Category: Hunger

  • 2026 Day 9

    There have been many days that I have disagreed with my fitness watch over the quality of my sleep (based on the reported sleep score). This morning is the first time that I can remember that I disagree on the other side – that is, I thought I slept terribly, but my sleep score was high.

    • Sleep score: 90 (Excellent)
    • Duration: 7h18m (Excellent)
    • Stress: 13 avg (Excellent)
    • Deep: 1h34m (Excellent)
    • Light: 4h41m (Good)
    • REM: 1h4m (Fair)
    • Awake/Restlessness: –, 46 Restless Moments (Excellent)

    There were at least three and as many as five times that I remember waking up thinking that it was probably morning, only to look at the clock and see that it was 1:15am… 3:00am… 4:45am… and so on. Each time I felt like it took me a while to get back to sleep, and each time I remember thinking that there was no way that things would end well for a restful night. Was I dreaming each of those times? I wish I could ask Her Floofness… when I wake up in the night I almost always shift positions slightly, and because I know this disturbs her a bit, I try to reach over and pet her with a few strokes. Alas, she is much wiser than I am, living for the moment and not dwelling on the past. (Excepting for a couple of things that I have done for which she holds a grudge, including moving her from Southern California to the cold climes of Canada, and then later on giving away her couch).

    Depending on which measure we accept, I was anywhere from half a pound up to 2 lbs. down from yesterday. Had I cheated in any significant way, I would have picked a higher reading than I did; as the only ‘cheat’ was a pinch of shredded cheese when I was giving some to Her Floofness. The trade-off for that was that I only had three meal replacements (rather than the proscribed four). I was a bit peckish as I lay in bed at night, but it was not so severe that I needed to sate that hunger.

    On that topic, I am going to give my diet buddy credit for the recommendation about adding celery to my program (as needed). There have been a number of times throughout the past few days that I have felt the need for more, and rather than picking something else (which would be potentially detrimental to my progress), I munched on a couple of pieces of celery. I am at the point where I do not feel the slightest guilt for eating celery, and at the same time I do not feel that I need to gorge myself on it. I do not think I have had more than 2-3 stalks in any day, but if I had then what of it? Five entire stalks (which is double the maximum I have had) would be a whopping 30 calories… nothing to worry about, especially since it adds fibre and no negative nutrients to my intake.

    It is time for me to get to work, or else I would talk about my concerns about my sleep next week, and a few other things I have on my mind. They can wait until tomorrow, when I have no current obligations and will have time to write and relax. Right now I am about to start thirteen hours of teaching, so I’ll close.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1272

    As I prepared for bed last night I realized that my hunger was going to keep me awake… especially when paired with my anxiety over the exam I am writing this afternoon. I am still studying, but I am at peace with the fact that I am almost certainly going to fail. Anyways, back to the hunger. I had enjoyed my last meal replacement around 8:30pm, and two (three?) cigars since. I had ingested the Rideau Canal since 6:30pm. What was I to do? I bit the bullet and took another pinch of grated cheese. Yes, I have one small pinch every morning as I feed Her Floofness, but I make it a point to not take more after that. Nothing doing… desperate times call for desperate measures. I took another pinch of it before heading off to bed.

    I still did not fall asleep until 1:00am, but at least I slept pretty well… my sleep score was just barely down from the two previous nights to a 76 and according to my fitness watch, it was ‘Fair, shorter than ideal, with plenty of deep.’ I can live with that. I also only got up to pee once after finally falling asleep, and that was at 2:00am, which means that from 2am to 7:30am I slept five consecutive hours. I did stir at 6:15 or so feeling the urge to pee, but I decided I could wait. Ultimately this afforded me an entire extra 75 minutes of sleep that I likely would not have had if I had gotten up after 6:15.

    While I have been stressed and anxious since mid-March, that has mostly been for personal reasons. Today’s heightened anxiety is for professional reasons – I am nervous about my exam. While I do have more to say about my weight loss program, I really want to spend the next two hours getting the last minute studying and cramming in before heading out for the exam centre. Depending on how things go, you will either hear from me again later today… or tomorrow morning. If I do not post again today do not read anything into that – I might just be distracted.