To look at him, you'd never know that my husband frequently binge eats.
Before his diagnosis, I just couldn't figure it out. If there was any kind of sweet or junk food in the house, it disappeared overnight. Cookies, doughnuts, chips, pie... the only evidence that there had even been a snack of some kind would be smears of icing or trails of crumbs. It drove me nuts! When questioned, my husband would admit - with embarrassment - that he had eaten all of the sweets, typically at 3 in the morning.
Most recently, he devoured an apple pie overnight. The next week, he demolished the cake I had just baked that day. Finally, I thought... What's the deal?!
In reading a diet/health book a few years ago, I first learned the word ghrelin. In brief - ghrelin stimulates appetite. It's the little beast that growls and complains until we feed it. Unfortunately, when you don't get enough sleep, ghrelin is kicked into overdrive, making you feel even hungrier than normal. This is partly why doctors strongly advise getting more sleep when one is trying to lose weight.
When I did a little research and put two and two together... bingo! Well no wonder my husband pigs out in the wee hours of the morning - his sleep-deprived brain is telling him to! Crazy, right? It made total sense, though. It also made me wonder just how many narcoleptics overeat or constantly crave carbs and sugar... So now I know that something needs to be added to our action plan. Sure, I can keep junk food in the house for him, but what about his arteries? Skin? Cavities?
Maybe we can keep a treadmill and Listerine next to the Poptarts.