slight difference, I think it is now likely to the programming as well as low carb/high protein diet at the moment.

I’m guessing that while I’m concentrating on losing BF by cutting carbs and keeping protein high I will just have to live with it.

I can’t rearrange the times that I train so that’s just the way it’s going to be for a while.

Cheers for the advice, I’ll just have to kick the ass off this diet and programming until my BF is down to a reasonable level and then reassess things from there.