Annie: I was wrong.

Yesterday was Husband's birthday, so we went out as a family for dinner. 

He was feeling crummy about getting old (it was a "big" birthday, as they say), so we went to a place we used to go years ago when we were young and fancy-free; it was in our neighbourhood where we used to live, so we just don't get over there much anymore.

Back in the day (and, in fact, when I had my successful WW run), I used to order their cheeseburger with a tossed salad on the side (light ranch dressing).  It's a family-run place - no brought-in food - and the cheeseburgers are really, really tasty... and char-grilled as opposed to being fried, and on a whole wheat bun, which are nice things in a restaurant. I counted the whole meal for 15 points - the burger and the teaspoon or so of dressing in which I dipped my salad.

So that was my order last night, and it was delicious!  Then, still having a whack of points left on arriving home, I had a Hershey bar (my absolute fave - a real treat for me) and a glass of skim milk. I finished my day with 0.5 point left to spare, and went to bed at 10:30, feeling great, planning to get up at 6 to ride my bike.

1:00 a.m.

Cramp. Cramp! CRAMPCRAMPCRAMPCRAMP!

Bathroom!

I'll spare you, dear reader, the gory details, but suffice it to say that my intestines did not appreciate the sudden influx of fat. Either that, or I caught a terrible 2-hour flu.

6:00 a.m.

Alarm goes off for biking.

I feel awful, and don't want to get up.

I think about the picture on my sister's marathon blog of the bright blue porta-potties she had to use along the route of her marathon because she had what she delicately called a "bad tummy," and then I think how easy it would have been for a bad tummy to be a reason to stop running. (Quite honestly, I think of a bad tummy as a good reason to stop sitting upright.)

So I dragged myself out of bed, thinking "this half-hour ride will be nothing compared to a 4+ hour run - and then the endorphins will kick in, and I'll feel better for the rest of the day."

I was wrong; I still feel like crap.

But I have 3 new activity points in the bank!

Mae: This post is brought to you by the letter Z

More specifically: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

According to the Annals of Internal Medicine, people who are sleep deprived (are there people who aren't?!) might have a much tougher time losing weight. Wuh? As if the dieting and exercise weren't challenging enough to integrate into the daily routine, dieters will now have less time in which to do it? Furthermore, not getting enough sleep can affect not only how much you lose, but what you lose. God help me.

If you prefer to read non-medical jargon, MedlinePlus has a good overview of this research:

Researchers found that the dieters lost the same amount of weight under both conditions -- just under 7 pounds, on average. But during the sleep-restricted period, they mainly lost muscle rather than fat.

When participants got 8.5 hours of sleep, more than half of their weight loss came from shedding fat; when they got 5.5 of sleep, only one-quarter of their weight loss came from fat -- translating to a 55 percent reduction in fat loss.

Instead, the majority of people's weight loss during the sleep-restricted period came from lean body tissue, which refers to muscle and any other body tissue that is not fat.

Sleepy people may also be hungrier throughout the day because sleep deprivation may trigger the hunger hormones leptin and ghrelin. While this study took place in a controlled environment and may not be strictly applied to a 'real world' environment, I think it is safe to say that there are more than a few reasons to get more sleep.

I've always thought of weight loss in terms of diet and exercise. Period. This new equation changes the game quite a bit, but it's probably time that I stop pushing the margins of my day to such extremes that  I sometimes struggle to put simple sentences together.

Annie: Sleep clinic

Yes, I'm still here. I returned to points today, but didn't get my exercise started - by the time Child was settled in bed (to stay, that is), it was well past 9pm and I didn't want to get endorphins pumping right before bed.  If that sounds like an excuse it probably is; I'll try to be better organized tomorrow.

I went to a sleep clinic today because I've been suspecting I have sleep apnea for some time. It runs in families and I'm fairly certain my father has it (as is anyone who's ever tried to watch TV with him, I'd wager), but being overweight is a contributing factor. I'm always exhausted, but can never sleep through the night, so am hoping tonight's little medical adventure will deliver some answers for me.

I have a contraption to wear tonight, with 4 leads plugged into a machine on  my bedside table; they'll measure my breathing, when (if) I stop breathing at any point, my snoring (how delicate and ladylike it is), and something else I can't remember. I drop off the machine in the morning, so they can dump the info and plot my sleep patterns - provided I'm able to sleep at all with wires stuck all over my upper body.  But it's this or spend the night in the hospital for observation, which I'm fairly certain wouldn't yield much sleep either. (I hate hospitals.)

I have been reading lately, though, that in addition to all the other health benefits of getting a good night's sleep, it can help you with weight loss. Apparently your body processes food more efficiently if it has sufficient repair time, which makes sense even to an artsy like me.

So... maybe the weight contributes to the sleep apnea, and maybe treating the sleep apnea will help with the loss of the weight. Or maybe I'll lose weight before the medical system gets around to treating the sleep apnea (if I even have it), making this whole exercise futile.

Oh well, at least I feel like I'm doing something.

Food discovery:

Fiber One yogurt, which my friend brought back to me from America. (On a side note: why do Americans have access to diet food that is so much superior to what we get?) It was delicious, it was a milk serving, and it was ZERO points.  Thinking I may be making a day's run across the border one of these weekends to stock up - will have to start making my American grocery shopping list.

Also on that list, for when there's a point left at the end of the day and sugar is calling my name: Milky Way Minis - only one point each!