Not Much on the Home Front

Walked today. "And that's all I have to say about that." (Know where that quote came from?)

Couldn't decide if I wanted to do the weigh-in before or after my walk so I did both and have recorded the before. It was a half pound lighter. Guess it was all the water I drank while walking. So it was an official 1.5 loss. Yea!!!!

Yesterday afternoon was uneventful except my doggies smell better and look better after their grooming. There was something interesting I was going to tell you but I can't for the life of me remember what it was. Guess I'm going to have to start taking notes in the evenings when an idea hits me. Maybe it will come later in the day and this time I will write it down and tell you tomorrow. Gee, hope Alzheimer's isn't setting it. Boy if it does are you all in for a treat.

Hope you have a great "hump day."

Are You Getting Enough Sleep?

I just read an article on "The Dream Diet: Losing Weight While You Sleep" and it had some interesting insights. According to the article, when we sleep our body produces hormones. Two of these hormones are leptin and ghrelin and both can influence our appetite. These two hormones work together in that ghrelin stimulates appetite, while leptin, sends signals to the brain that we are full. If you don't get enough sleep leptin levels are driven down which keeps you from feeling satisfied after you eat. In turn ghrelin rises causing your appetite to be stimulated. In retrospect when I go to bed full (really full) I usually wake up starving and thinking about that when I do go to bed that full I usually have severe nightmares. Therefore I'm not getting good sleep which is what the article goes on to say. We need at least 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep to produce the proper portions of theses hormones for the next days dieting.

There were two studies sited and the Stanford study seemed to shed more light on the subject stating that "Those who slept less than eight hours a night not only had lower levels of leptin and higher levels of ghrelin, but they also had a higher level of body fat...those who slept the fewest hours per night weighed the most." It goes on to say that we are all different in the way that our bodies react to these hormones like those with sleep apnea who do not have low levels of leptin but actually very high levels and when treated for the apnea those levels drop and it seems to help them lose weight. So it may not be our levels of these hormones that matters as much as our response to them. It finally states that "Until doctors do know more, most experts agree that if you are dieting, logging in a few extra hours of sleep a week is not a bad idea, particularly if you get six hours of sleep or less a night. You may just discover that you aren't as hungry, or that you have lessened your craving for sugary, calorie-dense foods."

So I guess we need good sleep to help us get through the next day's cravings and overeating. I'll just have to call the friend of mine who told me that I was going to bed too late for healthy weight loss because it's not when you sleep but how you sleep. And I'm sure not getting healthy sleep at night. Got to work on that and find out how I can sleep better. How about you?

I lost another 1.5 lbs this week, YEA!

Mornings

Wow, I hate mornings (especially after only 4 hours sleep). And afternoon naps. I layed on the couch yesterday afternoon reading a book and woke up an hour or so later with the book still opened. This made for a late night last night. My usual time to "lay me down to rest" is around 1:00 am but last night I had to make myself go that that room with the big bed in it at 4:30 am. Of course when I stay up that late I get hungry and last night (or I should say early this morning) was no different. I couldn't think of anything so, yup, I got into the Doritos and salsa. I know those things are bad for me in a lot more ways than I want to know but they do satisfy that urge and I only ate 11 of them. I think that is the only food that I've held on too from my fatty days. I just can't let them go. Like I've said before I'm not addicted to sweets but to salty stuff. Oh, to just set down with a bag of Wise Potato Chips again...but alas I know I can't (I still miss them though). I even tried to kick the Doritos thing with a salad with Free Catalina and it still didn't satisfy that urging. I think I just need that taste because sometimes after a sandwich (where I used to eat a half a bag of Wise Potato Chips) I'll pick the bag of Doritos up and just take out 3 and munch really slowly and that satisfies that craving too. So maybe if I keep the willpower in check they won't hurt me too much. And I am still losing. And I do add them to my points.

I had someone jump my case a couple of weeks ago about my sleep habits. She said that studies show that a person that doesn't go to bed before midnight doesn't lose weight. Anybody know anything about that? I may go to bed late but I usually get my 8 hours of sleep in (except for last night). I've always heard that every person has a different circadian cycle and this is mine.

I have a niece that comes to visit once a year and always brings 3-4 bags of chips with her. She'll set down and eat half a bag then go out and walk my driveway (the driveway from hell) a few times so she can have some more. She's always working on losing weight and never seems to get there. Gee, I wonder why? She didn't come to visit last year because she was moving into a new house around that time and I wonder what she'll do this year when she comes and I cook sensibly instead of the way I used to cook? She loves my vegetable beef soup with a big chuck roast in it and I don't make that anymore. I'll have to make her my cabbage soup with beef broth instead (that recipe to come later). She hasn't seen me since I lost 50 pounds so maybe I can motivate her. Wouldn't that be something?

When I was growing up in my teen years my parents owned a grocery store. Not a big chain but a "Mom & Pop" kind. It was good sized though. So needless to say we didn't have to pinch pennies when it came to groceries. Mom always brought home the best brand name stuff and we NEVER had margarine in the house, always REAL butter. Therefore I never acquired a taste for margarine. I've always eaten REAL butter. Well, since on WW I can't have the REAL stuff anymore and I've really been down about that. Then I discovered Land O Lakes Light Butter Spread with canola oil. You know I haven't had the real stuff in a long time (only the yucky margarine) but I think it tastes pretty good. At least close enough to the REAL stuff that I'm happy to stick with it when I get down there in the land of thin. So if you haven't tried it now's the time.

A Journey from Obesity to Health

What a journey this is! It is really hard being addicted to food. And that’s exactly what I have, an addiction. Food is in my every waking thought and sometimes in my sleeping thoughts.

I’ve heard it said (by non-food-addict persons) to just avoid it and it will be alright. Well, how do you avoid food? It is all around us, it is the sustenance of life. How do you avoid something that is necessary for life? Obviously you can’t. When you get up in the morning you start with breakfast, then comes lunch and then supper. When you open a magazine you find ads for food. When you turn on the television, one out of every three commercials is about food. When you drive somewhere you pass fast food places or restaurants. You can’t even fill your car up with fuel anymore because when you pay for the fuel you are accosted by food when you hit the door. So you tell me, how can you avoid food?

I have been obese in the past and gone down to a healthy weight only to return to obesity (several times) as have most obese persons. I am on that journey again and this time (at 61 years young) it is harder than ever. I am retired and therefore not as active or distracted as I was on my previous journeys. All I think about all day long is food. When is my next meal? What can I eat that will taste good? What can I eat that will satisfy? What can I eat and still lose weight?

What about advice from the “weight loss experts?” I haven’t heard any that have helped yet. One of the funny ones is to eat things that you like but in smaller portions. Well, the things that I like are not good for you even in smaller portions. How do you eat gravy on your mashed potatoes in smaller portions? Even one tablespoon of gravy (the way I like to make it) is extremely fattening. And one tablespoon of gravy is a joke. Chicken is wonderful fried in deep fat with the skin on and nice and crusty. Baked or broiled chicken (boneless and skinless) just isn’t the same and doesn’t satisfy the way a good ole piece of fried chicken does. I am not a fish eater and rarely ate it during my obese days. I could tolerate it battered and fried with lots of tarter sauce, but that surely isn’t low-fat. Another tidbit of advice from those “weight loss experts” is to spice up your food so that it satisfies the taste buds. Oh, I love spicy food and do that often but it still doesn’t satisfy as much as a big glob of butter or sour cream would.

The only advice I can give is to look at your journey closely. If you are just starting, look at the way you were. Ask yourself, “Do I want to look like that and feel like that the rest of your life?” If your answer is no then you need to get a plan and if the answer is yes then you have just wasted time reading this. If you are already on this long journey, look back at the progress you have made. Ask yourself, “Do I want to continue or just give up and destroy all the progress I’ve already made?” Then look ahead. Look at what you see in your future. Will you turn the head of the opposite sex? (You sure wouldn’t in the old self.) Do you want to be able to climb stairs without huffing and puffing? Do you want to shop in the regular section of the department store? Those are the things that keep me going. I have lost 47 pounds and have approximately 50 more to go. I want to get there and that is the only thing that is keeping me on this horrible weight loss program. And yes they are all horrible in my eyes. I’ve tried dozens of them.

Support from friends and family help some but you have to dig deep within yourself to find the strength. You can do it but not for someone else just for yourself.

A Month is a Month is a Month

During the month of March, 2008 I was getting ready for a cruise. This was my second cruise and believe you me I was not looking forward to it. This, of course, must be explained, but briefly. My first cruise was the cruise from Hades. We hit a horrible storm and had 40 foot swells and I was in bed sick for 3 days. We couldn’t even get into one port because of the roughness. I swore I’d never go on another one. But, I let a friend talk me into it and here I was again.

I don’t really know what happened the two weeks before the cruise but I had stayed on my diet and was really good and gained 5 pounds the first week and gained 2.5 pounds the second week. I was so disgusted that I thought of quitting but having lost 50 pounds already I was thinking to myself that I’d gone so far already that I didn’t want to let my successes go to waste, so I let my thinking get back on track.

Well… I don’t know if you’ve ever been on a cruise or not but if you don’t like to eat, get drunk or gamble there isn’t much else to offer you while on board. I don’t like to gamble and drink only the occasional cocktail, usually a grasshopper after dinner when in a nice restaurant, so guess what that left…food! Wow, what wonderful food there is! And at any time of day or night. And it’s included in your fare, it doesn’t cost you anything extra. Since I had gained the two weeks before the cruise I had decided that I’d enjoy myself during the cruise (food wise) and get back to basics when I got home. I didn’t want to go hog wild (and didn’t) but I was going to enjoy myself in the only way that I could.

To begin with for dinner you can order as much of an item as you want so before every meal I ordered two shrimp cocktails. In this way I was being good since shrimp are low in points and it helped fill me up somewhat. I hadn’t had pasta in a while and the first night I ordered fettuccine alfredo. Wow, it was delicious. To my horror I could only eat one third of it and was full (well almost, I was saving some room for desert). By the fourth day, and after prime rib and beef Wellington and pizza and French fries and and and (it was a seven day cruise) I was missing my half can of soup and my half sandwich. Yeah, missing my diet! I couldn’t believe it! Missing the right food! What a wonderful thing for me! At that point I was aware that I have finally gotten my head on straight and will never be obese again. What a wonderful feeling it was and is.

When I returned home I had gained one more pound and I got back on it with a vengeance and I lost 4.5 pounds the first week. I didn’t even loose that much my first week on this thing. I felt great. And continue to feel great. I looked back at my weight chart and realized that I had lost a month because I am back to were I was 4 weeks ago. But, what the hey. Maybe your body and mind need a little break once in a while. In the past about once or twice a month I’d indulge in something that was fattening just to keep me on track the rest of the time and not crave the wrong stuff. I am of the mind set now that I need a week of indulgence to get me back in the right frame of mind. I’ve got 50 more pounds to go and right now I am ready to “get-r-done”. I’m not saying that everyone should do what I did. Some of you may do this and never get back on track, and that would be a bad thing. But if you are really committed to this weight loss regiment this might be the way to get yourself motivated again. It’s a thought.