Workout
Today was supposed to be yoga day, so of course I got on the treadmill instead for 30 minutes. That’s my idea of a joke. Actually, the reasons I only briefly considered yoga were 1) Lack of time, and 2) Pizza for lunch at work today. I wanted to get in a short but effective aerobic workout, which I did quite well with the treadmill incline program.
Nutrition
Breakfast was plain yogurt with chocolate whey powder, a little cocoa powder, flaxseed, and a banana. Then the trouble began! I had two large slices of pizza for lunch. One was pepperoni, the other had chicken parmesan on it. If you’ve never heard of that, it’s a New York thing. Every time I look at the calories for a large slice of pizza (no matter what the toppings are), I wonder why I ate more than one slice. Also, I had no salad or anything to control the carbs and make me feel full. I went back to my desk, and figured “Hey, why not have a little dessert?” so I ate one of those little packets of M&Ms (plain). Not so bad at 120 calories, except for the lunch I just had! Then I needed a second cup of coffee (the first was mid-morning) to help with the food coma.
By dinnertime, I was all out of whack. I had my yam tempeh stew, even though I was already over my calories for the day, then I had two Valentine’s Day chocolates (another 150 calories), then a while later I needed to try to stop the madness, because I didn’t feel satisfied, so I had a Zone Perfect bar (12 grams protein along with vitamins, and of course sugar). So that was it for the day, at last. I had a 1000 calorie surplus for the day. That is not a typo. Wow. BTW, if I had one slice of pizza rather than two, and maybe added a 100 calorie salad, my numbers would have been way better. Live and learn.
Health and well-being
Today, I was tired, I was moody, I had food cravings (obviously). It wasn’t all due to the pizza. I need more rest, and I think if I was more rested I would want to get back to longer workouts. I think for the coming week I want to focus more on clean eating and this whole sleep issue.
I have noticed that whenever I’m sleep deprived I make HORRIBLE eating choices. Good luck getting out of your bad food coma!
(Pizza is my dieting Achiles heel, so good and so many calories)
Jillian Michaels has talked a lot about the relationship between sleep and two hunger-related hormones. One is ghrelin (which makes you feel hungry) and the other is leptin (makes you feel full). Apparently, when you are sleep-deprived, even for a few days, your ghrelin level goes up, and your leptin level goes down. Of course, the body’s chemical processes are more complicated than that, but lack of sleep is a bad thing for sure.