Is It Really 80/20 Diet & Exercise? What About Sleep Quality?

Where does sleep quality factor in? To impact your overall state of wellness, the general rule is that you need to focus 80% on your nutrition and 20% on physical activity. This is a rule that has been spoken about in the fitness industry for decades. As I lean more into wellness, the more I question the value of sleep. The 80/20 diet rule can mean two things: 80% nutrition and 20% physical activity. It can also mean 80% nutrient-dense foods and 20% treats and indulgences. For the sake of this post, I’m going to talk about the former.

What I Learnt About Sleep, Diet and Exercise

At the beginning of my journey, I put a lot of focus on the physical activity. For me that was lifting with doing HIIT occasionally. Three years later, I discovered the importance of nutrition for my physical results. I wish I had known about it before as I wouldn’t have spent those years in trial and error. That’s the beauty about fitness. You will always learn from your mistakes and reap in the fruits of your labour in the future. For a couple of years, putting emphasis on those two aspects was working for me. Then I got into powerlifting, which continuously teaches me new things every year.

When I started working with my coach for my first powerlifting meet, there were new things that I had to track. Two of these things were my willingness to train each day on a scale from one to ten. The other was the number of hours I slept per night. Prior to that, I had never paid attention to my sleep quality and quantity. To this day, I believe that making that small yet effective change is what got me into my best shape in my late 20s. It has also proven to me that sleep combined with 80/20 diet and exercise rule is one of the most underrated tools in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. In sum, it is and will continuously contribute into keeping me stronger, fitter and agile as I age.

What Is The 80/20 Diet & Exercise Rule?

The 80/20 diet and exercise rule is a flexible approach to introduce beginners into building a balanced and sustainable lifestyle. It encourages you to be consistent with your healthy habits while giving you space to enjoy less healthier options without guilt. In the case of diet (80%), most of the foods that you choose to eat should be whole foods. While the other 20% should be for treats and indulgences. For example, the festive season like Christmas and Thanksgiving (for my US and Canadian readers).

In the case of exercise (20%), the physical activity that you choose should be something that you enjoy and can do consistently. Consistency looks different for everyone. It can be five days a week in the gym for one person. For another person, it can be two days in gym and one day swimming. Again, the flexibility approach is woven into this rule. No one expects anyone to be perfect with this approach because it is flexible to your lifestyle.

How Does 80/20 Impact Sleep Quality?

Let’s say that a person maintains a healthy lifestyle, they train consistently, eat well and prioritise rest and recovery. However, they train late in the day. Consequently, they eat their meals late in the day and go straight to bed. This pattern of eating late and training late can affect how much sleep they are getting and its quality.

I don’t like to place too much importance on meal timing but eating late in the day can impact sleep quality. Food needs time to digest. Digestion can affect your hormones and metabolic activation. Acid reflux, heartburn, stomach pains etc. are consequences of eating heavier meals too late in the evenings. When you eat late at night, it can make it harder for you to fall asleep because it disrupts your internal body clock.

When I used to train late in the evening around 8pm, I wasn’t getting into bed until 11pm to 11:30pm most nights. Then I was getting up around 6am to get ready for work. I would end my days feeling fatigued and my energy levels were low. For me, the gym was important so I would push myself to go after work and the cycle continued. Once my performance in and out of the gym started to wane, I had to make a change. That change was to train in the mornings before work, sacrifice part of my evenings to get 7 hours of sleep per night.

Fast forward to today, my performance in and out of the gym is so much better. I am getting enough sleep because I track it with my FitBit. I start each day with a win. I’m able to make sound decisions when it comes to my diet and exercise.

How Does Better Sleep Improve Your 80/20 Diet?

Better sleep improves the entire 80/20 diet and exercise rule by supporting healthy eating decisions and regulating your hormones. When you get enough sleep, your brain can make better and sound choices. You feel less hungry and are more satisfied after your meals. You are less likely to crave sugary and fatty foods. The energy to perform in and out of the gym is much higher than if you are lacking sleep.

Think back to the last week or so when all things were at a balance. I’m pretty sure that your energy in the gym was good because you slept well and you were eating well. These three factors balance each other out. If one falls, the others will fall too. In short, sleep is such an underrated tool that has one of the biggest impacts to seeing progress in your fitness goals.

How Does Sleep Quality Improve Your Fitness Goals?

You would think that sleep quality and quantity would be synonymous and I thought that for a very long time. Once I started studying more about sleep, recovery and stress management that I realised that they were two separate things. Sleep quality is sleeping continuous hours of uninterrupted and adequate sleep each night. Whereas, sleep quantity focuses on how many hours of sleep you get per night. Let’s say that you slept 6.5 hours last night but you were waking up every hour. The reason was due to the room being too hot and it was uncomfortable. The sleep tracker in your wellness watch may highlight that your quantity of sleep was fair but quality was bad due to the interruptions.

It’s those interruptions that can have affect on your overall fitness goals. Higher sleep quality strengthens your immune system and repairs and restores muscle tissue. In terms of mental wellness, it enhances your mood, improves emotional resilience and makes you feel more alert when waking up. If you want tips to improve your sleep quality, check out this post.

Is The 80/20 Diet & Exercise Rule Outdated?

Where does sleep quality factor in? That has been the question circling my mind for the past few years. I know and agree that the 80/20 diet and exercise rule has its place in fitness. Moreover, it has a significant impact on seeing progress in the gym, but is this rule outdated?

We cannot reduce the impact that sleep quality has on diet and exercise. It is the branch that links these two factors together. If your sleep quality is poor, you won’t be able to progress as well in the gym. As a consequence, your diet will be affected. Likewise you are probably going to make poor food choices, if your quality and quantity of sleep isn’t good. As a domino effect, your performance in the gym and your overall energy will suffer.

Now I don’t know if changing the split to 70/20/10 is better. Or if this new split highlights the importance of sleep enough. Is 10% enough for sleep? Or is a 60/20/20 split better? Maybe this shows that it has an equal amount of importance when it comes to wellness.

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I think that is something that each of us has to decide for ourselves. What split would you choose for yourself? Is it something that I have mentioned already or is different? Let me know in the comments and tell me why. Make sure to hit that subscribe button to join the community and never miss out on a post. Find me on Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok for more powerlifting and wellness content.

Until next time,

Folakemi