Everyday Systems

Sienna

The remedy? Stop weighing yourself daily, and opt for once per week as a maximum. Basically, the best time to weigh yourself should be Saturday as soon as you get out of bed, and weigh yourself nude if possible so you don't have to factor in the weight of your clothes. It's interesting, because for...

Sienna

My new thing is to try to eat pizza on ONLY N days. I love pizza, but it can be a binge trigger for me if I'm already stressed. On an N day, I only get the one plate of pizza - a reasonable amount. On S days, because I theoretically *can* eat a ton of pizza (multiple servings), it's more likely for ...

Sienna

I'm in too. With at least 15 minutes of exercise at least 5 days a week. I'm striving for N day exercise, but I'll let a week be green if I sub in the exercise for 1 or 2 N days on Saturday and Sunday because time is often a limiting factor in me getting exercise. No substitutions in diet, though. T...

Sienna

Had ice cream for breakfast. Black raspberry chocolate. It was fantastic! Yay S days! Today is an exciting day. I was putting some clothes away (unpacking), and I decided to try on some old clothes, just to see where I was. Recently I've noticed that my jeans are pretty baggy, but since clothes are ...

Sienna

I don't really have set rules for what/when I eat on S days. If I want ice cream for breakfast, I eat ice cream for breakfast. If I'd like to have some snacks in the afternoon, I have snacks in the afternoon. What I do do (on N days to, but it's more relevant on S days) is ask myself *why* I want so...

Sienna

Thursday was green and so far today has been green (it will stay that way - I'm not worried). And then tomorrow will be an S day! Really looking forward to a bit of ice cream. Or chocolate. Or chocolate ice cream... Overall this week was pretty sane. Much less processed/fast food than the last few w...

Sienna

Chocolate is my biggest downfall... Is it because I'm a girl? Maybe. But I read an article some time ago about chocolate lovers/haters and the natural bacterial flora in their stomachs. Apparently the types of bacteria found in the stomachs of people who love chocolate is actually different than wh...

Sienna

So far so good this week, but it's only Thursday morning and I'm really longing for some ice cream. I'll wait until the weekend, and it will taste better then anyhow, but boy ice cream really sounds good!

Sienna

and it seems like you'd need a good five or six numbers to describe all the different permutations of torso, waist, hips, legs, etc. that make up the wonderful variety of womankind. I've decided that the sheer complication is actually why *they* distilled it all down to a single effectively meaning...

Sienna

Thanks guys! I definitely agree that stringing little milestones together can be really motivating. In addition to my more significant milestones, I set mini 4lbs weight loss goals on my wii fit. It basically requires you to set *some* goal (or at least it does if you are overweight - I wouldn't kno...

Sienna

Back when I was in high school (about a decade ago) the girls would wear there uniform on game days - or any other days where they had some sort of a cheer event. But they wouldn't wear them daily. This was typical for many of the sports - athletes would wear uniforms (or some school appropriate ver...

Sienna

Congratulations on the loss!

Sienna

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were all Green (I didn't take Valentine's Day as a holiday because DH and I went out on Sunday instead of Monday). And this morning I was rewarded by dipping below 180 on the scale for the first time since.... Not even sure when... That's right, I'm officially Overweigh...

Sienna

No problem Teemuh - congrats on the weight loss! Even with nice, steady weight loss, I am still sometimes tempted by the "Get Thin Fast" schemes. I think "hey, I could do that, drop the weight, and then switch BACK to NoS for maintenance and sanity". And then I have to remind myself that that is not...

Sienna

You can do it tobiasmom!

And good luck on your trip, I know traveling can be dicey, but I believe in you.

Sienna

So last summer ABC Family ran a show called Huge about a bunch of teens at a weightloss camp. The show didn't do very well and it was cancelled, but for some reason I was thinking about it today. In the closing scene of the finale, one of the campers (Will, played by Nikki Blonsky) is talking to the...

Sienna

Hi BA! Congrats on the blog :-) I registered and logged in to post a comment. I then refreshed to see if the comment posted and managed to double post the comment :oops: Sorry! A few notes on registration: 1. When you register, the site doesn't obscure your password 2. The registration confirmation ...

Sienna

So Friday I ended up just having dinner (2 tacos from Chipotles) and calling it a night. I put the third taco (they come in orders of 3) in the fridge because I was full after the second one and had it for dinner on Saturday. I'm going to take a minute to reflect on this seemingly insignificant acco...

Sienna

I've seen all sorts of methods for estimating "ideal" weight. Who knows which one is exactly right, but a big red flag for me when I'm looking at an estimate is whether or not it takes into account frame size. Because really, just like some people are taller/shorter than others, some people are broa...

Sienna

One of the reasons that I weigh daily is to monitor things like this. I can actually see on the scale what happens when I go crazy on the salt. I've been eating out a lot lately (we are moving - so fast food/takeout/processed easy meals have been our default), and I can feel the water retention in m...

Sienna

I know you may not be back to read this, but I wanted to post anyways. First, I just wanted to say: don't panic. It is possible that you are consuming too many calories - but you can change that. I hadn't suggested it to you before because I know that you've been struggling with diet head, but when ...

Sienna

Yesterday was green. Today has been... white? I've been running around like crazy and haven't gotten around to eating anything even though its 5:30 pm here now. I haven't decided whether or not to skip lunch or have late small lunch and then dinner a few hours later - we'll see how it goes. Either w...

Sienna

Congrats on the house!

Sienna

One of the positive things about Weight Watchers (in my book) is that they had you set 10% goals if you were pretty far out of range. You just were to lose 10% of your current weight as your first goal. Then another 10% (which would be less, btw - that was encouraging). And so forth, until 10% woul...

Sienna

@librarylady The time issue is why I use my bread machine instead of making it by hand. You don't even have to be there while it runs and if you make a milkless recipe (I have a fantastic beer bread recipe without milk) or use powdered milk you can set it on a delay start. So you can spend 15 minute...

Sienna

Well, one that just gives you a single ideal weight and then never follows up on it probably wouldn't be very useful, and that may be typical of most physicians these days. My current doctor (who isn't exactly stellar) hasn't even said anything to me about my weight - which is a little ridiculous si...

Sienna

I love my bread machine!

Sienna

It is so true that sugar is Everywhere with a capital E! It's like sweets are the new normal, but I do think that saving them for S days makes them tastier and I savor them more.

Keep it up!

Sienna

Thanks! Yeah, I love my pizza!

Tuesday was green, today has been green so far with no real cravings. Hopefully I'm finally settling in to a more consistent habit routine than right after the holidays.

Sienna

Or how do you feel about tea? I'll confess that I've never been much of a coffee drinker (in fact I can't stand the stuff), but I've recently discovered the wonder of good tea. I used it to ween myself off of caffeinated soda. Mate teas generally have about as much caffeine as a cup of coffee. Black...

Sienna

Hi Nicole, I have said it over and over that I am not trying to be skinny any longer. I'm trying to accept myself the way that I am. To get back down to 114lbs I would have to starve myself and monitor every calorie. Ughh, I just don't have the mental capacity for it. Plus when I was around 109lbs m...

Sienna

I'm not fond of Corelle. I don't like the lack of "heft" of the dinnerware. Plus, it has a nasty habit of breaking for no reason. My neighbor has (had?) some and while she was eating, her plate broke. This happened twice. This is surprising to me! I've had my Corelle for 3 years now and I am super ...

Sienna

Today was green. This weekend was wild (specifically Saturday was wild, Sunday was pretty sane). Basically it was a high stress day (moving day) and we ordered pizza, which can be a trigger food for me and I just ate a ton. I thought about making pizza an N day only food (because if I have it on an ...

Sienna

Fad diet, my word... Though if the person was born after 1985, chances are very good that not snacking WOULD look like a fad diet to her. I was born in 1984. I can't fathom while someone would call this a fad diet. I was raised on 3 meals a day plus one afternoon snack when I got home from school. ...

Sienna

I agree with funfuture. It can take some time for your body to sort of figure things out and settle in. With many fad diets, you lose a lot of weight quickly and then your weight loss rate slows or stops completely. They are designed to cause you to lose water weight. This means for the first couple...

Sienna

There are a lot of different measures of success, and I think what a "successful" or "good" S day (as opposed to a neutral S day - since don't forget that you can't fail an S day!) will change as you progress on your NoS journey. Anyways, half way through I stopped and didn't know if I could finish ...

Sienna

Hi Teemuh, thanks for stopping by my thread! Knowing people actually look at it helps me stay accountable (although it hasn't helped me on my exercise goals yet, but I'll get there....) But PLEASE don't fret about speed. It's really not a race. Since starting in June, I've averaged about 0.2 lbs per...

Sienna

Thursday was green! It got really tough towards the end before dinner because I missed both breakfast and lunch (it was one of *those* days). I did cheat a teeny bit as I was plating dinner and ate half a crab ragoon while I was putting the other food on my plate, but I left it a space on my plate s...

Sienna

Snow day!

But it was green. Kind of tough because it felt like a weekend day, but I managed to not cheat, so that's good.

2 more days to the weekend!

Sienna

Monday was green. And super stressful. Today was also stressful, but good. Got the house stuff all sorted out and it was a green day.

Thought about making it an S day to celebrate, but I'll just wait until the weekend for that - it's only a few days away.

Sienna

Congratulations on the maintenance! You look great and I agree that your daughter is adorable.

And thank you again for creating and sharing this awesome way of life!

Sienna

You can do this! First of all, it's not your fault for having some S days - you are supposed to have S days, that's part of the diet! You *might* be gaining a little bit of weight on No-S so far, BUT it's probably too early to tell what you weight will do longterm on No-S. For better or for worse, t...

Sienna

Thanks Noel! I definitely agree that a better relationship with food is as awesome if not MORE awesome than losing pounds.

This weekend was pretty responsible, although I definitely had some treats.

Back to N days tomorrow, but not before a little bowl of ice cream tonight!

Sienna

Wow! Lots of great ideas. I really like the idea of checking out thrift shops or using stemware. I don't own any martini glasses (when I drink at home, it's almost always wine), but having martini glasses around for guests wouldn't be a bad idea, so they could do double duty.

Thanks guys!

Sienna

I love ice cream. I only eat it on S days, but I love it. I am totally willing to eat it in small reasonable portions (I enjoy it more if I don't go overboard anyways). But whenever I put a reasonable portion in my bowl, it always looks sadly small, because I only have the big soup-sized bowls that ...

Sienna

I think between meal hunger diminishes somewhat over time and being hungry isn't an emergency that needs to be dealt with immediately. There's nothing wrong with being hungry. We've learned to eat every time we feel hunger, and we can also learn that it's okay to be hungry and we won't starve if we...

Sienna

Weight loss is a tricky thing. I think how noticeable it is depends a lot on where you lost the ~2 lbs from and on how much you had to lose. 2 lbs that come primarily of the face and/or waist will probably make a lot more of an impact than 2 lbs coming primarily of the hands and feet (I always tend ...

Sienna

So after all the stress this week, the whole week was still green. Yay! I'm going to do my best to put off stressing about the house until Monday - because there just isn't anything I can do but worry until then. With any luck, after Monday all stress will be gone anyhow (of course that's what I tho...

Sienna

Yesterday was green, but barely. Had some MAJOR ice cream cravings last night. Took a nice long relaxing shower instead. Today has also been green, and it will stay that way. Tomorrow, however, I will have ice cream, and it will be awesome. Unfortunately, today was also really stressful and I'm pois...

Sienna

Sometimes the only thing that gets me through the week Green is the promise that I can have whatever forbidden thing I'm craving on Saturday. Because nothing is completely forbidden - it's just only allowed on certain days. And that gives me something to look forward to. And makes the whole plan see...

Sienna

Wednesday was green, today has been green so far.

High stress day though - can't WAIT for the weekend - I need some chocolate! I might have to buy something *really* good to get me through the weekend...

Sienna

Think of it this way. If you are driving home from work and you accidentally run a red light, would you then think "oh well, I screwed up once today, might as well run them all!" And floor it through all the rest of the lights on your drive home? Probably not :) Because that wouldn't make any sense....

Sienna

Tuesday was diet green! Also did some packing/organizing, but no really serious movement.

Sienna

The rule I made for myself on this is that if I'm genuinely considering purchasing the product being tasted AND I really truly think I need a taste to determine if I want to purchase the product, I will allow a sample. Otherwise it's a snack. I created this rule so that I would have something in pla...

Sienna

Monday was diet green.

Still not getting enough movement in though

Sienna

I think this is a know yourself sort of thing. I personally think that I would declare a singular "S exception event" for the birthday doughnut and use it to replace breakfast. This is because I'm 99% positive that it wouldn't derail me and because birthdays only come once a year (as opposed to S da...

Sienna

This weekend kind of turned into a snack-a-thon. It also involved a fair amount of chocolate. But in the grand scheme of things, I don't think it was too bad. Plus, that's kind of what S days are for. I am however, once again looking forward to my N days. That's one of the things that I love about t...

Sienna

Could you put the salad sans dressing on your plate, plate your food and THEN move the salad to the bowl and dress it? That way the dressing isn't running willy nilly into your other food but you have a better sense of portions. After a few times, you'd probably have a pretty good idea of how much s...

Sienna

You don't need to get off the board (unless you think that that will be helpful for you). I think Eileen was just trying to remind you of your own very positive attitude from a few days ago. EVERYONE goes through ups and downs - in all of life, but especially during the weight loss process. You are ...

Sienna

I know that I'm pretty big on not worrying about mods until you have the habits down, but I do kind of make an exception when a mod might make it easier. If you *know* your binges are triggered by getting too hungry between lunch and dinner, maybe you need to add in a mini-meal between lunch and din...

Sienna

Hahaha! Thanks, amake! I'll have to make sure I get on top of redeeming that. 8) Tonight has been another challenge, but things have been green so far. Making ham for dinner, only it's taking a lot longer than I planned on to get up to temp (I think this oven may run cold, finally turned it up....)....

Sienna

Green diet day! I somehow managed to resist those stupid lemon squares AND the cookies at the meeting I went to at the end of the day. I'm still so stressed that I want to pull my hair out, but at least one thing I can control is what I do or don't put in my mouth... *sigh* One more day until an S d...

Sienna

Yesterday was diet green and I'm still mostly a slug, yeah, yeah.... Okay, I am super stressed right now and there are lemon squares available! Lemon squares I tell you! I'm posting here that I WILL NOT eat a lemon square. WILL NOT. No lemon square! Hopefully, that will help get me through this mino...

Sienna

You'll get there, it takes time. I also don't always think it's a good idea to compare yourself to others daily check in threads - people have such different mindsets about what is success vs. failure anyhow. And you never know how long someone has been on the plan. Or how long it took them to be mo...

Sienna

Also, instead of an appetite suppressant that may or may not be good for you, if you just want to deter yourself from eating between meals you could try brushing your teeth and/or rinsing with mouth wash shortly after you finish eating. I usually swish a little mouth wash if I'm baking a lot of swee...

Sienna

Yay for 2011! We *can* do this

Also, I'm jealous - I want to go to the zoo!

Sienna

Failures happen. Especially at the beginning before you hit a rhythm. But you can do this!

Sienna

Oh, thanks, gals! It means a lot to hear someone ELSE say that I can do this

Yesterday was all green and so was today. They felt easier than last week, so hopefully I'm getting back into the swing of things from the holiday.

Sienna

This time of year is especially bad for "diets". What with all the companies trying to cash in on the New Years Resolution crowd and all... I'd be lying through my teeth if I said I wasn't tempted by the "get thin fast" schemes, even though I've been on NoS long enough now to *know* that it works. I...

Sienna

These are some great ideas, thanks guys! And Noel, that recipe book is adorable!

Sienna

I'm not generally hungry right when I get up either. BUT while many diets may debate the merits of low fat vs low carb vs calories-in-calories-out or lots of small meals vs a few larger ones, one pretty consistent message that I've seen is "don't skip breakfast". I've read somewhere that nearly 50% ...

Sienna

Thanks Sarahkay! This weekend was a little wilder than usual, but that's what S days are for. Facing some emotional struggles this weekend. Got fitted for a bridesmaids dress today for a wedding this June. There is a ridiculous lead time on the dress, so the fitting had to be this weekend (which I f...

Sienna

First of all, deep breathes. You CAN do this, so stop saying that you can't - you are only psyching yourself out. Remember you are SUCCEEDING at the "hard" part (the N days). You just need to find your moderation for the S days. I think the biggest piece of advice is to worry about getting the N day...

Sienna

Yay! Green diet week! (well, I guess I really have another couple hours - but I can wait until midnight for some chocolate!

)

Sienna

My husband was having a lot of trouble with this for awhile. Although it went against the advice of people here (I can't find the thread where I asked about it, but I know I did...) he added a modification where if he started feeling full, but still had food on his plate he would put aside his plate...

Sienna

Day Four = SUCCESS! Not that I'm promoting food waste, but no one else wanted them and my waist line sure didn't either! Next time I'll know to get the chips OR the salad and not have the temptation. Congratulations on your Success!!! Yay! One of my favorite dieting quotes is "Better to go to waste...

Sienna

Aren't they though, sarahkay? It's kind of like a time out for life!

Today was another Green diet day. Also, it apparently snowed in the elevator at work yesterday so now even nature is conspiring to make me move more (stairs today!).

One more day and then chocolate time! Yay!

Sienna

Also, I haven't been drinking much water and I have increased my coffee consumption. I'd say there is a good chance a lot of what you are feeling is water retention. Not drinking a lot of water + drinking a lot of coffee is a recipe for water weight gain. The good news about water weight is that wh...

Sienna

I thought we could start a thread for sharing meal ideas and recipes. I know there was a cookbook thread awhile back, but I'm less interested in cook books (I know *how* to cook) and more interested in inspiration (I tend to get in ruts about *what* to cook). I figure maybe there are others of you o...

Sienna

Is a Snow day an S day? :-p Kinda wish it were... I've been stuck at home inside all day and it's testing my willpower. So far so good though. Haven't eaten dinner yet because I slept in (!!!!!!) so my whole schedule has been shifted. I may or may not end up skipping it - we'll see how I feel in an ...

Sienna

Okay, day one and two were failures. But I think I know why. I get panicked and start to eat to comfort myself. Now that I know this, I think I can be better prepared for it. Comfort eating is my biggest problem too. In fact, most if not all of the failures I've had on NoS have been because I convi...

Sienna

Today was diet Green AND headache Green! No headache, yay! Feeling really worn out and tired - which is pretty typical for the day after a bad headache, and I'd *really* like some chocolate. But I want a green week more than I want chocolate, so I'm posting here instead. Can't wait until Saturday! I...

Sienna

Welcome back! Hope your first day back was a good one

Sienna

Thanks sarahkay!

Yesterday was diet Green! Although my headache came back so it was another slug day...

Here's hoping I can make it through today without a throbbing head.

Sienna

Remind myself that the next meal isn't *that* far away. Really, at max it's only a few hours unless it's dinner I didn't eat enough at. Then it's still only a few hours of awake time. If it's really bad, I might go to bed earlier. Sometimes I'll also allow myself a glass of wine or something in the ...

Sienna

Okay. This is going to be a really tough week - I can tell already. My stress level is way high and I'm feeling really overwhelmed. These are prime conditions for me to "fail" and engage in destructive stress eating. Stress eating that I WILL regret and that WILL increase the amount of time it takes...

Sienna

Sunday = S day

And in this case S is for slug :-/

Had a headache today, so I didn't do a lot of moving. Oh well, at least I'm being honest about it.... Step 1 towards accountability?

Sienna

I personally don't eat restaurant salads anymore. Why not? Because I don't particularly like salad, at least not without a fair amount of dressing to mask the taste, and at that point a restaurant salad just isn't that great for you. So what is the point (for me of course, YMMV :) ) of consuming jus...

Sienna

The simple answer is that you won't know until you've been on the plan for awhile. Give it some time, get the habits down, then worry about whether or not you are losing or maintaining or gaining. And remember, the first step to weight loss is stopping weight gain (aka maintenance). I know, it's ear...

Sienna

One thing I've noticed about NoS is that it's encouraged me to focus on quality over quantity. I don't eat cheap chocolate anymore (think Hershey's kisses, Reese's peanut butter cups, and basically anything found on the impulse shelf of the supermarket checkout line). It's just not worth it. If I'm ...

Sienna

Okay S day today! Had ice cream for breakfast. I love ice cream for breakfast! How many diets allow that (even if you can't do it all the time). I moved more today to. Decided to start sorting and organizing things (I call this phase "pre-packing") So while it wasn't working out, I wasn't a complete...

Sienna

I read the book & I cant figure why diet sodas are so bad, I understand water is best but whats wrong with crystal lite or diet pepsi/coke? Is it that it 'tricks' you into thinking your getting a sweet? I think that's part of it. I also think its probably all the junk that is in diet soda... Cancer...

Sienna

Happy New Year! So, after dropping off the face of the earth for awhile, I'm back.... Since I vanished, I've been mostly green on the diet side. I hit a bit of a bump right before Thanksgiving and had 2 red days in a row (which really meant almost a full week of S days....) and then another bump rig...

Sienna

Don't ask me, but he does it. Would you like me to secretly film it and post on You Tube?

Um. Yes.

Sienna

I skip lunch a lot because work can get crazy. I kind of vary what I actually do. I set the rule that if I miss lunch and then I'm hungry when I get home from work, I eat a small, lunch sized meal (my lunches are always just smaller than dinner - not that that's a good thing - and usually consist of...

Sienna

I was pretty fortunate in that I settled in to sane S days pretty fast and without a lot of stress - but I know where you are coming from, because I was also terrified of binging and ruining all of my N days. My recommendation? Focus on quality over quantity. When I was starting out I tried to only ...

Sienna

I think there are 2 separate issues: 1) figuring out how/why you are screwing up in the morning 2) figuring out how to get back on track if/when a screw up occurs. Since it sounds like all of your messups are basically the same thing (grazing between breakfast and lunch), addressing that issue may l...

Sienna

INA: I was once at the Three Guys coffee shop on Madison Avenue, and the guy in the booth behind me was ordering an egg-white omelet, toast without butter, and a decaf coffee -- that poor guy. I'd rather live less than live so blandly, and as it turns out, you don't live less. NORA: As it turns out...

Sienna

I've been following your daily check in, and I had a thought about your weight creep. You mentioned your creep seems to be ~1/4 - 1/2 pound per year. Incidentally, I've run some BMR numbers for myself recently and found that the estimated* decrease in BMR from aging is around 5 calories per day each...

Sienna

Today was a success, but not an easy one. Had a meeting at work with cookies. Delicious, soft, moist looking double chocolate cookies. But I said no to cookies - even when someone took extra cookies for later and left them near my desk, telling me to help myself. I really wanted a cookie, but I want...

Everyday Systems

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