Everyday Systems

Thanks, all! It was one of the more hectic birthdays on record (nothing like a newborn to liven up festivities!), but we managed to squeeze some quality S in: Mississippi Mud Pie and Mixed Berry Pie from the inimitable Pesti Pies right around the corner from our new home. Also some taza chocolate (a...

NoSRocks just reported losing 26 pounds using an "all caps" mod of No-S (limiting S-days to really special or "capital S" days).

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=8873

Congratulations! That's wonderful news. However,during this time, my weight stayed pretty much the same, give or take a few lbs here and there. That in itself was a huge milestone. It's great that you could see this as a huge milestone. A lot of people can't, and get discouraged. I no longer treat m...

I hear you. And I agree that the habitcal is a much better way to track compliance than merely counting up successive successes. But I think for some people the mini-goal of a small streak of "perfection" can be helpful and fun, kind of like one of those "badges" various games and apps award. Sounds...

Thanks all! I really appreciate it. Should have a very cute 2012 "during" in a bit.

For my family at least -- baby boy was born. I wanted to honor the little fellow's arrival with an S of some kind but the (surprisingly good) hospital kitchen was closed by the time we thought to order. At least I skipped shovelglove!

Reinhard

That's wonderful! Congratulations.

OK, it's been a while, but fortunately I kept good notes on my daily cards so I think I can account for everything. May 28: No-s and shovelglove S-day (memorial day). Glass ceiling failure (2 drinks over the limit, ballasted with much food). June 6: No-S S day (my younger daughter's birthday). June ...

Another perhaps non-obvious mestemacher combination that tastes great: I like it better than bagels for lox and cream cheese. Obviously not "health food," but healthier (and I think even tastier) than the more typical alternative.

You can get large quantities of it through amazon (not a bad deal, actually, and it keeps forever unopened). Around here, whole foods carries it. Trader Joe's has their own version which is cheaper and about as good. I'm pretty sure I've seen it in the bigger star market/shaws as well. Walmart has i...

I'd start by giving yourself a powerful breakfast. As Jethro mentions, I'm a big fan of oatmeal (though I eat it more frequently for lunch). I'm also fond of "mestemacher" style black bread (packs a wallop). It's great with egg (any style) on top if you want to supplement the slow burning fiber blas...

Welcome and congratulations!

(and thanks for the reminder to pop into the 21 day club -- will be there shortly

)

Welcome! Posting here seems to help a lot of people -- so you've made a move in the right direction.

Eschano -- Very funny/sad.

Would be a great scene in a "fast food nation" style documentary about our correspondingly destructive sedentary habits.

(any aspiring film makers out there?)

Reinhard

Ah, forgot to transfer, but lest I use that as an excuse to fall even farther behind, here's Vicki's 4 year testimonial update. She's down over 50 pounds and 4/5 pant sizes, but that's just a small part of the benefit she's enjoyed. Please join me in congratulating her -- and in learning from her co...

Congratulations, Vicki, and thank you for letting us know! Nothing makes me happier than hearing from No-essers of long standing who are still going strong! The details are great. Very helpful to hear about what *didn't* work as well. Many thanks for your kind words -- and many blessings to you and ...

Welcome and thanks for the kind words! Hope No-s does the trick for you.

Not just in terms of Olympic medals and GDP, but also in terms of snacking induced obesity. From: http://apjcn.nhri.org.tw/server/APJCN/Volume21/vol21.2/Finished/13_2047_253_262.pdf (emphases mine) This study investigates the dynamic shifts in snacking behaviors and patterns in China. Using four wav...

Impressive!

Thanks for the suggestion thatsnotfab/@stretchjean.

I have to get my twitter act together one of these days... I exist there but never use the darn thing. Now that I've got facebook figured out to some degree, this is the next frontier.

Reinhard

Yes, exercise is dangerous. Not exercising is more dangerous. I think the key to keeping the inherent danger of exercise to a tolerable level is moderation. It's still possible to injure yourself no matter how careful you are. But aiming for a "sustainable minimum of compliance" will improve both yo...

I've gone ahead and changed the title of this discussion to "Personal Olympics" both for greater historical accuracy and proper emphasis on the central metaphor

Thanks for bringing it to my attention!

And I didn't mean to be touchy!

(hence the profusion of smiley faces)

Frankly, I'm a bit of a history buff and very much appreciate the jam (and have no doubt I'll be spreading it myself shortly).

Reinhard

In France, we have a saying: "Culture is like jam. The less you have, the more you spread it." Hey, I'm an American. Cut me some slack. :-) Thanks to Wikipedia, I think I now have it straight, though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Olympic_Games The Olympic Games... were a series of athletic ...

This does look nice.

I could imagine even a simpler, vanilla No-S version might be helpful for some people, at least to help them get their habit-legs.

Reinhard

Hi ukdanielj, It is letter of the law acceptable to start essing at midnight. It's also letter of the law acceptable to stack 4000 pieces of pizza onto one plate and call it a meal. But the beauty of the system is, that in both cases, the absurdity of your behavior is manifest, and that exerts a gen...

Funny, I wrote "personal mount olympus" but I meant "personal olympics." At least I think I did (it's been while ago since I started this thread). In any case, the central metaphor is olympic games, olympic medals. Not the Greek gods. I think maybe I called this thread "Personal Mount Olympus" becau...

Good to know! This mod has been much discussed, mostly in the abstract, and it's interesting to hear that it's been sustainable and effective for you.

I listened to the audiobook a few months ago -- very good stuff. It's not terribly practical, but excellent for firming up your conviction that habit is powerful, and that there's a growing body of scientific evidence to backing this up. Easy read/listen as well. The part that impressed me most was ...

Sounds like a worthwhile experiment to me -- the downside would be the stares / possible police intervention, but hey, if you can live with that, go for it.

Reinhard

Thanks for the link! Very relevant to everyday systems. Most important part (I think) is at the end: His studies show that people with the best self-control are the ones who structure their lives so as to conserve willpower... they establish habits that eliminate the mental effort of making choices....

Fascinating! Thanks for the link. I loved, of course, the emphasis on habit. And the connection to mental activities. And was amused by the emphasis on walking with firearms -- armed urban ranger. :-) Finally, if Thomas Jefferson, that supreme polymath genius and man of practical achievement, could ...

I just noticed in my campaign to figure out facebook I neglected to report the last batch of testimonials to this thread. Have to log off and luddite now, but I will transfer them in a bit.

"Years on habit" is my favorite success metric for No-S, and DaveMC has just racked up three of them. Please join me in congratulation him.

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=8736

Congratulations, Dave! "Years on habit" is my favorite success metric -- even more than pounds. So I very much appreciate this update. It's especially impressive considering all the traveling you're doing, levels of Baklava exposure, etc. Give my regards to your friend -- we'd love to hear from him ...

Hi Jethro, Saw your email before your post here, but I'll quote from my reply for the benefit of others who might be interested and/or want to weigh in on the scoring issue: Hi Jethro, Sorry I missed your PM! Yes, you are correct that the habitcal currently treats weekend S-days differently from Non...

Congratulations, Deb! That's great news. "Enjoyment" and "consistency" are so important -- and it's hard to have the latter without the former.

That is quite a looker -- and the interchangeable heads are appealing (though they look all the same weight, and of course, there's that ever so slight but nonetheless terrifying risk that they'll come flying off). I too would like to experiment with one-handed hammers but have never quite gotten ar...

Welcome back!

To be safe, I took today as a yellow day. (No insurance, so I'm extra conservative with possible injuries.

Always a good policy, even if you're insured up the wazoo.

Reinhard

First mainstream media pickup in a while -- thanks for letting us know, raumgirl!

Here's the direct link to the no-s slide:

http://www.shape.com/weight-loss/weight ... ork?page=3

Reinhard

Welcome! Ditto JayEll's pole idea. That's enough to start carving time out for the routine, building the habit, figuring out the movements, and getting some exercise benefit. Any when you feel ready to use a sledge, placing your hands near the head makes it significantly easier. Another data point t...

I think this is the takeaway: Habit will (really, truly, measurably, scientifically) make habit-friednly behaviors like No-s easier. There's never a guarantee, you can never quite stop paying attention, but the cost in effort and attention will go down dramatically. It may be 21 days, it may be 19, ...

This board went up in 2005 (and there was an even older yahoo group that goes back to 2002) so there's some deep history (by web standards) here. I like to think of that as a positive thing -- but I guess if you wander into some dusty corner and think that's all there is it can be a little off-putti...

From a NY times article touches on benefits of moderation in jogging, walking, and alcohol consumption. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/06/moderation-as-the-sweet-spot-for-exercise/?src=me&ref=general What does "moderate running" mean? 1 to 20 miles per week at an average pace of about 10 or 1...

It seems to work like this:

For the most part,

if you're really poor, you're starvation skinny.

if you're kinda rich (rich by global standards, poor by 1st world standards) you're fat.

if you're really rich, you're skinny.

Reinhard

Yeah, spam. I killed the account and the link but I'll let the post stand otherwise since it sparked a fruitful discussion.

It's frightening to think how convincing spam is going to be in a decade. You'll wake up one morning and discover your wife is a spambot.

Reinhard

A recent post to the No S Diet facebook page got me thinking: I have been doing No S on and off for 3-4 years. I have noticed it seems to be predominantly a "lady's" diet. But, may I suggest to any gentlemen that might be lurking, it is the most dignified way for us fellows to slim down. You know, i...

I appreciate you guys trying to spread the No-S word -- but don't sweat it if it seems to fall on rocky ground. Best advertisement for No-s is just to keep doing it.

Reinhard

Best of luck this round, Mander. May it be the one that does the trick for you and cements the habit. Why is it so hard to change something that I have so desperately wanted to change for so long? It's bizarre when you think about it. Because the "I" is really a divided being. There's the rational "...

Congratulations to your husband! And hey, give yourself some credit for introducing the idea to him. Generous and smart -- now that you've gotten him to beta test it for you, you can dive in with greater confidence that it'll work. Many thanks for sharing this inspiring (and funny!) success story wi...

Also, there is some everyday systems precedent for minimal tracking: the habitcal. I like to think of this as closer to the habitcal than to calorie counting with its tables and absurd precision. The habitcal tracks 3 values (red, yellow, green) and drink counting (if you're good!) counts no more mo...

I'm incapable of leaving food on my plate. Mom really hammered this into me. If it's there, I feel an almost moral obligation to finish it. The flip side of this is I also now feel an almost physical obligation to stop after than one plate. When the plate is done, I feel full, even if the plate wasn...

Funny article on facebook by Mark Lowry at the national review: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/300363/time-wasting-network-rich-lowry If time be of all things the most precious,â€ Benjamin Franklin said, â€œwasting time must be the greatest prodigality.â€ But he had never heard of a status u...

Reinhard, the thing about your tracking and spreadsheet idea is that it's "accounting," right? Only instead of counting calories it's drinks? It is. But it's a rather easy form of accounting. It involves only math my four year old could do (or you're drinking WAY too much!). That being said, any ac...

I'm totally into the skillet, as can be seen in my original "during." http://nosdiet.com/beforeafter.html I've actually used it as a shovelglove myself a few times, just to mix things up a bit (and I use it daily often multiple times a day for its primary purpose). Sledge and skillet, the sword and ...

Is the issue that 2 drinks feels like too much, or that you are drinking more that 2 drinks too frequently? (or both) If the former, one idea would be simply to lower the glass ceiling, either to a fixed 1 drink limit (might be tricky to comply with on special occasions) or to a viable height 1 drin...

I take this as a good sign -- people use to worry that no-s and everyday systems *only* seemed to work for men. For whatever reason now the pendulum of adoption has swung so much the other way that people are worried about the reverse.

Reinhard

Welcome back to shovelglove purity! I've been on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Been there myself. Hang in there. It gets better. One main thing I recommend is keep clawing your way forward and keep talking to people. Eventually something will click. at the age of 43 I grew. I finally hit 6'. I c...

I tend to reserve stuff like this for S-days because in my mind it's inextricably linked with great pools of maple syrup. In fact, pretty much every Saturday we have dessert-sweet Challah french toast for breakfast. Speaking of French Toast, great tip that I can't remember how I discovered: squeeze ...

Belated happy mother's day!

(Sorry for the delay -- we've moving next month, my group at work is doubling in size, and baby #3 is increasingly making his unborn presence felt.)

Reinhard

Try 4 meals if 3 doesn't do the trick. Or even 5. Then reduce as your appetite calms down -- or just stay there if you find that number of meals does the trick. What you really want to do is assert some kind of control over your appetite and break the automatic permasnacking mode most of us in the W...

Ditto what wosnes said.

Don't stress about it, "relax and enjoy" is really, really important to making this work long term. Remember, it's about building habits, not isolated events. I've had my share of whopping S-days myself.

Reinhard

This is true. Thanks for passing it on.

Welcome, Bananna! Sounds like you have a lot going on! The good news is that 1) as you point out, no-s is quite compatible with all your "what" wanderings (vegetarianism, low-ph, etc.). 2) even beyond that, it's extremely unobtrusive. Rather than competing with all your many (6 kids, wow!) obligatio...

Great article! One number that Dr. Chow didn't mention is this interview is the one his colleague down the road at Harvard, Dr. Cutler, reported in his paper "Why Have Americans become more Obese?", which I think this has enormous practical implications (stop or greatly reduce snacking!): http://das...

Congratulations! That's fantastic!

Read more about ginmarie's success here (among other places):

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=118041

Reinhard

300 likes! Thank you, folks. I'm about as popular as the average junior high school student now.

Reinhard

Friday May 4: Tasks failure. Eyepatch again. Saturday May 5: glass ceiling failure. 2 drinks over the limit. Tamarind margaritas again. I've started keeping a simple count of the number of drinks I have every day in an effort to nudge the average down a bit by there mere pressure of keeping track. S...

Welcome and good luck!

Looking forward to further updates,

Reinhard

Monday is the absolute worst time to weigh yourself. I've been weighing myself daily for the last few months as part of an experiment I'm doing and I've discovered I'm pretty consistently 3-5 pounds heavier on Monday than on Friday. Wait a couple days and weigh again and my bet is you'll magically h...

Hi stride88, You'll get used to it. At 2 weeks, your body is just getting acclimated. Don't think of shoveglove as "exercise." Think of it as physical work. The manual laborers whose movements were are emulating didn't take every other day off, believe me. And they worked a lot more than 14 minutes ...

That's wonderful news -- congratulations and thank you for letting us know! Your achievement would be impressive under any circumstances, but particularly so considering you'd just given birth and then had to sustain 12 hours shifts at work. Very inspirational! Thanks also for sharing your difficult...

Very impressive! Even more so considering your "workout routine!"

Congratulations!

Reinhard

Congratulations! That's quite a milestone.

saying no to friends offering treats is acceptable.

Isn't it amazing how little people mind? Pre-no-s, I'd always rationalized that I had to accept such treats or I would give offense. The truth is, far from taking offense, people barely notice.

Reinhard

I will protect the identity of my partner in crime, but yes, we're east coast. Funny stuff since last check-in: Sunday April 1: Glass ceiling failure. 1 drink over the limit. Boy I didn't wait long to break my March green streak. Our neighbor makes fantastic Tamarind Margaritas. Friday April 6: No -...

Not to knock Mike's achievement (or the achievement of successful 2-meal no-essers here), but skipping breakfast has a high statistical correlation with being overweight. Not, I'm sure, because of its direct effect of subtracting a meal, but because of the indirect effect of overtaxing the willpower...

Disturbingly funny article about Kellogg's in the new york times earlier this week: Kellogg Takes Aim at Snack foods . (I hate to get all paranoid about evil corporations, but boy do these guys make it hard!) First disturbing/funny aspect, the names they give these sugar cereals, it's like they're m...

I hadn't -- love it. Thanks for the link. May be a little while before I can motivate to do something this ambitious!

These bots are getting smarter!

I might have to ask a harder question than my current phrase completion that worked so well for the last few years.

I'm combing through, but feel free to email or PM me any suspected spam you come across.

Reinhard

reinhard.engels@gmail.com

(belated) welcome!

Hope your still happily shugging.

"Shovelglove and Zombies" -- maybe that should be my next book proposal.

Reinhard

After one year, ShyKitty has lost 0 pounds on the No S Diet -- and she's thrilled about it.

Find out why here:

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=8494

Congratulations, ShyKitty!

I love it that this is a diet where 0 pounds after a year is grounds for a testimonial.

Could you even imagine someone on weight watchers etc. feeling that way?

Thank you for sharing your tremendous QUALITATIVE success here!

Reinhard

Welcome, MustardTiger. I very much identify with having a hardwired need for quantifiable, measurable progress - which is not something I will ever shake, Hey, self-knowledge is a valuable thing. Work with it. What I might suggest is make 14 minutes of N-daily shovelglove the "baseline," and indulge...

I love it. A mighty ass-kicker. I've got to put together a shovelglove gallery of stuff like this... Better yet something people can upload to themselves that maybe I can curate. I'm sure there are a million sites that let you do something like like that already. I'll look into it -- but feel free t...

Thanks for the link!

Think it works better with a sledge, though.

Reinhard

Think I'm going to make this "sticky" so the FB information is easier to find. Thanks all who have "liked" so far and been paying attention. I think I'm slowly getting the hang of it.

That's wonderful, ginmarie!

Thanks for stopping by.

Reinhard

Speaking of new books, Reinhard, have you ever thought of pitching one on the lifestyle of No S, 14 minutes, and Urban Ranger? I certainly have! Unfortunately I haven't been able to persuade my publisher to go for it yet... Thanks for the vote of confidence, though. There are so many other alternat...

As I've mentioned before, I like Brian Wansink's book, Mindless Eating: why we eat more than we think . More recently, I've been impressed with Kelly McGonigal's The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do To Get More of It and Charles Duhigg's The Power of Ha...

No flip yet.... you'll notice. It looks significantly different.

The only thing holding me up is figuring out how to plug the habitcal into the login system.

I think it has some kind of rss support, at least optionally. I'll make sure to keep that in mind when configuring it.

Reinhard

I don't know -- I've never heard of them before. They look like regular sledgehammers spraypainted black -- which is great if they don't cost extra and/or give you otherwise unavailable sizes. I don't see them in U.S. amazon, but they've got a good regular sledge selection. Be sure to post a report ...

Glad it's working so well for you! That is a rather big jump in weight... I guess I'd lean towards making the smaller jump (10->12). Yes, that probably means an extra hammer probably in the not-too-distant future, but think of it as an insurance policy against getting injured or dissuaded by moving ...

Dr. Faustus tends to have that effect. He does, doesn't he? :-) He (well, the Goethe version) also inspired another system: http://everydaysystems.com/lowsmoking/ (Fans of playing with the devil may be disappointed that "low" has been "no" for the last few months since my wife's latest pregnancy. T...

oolala53 has done it again: in her latest "testimonial" update she reports making it to the "normal" BMI range for the first time in over a decade:

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=115357

Please join me in congratulating her!

Just back from your update -- congratulations here as well!

And to further aid your "shameless self-promotion," I'll add a link to the "sticky" testimonials section up top.

Reinhard

Congratulations on the update, oolala53!

What a milestone. I'm so happy for you!

Reinhard

Not a silly question at all. I think 3 meals is a safer place to start for most people (supported by social convention, good middle ground between potential privation and potential excess), but if 2 meals works better for you by all means stick with it (lots of people have reported successfully doin...

And hey, it did work in terms of the goal you set out to achieve.

Thanks for the "full disclosure." Always helpful to know what winds up sticking and what doesn't. Self-improvement is experimental -- you have to try stuff to find out what works. Some/most of it isn't going to work. That's fine. If you're afraid of trying you're never going to get anywhere. Reinhard

Thanks, guys!

Unfortunately that first stab at habitcal integration didn't work, so may be a few more days before I flip the switch.

Reinhard

Everyday Systems

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