Two weeks ago I finally had my sleep test. As a result, there’s good news and bad news.

The good news is I know I have sleep apnea. The bad news is I have to wait another three weeks to meet with a specialist about the exact results and start treatment. And according to research, it could take a few months before I even get a CPAP machine!

In the meantime, there is nothing I can do about my poor sleep. The only thing that will help is a CPAP machine. Sedatives are a no no and sleeping longer will not help either.

This reality is frustrating and depressing and one of the reasons I haven’t written on this blog in a while. My energy levels are so low I can barely focus on watching television.

My intense workouts have been for nought the past few months because the more I worked out, the more my sleep deprived body felt threatened and held on to calories. Of course if I hadn’t joined a gym and been disappointed with my results (as was my trainer), I would never have gone to a sleep clinc.

Looking back, I probably should have gone to sleep clinic 10 years ago. I always assumed I felt tired, run down and mentally unfocused due to poor eating habits and lifestyle choices.

I’m trying to look the bright side: A solution is coming even if I have to wait, but in the meantime I really need a nap….

… yes, you heard me.

I have nothing against coffee. I love coffee. And it really bugs me when new age nutritionists call coffee a toxin. A couple of cups in the morning is not going to kill you.

However, I do find I tend to “crash” mid-morning and I wonder if coffee has anything to do with it. I usually have one tall black coffee in the morning – I gave up cream and sugar – and while I don’t consider that a large amount, it may be that it gives me a high early in the day that fades quickly by 10:30 a.m.

For now, I am going to substitute with caffeine-free tea or just having nothing at. I’ll make up for it with a big pot on weekends!

I’ve been spending too much money eating breakfast and lunch out. Sometimes those meals are healthy, sometimes they’re not. Andafter reviewing my financial priorities and obligations, I realize I have a pretty decent amount of disposal income, and perhaps I should dispose less of it.

As result, my new strategy will hopefully help my health and my wallet. On the weekend I went shopping and filled my cupboards and fridge with real food – unprocessed meats, vegetables and fruits. I will now make dinner at home every night and be sure to have leftovers for lunch the next day.

Yesterday for lunch I had a leftover pork chop with steamed rice, broccoli and cheese sauce. Today it’s leftover spaghetti with a vegetarian sauce.

In the past, I have relied on processed / prepackaged foods or food courts for my lunches. Hopefully this will be better in the long run financially and nutritionally.

I did my weekly weigh-in with my trainer – it had actually been two weeks since I got on a scale – and I’ve regained all of the weight I lost from that nasty chest cold.

This means I’ve only lost 7 lbs. in roughly seven months of Weight Watchers and working out intensely three days a week. To say that I’m frustrated doesn’t begin to cover it. I’ve made a lot of sacrifices financially to pay for training which I know is good for me and I’ve given up things I enjoy in the process of developing a healthier lifestyle.

I am finally booked at a sleep clinic Friday night and I hope something is wrong because right now I don’t know why I can’t lose weight and why I have no energy – my annual physical found no anomalies.

Mondays suck as it is, but I’m starting off the week in a bad place, which I hate doing. I’m thinking of cancelling Weight Watchers and just tracking what I eat for a while and upping the exercise quotient. Otherwise, I’m at a loss of what to do.

I finally have an appointment for the sleep clinic – next Friday. I hope it reveals a problem because right now I am frustrated: I sleep eight hours and don’t feel rested.

Getting to the bottom of this issue is key I think to all my other conditions, both physical and mental. In that vein, here’s 11 Reasons Why You Absolutely Need More Sleep (via Dumb Little Man):

1. Studies have shown that staying up all night long (being awake for 17 or more hours) can leave you with a reaction response comparable to that of an intoxicated person with a blood alcohol reading of greater than 0.5. This makes you a definite danger to yourself and to others. Of course this lack of physical and mental control does not simply ‘happen’ at minus 8 hours. For every hour you stay awake you decrease your ability to focus and perform throughout the coming days.
2. Insufficient sleep results in an incomplete hormonal cycle. This means your body cannot produce daytime hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline when it needs them first thing. As a result, you depend on stimulants to keep you going, and set yourself up for another poor night’s sleep. You can’t escape the always tired but always wired cycle you’ve set up for yourself.
3. A classic symptom of this ‘tired but wired’ cycle is not feeling hungry in the morning, or feeling nauseous when you do eat breakfast. Never imagine that this is a convenient way to save on time and calories – the food that you eat first thing stimulates your metabolism and aids in detoxification. Without a good breakfast to line your belly you set yourself up for low energy and poor eating patterns the rest of the day.
4. A poor sleep cycle causes your body to create patterns that will enable you to handle the ongoing sleep of your go-go-go lifestyle. One of these patterns is an excessive release of stress hormones such as cortisol – particularly in the evening. Stress hormones allow you to keep going, but they’re also the ones that keep you up at night, and what’s more – they signal your body to store fat. And that’s regardless of how you’re eating or exercising.
5. Physical patterns such as the release of stress hormones are just one part of the equation. The other thing you need to consider is the compensation patterns that you yourself end up creating. An extra coffee here, a few pieces of candy there, the decision to have that mid-afternoon muffin. When you’re tired your defenses are down and it’s easy to think that these little things don’t count. But they could be the one thing stopping you from losing weight and improving your health.
6. Speaking of sugar, those mid-afternoon cravings are not just in your head. When you don’t have enough sleep your brain continually sends out urgent messages for quick energy. This is a survival instinct – it’s all about keeping you as alert and focused as possible. Will power alone can’t override these cravings – not when you’re fighting your own physiology. This just makes it harder to stick to your healthy eating goals, and the sugar slump doesn’t do you any favors either. The really scary part is that these daily indulgences can mean the hormone named insulin is constantly elevated and you’re setting yourself up for possible diabetes.
7. In fact, it’s not just the mid-afternoon cravings that’ll get you when you’re tired. The truth is that you’ll find yourself eating far more on a daily basis, and that you’ll tend to do it all day long. Breakfast aside, no doubt. You’ll also tend to make poorer choices – more processed foods, more sugary sodas, more starchy carbohydrates or fried foods. And it’s pretty tough to escape this cycle when your eyes are stinging and your motivation is at an all-time low. Leading sleep researchers T.S. Wiley and Bent Formby, Ph.D, in their book ‘Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar, And Survival’ show a close connection between a lack of sleep and the increasing existence of obesity in our society.
8. One of the most unfair symptoms of sleep debt is that inability to wind down come evening time. Of course it shouldn’t really be much of a surprise – not when you’ve spent the better part of the day jacked up on caffeine and sugar. And even if you haven’t, your nervous system is in overdrive which keeps you buzzing all night long but leaves you groggy and useless in the morning. There’s only one way out of this mess, and it’s not more coffee.
9. Back ache, neck ache, tummy ache, headache … when you’re tired it sometimes just seems as though everything hurts. According to Paul Chek, H.H.P, as stated in his book “How To Eat, Move And Be Healthy”, physical repair takes place while you’re sleeping, and it happens in the first half of the night – around 10pm-2am. If you skip those vital first few hours and hit the sack post-midnight with the alarm set for 6 or 7am, your body simply cannot rejuvenate your muscle cells, or indeed any of your cells. This leaves you physically weaker and with constant ailments.
10. Of course you could try going to bed on time and getting up super-early if you still can’t afford yourself a full 8 hours, but according to Paul you’d then you’d be skipping out on crucial psychological repair. This takes place approximately between 2am and 6am, and is directly linked to your mental focus, your moods, and your ability to maintain a positive mindset. Imagine the effects of a lack of sleep over time – small wonder so many people find themselves heading down the dark road of depression or anxiety.
11. It’s pretty hard to climb off the wheel of life when you barely have the energy to get through the day. Missing out on sleep could be costing you a lot more than you realize if it means you’re stuck in the rut of your day-to-day life and simply can’t even begin to contemplate what it would take to make some changes. Whether it’s testing the waters for a new career or a promotion, ending or beginning a relationship, or even just trying out that hobby you’ve been shelving for so long, chances are it’s not going to happen when you’re frazzled and burnt out.

The Onion, America’s Finest News Source, has been focusing on food stories, some new, some classic. I couldn’t resist posting this video, since it’s something I think on some level fast food joints have actually considered because it’s always been about eating more of their crap more easily.

New Wearable Feedbags Let Americans Eat More, Move Less