I found this on another thread here but thought I'd bring it back to share with my fellow sleep deprived graveyard friends... I've cut everything except the part that pertains to us...

Is Evening Eating Destroying Your Weight Loss Efforts?
Cues to Eating and How to Control Them
-- By Becky Hand, Licensed & Registered Dietitian
sparkpeople.com


A growing body of research suggests a connection between obesity and lack of adequate sleep. Statistics show that overweight individuals sleep about 1.8 hours less a week than people of normal weight. Since the 1960's sleep duration for American adults has dropped by as much as two hours a night, while obesity has drastically increased.

Sleep is a regulator of two hormones that effect appetite, leptin and ghrelin. Leptin helps suppress food intake and stimulate energy expenditure, while ghrelin stimulates appetite, fat production, and body growth. When one is sleep deprived, the level of leptin drops and the level of ghrelin increases. The result is a drastic increase in hunger. One study reported a 24% increase in hunger, with excessive, uncontrollable cravings for calorie and carbohydrate packed foods such as cookies, candy and cake. It can all add up to a vicious cycle of late night binges, lack of adequate sleep, uncontrolled snacking, late night binges, and so on.


So, girlfriends! Get your sleep!!!

Wow -- the past few days have totally blown chunks as far as food goes ... and any sort of physical activity, too, thanks to massive amounts of rain and my seeming inability to get off my butt and do anything when I'm stuck inside the house! I think I might just start weighing every 2 weeks instead of every week ... especially since I have this habit of gaining one week, losing the next, gaining the next. Maybe if I only do every other week I'll just see losses

Thanks for all the good thoughts/inputs on the whole Johnny situation. Right now I'm playing phone tag with the coordinator to set up one more evaluation and then start things going. I know he'd be fine if we didn't do it this way -- that eventually he'd start talking because it's just what kids do (for the most part), but he's been getting so frustrated lately not being able to make his deepest desires known .... and WE get frustrated trying to guess if he's reaching for his juice cup, coloring book, or something else altogether! He has been improving little bits already with his "word play" -- most recently exclaiming "A clue! A clue!" every time he sees any kind of pawprint (gotta love Blue's Clues!!!)

Half an hour to go until I should start being able to get the big chunk of work done for the night ... then maybe I'll get to plow through an episode or two of Biggest Loser Australia before the wake-up calls start going off. Fun times.

Enjoy your nights off, ladies!!!

Hey all. I just wanted to check in and prove to everyone I'm OK. I got back from Reno and have been busy with other things. I'm trying to get back into a real life and be active in stuff that doesn't always involve my home and kids.

Hope everyone is doing well. Don't worry too much Karen. Children tend to develop on their own schedules. One of mine couldn't wait to crawl so she rolled everywhere at 2 months but then seemed to take forever to learn to speak clearly. That was just her way. BTW, her name is Jonnie, too.

Well, gotta get some sleep. We have to register for school in the morning. Love y'all!!!

Operator!! Hellos!

I've always wondered about that, Vlad... as I've been sleep deprived since my late 20s, and that's when I started putting on the weight as well. Plus babies. Plus shift work. I've weighed this week at 193, so that's down a pound but still I don't trust it. Ha! I'll get the cortisone shot and try try again. My arm seems a bit better anyway, so that's something.

I'm in season 2 of the Aussie BL. The Commando team is really making me feel better about being able to do this without living in a "Biggest Loser" house. Thanks for the new addiction Karen!

SMOOCHIES

What really drives me 'round the twist is when I have the night off and still can't get a good night's sleep. It's like I've forgotten how.... I try to do right by my body but it's not making it any easier for me....

There are no Leptin pills you can get to suppliment for lack of sleep. Alas. However, the omega 3's and 6's in fish oil are believed to help stimulate the release of leptin. Fish oils are the one food suppliment (other than the kids' vitamins when I remember to take two when I'm handing them out to the kids in the morning) I do. It's got to be high quality fish oil (preferably not Cod) and it's better if it isn't in a capsule - which means a $15 bottle from the refrigerator case at the health food store. A teaspoon a day WITH food - even with food it can be a little hard on your stomach the first day or so. It doesn't taste like anything (mine smells like lemon-lime but it doesn't taste like anything - it's just oily). This stuff is a good idea even if you aren't working the graveyard shift, but I think it is essential for all us vampires....

Wow, it's been quiet here on the night shift.

I spent two weeks messing around with the scale at work and being depressed that I have no idea wht my starting weight was or how much I've lost. It isn't a huge deal, because I know I've lost weight. But before I realized that the scale at work wasn't accurate at all I at least thought I knew if my calorie counting was working. Now I feel like I'm starting over trying to figure out if I'm eating the right number of calories or the right mix of carbs, fats, protein.

After two weeks of carrying the scale all over the house and trying it in different places I have a spot where it is reliable and where I can mark the floor to be sure to put it back very close to the same spot every time. Saturday morning I weighed myself and then stopped by my doctor's office on the way home to weigh myself on their big scale.

The hard part was resetting my ticker. I didn't gain 15 pounds but it sure felt like I did, having to move that number up.

So, it's back in the saddle again and it'll be weeks before I'm back to where I thought I was.

Hope things are going better for all you fellow vampires!