Everyday Systems

Recently, on Slate: Kafka's Calisthenics: Watch and learn the favorite exercise routine of early 20th century Europeans. "Franz Kafka was a fanatical Müller follower. He would do the movements, fully naked, in his window, twice each day, whirling his arms and twisting this way and that, practicing ...

I use skim, even though I try to avoid diet food in general. However, it seems obvious that skim milk IS a diet food. You take a naturally rich whole food, milk, which nature intended to nurture infants and toddlers with lots of protein and fat, and remove the fat, half of its reason for being. In t...

Breaking news from the Onion http://www.theonion.com/articles/experts-say-breakfast-now-sixth-most-important-mea,17646/ WASHINGTON—A new report from the Food and Drug Administration has found that breakfast, once considered the most important meal of the day, has now slipped to sixth place, below ...

Congratulations! Well done. I'm sure your friends and family (including your many siblings!) are very proud of you. Isn't painless self-control a wonderful thing? You kind of feel like you know a magic trick that other people just can't grasp.

FWIW, I don't have a scale at home. I use the good, medical quality digital one at the YMCA. This prevents me from obsessing over it, as well as giving me an incentive to go to the gym. A number of times, when tired, I've gone to the Y "just to do my twice-weekly weigh-in," and ended up having a goo...

Thanks, Starla. I'm not positive what caused the plateau- it was discouraging at the time. I had no red days during that time. What I did have were the actual holiday days, and more chocolate, cookies and so on lying around the house to push my S-days into overindulgence. The combination of cold wea...

Aw, shucks. Thanks for all the kind words, everyone. I found the Excel chart template here http://www.vertex42.com/ExcelTemplates/weight-loss-chart.html It's currently the top result when Googling "weight loss chart." I used the customizable one about halfway down the page. A teensy bit of familiari...

Nice collection of quotes about moderation, many of which I've not seen before. My favorite: "Moderation in all things, including moderation.- Petronius." http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Moderation Also, for those interested, I've posted a one-year testimonial on the relevant forum. Pleased to say I've...

Thank you Reinhard! I started No-S on May 4, 2009. At six feet tall, and age 39, I was 263 pounds. Last night, a few days ahead of schedule, I weighed 199, roughly what I weighed as an undergraduate 20 years ago. My waist size has gone from 42 to 36. I feel great, look like myself again, and am exci...

I have pizza nearly every week day for lunch. One largish slice, usually thin crust, usually pepperoni or sausage. With this, I get a very nice small green salad, with lots of raw veggies and vinegar and olive oil. I've been doing very well with NoS for nearly a year, and will post on my progress so...

For an amusing time-killer, see Habit patterns (1954), on the Internet Archive. It's an educational short (14 minutes) with a very patronizing narrator and high cheese factor, but the basic message is right-on, and very "Everyday Systems."

http://www.archive.org/details/HabitPat1954

Hi all, Came across a post on another Ramit Sethi's financial blog today regarding weight loss and "willpower." Currently, there are over 100 replies, along the usual lines. I chip in at comment numbers 98 and 103, under the screen name Marc, trying to explain No-S. Check it out if you're interested...

Interesting research confirming what I've noticed anecdotally- I'm LESS hungry on N-days, up until a little before regular meal-times. http://www.physorg.com/news170688849.html "Researchers at Columbia and Rockefeller Universities have identified cells in the stomach that regulate the release of a h...

Good point, LA_Loser. Friday nights we always go to the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet. I considered making Friday an unrestricted S-day, until realizing that all I can eat is a whole lot- that's the original problem. I ended up making a partial mod (which is my only one). I have one reasonable plat...

No S- the Ideal Platonic Diet (TM)! That's great. I'm no expert, but it seems to me that enjoying a good, such as moderation, for its own sake, is a common philosophical idea, Epicurians aside. Aristotle, for instance, apparently insists on this quality to define the highest good. Slote seems to be ...

Hi all, My first post here, though I've been lurking (and no-s-ing) for about two months. It's going well, by the way- I'm a 5'11" man, down 16 pounds from 263 to 247. I've been lifting weights fairly seriously during that time, so that weight loss may include a few pounds of added muscle. I'm an ac...