Everyday Systems

Sledgehammers make great gifts Yes! For distant loved ones have a look at amazon's free shipping offerings (I feel like this must be some kind of bug, the shipping should cost more than the sledgehammer -- and often does when there's not free shipping for whatever reason). it just goes to show an e...

Want to stick a habitcal widget on your web site, blog, or igoogle home page? I just created a "google gadget" that lets you do this: http://www.everydaysystems.com/habitcal/#ggl It's basically a slightly smaller calendar view limited to one month and one habit at a time. You configure it with your ...

My typical breakfast is some kind of bread product (mestemacher, english muffin, bakery bread, bagel) with cheese and a piece of fruit on the side (and coffee, of course). A little bit of hunger is OK. You'll get used to it. You'll even come to enjoy it "appetite is the best sauce." In the meantime,...

John, I'm sorry you're having a hard time. Here's are some basic strategies that could help with this: 1. Pile those three plates high. It might look bad, but better confront the excess head on than have it sneak by you in tiny invisible increments. And you'll gradually educate your appetite to go f...

You're very welcome!

The kindle version actually tends to have a higher "sales rank" than the print version (though much of that is because there's far less competition to rank against, a mere few hundred thousand vs. many millions).

Reinhard

So just to be clear, you fit phase I-III into 14 minutes? Wow! You must be hauling! I HAVE done it, but it isn't pleasant (or safe, probably). So: I rarely max out on pushups and squats on "high rep" days because it leaves me too beat to enjoyably do the sledgehammer moves (and pushes me too far ov...

I'd say don't try it again until you feel better. Hopefully it's just "good soreness" from muscle fatigue, but you don't want to risk injury. Then, when you're feeling up to it again, start with slow, low rep sets (maybe just seven reps per move). If anything hurts, stop immediately and take the nex...

This is a minor thing, but convenient for those of us who would prefer not to have to remember our phpbb user ids. You can now open habitcals based on usernames rather than just ids: New way ("on" parameter -- stands for "owner name"): http://everydaysystems.com/habitcal/view/?on=reinhard&t=*&v=ta O...

It's not quite facebook, but I just created a "google gadget" habitcal viewer.

You can paste it into your igoogle page, blog, or personal website.

http://everydaysystems.com/habitcal/#ggl

Questions, comments and suggestions welcome!

Facebook next...

Reinhard

Hi Richie, I personally would probably mark that as "red..." It's hard to spin a cookie and jolly rancher as anything but a sweet... But the habitcal is a tool, not an end in itself. If you think it would be discouraging, give yourself green since the rest of the day was good except for this unconsc...

Winnie, I'm not quite sure what to call today (Wednesday). It was intended to be an N-Day, but even though I didn't Snack, or have Sweets or Seconds, That's a clear success. Relax! I ate so much more than I usually do, And it was very obvious, wasn't it? That obviousness will keep you in line long t...

These bigger "exercise" hammers can get quite pricey... and honestly, I have trouble imagining what kind of Hulk could actually do useful exercise with hammers much over 20 pounds (and no trouble imagining horrific injuries). I've been on 20 for a few years now, and I'm not sure I'll ever need anoth...

There have actually been some pictures posted over the years, in various (but not total) states of undress. Just did some poking around and found this, but alas, the pictures seem to have been removed from flickr. http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=3961 Will poke some more later if we don...

OK, I fixed it.

Reinhard

Ooops... seems not to work unless you're already logged in.

I'll try to fix it tonight.

Reinhard

I created a read only google gadget for the habitcal.

Surprisingly easy... (though edit will not be fun)

http://www.everydaysystems.com/habitcal/#ggl

If anyone winds up using this let me know!

Reinhard

Amazingly little has changed. If anything, the routine as I've described it has just firmed up. Mon,Tues are almost always "high rep." Wed,Th are almost always "low rep." Fridays are almost always "freestyle." The one change is in the non-sledgehammer phases I and III. I now do squats in both phases...

Nice! Good luck. I think alternating/mixing shovelglove with other kinds of moves (as long as it adds up to 14 minutes or whatever you decide your N-daily number should be) is a great idea. If you look in the "routines" forum, you'll see many (if not most) people do this, at least to some degree. Al...

This doesn't look to bad:

http://code.google.com/apis/gadgets/

Hopefully I can reuse some of this for the inevitable facebook app to follow...

Reinhard

you can embed it in a blog or an iGoogle page,

Yeah... I have to figure out how to widgetize the habitcal...

Will happen, maybe sooner than some of the other changes I've discussed.

Reinhard

Wonder if McDonald's execs have been lurking here... He also helped to write an internal playbook, what McDonaldâ€™s now calls its â€œPlan to Win,â€ that barely fits on a single sheet of paper â€” a text that is treated as sacred inside the company. It lays out where McDonaldâ€™s wants to be and how...

I actually tried superslow years ago before coming up with shovelglove! I have the (extremely boring) book on my shelves. The appeal is that it's (supposedly) tremendously efficient in terms of building muscle in a very small amount of time. The downside (as you've experienced) is that it is literal...

It would be a REALLY boring show (but a great way to live).

It's like the reverse of that ancient Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times."

Reinhard

I think it should be just fine.

But let us know your empirical results.

Reinhard

Well, if those are the parameters you've got to work with, here are a few ideas: 1. Suspending all s days seems excessive, but maybe you could go down to a single s-day a week. Plus maybe a single "special" day a month. Once you get the wellness coach off your case you can go back to normal (unless ...

I came across this old discussion thread while updating the everyday systems home page today, and think it's worth making "sticky." For those of you who haven't heard the term before, here's the podcast episode in which I originally introduced it: http://everydaysystems.com/podcast/episode.php?id=23...

Welcome back!

Amen to making friends with hunger. I find it strange that people take viagra and what not to enhance their sex drive and yet they want to extinguish their appetite for food.

Reinhard

Let's start a "Longest Loser" here.

Scoring formula is %weight lost * years maintained.

Or better yet annual habitcal compliance score * years maintained.

Premier in 2055.

Reinhard

Thanks for the quantitative analysis, resident0063. And brilliant qualitative analysis, Winnie! I (especially) liked this: In the same way that I don't have to think about whether or not to have a snack ("I am not a snacker"), or seconds ("I don't have seconds"), I don't have to think about getting ...

Welcome, suse! I understand all too well the pressure kids can put on your diet and exercise habits. I was very fortunate that I'd had my habits strongly in place before ours girls arrived. I think you'll find that it gets dramatically easy over time and that (particularly) when you're in a sleep de...

Impressive graphs! While I'd love to be able to do personalized shovelglove coaching, I'm afraid it's just beyond my bandwidth at present... But I (and others, I'm sure) would be delighted to "comment on your technique" if you posted videos. It would still be a group thing, technically, but maybe su...

Hi KCCC, I think a split breakfast is fine, given the circumstances, but I think I'd split it differently. First off, I'd try not to eat in the car. Seems like a dangerous precedent (and not particularly enjoyable). It also limits your options considerably. Since work is the tricky part, preparation...

Sorry about the difficult neighbors... Shovelglove is pretty silent (as long as you don't hit anything!) Plus if they don't run away fast enough next time they ring the bell you'll make quite an impression :-) I'd focus on the time more than anything else. "14 minutes every N-day" or something simil...

Nice app!

But like simply counting "days on habit" it has a significant weakness: tremendous demoralization when/if you do break the chain. HabitCal is a little more failure resilient.

Reinhard

Thank you, bonnieUK, for starting the first dedicated mods discussion!

I'll comment on individual mods in a bit, for now I'm just going to make this "sticky."

If anyone has previously posted mods on the board, feel free (feel encouraged!) to re-post it and/or link to the post here.

Reinhard

I like the "automatically generated transcript."

"No tanks no sweet -- second. Except on days that start with."

The blitzkrieg diet, maybe?

Reinhard

I just realized this actually went out in October (guess that explains the amazon sales rank spike I saw then!). http://multimedia.wcbs880.com/m/audio/21266502/the-no-s-diet.htm They cut 15 or so minutes down to 30 seconds -- but I'm glad because I was definitely not in top form (every second word w...

Welcome and good luck!

Much as I love the particulars of shovelglove, formulating your compliance with any exercise program in a habitcal-able way is more important. 14 minutes every N-day of almost anything will get you in reasonable shape if you stick with it over the long haul.

Reinhard

The single most important thing is too see it all in front of you at once, so you can eyeball excess. As long as you can do this, I wouldn't stress too much about whether or not you can balance the bread on your bowl or not. If you can make it work with the bowl and other food on a single plate, as ...

Thanks for sharing your routine. It's interesting how many "mixed" routines have been posted here (shovelglove + some other kind of exercise). It's almost more the rule than the exception. My own routine, at this point, is also (a little) mixed: with squats and pushups, mostly. I'm thinking maybe I ...

Welcome, Karen! You can't go too wrong starting light. You'll be less likely to injure yourself while you're getting a feel for the movements and get a sense of whether the workout is something that really appeals to you and is worth further investment. Starting with a mop or broom is a great idea. ...

Congratulations, BrightAngel!

I'm so happy to hear shovelglove has been working for you for such a good period of time.

And don't sell yourself short -- leverage makes even 4 pounds heavy and 50% is a serious increase!

Reinhard

Wed Dec 31: glass ceiling failure, one drink over limit. New Years Eve is a little tricky. Took NWS day for Nos and shovelglove Thu Jan 1: NWS for shovelglove. We were traveling and conditions were a little cramped even for improvisation (no way I was going to risk waking our 18 month old!) Fri Jan ...

Welcome, Paul! I am 49 years old and I remember - as a child - the rule of thumb was no snacking. Snacking ruined your appetite. I guess mother actually does know best. I recently added "the Grandma Diet" to the list of alternate names for the no s diet on the home page. :-) the book is different fr...

Marjolein, Welcome! While I certainly do THINK no-s can be adapted to your situation, you should definitely run it by your doctor. I'm not remotely qualified to advise you on the subject of celiac disease (or any other medical condition). There are two mods/adaptations/interpretations that you might...

Just 5 days late -- but two for the price of one to compensate. http://nosdiet.com/beforeafter.html Also, I've finally gotten (limited) clearance to post pictures of my lovely wife and daughters. The top photo is from the no-s book launch party (it was an S-day, honest!). I don't want to imply by st...

Deb, these look like very sensible "resolutions:" discreet, unambiguous, not overambitious, but enough to make a huge difference if consistently applied. You've had some very understandable ups and downs this year and a half, but you've also clearly come to know yourself very well in the process. Ju...

Welcome, Laurie! 7 kids. Wow! We're feeling pretty overwhelmed with a mere 2. Your son's reaction reminds me of something I posted recently in another thread: We didn't plan to inflict No-s on our kids (and haven't, strictly), but it's funny how natural and helpful the concept of S-days are for limi...

Welcome, Laurie! I understand your apprehension, but "permahunger" and "permasnacking" are part of the same vicious circle. Break the snacking habit, and the constant noshy hunger will stop, too. It's really just a matter of habit. Of course, that "just" isn't really fair -- habits can be VERY hard ...

davestarbuck has just posted a very impressive (-65 pounds) "testimonial" with "before and during" pictures:

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4512

Congratulations and thank you, Dave!

Reinhard

Dave, Congratulations and THANK YOU -- not just for posting your very impressive story here, but also (especially!) the pictures. You've joined the elite band of "founder beating" success stories (-50 pounds vs my 40). And that's BEFORE your tweak, which brought you down another 15. Looking forward ...

Welcome, Richie!

Happy new year and best of luck to you and your mom,

Reinhard

So I didn't push it. It was definitely not for him. Yeah, he's probably a little young... one should probably be of age to operate heavy machinery before attempting shovelglove. :-) Dec 23: Glass ceiling failure. Met an old drinking buddy when I was in NYC visiting my family and went a couple over....

My mom insists on keeping the mag on her coffee table, and I cover it up every time I'm there. So funny. The mag is pretty prominently placed in our home as well. :-) Sorry about the knee... shovelglove, maybe? P.S. thank you all for your Oprah efforts! "Her people" haven't contacted "my people" ye...

Marygrace,

I'm very happy to hear this! Congratulations.

Not sure if I count -- but it certainly affected my life in many other ways. My success with no-s inspired me to come up with all the other everyday systems, for one thing.

Reinhard

I'm sorry you had to endure that, Deb...

I find it strange that we, as a society, worship thinness in inverse proportion to how heavy we are.

Maybe if we cool it with the anorexic models we'll all get thin again?

I wonder how thin the average woman was in Rubens' day...

Reinhard

I'm glad you like it, Winnie!

It does show long term progress (or regress) better than any other view.

Reinhard

Welcome back! Two things that might help with "strictness" 1. I did a podcast on the subject a while ago: http://www.everydaysystems.com/podcast/episode.php?id=13 (there's also a similar section in the book on pages 118-121) 2. The habitcal is a great way of "quantifying" strictness. I just added a ...

Welcome, modernman! I am sorry to hear about the tough times you are going through, and I know it must be hard for diet to seem at all important compared to the rest of it. But no-s is different from most other diets in that it doesn't distract you from other concerns -- on the contrary, it builds u...

Hi MrsPartridge, Three bits of advice: 1. Bad habits die hard. Give your new good habits time and the crankiness will fade. Your bad habits still think they can win this. Keep up the good behavior and they'll soon throw in the towel. The stricter you are, the faster this will happen and the easier t...

Thanks for bringing this to my attention, ezuk. It should limit by forum identifier, but wasn't anymore (just fixed it). I think it stopped working because the script was using some antiquated php to get the url parameters which the new php install was ignoring. Nosdiet "general discussion" only: fe...

I just added this... http://everydaysystems.com/habitcal/images/timeline.png As I wrote in my just beefed up habitcal documentation: This is another way to get a concise overview of a large period of time. Every day shows up as a pixel, so unlike stats view it's "non-lossy." Not quite a big enough d...

Welcome and congratulations, thomer!

Impressive month for such a successful start.

Reinhard

Merry Christmas!

Sorry for the delayed response -- was too busy celebrating.

We were with my parents in NYC. German tradition is also Christmas eve, so +1 S-day. My father in law is a rabbi, so between the two sets of holidays I probably have to juggle as many S-day temptations as anyone!

Reinhard

Glad you're enjoying your first week of shovelglove. "Psychological" strength is not nothing -- enjoy! The real thing comes surprisingly quickly. I don't think your routine has too many moves. I do even more. And I don't think it's a problem if some moves are harder than others. There are no periods...

Glad you appreciated the latest "during!" It's nice to know there are discerning cognoscenti who get all the subtle symbolism. :-) Hope Richie likes shovelglove, if he decides to give it a try. I'll refrain from my usual warnings about possible dangers because you have a much better sense of them th...

Thank you, KCCC and LA_loser!

Jeff Bezos and I are VERY appreciative!

Merry Christmas! Sorry I was AWOL for the last few days -- some extended not completely intentional but much appreciated ludditing.

Reinhard

I say neither -- and both. And I'm not JUST being sophistically evasive. :-) I say "neither" because new year's resolutions almost invariable falter by late January. I have a friend who's been teaching a boxing class at a new york city gym for years and he says it's astonishing how short the burst o...

What do you mean by jump start?

If it's what Blithe suspects, I'm afraid I don't think it's a very good idea either...

Reinhard

This does look interesting.... (and rather ON topic, I think!)

I thumbed few it for a minute during frantic last minute christmas shopping. May pick it up again when I have a bit more time to linger.

Thanks for the tip!

Reinhard

I get wet

It's not so bad, usually. Keeps it interesting.

Reinhard

Thanks for this excellent question, willkeeptrying! Though diet gurus treat it as gospel truth, the evidence for frequent meals increasing your basal metabolism is VERY shaky (hence your difficulty in finding it). I was being rather charitable in assuming, for the sake of argument, that it is in fac...

Welcome, Sherlock! I haven't updated this page in a while, but it's still not a bad place to start: http://shovelglove.com/testimonials You can see my personal results (plus no-s, though fat doesn't seem to be your problem) here: http://nosdiet.com/beforeafter.html (2008 will be up shortly) Reinhard

Thank you, Happy! I really appreciate it.

Reinhard

It's so great to see you here again, Blondie! My "no stalking bulletin board members who go silent" policy was sorely tried in your absence :-) I've posted the cover and article here: http://nosdiet.com/press/womans_world_cover.pdf http://nosdiet.com/press/womans_world_inside.pdf Newbies can read th...

Thursday Dec 18: NWS day for nosdiet and shovelglove -- office christmas party. We hadn't bee able to make it in a couple years and figured it was S-worthy. But irony of ironies -- they ran out of dessert before we could have any. Also, tasks failure. Was a little too discombobulated by the party to...

LA_Loser, I thought your post was quite clear -- and wonderful confirmation that no-s makes sense. Thank you for writing it! And I think the others understood this as well -- but threads can move in mysterious and unpredictable ways. As long as everyone stays civil (as they have here) I think this c...

Congratulations! The enemy was coming at you from three directions and you still held your ground.

Reinhard

Well, sorry you didn't quite make 100%, but it sounds like you're pretty close. I am shooting for a success rate of at least 80% or more for the month. (I'm really crap at math, "stats" view actually does a bunch of the math for you :-) *But* I will say I'm very proud of those 17 days and especially...

Thank you, KAxelrod, for your kind words!

I'm in Cambridge, so I think I know some/most/all of the ice cream shops in your father's taste test well.

And I can certainly ditto the "and to all of you posters on this discussion board..." part!

Reinhard

Thank you, irrevenant, for clarifying (and getting this started to begin with!)

I'll continue keep my editorial distance, but I'd be delighted if anyone who is capable of seeming sufficiently impartial would fill it out a bit more (an entry for No-s would be nice, too!).

Reinhard

Shoes would probably be a useful extra measure of protection, but I can't say I avail myself of them. I almost always shug barefoot. It's not a deliberate policy, we just don't normally wear shoes inside he house and it's never occurred to me to put them on for this.

Reinhard

Thanks BrightAngel and BlueSkighs for these posts! I think it use to be easier, back in the days when scarcity and tradition propped up common sense (there was of course a downside to this -- the odd death by starvation etc.). Now the external pressures are in the opposite direction. But I do think,...

You CAN declare some of your vacation days S-days. I often do this. Don't try to be more heroic than you can manage. That being said, No-s travels much better than most other diets. Low carb/fat foods/precise calorie counts can be hard to find, depending where on where you are, but discrete meals ar...

Satisfied Girl, I was an undergrad in Madison, so I have some concept of what you're going through. I remember cluelessly thinking before I went, "Oh, I like snow." By April my fondness for snow had diminished considerably. :-) Even in more temperate climates, December is probably THE hardest month ...

I think this part was particularly relevant: If dieting doesn't work, what does? "Eating in moderation is a good idea for everybody, and so is regular exercise," ... Diet studies of less than two years are too short to show whether dieters have regained the weight they lost, Mann said. "Even when yo...

Wow. That is awesome.

In a thousand years than might be the last cultural fragment of no-s (or perhaps it'll be the other way around

).

Reinhard

I'm so sorry to hear this, CatholicCajun.

My heartfelt condolences to you and your family and looking forward to seeing you around here again in happier times,

Reinhard

Practioners of the "personal punchcard" system are surely already familiar with the good doctor.

They didn't call him a Time Lord for nothing. Man, could he Get Things Done.

Reinhard

Thanks for the post, Anna!

Goes to show how powerful even 1/3 of No-s can be (I think in general "no snacks" is the most important third).

Hope you both find the remaining 2/3s to your liking as well,

Reinhard

Deb,

This issue was extensively (and amusingly) discussed here:

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=2784

Reinhard

LA,

Thanks for bumping this up to the top again!

I'll link to it from the S-days gone wild podcast page.

Your explicit, separate tracking of "S-days gone wild" on the habitcal sounds like a great way of giving "sometimes" some teeth without the clarity muddying vanilla no-s.

Reinhard

Emily -- Thank you so much for the kind (and eloquent!) words on your blog! You should add a link to it on our blogs thread: http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=3839 *** I can't believe I'm reading "Extra" online now but it was the first thing I came up when I googled: http://extratv.warne...

Welcome back! For me, this time, it is simply about eating habits and moderate exercise. This is exactly the right attitude. It may take some false starts, it may be slow, but it's never "hard" as in "painful," and once you get the habit down it's not even "hard" as in "difficult." Best wishes this ...

Good luck getting back into it! Seasonal shovelglove... that might be a useful concept.

Reinhard

Wed Dec 10: tasks failure. Was working from home in the afternoon and the kids didn't nap -- so my seven task work column quota wound up one short.

I'd love to be on Oprah (in an abstract, philosophical sense -- I'm sure I'd be utterly terrified if it actually came down to it). So by all means, suggest away! But I have to warn you, Oprah is the holy grail of self-help, and from what I've read, it's next to impossible to deliberately attract her...

I would recommend immediately ceasing to do any research on the subject whatsoever. Even assuming you could get an authoritative and unambiguous answer (which I doubt), what good would it do you? Just focus on the behaviors of eating and moving moderately. No matter how many immortal fat cells you h...

Kathleen, I think the best way to address S-day panic is to reassure it: with even better rewards . Above all, refrain from punishing yourself (appetite will hit back much harder than you can). If you have a bad S-day, think the opposite, that your reward must have been insufficient and treat yourse...

Whether it's biology or holidays (or both), I think it is clear that the holidays are not an optimal time for losing weight. My advice has been: 1) adjust your expectations. You're probably not going to lose a whole lot from Halloween to New Years. Be happy if you maintain. 2) Keep an even greater (...

Everyday Systems

Search found 5900 matches

HabitCal Google Gadget (to embed in your blog)

HabitCal URLs: usernames instead of just ids

WCBS NYC radio pickup

The 2008 "durings" are here!

HabitCal Timeline View