The Sleep Factor

After my run on Friday night, I stepped onto the scales on Saturday with less excitement than before, as my last post-run weigh was somewhat less than inspiring.

Imagine my shock when the scales showed a loss of 4 lbs!

I was delighted, but obviously slightly skeptical. One the one hand, I wondered if my weight had finally accounted for the Tuesday run too, and what I was seeing was a genuine loss for the week.

On the other hand, I know that my Saturday weigh-ins are prone to a little something I call The Sleep Factor.

After my Friday night run, I usually head straight to bed, and for the first time in the week, I don't set an alarm. This means I usually get a decent amount of kip, and almost without fail, my weigh-in on Saturday morning will be a good one.

But the following day, the loss usually disappears. True enough, when I weighed in this morning, I had gained 3 lbs - still a loss over the two day period, but a marked reduction!

I'm fairly sure that this is simply a case of dehydration. After getting about 6 hours sleep a night during the week, suddenly I wake up after 9-10 hours (sometimes even 12...give me a break, I'm a student!), and that's got to be a big part of it.

Anyway, I've been good with my calories again today (feeling quite peckish now to be honest, but I've had my calories for the day, so suck it up!), and I'm going to go for another run in an hour or so, so fingers crossed I make my target weight loss for the week tomorrow morning!