Starving hungry if I wake up before 5am

[heyh]

Not really an AIBU but posting for traffic. If I wake up for the day before 5am and don’t get back to sleep, my appetite is absolutely crazy for the rest of the morning and most of the day. I crave everything. Takeaway, roast dinner, bag of crisps, fresh fruit… literally anything you can think of I’m certain I’d devour if it was in the house. I also notice my stomach is always a bit more upset on days where I’ve had a really early start and not got my head back down for even twenty minutes. If I wake up at 5 or later and get up for the day I’m usually okay, and from 6am is definitely fine and I am a normal person with normal eating habits and can happily wait a few hours for a bowl of cereal!

Does anyone else have this or could guess at what causes it?

It may be caused by the Dawn Phenemona. Most people have this to sone degree. But it could also be a sign of pre diabetes. This could be checked with a simple bloodtest of fasting glucose level.
In the meantime take a breakfast with no carbs, so take 2-3 fried eggs in butter with fried bacon or scrambled egg with salmon or just fried eggs/scrambled eggs. The combination of protein and fat will give satiation.

Thank you

I had this for a while so took a plain cracker to bed, and ate it when I woke up.

Yes I've always had this. I don't know why it happens but if I have to get up early I will need to eat the whole day long. When I was younger a bad night gave me horrendous heartburn too but that seems to have faded with age.

My blood sugar is dodgy. It drops like a stone and I often feel properly hypoglycemic by lunchtime. It's a family trait and I'm not diabetic though I'm probably high risk for developing it. I manage it with a very healthy diet and almost no alcohol ever but any break from routine and I will be hungry just as you describe.

Fried breakfast as recommended above works for lots of people and on paper I agree it should be helpful. For me, for some reason it's the worst thing I can eat. I can have twelve hours sleep and a leisurely get up at 8.30 9.00 but if I have a fried breakfast (eg hotel buffet on holiday) it's as if I have had no sleep and chugged a lucozade for breakfast at 3am.

I have this if I haven’t had enough sleep (like properly hours less than I should). Doesn’t have to be a 5 am start or anything crazy like that, but if not enough sleep overall. Unfortunately that’s most days!

I get this if I wake up from a nap. I try not to nap in the day as I wake up ravenous and I don’t understand why.

If you Google it, it's well documented that less sleep messes up your appetite. I can't remember exactly how and why but it's to do with your hormones. If you don't get enough sleep, you don't get enough of a certain hormone, so your body tries to make up for it through food.

Yes your hormones (especially leptin and ghrelin) are affected by no sleep but why exactly that is I don't think is well understood.

Also, knowing your hormones are fucked up because you didn't sleep doesn't help with the question of how to get through the day if you've had no sleep and don't want to have to eat every twenty minutes just to function?

Can you tell I've had a bad night and my brain is destroyed and my blood sugar is yet again buggered?

Apologies, but something about the idea of taking one plain cracker to bed is hilarious to me for some reason!

(But very glad that you found a solution that works for you!!!)

I get this too and it’s a reason I don’t like to get up very early eg for flights. I find the sick feeling usually goes off though and I’m better not eating for a couple of hours…. Not sure why.

Copious amounts of caffeine is my go to 🤣 Although you then end up with the exhausted and wired feeling!

As well as a protein breakfast one thing that helps me is drinking a hot cup of miso soup, Vecon, or Bovril. Its not as thick and calorific as a cup a soup but it seems to trick my brain into thinking I've eaten something. I also keep cubes of frozen cooked veg in the freezer to make them thicker, like cooked and pureed celery, basil, parsley and courgette.

Caffeine and eating is what I do too. But I know it's just storing problems for later. (More likely I won't sleep again plus lots of caffeine makes my blood sugar tank more sharply so it's very much a vicious circle).