Everyday Systems

If anyone else has any admiration for that time period I have a recommendation for you. Every morning at 5:30 (at least on the east coast it’s at 5:30) ESPN Classic shows the Jack Lalanne show. The show is about 45 or 50 years old and I’ve watched it religiously for about the past 6 weeks. Baby gir...

Silverfish, congratulations. It's so nice when it goes beyond a mere numbers game. Or a set of digital scales to avoid the bobbing, ducking, contortionism required to try and read the divisions on the current ones without tipping the balance My digital scale gives wildly different readings every tim...

Peetie, I'm sorry it's taken me so long to pop in here, but you've gotten some excellent advice from others, and seem to being doing well, despite the surgery and some minor setbacks. Here's a suggestion on how to interpret "sometimes" on S days: plan on three singlish plate meals, plus an absolutel...

Merrykat, I'm happy things are going so well for you. Unfinished lunch, resisted temptations -- this is great stuff! Looking forward to reading more.

Reinhard

Thanks, local experts! What I take away is: 1) pro: unusually impressive science from an authoritative source 2) pro: lip service at least to sustainability 3) con: probably still too obtrusive for most of us I'm still amazed at the sales. You'd think some stodgy government report, without even a ne...

If you replaced the cokes with fruit juice or milk, it could technically qualify as no-s.

(in Australia at least) It's called the CSIRO diet, a "low-carbohydrate, high-protein diet...created by government scientists." http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SYD152216.htm Anyone familiar with this book? Although best known internationally as a sports-mad country full of fit, bronzed yout...

Spiral,

Your harnessing of laziness is very much in the spirit of S days, which harness the "weakness" of your sweet tooth as incentive to carry you throughout the week. Amazing how powerful those weaknesses can be.

Reinhard

Bob, If your S-days are more about quantity than quality, plan. Make sure you don't have so much quantity around, and that you do have some quality. Be proactive about quality. Don't skimp. Give yourself the best, what you most want, and don't wait, do it before you're eating the carpet. The quality...

The following gleaned from these links that were just forwarded to me: http://ask.yahoo.com/20050906.html http://my.webmd.com/content/pages/1/3079_883 1. surprising factoid: walking a given distance burns more calories than running it. Not sure that this is an especially useful or important thing to...

Well, at least you didn't lose your bet! Looking forward to seeing you clinch it next go (even if there's a bit of a breather in between). Quick big picture diagnosis: it seems like you have 2 big issues. 1) proper meals often don't happen. 2) you eat a lot of fast food. I think next go you might ne...

Welcome, ReneeSuzanne.

4 meals is certainly possible, but you'll have to be a bit more careful about portion sizes. As navin says, it's just a trade off.

Looking forward to hearing more from you,

Reinhard

Deb, I remember when you thought 21 days wasn't doable for you. You've come a long way. You have the most important thing, which is long term stamina. You've been dong this for a year, mostly successfully, mostly happily, and getting better and better at it despite many obstacles. That's huge. As fo...

Welcome, Dave! Wow, that was fast. Post scale numbers if you want, don't if the scale drives you crazy.

Double welcome, Jürgen. Here's hoping this becomes so natural to us all that we keep forgetting that we're doing something strange...

Freakwitch, I think your doctor is right, on the most fundamental level losing weight is simply a matter of calories in/calories out. And I don't think this study suggests otherwise. From what I gather, the reason the article speculates breakfast (and particularly cereal breakfast) seems to inversel...

Cynthia, failure isn't possible on S days. Don't worry about it. Especially in the beginning, it's to be expected that they'll be a little excessive. Three considerations besides this legalistic one to comfort you: 1) your weekday habits will carry over. I know you may not believe this just now, but...

Thank you, hlidskjalf, this looks great, right up my alley. I've listened to a bunch of teaching company courses, too, (not 75, wow!) and have been generally pretty favorably impressed. Unfortunately our local interlibrary request system is no longer doing audio visual requests (unclear whether this...

database crash this time.

Seems to work. Hopefully no more crashes.

Congratulations, Kevin. I too, went through some goal revision due to my unexpected success. I used to think my "natural" weight was 185, mostly because I was usually a bit north of there and had come to think of myself as naturally pudgy. Now I'm a stable 170 and "naturally" thin. I'm glad the 4th ...

A saga! I love it. Good preventative thinking. Not to fear-monger, but a fall from grace is still possible at the ripe old age of 28. Plus, believe it or not, even now that I'm no longer fat, it's nice not to worry any more about food or exercise. My habits are unobtrusive, well-established, and I k...

Richard! I'm sorry I missed you. Welcome to the 21 club and congratulations on being its youngest member.

From article entitled "Grrreat News! Cereal Eaters Weigh Less: New Study Says Breakfast, Cereal Helps Teenage Girls Stay Slim" http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20050908125209990005 Girls who regularly ate breakfast, particularly one that includes cereal, were slimmer than those who ski...

Samurai, I'm sorry you're running into such stubborn resistance. If your schedule is such that there's no way you can make it between breakfast and lunch, give yourself an official, small fourth meal in between. It's much better than taking several unofficial large ones or descending into permasnack...

I've heard about this book, and from what I've heard, I approve. The French diet (and most traditional diets) aren't really all that different from no-s: discreet, social meals, few if any snacks, sweets as rare treats. The one caveat I have is: French women live in France, they have deep structural...

Yes, sick days start with S (and "medical procedures" count as sick).

About time I moved this to the home page, I think...

I've been experimenting a bit with "pick up the pieces" (thanks for the inspired name, Kevin) over the last few weeks. I don't notice any problems with my knees, but I haven't been doing all that many of them. As I've mentioned before, my infant daughter finds them very amusing. Welcome, hlidskjalf....

Prodigal, it sounds like big picture you're doing great. Strictness is a tool to help, not something to torture yourself with after the fact. You're very close. You're close enough that it's working. I'm not going to say "don't try to be strict." Just because there is a "close enough" doesn't mean y...

Dru, I'm sorry it's been so long since I popped in here. I'm happy you no longer have to write down everything you eat. That's huge. I'm happy you've been seeing good numbers on the scale without obsessing over them. I'm happy you're successfullly extending the "days on habit" structure to new habit...

It sounds like the check in is working well for you, emb. No "seriously off the wagon"s. Congratulations. Some S day excesses, but that's to be expected. Do what you need to regarding the running. If you want to keep a completely clear conscience, keep an empty corner of your dinner plate for the yo...

Regarding a tv reduction system: I think it's a good idea, but I'm not the one to come up with it. It's just not a weakness of mine. Deb's suggesstion of "off" is great for those who can manage... but I think the less advanced might want to start by not having it on unless they are actively watching...

It's a great quote, it bears repeating. And please, don't worry, I'm not such a vain vanity web site author that I expect people (except Deb!) to memorize my websites.

Welcome, Lethaltoenails. Wow, that was a quick 21 days.

Congratulations on your continued progress, Freakwitch. No-s wise, your "poor" doesn't sound all that bad... and in any case, it's anomalous. I'd treat the squats like any other shovelglove exercise: instead of getting caught up with a constantly increasing rep count, stick a more moderate, sustaina...

Yet another crash. New server coming soon, I promise...

Hi Sibyl, I wouldn't wrack my brains too much over why 2 meals no longer does it, hunger-wise. The surprising thing is that it ever did. 2 meals might work for certain exceptional people and under certain exceptional circumstances, but if it's not working for you now, just stop worrying and go up to...

I made a mistake, it's Mett, not Metz (or Mettwurst, though that also sounds delicious): http://www.marions-kochbuch.de/index/0763.htm I'm going to try to bring my daughter at least 1.5 lingual, since my German isn't quite perfect (as evidenced by the above) and that's probably the most I can hope f...

Cynthia, don't be sheepish. It takes many tries for most people to get something like this right. Willpower isn't something anyone here has all that much of. That's why we try to leverage what little we have with simple, humane, clear-cut rules to build habits that carry us along without much willpo...

Welcome, MerryKat from sunny South Africa. I'm happy you're finding it easy from the get go -- it only gets easier. Pop in now and then to let us know how you're doing. "Still at it" might not seem like exciting news, but in the field of diet, it is the most exciting news, and it only gets more exci...

Everything.

We think this particular problem may have to do with bad memory, but it's really old (20th century), and we're just going to replace the whole thing.

I think the tricky bit about grazing is that it does work in the lab. If you could limit yourself to x calories, you'd lose more weight grazing than eating those calories in 3 meals. The problem is we aren't caged lab rats, and by grazing we eat x calories + a lot more. Snacking makes it very diffic...

Welcome, Blue Daisy. This plan might be a tad slower that your previous plan, since as you point out, it isn't quite as restrictive, but on the plus side, it'll probably weather crises better (and they always come). Given your outlook and previous "training," I'm optimistic No-s will be a good fit f...

Jan, your walking is almost pre-industrial. I'm amazed.

Did you see this article I posted a while back on the old group about (among other things) the "Amish pedometer" experiment?

http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/050465.html

Don't let it get you that you swapped, it's an advanced but legitimate move, and you've been doing great otherwise. Besides, what would a contest be without a little drama?

Looking forward to more championship green next week...

When you're done giving what you can to the poor people down there, consider giving a little to their poor, stranded pets: http://hsus.org/ http://animalhelp.com/ It really gets me to hear about all the pets that were left behind because people thought they'd be back in a few days. People come first...

This is no mere blog. Abstract here: http://www.nature.com/ijo/journal/v29/n6/abs/0802950a.html Obese subjects were more frequent snackers than reference subjects and women were more frequent snackers than men. Snacks were positively related to energy intake, irrespective of physical activity. Sweet...

Much belated welcome, fivefoot2eyseofblue. Pop in now and then to let us know how it's going. More evidence for the next 50 plusser.

Deb, congratulations! With everything you've been going through this week, it's doubly amazing.

James: congratulations on your triple and thanks for checking in here again. I love to see that when people make it here they stay.

Good point. In most cases, it's more useful to think of health as being addicted to the good, rather than being merely unaddicted. This sounds a bit weird, and that's why I like the old fashioned term "bad habit" better than "addiction." It implies you can do something about it. It also has the more...

I think we should be ok now. Let me know if you run into this again.

We have another unrelated problem to deal with, which is the webserver itself. It's been crashing at least weekly for the past few months. We have the replacement, but the time has been lacking. Hopefully this weekend...

Hi Jürgen,

We're working on this... thanks for the nudge, sorry for the inconvenience.

Reinhard

Pineapple was my no-s sweet fruit revelation. Also, ever have a Pluot ? Part plum, part apricot. Whenever I eat one of those, I think it won't be long before they breed/engineer fruits that have the sugar content of candy... It's funny how so many things in life are fine to do until you have to talk...

Samurai, I think this is a great idea. Naturally, losing more weight quicker isn't the best goal, but: 1) money is a powerful motivator. This is the "secret" behind the fantastic bods of the hollywood stars: the seven+ figure diet. 2) even if it ain't quite seven figures, honor's at stake (especiall...

Sandy, there is something good about this failure: it shows the difference no-s will make. I don't think there's any way you're going to get thin, on any diet, eating all that sugary stuff. You clearly will get thinner by largely cutting it out. Since sweets are your problem, let them also be part o...

Dunno how this turned into a music and dance review, but that's what I saw on my walk today! That's precisely why walking is the best exercise. You're never going to get a music and dance review on the stationary bike or the nautilus machine. You make me homesick, I grew up on the upper west side. ...

Hi Deb, I'm glad this bulletin board has been helpful, but it can't replace face to face human contact. Be careful that it doesn't, or it isn't really a help. You are our champion poster here, and we deeply appreciate your contribution, but sometimes I worry that it's taking too much of your time (I...

Keep on returning, Samurai. We love your posts, and sometimes the right idea needs the right time to click. Keep one foot here and when the right time comes, all you have to do is shift your balance a little.

Hi Lethal,

Technically, if you fit it on a plate, it's legit. One slice wouldn't fill me up. Unless you're a tiny little thing, 2 sounds very reasonable.

Reinhard

it crashed again. Another test...

Weekend Luddite is still going strong... I'd move a link to it to the everydaysystems home page, but I can't think of an appropriate biblical term for it. Any ideas? Freakwitch: I've moved on to Phaedo (and Aristophanes). Mike: I like your periodic eye ergonomics alarm breaking the spell... my probl...

Congratulations! 10 pounds is nothing to sneeze at, especially if it might be twice that. Weighing one self is not a fun activity when one is topping out. The 210 I list on the web site as my "before" is very conservative. My max has been over 220. I remember thinking "I weigh as much as Mike Tyson,...

Thanks, Blondie. Interesting article, with a note of caution: The study, however, has its critics, including state epidemiologist Melvin Kohn, who said that while the findings look impressive on paper, nearly 59 percent of adult Oregonians are classified as either "obese" or "overweight." "That's al...

I'm sorry it's been such a long time since I popped in here, but wow, a lot has happened. 1. congratulations on making it to 21 2. sorry you'll be without boy no-s for so long... that's tough. 3. You're going to have to come up with an uglier "before" for the "before and during" gallery. Why are you...

Guys, see what I mean? This is way too on topic for off-topic.

Spiral, I second Justin's motion, that was beautifully put. Expect a home page mention shortly...

gj, this is fantastic! Sorry it's been so long since I last popped in, I've been on vacation (to your part of the world, roughly, in fact). Everyone is aware of the problem of being underambition, but overambition can also be dangerous, especially since we're not looking out for it and often catches...

Congratulations and welcome, Carolejo. Will check your checkin for details...

I'm so happy this club keeps expanding. Good thing we're all losing weight or we wouldn't fit.

Much belated welcome, Lethaltoenails. Sorry you joined just as I was between vacations -- but I see you got a pretty warm and full reception nonetheless! Very nice to have a chiropracter on board, especially in the shovelglove section. I stick with real sugar. I'd much rather have a little of the be...

Congratulations, Denise. I'm a big "Good Humor Strawberry Shortcake" fan, too. The flavor chemists really hit it on the nail with that one -- and the nostalgia value. Here's an interesting faq from the manufacturer: http://www.icecreamusa.com/faq/ Including: Q: How much ice cream do we eat a year? A...

I guess it's good in a way to step on the scale after dinner to get the most pessimistic numbers -- reduces unpleasant surprises and increases pleasant ones, but I have to confess the only time I get on is empty.

I had no idea middle earth was that big. Though I guess they weren't walking in straight lines over level ground. Goes well with the "Strider" mention on the urban ranger home page and the "smite the orc" shovelglove move. I wonder if there's a google maps for middle earth... now that would be nerdy.

Great name, and inspiration, "pounding corn."

You must have very high ceilings (or no ceilings) for "crack with whip!"

I'll give these both a shot tomorrow (if I can sort out the ceiling issue) along with the recently posted "paddle the canoe."

Thanks, Big Phil, keep tweaking and posting.

Sammy, Itf, sorry for the delayed responses (vacation). Sammy -- Deb's right, you have my permission and support to do the "degraded beast" if you enjoy it. I have to confess that after hearing about my uncle in law's exploits I was curious how many good form pushups I could do (interspersed with ot...

Snazzy, don't be afraid to post diet related stuff in the nos-diet forum. Just because not everyone there is going to agree with you doesn't mean it's off topic. It's very much on topic, and interesting. And I think after that last little tiff everyone will be sure to be on their best behavior.

Freakwitch: You make some good points, which I'll mull over some more, but I think I still like yearly granularity because: 1. I'm in no rush, so it's ok with me if this gallery starts out tiny, or takes a few more months to start at all. 2. As Deb points out, I think shorter term inspiration is eas...

Beautiful... I never made it up to Virgil in Latin class, what a pity.

I have to make use of that image somehow. Would make a very funny refrigerator magnet.

I hadn't noticed tinyurl here (or anywhere) before... what a cool idea.

For the similarly ignorant, read more here:

http://tinyurl.com

A podcast is to radio what a blog is to newspaper. It basically lets anyone set up their own internet radio show, except better, because you can download each episode to your computer or portable mp3 player and listen at your leisure. iTunes has recently made it very easy to find and subscribe to po...

I had a three "special" S day week last week, all completely unavoidable. Monday: Hosted friend's birthday party. Thursday: visited family in Germany I hadn't seen in years. Friday: big birthday party for my aunt and 90 blood relatives. I'd considered doing some weekend swapping, but my relatives we...

Inspired by Deb, I'm going to set up a "before and during" gallery section on the nosdiet site. I see the format as a table where each person gets a row of before and during thumbnails (click to see bigger pictures) plus links to each bulletin board profile and check in. Send me a new "during" every...

Deb, by all means, please do send before and "during" pictures. I'll use them to inaugurate a special before and during gallery section of the site.

Kevin, you're right. By "essentially the same" I meant the just the common physical mechanism. The props that hold this mechanism in place, and the powerful, postitive side effects of these props, are far more interesting and ultimately even more important.

Congratulations, emb, and thanks for posting this. Sorry I missed it in the chaos between vacations until now.

Just as alcoholics don't really enjoy alcohol -- and there is much to enjoy --, I think you'll find sugar has never tasted so good as when you eat it of your own free will.

I always had good numbers, even when I was way overweight. Indeed, it was one of my excuses for being overweight. See, even good genes can make you fat! I am curious about other people's experience, since I imagine I'm somewhat anomalous in this regard. The number crash was one of the big shockers o...

Except Oregon (wonder what they're doing differently?).

So I guess the last batch of fads didn't quite work either...

Article here:

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u ... e_rankings

Welcome, snazzy!

Don't worry, we won't kick you out. But you'll have more excuses to post here if you keep going strong.

cvmom, very nice! I think statistically triples are even rarer than home runs.

Bravo. Thank you, James. This is definitely home page mention worthy. Big choices should give direction and space to little choices. It's basically internal delegation. Too many people don't see the distinction and make lots of doomed "big-little" choices, too ambitious and too specific, too big and...

Welcome back, Tonsha. If you like the spirit of shovelglove but want to be extra careful about your back, there's a lot you can do using the general structure of schedulistically insignificant 14 minute routines every N day. Every move doesn't have to involve the sledge. You might even want to slip ...

Welcome, Mike. You won't bore us at all. Please keep posting. I'd read about Caleb's walking every steet in Manhattan in the New Yorker a while ago (we're talking about Caleb Smith, right? or has more than one Caleb done this?). I'm happy he linked to urban ranger, I emailed him about it a while ago...

Justin posted a similar link a little while ago:

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=270

But this looks better (at least for North Americans not residing in Hoboken), because it starts zoomed out.

Very cool stuff. Thank you!

Deb, congratulations, this latest spurt has been astonishing. It's great for me to come back from vacation to such news -- I should do it more often. The picture you sent looks fantastic -- you definitely have nothing to lose from the neck up. Keep at it, you are in deeply inspiring territory right ...

I'm back... I've got a million work emails I need to plow through first, but then I'm all yours again. Thanks all for your kind wishes (and good behavior).

And offline. So don't be alarmed if it takes me a little longer than usual to respond to your posts.

Welcome, Lisa Marie! We are all knowers and admirers of Freakwitch here. I wish I had something more useful to offer you than "I feel your pain..." When I was an undergrad in Madison Wisconsin, those long siberian winters found me a very reluctant (and unconscious, since I hadn't though of it yet) u...

Lots of good points here... very little to add. No s diet and weight watchers (from what I understand) are both essentially simple calorie reduction diets. They just use different methods to reach the same ends. No s is really just a shortcut to counting points, it's a "good enough" approximation. T...

Planner Lady, the habit of a few discreet meals is deeply natural, how people have eaten for generations. You will get used to it. It takes a bit of effort at first to lift you out of your current rut of permasnacking, but these grooves are even deeper and more natural. Your new "second nature" will...

Instead of burning, try the "Diet Book Diet" (works with exercise books, too): resolve to carry around in a backpack wherever you go any diet books you buy until you hit your target weight. Guaranteed to fix at least one problem: either you'll lose weight or stop spending money. Warning: the no s di...

Welcome, Denisems. Hope you made it through your first day ok. This'll be easier than what you've done for Lent. You can still clean your plate like your mother told you (just 1, though). And no need to disparage your beloved sugar, you can still indulge on S days (when, if you're like me, you'll en...

Those of you who haven't should really look at this. It's not as complicated as it looks at first glance, and it's amazingly cool. People used who used to plan their walks/jogs/bikerides around limited paths with known distances can now choose paths solely on the basis of pleasure, beauty and conven...

Welcome, Sammy, and thanks for posting these moves. Sorry I didn't respond sooner. I'm travelling the rest of this week, but will give paddle the canoe a try when I get back next week. I have a dim memory of having tried something similar before, but the image is so compelling that it's worth anothe...

Freakwitch, you're absolutely right. If you're having trouble making it through the week, the last thing you want to do is give yourself an extra opportunity for failure on the weekend. By keeping it officially S, you can't fail, you can just be extra virtuous.

I'll check it out, Deb.

Everyday Systems

Search found 5928 matches

Australian Diet book tops Harry Potter

Walking vs. Running for weight loss

Testing new server...

In defense of breakfast (cereal)

New International Journal of Obesity Article: Snacking Bad

Audiodidact: using podcasts for foreign language learning

Call for before and during pictures

Report: Obesity Rates Up in Most States

Reinhard on vacation till Monday