Daily Bread #57

I realize that I have never shared my weight loss graph.  I love it and look at it often.  It keeps me focused.  There are a couple of upticks, but the trend line is really cool.

There were only 5 people in class tonight, the lowest I remember.  No one was really new, but I had forgotten two of their names.  I asked one of them afterward to remind me of their name.  I work really hard at remembering names, and still forget sometimes.  I do believe it is better to ask multiple times.

Our facilitator was being observed by her supervisor last night, so there we seven of us in the room, but only 6 talking. We did a lot of going around the circle so to answer various questions, so all the participants were able to speak a fair amount. We first talked about vegetables and we all said what our favorite was and a few of us said how we cooked it. (Roasted Brussels sprouts for me!)  One man did not like anything but corn, and he thought corn was too high calorie.  I think fresh corn is fine, although there is the GMO issue to worry about if it isn’t organic.

We then talked about sleep issues (which made me a little sleepy) and its various affects on weight loss.  The biggest one to me was if you are tired, you might crave foods that will give you quick energy – like carbs and sugar.  I have been tired sometimes from not enough sleep since starting this program, but coffee and a high protein breakfast seem to do the trick for me.  We were also given an excellent handout that included descriptions of the various hormones that are affected by sleep.  Here is an article I found that explains it in more detail, but briefly, Ghrelin tells your brain that you need to eat and if you are sleep deprived your body makes more.  Leptin is a hormone that tells you that you are full, and lack of sleep reduces its level.  Cortisol, the stress hormone, spikes with lack of sleep and tells your body to conserve energy by reducing your metabolism level.  Insulin sensitivity also drops by over 30% if you are getting insufficient sleep.  Get your zzz’s!  Don’t you love science?

I had heard that as one gets older, less sleep is needed so I did some research on that too this morning.  While it is true that the amount of sleep one needs does vary by age,  7+ hours is considered appropriate for all adults (See chart).  Children and teenagers need more!  Babies (like cats) sleep most of the day, but sadly for many parents, only a few hours at a time.  I remember that when our babies finally slept for 5 hours in a row, it felt like a miracle.  Talk about sleep deprivation!

We should all love science, but math is my real favorite! 

The Lose It app was driving me nuts this week because there were a few days when I couldn’t get my usual exercise in.  Without the “calorie bonus” for exercise I couldn’t stay on the budget it was showing, which was 1183.  I went into the app goals section and changed my goal from two pounds loss per week to 1 1/2 and my calorie budget went up to 1417.  It also showed an alert that less that 1200 calories per day was too little for women per the NIH.  My body knew that! (so smart really) I just felt like I had to eat at least 1250 and so went over some days.  And I hate those red marks and I want everything in the green zone on all my apps!  Changing the goal should give me a steady green, at least most of the time. I can still go under when I am exercising and getting the bonus.  Today I ate 1361, but had a 492 calorie bonus for exercise. That gave me a net of 869, which looks like a weirdly low number, but it feels OK, that my body got what it needed.  A lot of this is math. Have I mentioned I won a slide rule in a math contest when I was in high school?  I still have it somewhere.

My heart rate is going up some now that I am no longer on a beta blocker.  It was slower than normal when my doctor took me off that med.  All is well it seems.

Last Sunday was Mother’s Day and our kids took us out to dinner.

This other picture is from two years ago.

I look pretty different, but the important thing is that I feel so much better!

L’Chaim!

(My stats for the last week – down 2.4 pounds, drank at least 7 gallons of water and exercised for over 605 minutes.  My cumulative weight loss so far is more than 110.3 pounds.)