The Amazing Shrinking Woman

I don’t know about you but by Thursday I am usually ready to crash. Like most people I don’t get a proper nights sleep on weeknights; if I can get to sleep I usually end up in bed late and then I have to get up early for work – aaaah, the wonders of our society. Wouldn’t it be great if you could just go to bed when you want and get up when you want and show up at work at a good time for you without the very high probability you’ll be fired? But since this will never happen I guess I will continue to work within the confines of the rules.  🙂

Not all healthy eating plans talk about sleep, some programs just assume you know how much sleep to get or maybe they just don’t think of it as a topic that should be brought up. shrug. Who knows. All I know is there are conflicting rules about sleep, just like with water. As with the water rule stating 6 to 8 glasses a day there are many reports that say you need 6 to 8 hours of sleep…it’s like a conspiracy, lol, what’s with these numbers? Who says we all need 6 to 8 hours anyways? Who are the elusive “they” we always quote? I know that if left to my own devices I can sleep way longer then 8 hours and be quite happy about it. 🙂 Sleep is easily one of my favourite activities, I think it ties in to my laziness. lol.

So, if I can sleep for 10 hours every night and feel good but feel sleep deprived on 8 hours wouldn’t the 6 to 8 hour rule be wrong for me? I don’t know, and since I am not a sleep doctor I don’t have an answer and am not going to go do a bunch of research to find the answer. I do know that by thursday evenings I am ready to drop and always end up going to bed earlier then normal happily savouring the experience of being cozy in my bed.

I know that not getting enough sleep can hamper your weight loss attempts; our bodies produce the hormone Leptin while we sleep. Leptin is the hormone that tells us when are full – it signals the brain to release hormones that suppress hunger. If you don’t get enough sleep other ways you can get Liptin in to your body is by eating fatty fish like salmon, mackerel or sardines – it’s ironic isn’t it that to help keep your weight down you eat fatty fish? lol. Did you also know that sleeping too much can hamper your weight loss attempts? This I didn’t know, I only started hearing it recently. Apparently sleeping too much messes up your hormones and you retain weight, what’s with that? Sleep too little don’t lose weight, sleep too much don’t lose weight. It seems we are all walking a fine line between too little and too much and I doubt most people are able to find that middle. So maybe that 6 to 8 hours is a good guide, like the water, a strong recommendation that you have to tweak to suit your body and lifestyle. I am learning that no matter what plan you are on to try to lose weight it will have to be tweaked to suit your body and your needs. Not everyone needs 8 glasses of water and not everyone will need 8 hours of sleep – some will work better on more, some on less, it’s all a matter of trying things out till you find what makes your body work it’s best.

Now, on to a little confession, I totally forgot to eat the rest of my points last night! Ack! So, I cheated, kinda, but in the reverse way I thought I would. lol. Who’d of thought the first time I cheat in this plan it’s by not eating enough?? I meant to eat my remaining 6 points, I even knew what I was going to eat! Two Maple Leaf cookies and 1 cup of 1% milk, I was so going to enjoy it and what happened? It went out of my mind and by the time I remembered it was 10:30pm and I was so not wanting food at that point. Meh, not much I can do about it now. For those of you who don’t know, weight watcher points are not transferable, if you don’t eat all your points on wednesday you can’t roll them over to thursday and eat extra that day, it’s not like your airtime minutes for your cell. If you don’t use them they are lost to you forever! Ok, little too dramatic there. lol.

Today I made sure I used all my points, before I got on the comp I got my milk and my two cookies and had them ready and waiting. It was nice, who doesn’t like the last thing they eat for the day to be a little treat? Mmm Mmm Mmm. 🙂

I didn’t cheat today, used all my points and am not full but not hungry which is a novel experience that I am still getting used to. After dinner last night I realized that I wasn’t hungry but neither did I have that overly full slightly icky feeling I normally have after eating. My portions were way out of control! I didn’t realize how out of control until I started measuring everything, omg, no wonder I got so big! When did I start thinking an entire pot of pasta with a creamy sauce was a dinner portion?? *rolls eyes* No more! I had some hungry times during the day but that was mostly because I was so busy at work I didn’t get my mid morning snack so my stomach was cranky, lol, it seems to be getting used to a schedule and varying it makes it pout…can stomachs pout? Hmm, maybe it’s more of a ‘rebel’, yeah, the growling unhappy noises is more like a rebellion then a pout, pouting is quieter. So, except for the minor rebellion where it started yelling at me the day went well. I was pretty hungry when I got home cause I worked OT so my dinner was late too…I’m sure my stomach thinks I am soooo mean, lol, what I ate was a weird mix of things cause I was getting rid of left overs. Little bit of this, little bit of that, whatever I could scrounge up to make a meal.

You may have noticed I eat things that most people probably wouldn’t think of eating when trying to lose weight, for instance the pasta. Well, weight watchers is supposed to let you eat anything you want as long as you fit it into your points. I could try to make it sound like I am really testing that out by eating non diet type foods but in reality I refuse to not eat the food I already have in the house from before I decided to do weight watchers. I am not getting rid of it or letting it just sit there taking up space and eventually going past it’s expiry date all to appease my desire to get thin and hot. shrug. So for now, I am eating weird combos of things and as my cupboards get cleared out I will bring in to the house healthier options…course, I will always have Kraft Dinner in the house, I would never give that up completely, just couldn’t do it. What I did do though was buy the microwavable kind cause then I just make one bowlful at a time instead of an entire box cause you know if I make that whole box I am gonna have a binge and eat most of it in one sitting…I know, disgusting, but I am sure you have some weird food thing that to others sounds disgusting. 😛 It’s weird though that everytime I did that I felt horrible afterwards, in every way, I felt bad physically – my stomach felt disgusting and hurt, I felt bad mentally – I’d totally beat myself up about it, I’d feel bad energy wise – my poor body would be putting so much work in to digesting I could do pretty much nothing but sit there…and yet, despite all these negative feelings I would have after binging on KD I still did it!! I’d convince myself that “this time I will just eat one bowl” and it never happened, even as I said that to myself I knew I was gonna eat way more. It’s like some weird self-punishment or something. shrug. Ah well, can’t do that now cause no way would all those points fit in to my day! lol.

My food today was:

3/4 cups Honey Nut Cheerios = 2 points

1/2 cup 1% milk = 1 point

tea = o points

1 banana = 2 points

1 salad = 0 points

1 hard boiled egg = 2 points

1 tbsp salad dressing = 1 point

2 triangles of cheese = 1 point

1 cup grapes = 1 point

1 nectarine = 1 point

1/4 cup Maple flavoured baked beans = 1

1/4  cup+ 1/8 cup brocolli cheese pasta = 3

2 pieces of toast = 3 points

2 tsps margarine = 2 points

2 Maple cookies = 4 points

1/2 cup 1% milk = 1 point

There are some notes to be made about some of the foods from today. The salad was from a place called The Salad Loop, here is the website for them http://www.saladloop.com They are this great place where you go around buffet style and pick whatever you want in your salad and the cost is based on weight. For a little over $6 I got lots of lettuce (some leaves didn’t look totally fresh but it didn’t kill me so whatev), some green and red peppers, corn, a hard boiled egg, mushrooms, a cherry tomato, cabbage and a small amount of salad dressing. Sure, I could have spent the same amount of money and gotten a burger fries and a drink but this is the sacrifice that must now be made, the same if not more money for food that doesn’t look nearly as yummy or filling. It wasn’t a bad tasting salad though, I wish I hadn’t missed the peas, those would have been nice to put on, and I didn’t notice the meat selections till too late either but now that I know how to better navigate the tables I am sure I will do better next time I go.

The triangles of cheese, yum! Those are The Laughing Cow brand of cheese, light of course.

yummy and so low in points!

I already had some just cause I love them and when I checked the points value I found out I can eat 2 wedges for only 1 point! Amazing! I used to only ever eat one wedge at a time because I thought it tasted so good it must be uber bad for me but now I know better. I have never had the regular, I just automatically bought the light and I think it rocks, it is also cheaper then the regular, I don’t know why but everytime I buy it it costs less, and not like it’s on sale, thats just the regular pricing. shrug. It’s fine with me! I would totally recommend them. 🙂 They helped make my salad not feel so insubstantial. I didn’t put it on the salad, they don’t cut very easily, but ate it on the side. I have also (at home) tried to cut it in to little pieces, I usually get blobs but then I put the blobs in to a hot bowl of soup, usually a spicy kind of soup, it’s a good combo cause it doesn’t really melt, it just becomes softer and it helps make the spicy not so spicy.

Tomorrow is Fiesta Friday at work, tacos here I come!!…with a nice big salad on the side…;)

Tags: bed, binge, Kraft Dinner, laughing cow cheese, liptin, pasta, points, salad loop, sleep, weight loss, weight watchers