Gained 60 Pounds While Sleeping

Gained 60 Pounds While Sleeping

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

filed under: health logic

Imagine you get up while you're sleeping, throw coffee grinds and cat litter in a blender, and "drink" it while still snoozing. It's called sleep eating, and it took one woman gaining 60 pounds before she realized she had a problem.

Last night on Primetime Live, they investigated this relatively unknown disorder--you won't believe the video.

Sleep eating is characterized by sleepwalking and excessive overeating. Besides the weight effects, it can be a dangerous issue as people are at risk for self-injury: they may choke while eating or get injured using knives, utensils or hot cooking surfaces. Sleep eaters will roam the house, particularly the kitchen, and eat large quanties of food--and non-food items. In the morning, they will have zero recollection of the episode, their only evidence being trash around their bed. One woman was shocked when she watched video of herself through the night, and had no idea just how severe her problem was. Sleep eating has also been a reported side effect of the popular sleeping aid Ambien--said to occur because "the reason and judgement part of the brain shuts down."

6 comments so far | Post a comment now >>

Scary!!

- Allison

Posted 08/21/08 10:42 PM

The past 2 weeks I have been doing this only not as extreme. I’m thin now, and worried about gaining weight from this. I also take Ambien!!!!

- Dawn

Posted 08/22/08 12:03 PM

I used to sleep walk when i was 7 or 8, sometimes i would go to sleep in my bed and find myself on the couch, it was very freaky.

- Anna

Posted 08/23/08 01:41 AM

This one time when I was little I was sleep walking when I went poop in the bathtub cause I thought it was the toilet and when the turd was discovered the next morning, my sister snitched me out, so I blamed it on the dog, there was another time I fell asleep while watching t.v and my mom told me to go to bed, so I got up and started to walk out the front door when my mom said “your going the wrong way come over here and give me a kiss good night” and I walked over to the t.v and gave it a big ol kiss and went to bed. That was funny then but now I find myself getting up in the middle of the night looking for something sweet to eat and the bad thing about it is, it happens to my mom, sister, grandmother (who died from diabetes) and my dad, it’s weird because it’s two different sides of the family and diabetes runs in my family so thats like two double whammys there, sleepwalking and eating and diabetes, DANG! I dont think I be living to see the old and crusty age!!

- Carrie

Posted 08/24/08 07:45 PM

This reminds me of something that happened during my childhood. When I was 8 I thought I was sleep eating. I kept waking up and I was sleeping on the sofa and there were several boxes worth of empty hoho and twinkie wrappers around me and tossed behind the couch. Mom would always yell at me for being a ‘pig’ and overeating and I had no clue as to why it happened. The food belonged to her roommate and she would also lecture me. I honestly didn’t remember a thing and belived that I was actually eating the food. Then, many years later I found out it was her roommate moving me in the middle of the night. She was bulimic and would binge and purge and set me up as the one doing the eating. Disgusting.

- Gwendolyn

Posted 09/04/08 02:35 PM

I’ve gone pee in the toilet my sleep before. I’ve only made one mistake that I know of. I went in a pile of laundry, then later the next morning I realized what I did and didn’t remember it at all. Once I was with my grandparents in their motorhome. During the night I apparently was pacing back and forth and my grandma asked me if I needed to use the bathroom and I said “you do it Grandma”. And the next morning I didn’t remember it at all. So I know what it can be like to not know what somebody is doing in thier sleep.

- Joel

Posted 06/19/09 04:16 AM