Eat, eat, eat, and then eat some more

196 pounds

As much as I hate to admit it, classes started yesterday here at WKU, and that means I have to go back to a much more challenging schedule . . . getting up earlier than I want, showering every single day (can you imagine?!), squeezing in exercise whenever I can, and—most importantly—eating on the go.

To be honest, it's a recipe for disaster.

And, because of all the stress, I can't help but find myself longing for the quick fixes—fast food, hi-cal carryout, frozen pizza and other meals that come in a box.

But if I start eating like that, we all know what will happen—my body will retaliate, and the scale will go up, up, up, and up some more

No, I can't give into those very strong desires, and there are two ways I'm avoiding doing that.

The first way I'm overcoming my stress-fueled desire for junk food is a trick you can read all about in my "Nothing beats a home-cooked meal" post. Suffice it to say that when school is in session, Dave and I try to cook all of our meals for the work week over the weekend. We have to be at school Monday through Thursday this semester, so we each cook one meal on Sunday and make enough that those two meals will last us four days.

The second way I avoid junk food when I'm this is busy is by making sure that I eat healthy snacks all day long--a snack between breakfast and lunch, another between lunch and dinner, and then sometimes a little one later in the evening.

These snacks don't have to take much preparation either—anyone can put a piece of cheese and and an apple in a bag or grab a container of yogurt—but I love making gourmet snacks so they are even more appealing. Last night I spent ten minutes making homemade salsa (tomatoes, red pepper, jalapeno pepper, onion, lime, and red vinegar), and I ate a half-cup of that this afternoon with a few tortilla chips this afternoon. (The homemade salsa makes store-bought salsa taste about as appealing as motor oil.)

I've also been known to repeatedly make cottage cheese dip to eat with raw vegetables like red pepper, cucumber, and carrots. (If you're interested, the cottage cheese dip—modified from Moosewood—is made by simply blending cottage cheese, feta, dill, and green onion.)

The result of eating little snacks like these all day—about every two hours—is that you'll never really feel hungry and, therefore, find it much easier to avoid unhealthy temptations. I put this theory into practice today, and by the time I left school, I didn't have any desire to pig out, which is usually the case with me after a long day at work.

By no means am I the first person to advocate this technique—we've all heard of it before—but it really does work. And it's especially effective when you're dealing with an unusual amount of on-the-job stress and fatigue.

"Smothered in Delicious Yellow Chemical Sludge"

Thora Birch as Enid in Ghost World, 2001

198 pounds

A few weeks ago I went to see The Kids Are All Right, an amazing movie, which just happened to be playing at a massive thirty-screen multiplex that had recently changed ownership.

The first sign that things were different occurred when we pulled up, and there was no longer a sign of any kind telling people what was located inside the building. Instead, there was just a piece of large poster board with the name of the theatre painted on it in thick black paint. Now remember this is a thirty-screen multiplex, and it just had this poster stuck to the front.

I knew immediately something wasn't right.

When we were waiting in line at the ticket booth, we also noticed that there were a half dozen employees flitting around with artificial smiles on their faces, asking customers if they needed help with anything. It felt like we had died and gone to Stepford.

But the weirdest thing of all happened when we got to the front of the line.

Every single person who bought a ticket was rewarded with a coupon for a free medium-sized drink and a small bag of popcorn. At first I thought these coupons were being passed out at random, but soon it became obvious that EVERYONE was getting them.

Initially I was excited about our luck—I almost never splurge on popcorn or drinks at the movie theatre. Not because I don't want them, but because they cost so darned much.

(If you haven't been to the theatre in a while, you should know that you can no longer get a small drink and a small popcorn for less than ten dollars, which means this theatre was passing out the equivalent of ten bucks to every viewer.)

But not long after I got my free snacks, I started to feel differently about them.

As we walked to Screen 22, I looked around and considered all of the other moviegoers. Some were big and some were small, some were pretty and some were not, but despite our many differences, we all had the exact same thing in our hands: a small popcorn and a medium drink. It felt like the theatre owners were using some kind of mind control to make us all do the same thing. It felt like we were pod people. And suddenly my free popcorn and soda seemed rather grotesque to me.

In the theatre, I ate some of my popcorn and drank some of my soda, but it wasn't the same—my enjoyment was half-hearted, and I barely finished a third of what I had. I just didn't want it anymore. It was like I was experiencing the same thing people always say about country clubs: nobody wants to be a member of any club that will have them. And I didn't want any part of an unhealthy snack that someone had just handed me, free of charge. Not only did I not really want it, I was also hyper aware of how gross it was—the yellow chemical sludge* known as butter movie theatre land was collecting inside the crevices of my artificially colored popcorn like an environmental disaster.

At the same time that I was disgusted with the food, I was also disgusted with myself—Had I really longed for this stuff on so many occasions before? What was it about this crap that had appealed to me so much? In that moment, I had no idea why anyone would voluntarily pay for such a snack even though I'd done it more than a few times myself.

The result was that I wanted to eat less popcorn and drink less soda—that night and every day since then. And it made me wonder if part of the appeal of eating something so unhealthy is that we're not supposed to eat it.

When I was sixteen, I had jaw surgery that left me unable to eat solid foods for six weeks. In the time leading up to the operation, my doctors told me that it was one of the only times in my life when I could eat whatever I wanted because I'd be losing a lot of weight during my recovery. For a few days, I ate junk food 24-7: Twinkies, Doritos, Mac 'n Cheese. But after a day or two of that, I got sick of it and went back to my normal diet.

I think that's exactly what happened at the multiplex that night—since I was allowed to eat whatever I wanted, I didn't really want any of it anymore. Of course, that made me ask myself, what would happen if I let myself eat whatever I want all the time?

I've always believed that indulgence is an important part of a healthy lifestyle, and I've always known that if you deny yourself something you want, you'll only want it more. But I've also believed that giving into those temptations every once in a while helps you keep your cravings in check. But maybe—just maybe—if we gave into them whenever we wanted, they would lose their appeal forever.

I wish I could say I believed it was that simple to kick the junk food habit, but I'm not entirely convinced. But I will say this: I'm staying away from the yellow chemical sludge as long as I can.

*That's what Enid (pictured above) called it in Ghost World.

Get some sleep!

196 pounds

I always talk about how we’re too obsessed with the numbers on the scale and the numbers on the BMI chart, but one of the numbers we obsess about that I have yet to mention is the amount of hours we sleep each night.

I have always been a night owl—something you might have guessed by the time of day I write my blog posts—and I like to stay up until all hours and get out of bed later than most people. I try my best to get nine hours of sleep each night when it’s possible, and in an ideal world, I would stay up until midnight and sleep until nine. But there are some nights when I find myself still awake past one, forcing me to sleep even later if I want to feel rested.

But when I tell people that I like to get nine hours of beauty rest and sleep until nine or—gasp!—ten in the morning, they act horrified and say things like, “I wish I could do that!” which seems to be a passive aggressive way of saying that they think I am a bit lazy at best and a slothful loser at worst.

This raises the question, why do people think sleep is bad? Why are those of us who like to sleep late so maligned???

All of the research clearly indicates that not getting enough sleep is DIRECTLY related to weight gain, health problems, and longevity. In fact, a 2006 study by the American Thoracic Society “showed that women who slept 5 hours per night were 32% more likely to experience major weight gain (an increase of 33 pounds or more) and 15% more likely to become obese over the course of the 16-year study, compared to those who slept 7 hours a night.”1

Why does this happen? For two simple reasons:

1) When we’re tired, we look for ways to help get through the day and one of the coping mechanisms we rely on is food and drink—often high-calorie junk food and sugar-filled, caffeine-laden beverages. I like nothing better than a cold soda and a bag of chips after a late night, and I’m sure all of you could easily name the poison you use to get through a nasty sleep hangover.

2) But I bet you didn’t know that not getting enough sleep also affects “the body's ability to metabolize carbohydrates and causes high blood levels of glucose, which leads to a greater body-fat storage.”1 Once you understand that, getting nine hours of sleep doesn’t seem so crazy after all, does it?

Nevertheless, most people seem to believe the old maxin that “the early bird gets the worm” and far too often translate that to mean people who sleep more than six hours a night are also not getting the worm or are lazy, which is a dangerous message to send given how directly sleep affects our health.

It’s also not true that older folks need less sleep, a myth that I often hear repeated by my dad, who likes to get up as early or five or six in the morning and then wonders why he’s tired and cranky before noon. The truth is that “the need for sleep doesn't decline with age” though it may be harder to stay asleep longer without waking up.2

If you do have trouble sleeping, you might try some of these techniques the American Psychological Association recommends for better and longer sleep:

• Keep a regular sleep/wake schedule

• Don’t consume caffeine four to six hours before bed and minimize daytime use

• Don’t smoke, especially near bedtime or if you wake up at night

• Avoid alcohol and heavy meals before sleep

• Get regular exercise

• Minimize noise, light, and excessive hot and cold temperatures where you sleep

• Develop a regular bed time and go to bed at the same time each night

• Try and wake up without an alarm clock

• Attempt to go to bed earlier every night for certain period; this will ensure that you’re getting enough sleep2

I've also heard that it's not a good idea to read for long periods of time in the bedroom. Reading to fall asleep is okay, but if you spend significant time doing more than the two things that beds were designed for, you are basically training your body to stay awake while in bed.

So the next time someone scoffs over your desire to sleep late or catch an afternoon nap, take a step back and ask yourself if the person wagging a finger at you looks like he or she could use a better night’s sleep too.

1 http://ezinearticles.com/?Free-Fat-Loss-Tips---Get-More-Sleep-to-Avoid-Obesity-and-Other-Health-Problems&id=2057121

2 http://www.apa.org/topics/whysleep.html