Sleep, Eat

I'm on my third day of being underslept. Nothing major going on; just staying up too late and then waking up by 7:30 every morning. I think both the sunniness in the room and a sense of excitement towards my move are waking me up and making it difficult to go back to sleep. The pillow-over-the-head sunblock method works less well in these situations in which it is warm (like, you know, the 6 months of Texas summer) and I am feverish (as I have been, probably allergy-related). It occurs to me it would be the work of a moment to make an eyeshade from the super-comfy black fleece I have. Hmm. Oh, I am also dealing with pain that my dosing of Tylenol is not doing nearly enough to counteract but I am not yet willing to break out the big (prescription) drugs, and that can both wake me up and keep me awake.

Anyway, I have noticed that being underslept leads me to eat more calories. For me, this is not really about using snacking as a way of staying awake, though. It seems that I have a tendency to make poorer decisions (or exercise less willpower or however you want to couch that sort of thing that results in worse behaviors) and that I am physically hungrier. (The latter seems questionable, but I have read things that suggest it does occur on a physiological level.) Since I tend to eat more and yet exercise about the same amount on underslept days, this leads to a higher net calorie intake.

While lying in bed and not sleeping between 7:15 and 8:00 this morning, I thought about different strategies I might use to deal with this problem. Obviously, getting enough sleep is the easiest (in the sense of being the most direct approach and most straightforward to identify, not necessarily accomplish) and most important thing, but for those days that for whatever reason I did not do that, it would be helpful to have some ideas in place for avoiding eating much more than usual.

(1) Avoid Tempting Situations and Environments

This is a cornerstone for my eating style anyway, but it seems even more critical when I'm tired (and often have a headache as a result) and my judgment is impaired / my discipline is weak / I go with the most immediately attractive option. Eating at a restaurant (unless it falls under point 2 and does not tempt me to order an appetizer, dessert, etc.) or having any kind of hyperpalatable food could be even worse than usual. Mildly indulgent treats that I can generally handle eating on an irregular basis may be too difficult to deal with effectively. Being tired and hungry shouldn't be license to eat hedonically; I have to fight any sense that feeling somewhat bad physically means that I "deserve" to indulge in unhealthy food or any of that rot. Anyway, being genuinely hungry makes food taste better than usual, so I don't really need to eat that chocolate Chex Mix bar or stack of pancakes to tempt my appetite. (By the way, I am pancake-free since June.)

(2) Stick with the Familiar / Acceptable Foods

Eating things that have known calorie counts, selecting items that I have demonstrated are satisfying for their calorie cost, and just generally marshalling the behavioral power of habit in my favor seem like good ideas. My poor tired brain will be happier if I "indulge" in a bit of good mindless eating - having my normal breakfast; eating my typical foods that I don't have to gather information on, calculate calories on, and evaluate for reasonableness; taking the fact that I have finished a normal meal as a cue that it's time to stop eating rather than questioning whether I want to have more.

(3) Respect My Hunger in a Calorie-Wise Fashion

I don't see any point in trying to convince myself that I'm not as hungry as I think I am. This is hard when my brain is functioning well and my reason has a greater influence on my behavior, let alone when I am so tired and the hunger is "real" at a physical level. Among my familiar/acceptable options, it probably makes sense to look for the greatest fillingness-to-calorie ratio that is consistent with an adequate level of other sources of satisfaction (e.g. taste). I have room to downgrade my normal level of other satisfaction for a day or two and still remain in the acceptable range.

As every single person with any knowledge on the subject will say, vegetables are the king of filling foods. I have observed from my tracking of my food intake that the days I eat more vegetables, I do eat fewer calories without a hunger cost or a serious degration of eating satisfaction. (Eating more vegetables in lieu of other foods may lead to lower pleasure long-term - I haven't tried it personally or seen any data on the matter - but doesn't appear to make much of a difference to me over a couple of days.) This is obviously totally non-scientific, though it does have a sense of quasi natural experiment, since I often eat combinations of foods at meals that have been determined at a previous point in time and do not reflect as much as for most people what I want / am willing to eat at a given eating occasion. Some planned meals have more vegetables than others.

I have also noticed that for me, vegetable preparation method seems to make a difference. In order of fillingness-to-calorie ratio:

Steamed > Roasted > Raw

I have difficulty eating enough raw vegetables to make a difference unless (and sometimes even when) I eat them with salad dressing. I am somewhat better with raw cauliflower than other veg, but I don't usually have raw, cut-up cauliflower available since it's even better cooked, and there are some (like broccoli) that I won't eat raw at all. In practice, I find eating salad (or my favored relatively decadent blend of raw baby carrots, light ranch dressing, and salad toppins, which I tend to eat as a snack or as a second course to a meal) to be a way to get more veg in, which is good, but it's not a great calorie-controlling strategy for me. Raw veg is pretty easy and quick to fix, assuming you have the veg already on hand and are not committed to a salad/blend with a dozen different components. Baby cut carrots and packaged salad blends are the bomb, convenience-wise.

Roasted veg taste the best: I like the way that I season them (light coating of olive oil and herbs/spices - not bad on the added calorie front) and the roasting brings out the sweetness. I can eat roasted veg in large quantities because they are delicious and they are less volumetric than other veg, which is great from a nutrient perspective but not as much from a calorie perspective (esp. when I put something like white potato or sweet potato into the mix). This is also the least convenient of my methods because it requires much more advanced preparation to cut all the raw veg up and put them in the oven for 45 minutes.

A bag of frozen, microwavable steam-in-bag vegetables is the best for my purposes. You can buy a bunch and store them (esp. if you have a huge freezer like I do), preparation involves sticking bag in microwave and pushing a button, and they cook in less than 7 minutes (less than 1.5 if you do a single serving pouch). They turn out soft enough to be easy to eat, are perfectly dressed with a minimum of added calories (I always pepper, typically salt, and often add a small amount of Brummel and Brown), and are nicely volumetric. This can be a somewhat costlier option than buying fresh (non-organic) veg (and, yeah, means more trash in the form of the bag you cook them in), but I definitely feel that it's worth it.

I would like to reach the point where I can view a bowl of (lightly dressed) steamed veg as a reasonable snack / second course option as I do now with a bowl of fruit or carrots & salad dressing, but frankly, I find them much more attractive to be eaten as part of a meal - e.g. eaten along with a Boca chick'n patty and some basmati rice or along with a piece of casserole / one dish meal. I would thrilled if I could more often choose to turn three casserole servings into four and make up the volume with more vegetables. (The casserole usually contains veg already, of course, but not always).

Have you noticed the amount/quantity of sleep to affect your hunger level or eating habits? Do you have strategies that you use? How do you make vegetables more hedonically pleasing and/or a more habitual, go-to food?