Cheesecake to help you sleep at night? Give me a break.
I don’t have the answer, it’s truly my question. I was reading through the January/February 2008 edition of Health Magazine (which I just received in the mail yesterday). Information on sleep, health and stress has been crossing my path a lot in the last few weeks, so when I stumbled upon an article in the magazine on the importance of sleep in relation to your health, I was intrigued. (I will be blogging about sleep in the next few days, stay tuned!).
Overall the article had some useful information. What really caused a stir in me was the “Eat to Sleep” tip they provided. After pages and pages of information about “blasting belly fat” and “5 steps to boost your metabolism” I was somewhat surprised at the tip provided by the writers on how to get better sleep. And I quote:
“Do eat a pre-slumber snack (approximately 1 hour prior to bedtime) that has a mix of carbs and protein. Try a small bowl of cereal or a thin slice of plain cheesecake.”
Cheesecake? Are you kidding me? I looked up a variety of cheesecake recipes and while there are some low-fat ones out there (who wants low-fat cheesecake, really? If you’re going to have cheesecake, have cheesecake!) the traditional ones have lots of cream cheese, sour cream, sugar and butter in the graham cracker crust.
So I ask you Health Magazine, is eating cheesecake an hour before bed-time a good way to blast belly-fat?
Last time I checked, Cheesecake would not help my belly fat.
No wonder why there is an obesity problem in this country. We don’t lack information, we simply have too much (conflicting) information . The very magazines showing pictures of super skinny models are also telling us to eat cheesecake to help us sleep. Mixed messages along with an overload of information is overwhelming. And if you’re anything like me when you’re overwhelmed (ie, stressed), you can’t act.
And I guess that just led me to reason #10 of why you won’t stick to an exercise program…and another blog post.
What are your thoughts? Have you ever tried cheesecake as a sleep aid? If I’m missing some information here, please let me know!
I completely agree about the glut of conflicting information and attitudes that are so prominent. I recently saw some family or parenting magazine (I wish I could remember which one) with a giant picture of delicious-looking dog shaped cupcakes and a huge heading that said something like “Lose 10 pounds in two weeks!” If that’s not conflict, I don’t know what is.