Week 35 Progress Report: Sleep and Cookies

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Let’s first look at the week-ending numbers:

Starting Weight:	226.0
Original Target*:	239.6
Adjusted Target:	223.7
Actual Weight:	222.6
Loss/Gain:	– 3.4
Total Loss:	80.0
% of Goal:	57.7%
Avg. Loss/Wk.:	– 2.3
*Original target calculated from a starting weight of 302.6 lbs. and an average loss/wk. of 1.8 lbs.

Note first that the adjusted target reflects a 2.3-lbs./week loss rate rather than the 1.8 lbs./week I originally planned on. As I discussed in the month-end report, I’m shooting for less than 200 lbs. by January 1 as part of a 90-Day Challenge, so the adjusted target reflects the rate at which I need to drop to make that goal. It’s early days yet, but so far, the 166-kcal cut I had to take in my calorie budget has only slightly inconvenienced me. In fact, I’d say that as well as I’ve done over the last eight months, I’ve probably hindered myself more by not sleeping enough than by overeating.

For most if not all of my adult life, I’ve been a night owl, going to bed in the wee hours of the morning without even the bare excuse of partying all night. When I was younger, this was because I most often worked night shifts, whether it was at fast-food restaurants or call centers. More and more as I got older, though, either the nature of the business I was in or pressing financial concerns demanded varying shifts, extra hours, twice a second job. At the same time, my friends and family all eventually had regular day jobs with regular hours, so my social life often demanded that I wake up after minimal sleep, often as little as 3½ hours. Not surprisingly, this meant I occasionally overslept when my overtaxed body and mind demanded it.

Eventually, I started gravitating to day shifts. As I got into the financial sector, day shifts became more the rule than the exception; eventually, there were no regular night or weekend shifts to work. The downside was that extra hours for overtime pay were few and far between, meaning I couldn’t make up the money I lost by oversleeping.

Nevertheless, “going to bed early” still meant, and even now still means, around 12:30 a.m., sometimes 11:30 p.m., rather than a more reasonable (for a middle-aged man) 9:30 p.m. While I do sleep more than I used to, I average about 5½ – 6 hours a night rather than the full 8 hours so often recommended, and I still occasionally get up after no more than 4 – 4½ hours.

Now, this may mean I need less sleep than does the average person. However, according to nutritionist Caroline Pullen of Healthline.com, sleeping less than seven hours a night has a strong association with obesity. It can increase your appetite, decrease your resting or basal metabolic rate (BMR), and increase your risk of insulin resistance (type 2 diabetes). “To make matters worse,” Pullen adds, “it can become a vicious cycle. The less you sleep, the more weight you gain, and the more weight you gain, the harder it is to sleep.” If your lifestyle includes a lot of physical activity, the extra calories burned can offset these effects to a degree, but not entirely and not forever. If, however, you’re an office worker and a virtual couch potato like me, there’s nothing to offset the debilitating effects of sleep deprivation … not even unhealthy amounts of caffeine.

As a rule, I avoid chemical sleep aids. I already take a lot of pills, most by prescription, the rest OTC supplements (a multivitamin, calcium, and magnesium). As I’ve also explained elsewhere, I’ve become more of a technology skeptic over the years. While pharmaceuticals may have increased the length of our lives, I’m not convinced they’ve been a net benefit to the quality of our lives. In any event, so long as I’ve been able to lose at the average rate around which I planned from the beginning, I don’t feel an urgent need to address my sleep patterns just yet, except possibly by a nap later today.

Speaking of bedtime:

For the most part, I’ve done a good job of reducing processed sugars. I’ve even begun to replace soft drinks with water; for years now, I’ve drunk sodas and coffee at prodigious rates while drinking very little water. Often, the only water I drank during the day was when I took my meds, sometimes a sip or two at a public water fountain. It ought to be cheaper to drink water. I still shake my head sometimes about the fact that we drink bottled water when it’s often the same water we can get out of the kitchen tap or the refrigerator door. (In fact, I sometimes think we’re not far away from the dystopian vision in the animated movie Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax, when people will pay for bottles of air.)

However, before I go to bed at night, once I’ve accounted for my day’s activity, I usually find room between the calories I’ve eaten during the day and my budget ceiling. That’s when I have some bedtime cookies. Not many; and alas, not with milk. As of today, I’ve separated the bedtime snacks from the afternoon snacks on my daily budget.

While my go-to snacks are SnackWell’s Devil’s Food and Fat Free Fig Newtons (say that five times fast), occasionally—very occasionally—I’ll find some other brand that I can fit in my budget. Not often, because I usually keep the bedtime snack under 200 – 250 calories, which doesn’t leave much room for more than 2 – 3 of the larger, more calorific biscuits like Oreos or Chips Ahoy. If due to sporadic eating or a light dinner, I have more than 300 kcal available, I’ll have a bag of popcorn with butter-flavored seasoning.

The cookies do more than satisfy a recalcitrant sweet tooth. They’re also a reward to myself for staying within budget and insurance that I don’t go to bed too hungry to sleep. But even this minor bit of self-indulgence is modified by a major dose of self-control: I can no longer devastate a package of Pinwheels or Keebler Chips Deluxe like I used to. I haven’t baked any cookies in over a year; I don’t know if I’ll even bake any for Santa this Christmas.

Again, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying food. Respecting food and respecting your body doesn’t mean you have to make eating an onerous chore. It means not making eating an end in itself. I firmly believe that self-indulgent people aren’t really any happier than people who practice self-denial. In fact, the self-indulgence is a mask for an inner misery; it’s an attempt to drown unhappiness and dissatisfaction with food, clothes, sex, drugs and alcohol, material possessions, and so forth.

I also believe that self-control is a more valid and authentic expression of freedom than is self-indulgence. If I am not free to refrain from doing what I want to do, especially if what I want is harmful to myself or others, I’m a slave to my appetites and impulses. If I would not be a slave to anyone else, I must not be a slave to myself; if I can’t be the master of anything or anyone else, I must at least master my own willfulness. Of all the slaves in the world, the self-indulgent are the most pitiable, for their enslavement is entirely voluntary.

As my daily budget decreases, I’ll most likely have less room for these bedtime cookies. Perhaps there will be a time when, like the afternoon protein and fruit bars I ate as afternoon snacks at the very beginning of this program, the bedtime snack becomes something occasional, even rare. But then again, that’s the point of this program: controlling my eating, rather than letting my eating control me.

One day, I’ll be able to add back in all the calories I’ve cut from my budget. It may even make sense to add them back in gradually, slowing down the weight loss as I learn to eat for weight maintenance. Then there will be more room for cookies. But not half a dozen at a time. Especially if I have them with milk.