I fall to pisses

[Red Finn]

Greetings,

I will try to keep this brief. I am a novice who has been drinking a gallon o’milk for the last three or four weeks, along with an augmented diet. For essentially this entire time, without fail, I have had to get up in the night in order to relieve my bladder. I would like this to cease because I often have trouble falling back asleep, since upon waking my mind starts thinking and worrying about different things, like my career, lifting, girls, and so on. I am concerned that this imposition on the quantity and quality of my sleep will cost me progress over time.

In the beginning I was chugging the last of the milk a few minutes before bed. I’ve since worked to finish the gallon much earlier in the day, lately 3-6 hours before bedtime, but there hasn’t been any improvement. (After finishing the milk I drink almost nothing, probably 250 ml or less, and only a small handful of fruit.)

I researched on the Internet quickly, and the only relevant tidbit I found was that high-protein diets can contribute to nocturia, since apparently the digestion of protein creates nitrogen waste which must be excreted through the bladder. Therefore I decided to eat my normal dinner meal, a hunk of roast beef, much earlier in the day in order to give that a chance to work its way through my system. The last couple days I have eaten the roast beef five-plus hours before bedtime, with basically no protein consumed afterward, but that hasn’t helped either.

Does anyone here have experience solving this problem? As far as I can see, I have three choices:

1) Finish the milk even earlier in the day (though I would worry about dehydration in the second half of the day)
2) Do kegels
3) Tie a knot in it.

Thank you sincerely for your time.

Red

[Paul Horn]

What time do you train? If it's late, that can lead to poor sleep.

Maybe you have a small bladder.

Maybe you need to address the things you are worrying about. I'd say, start with the girl thing. Get one and do stuff with her before you go to bed. You'll sleep quite well.

Is this issue actually affecting your training or are do you just think it will? That could be stressing you out too, "Oh no, I woke up, now my squats are going to suffer. Gotta sleep."

All I can say is that many of us lift in the evenings and cram as much protein in our bodies as we can before hitting the sack. Sometimes we get solid sleep. Sometimes we don't. I doubt the milk is keeping you up. Besides, what do you give a baby when they wake up in the middle of the night? Milk! Knocks 'em out. And, really, we're all just a bunch of big babies.

[Red Finn]

What time do you train? If it's late, that can lead to poor sleep.

I train between eleven o'clock in the morning and two o'clock in the afternoon, so that's unlikely to be the issue.

Maybe you have a small bladder.

How embarrassing!

Maybe you need to address the things you are worrying about. I'd say, start with the girl thing. Get one and do stuff with her before you go to bed. You'll sleep quite well.

This is fair. However, I'm very confident that the principal obstacle to better sleep is the urination issue. If I don't wake up to go to the bathroom, my brain doesn't get a chance to start whirring.

If I wasn't clear, it's really the physiological issue I'm asking about, not the psychological. I don't see how psychological stressors will cause me to get up in the night to go to the bathroom. Prior to downing this much milk I have no track record of having to get up in the night to pee. It just seems odd that when I chug milk in the first half of the day, I'm running to the bathroom quite often, but once I finish the milk I barely urinate in the second half of the day, and yet I have to get up in the night to void my bladder.

Is this issue actually affecting your training or are do you just think it will? That could be stressing you out too, "Oh no, I woke up, now my squats are going to suffer. Gotta sleep."

I have not had a single failure in the program so far, so by that standard there haven't been any consequences. However, the weights continue to get heavier, and I'm not getting the nine or so hours of solid sleep that I have had regularly in the past, so I feel it's a certainty that at this rate, my training will eventually be affected.

I realize that many people here only fantasize about getting nine hours of sleep. I'm not here to bitch about nothing, but I'm quite serious about maximizing results from this program, if that's not clear.

All I can say is that many of us lift in the evenings and cram as much protein in our bodies as we can before hitting the sack. Sometimes we get solid sleep. Sometimes we don't. I doubt the milk is keeping you up. Besides, what do you give a baby when they wake up in the middle of the night? Milk! Knocks 'em out. And, really, we're all just a bunch of big babies.

I see. I will continue to look for solutions. In the worst case, given my body mass it might not be too too long before I begin to reduce milk consumption, so perhaps that will help.

Thanks for your time Mr. Horn.

[Paul Horn]

Why don't you cut the milk and get the calories somewhere else for a week or two. See what happens.

[elVarouza]

Sleep is pretty important but I wouldn't stress about the amount of it too much (to some extent of course). I ran the SS linear progression when I was in college and I probably set about half of my PRs on about 4 hours of sleep. It's pretty amazing what the body is capable of.

[32shutout]

I would kill to only have to get up once during the night...

On a more serious note, this is a very common problem among a certain segment of the population, but I somehow doubt you developed an enlarged prostate in the last month.
I actually spoke to my doctor about this once, and he said there is not really anything you can do (if it's not a medical condition such as a prostate). So you can either cut out the milk or just deal with it.
Make sure your room is very dark so you don't get too stirred up when you get up at night.