Sleeping off the kilos

Reporter: Adene Cassidy
Broadcast Date: October 04, 2005

The Doona Diet is a new eating plan aimed at losing weight through better sleeping patterns. The idea is that sleep makes the metabolism more efficient.

A breast cancer scare and motherhood saw Robyn Rowland-Wyld's weight balloon from a size 10 to a size 18. Desperate to reclaim her body shape, she turned to a book called The Doona Diet, the first publication to examine how destructive poor sleep can be to your waistline.

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"I'm a fairly confident person, but it's actually given me the confidence of the body shape again," Robyn said. "Now I know I've actually helped other mothers that are over weight [because] they're keen, they've seen it and they want this diet".

Dr Claire Collins developed the Doona Diet eating plan which aimed to guide poor sleepers to a good night's rest. It was formed around the notion that once people sleep well, their metabolism will perform more efficiently making it easier to lose weight.

"It's called the 'Doona Diet' because we've actually recognised that you need to eat better to sleep better," Dr Collins said. "And if you sleep better, you'll live better".

Dr Collins said it was recognised that to help people get healthy and to achieve a healthy weight, as well as reducing their risk of diabetes and long term health complications, sleep has to be part of the equation.

She said poor sleep affected weight in a variety of ways. Firstly, people who were awake for longer hours tended to eat more food, particularly at night. Bad sleep also altered sleep hormones, upsetting glucose and insulin regulation which could cause weight gain. People not sleeping well also tended to take less care with their food and were less likely to do exercise.

"People are generally sleeping less, and more people are in jobs where they may be shift workers or working altered hours," Dr Collins said.

"Children in particular are sleeping one to two hours less per day, so what this means is there are a lot of people out there whose metabolisms are being upset by poor sleep routines."

As Ray Kesich discovered, too much sleep was also a problem. He worked as a nightclub bouncer, which often meant he would overcompensate on sleep during the day.

"I wanted to lose the weight, I didn't want to sleep as much, I wanted a bit more activities in my lifestyle rather than spending the whole day sleeping," he said.

"What's worked for me is I've used an alarm clock so that I get in between six and eight hours sleep and try and get up at the same time each day," Kesich said. "Therefore I'm not oversleeping and I've got more time to go out and to do some training and exercise".

This combination of less sleep, more exercise and the Doona Diet has seen Ray lose about 8kg in six weeks.

"It's not just a particular person with one particular lifestyle, it can actually suit everyone, whether you're a housewife, [or] a bouncer like in my case".

The authors promised the Doona Diet was easy to follow and aimed to help people lose half to one kilo per week. It allowed for about 6,500 kilojoules per day with the option of adding in snacks. To be effective, it recommended adults get six to eight hours' sleep per night.

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Bad eating habits sent public relations consultant Susan Conelly's weight skyrocketing. But she claimed to have lost 6kg using the Doona Diet, losing 19cm from her waist and dropping two dress sizes, all because she was having better quality sleep.

"I've been dieting since I was 12, I've tired all the diets there are and I have lost weight and I've been successful," Conelly said.
"But the thing about the Doona Diet, the component I'd never considered before was sleep".

''The Doona Diet'' by Jane Worthington, Adam Fletcher and Clare Collins is in stores now, $19.95 RRP. Published by Penguin. ISBN 0143004247.

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