Everyday Systems

Dear blue, Thank you for posting here again to let us know how you're doing -- we've been emailing privately but as you can see I wasn't the only one worried about you. Again, I'm terribly, terribly sorry that I hurt you with my intervention. I really didn't mean to. Yes, I was alerted to the fact t...

Welcome Lovemysweets! (great username) Welcome back resting! Love the dialog, Kathleen. :-) 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 limiting sweets at least. It's something very easy for kids to accept a...

Yes, remember your Newton lest you qualify for the Darwin awards!

Best wishes for a speedy recovery,

Reinhard

Welcome, farmmom! I actually did manage to find a couple of relevant discussions on the subject of pregnancy: http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=1132 http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=2657 I don't really have anything new to add, except to mention that we had the opposite prob...

Wow. That sounds almost like one of those too good too be true quick fix diet ads!

Extreme moderation is a powerful thing -- and occasionally even fast.

Congratulations!

Reinhard

P.S. Here's a link to ~reneew's check-in to save you some clicks:

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4247

Dear Sparrow, Welcome! You've got the right long term mind set -- that's hugely important. Patience is hard, though. Even if you intellectually understand the need for it. The great consolation with No-s is that although it may take a long time to lose all your excess weight, it's a very pleasant jo...

Best of luck, starters and re-starters!

Reinhard

I kept telling people, "No, you should aim at eating the most you can and still lose weight." ... (I'm preaching to myself....) Amen! That is exactly right. Long term, people don't stop dieting because they don't see results. They stop dieting because they can't stand the deprivation. But you said ...

ou812, Failure is tough. But the last thing you want to do is pretend it isn't there. What you're doing -- learning from it -- is exactly right. And there's no better teacher, if you let it be. Deb's idea of using a separate, additional habitcal to target night time eating is an excellent idea. And ...

Congratulations! That's a great start.

I think there's something downright unpatriotic about diets that would absolutely prohibit something as "american as apple pie."

Reinhard[/i]

Hi Araon, Don't hide this stuff in "off topic!" This is a potential everyday system, perfectly suitable and on topic for "general discussion." Back in my distant pre-shovelglove days, the buddy system was the only thing that could ever get me to the gym either. The problem was my buddies (or I mysel...

Well, I definitely had more than an ideal number of kit kats, reeses peanut butter cups and (most irresistible of all) butterfingers (what on earth do they put in those things? -- don't answer, I'm sure I don't want to know). But I thoroughly enjoyed it, and am not in the least bit worried. My 4 yea...

Dear Blueskighs, I'd like to publicly apologize here for my clumsy intervention above. I was massively overtired and panicked a little at seeing a "fight" breaking out. I forgot how harsh any hint of reprimand from me "the authority" must seem. Your generous, intelligent presence on these boards has...

Oct 31: special day for No-s and shovelglove (Halloween). FAILURE for glass ceiling (2 drinks over the limit). I was in a social situation with > 4 people which always tends to make me a little nervous -- nervous enough to forget that I'd resolved against "time zone shifting." Nothing disastrous, bu...

Wow. We have exactly that model (even the same color!). Yeah, it's great (and expensive).

Reinhard

Congratulations! It doesn't surprise me that cutting down to one S day would accelerate the process -- the problem is it can be unmaintainably hard. But if you're not feeling resentful and deprived, this obviously isn't an issue. Just be prepared to revert to two if you find that all of a sudden it ...

You know it's funny, for the first time since I started no-s I'm tempted not to take Halloween as an S-day (don't want to mess up my habitcal stats any more for October!). But I think I will anyway -- just so no one else feels guilted out of enjoying the "S-day par excellence." (And I'm sure I'll fe...

Welcome, Ryan!

I think the "Grandma Diet" should be no-s's alternate name.

Regarding handling S-days, have you heard/read this podcast?

http://everydaysystems.com/podcast/episode.php?id=34

It covers some of the most common issues people have.

Reinhard

That's great, Malivu! Thanks for letting us know.

I've gotten good responses from doctors, too. A general practitioner acquaintance of my father in law bought 10 copies of No-s for his waiting room.

Reinhard

Dear blueskighs, I tremendously value your contributions to these boards and your magnificent blog, but please let's be careful to make everyone feel welcome here. I know you wrote out of great enthusiasm for no-s, and not from malice, but still, I'm afraid the effect was hurtful. While I don't reco...

Welcome back!

Sorry for the delayed response -- I think you meant to post this in the no-s forum. There's significant overlap, of course, but the cognitive dissonance of being in shovelglove mode made me fail to process this in a timely manner.

Reinhard

Damn. That is good. Right up there with the bunny slippers.

Reinhard

Blueskighs -- I certainly agree in principle -- but a year is a very tough sell to people who haven't even tried it yet. A month is a tough enough sell to people accustomed to the glossy magazine time horizon of days or "2 weeks!!!!" Still, there's no question, months are the minimum scale on which ...

Ah, is it doubly forbidden or merely singly forbidden? I understand your intellectual curiosity, but singly forbidden is actually quite enough :-) Still, for those with an overpowering abstract interest in the Law, according the interpretation of most scholars, sugar soda is technically only a sweet...

Hi Resting,

It's working fine as far as I can see (on safari, firefox, IE 6).

Are you still having trouble?

At what point does it stop working?

What web browser are you using?

Reinhard

Well, the no s diet home page is structured sort of like a faq...but this particular question isn't there. I'll add it.

Maybe it's time for an everyday systems "glossary..."

Reinhard

Welcome, bilou!

Can't wait to see the picture!

When you post it, I think we'll have critical mass for that shovelglove picture gallery that's been discussed before.

Reinahrd

Sassy, Well, I'm please by this indisputable evidence that shovelglove has divine mandate! Sort of like the sword of Constantine. :-) As for the stiffness, I'm with morganlefay -- by all means be careful, but once you have a few weeks under your belt, I think you'll notice the opposite of stiffness....

Years of dieting and bingeing meant that I could never have recognised that I was full. Too Solid Flesh -- It is funny... in the book and on the boards I generally counsel against relying on appetite to self-regulate (kind of like relying on banks to self-regulate :-)). But no-s winds up re-trainin...

Welcome back, Nay! I'd go one step beyond not counting calories and carbs -- stop counting pounds. Just focus on behavior. Moderate your eating and your (lack of) movement and you immediately, unambiguously solve two big problems. And the pounds will eventually get the message. I don't think countin...

Congratulations, Satisfied!

Reminds me of some of the famous name changes in the bible.

May it bode as well for you!

Reinhard

Welcome, Ellie! You are exactly the kind of person to appreciate and benefit from no-s, someone who knows from experience how much harder maintenance is than progress. I'm so happy to hear that it's taking so well.

Best to you and your daughter,

Reinhard

Yes! Except easier

But you're right that they're both largely about practice -- and a great pleasure once you get past the awkward initial stages.

Reinhard

Hi Jerry, It's funny how S-days initially seem like the simplest and most appealing aspect of no-s, and then wind up giving so many people so much trouble. But though it can take some self-training, I do think in time you'll find S-days will become uncomplicatedly enjoyable. Have you heard or read t...

Vicki, Congratulations on your success so far and thank you for sharing! Those are certainly respectable results -- but even more impressive is how you've negotiated the social aspect of the diet with your family. I think no-s is easier to negotiate than most other diets, but when you make a major c...

Thanks for the encouragement, Winnie! Yes, I am trying to put something together. The publisher is interested, but it's far from a done deal. Much harder to find the time with two children! (we just had one when I was writing no-s).

Reinhard

Thanks for the update. Very impressive! I'm not sure what to say about the hands and wrists. Shovelglove definitely works those parts of the body hard and I feel it, but I haven't been really bothered by it. If you're feeling what I'm feeling, I wouldn't worry about it -- but of course that'll be di...

Congratulations and thanks for posting here!

Moderation can be slow to yield results, but it can also, especially when applied from more than one direction, be shockingly fast.

Reinhard

Well, I'm sorry you didn't see a striking loss, but 2 pounds is not really very significant. Unless you are measuring very regularly and tracking the moving average, it's very possible that this isn't real weight gain. You say you've got the compliance down pretty tight, which is great. You also say...

Congratulations, Dave. I'm very happy to hear this. As for the name, I've gotten so used to it now that I can't see it impartially (and like it just fine), but in any case I'm afraid changing it is out of the question at this point just because a critical mass of people have it in their heads alread...

Congratulations, Deb!

I know how long and hard you've been struggling with this issue, and I'm thrilled the habitcal is helping.

Wishing you many more green nights,

Reinhard

Thank you, Deb. Yes, we're all still doing pullups

Sat Oct 18th: weekend luddite failure. Worked on a table of contents for an everyday systems book proposal. Didn't know when else to do it (still don't).

Reinhard

Welcome merlekins! I'm so happy your first weeks have gone well and glad to see that you've got a good, long term outlook. Best wishes to your husband as well. Thanks again and congratulations again, Kathleen! Besides yielding striking results for yourself, your "mod" has inspired some interesting a...

Here's an article on the subject:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/ ... html?imw=Y

May be a few years/decades before No-s sells that many copies, but I'm optimistic it'll still be around then at least

Reinhard

They were actually advertising on the google term "no s diet" for a while. Maybe I should return the favor

Reinhard

Hi Larisa, You can do 4 meal no-s if three doesn't do it for you -- though you may find it becomes surprisingly easy with some practice. Shabbat starts with S, if you want (though I haven't had much trouble observing without sweets). The hard part will be resisting Sunday nights. They'll have a stro...

Tiffani, Big picture, you've made tremendous progress. And your difficulties of late are very understandable. Don't beat yourself up about them. And don't worry about some arbitrary target number on the scale. Just focus on getting the basic behaviors firmly back in place. It's less stressful, and u...

Back in the day, there were so many dudes here that people used to worry that no-s might not even work for women. That's changed considerably over the last few months. I think it's safe to say that moderate eating is an effective strategy no matter who you are.

Reinhard

Please -- don't apologize. I think you've posted more videos than I have now. Certainly more in terms of total length.

Thank you!

Just added a link to this from the main movements page.

Reinhard

Very nice! This is probably THE most popular non-canonical move and it's great to finally have some video for it. I just added a video link to the entry on the movements page.

Thanks again for the video, Phayze. Just added the link from the movements page.

Nice! I knew if I waited long enough someone would code this up for me :-) I've actually found that the number of "gateway sites" is so small that merely writing them down on my "big picture" (to make it official) has been sufficient to keep me safe. Still, nice to know I have technological backup i...

Well, I wasn't exactly a cassanova in my youth either. I did wind up marrying a beautiful woman eventually, but don't owe that to anything especially wise that I did. In fact it was despite a whole lot of foolishness. So while I'm not really in a position to advise, you asked for it so here goes: 1....

"21 days" is obviously a crude simplification. Habit isn't a binary on/off thing, and everyone is going to take a slightly different amount of time to habituate depending on their nature and the state of their current habits. But I think it's a useful simplification. It's a big enough number that yo...

It sounds like you're doing great, trouble.

Keep your focus on the obvious excesses. You don't want to risk the progress you've made already going after subtle and dubious ones.

Reinhard

Under "orthodox" No-s, you should probably count it as a failure (or simply "red" if the word failure bugs you). Some people (most recently/notably Kathleen) practice a modified version of No-s that allows some wiggle room between "special" and "failure." Though I think Kathleen's mod might be very ...

Wed Oct Oct 8-9: nosdiet and shovelglove NWS days (kol nidre and yom kippur). Unexceptionable exemptions, but I'm not going to like my summary compliance score this month on habitcal!

I'm very happy to hear you like it!

The scoring mechanism is a little crude right now (doesn't accommodate habits with regular non-weekend exempt days) but I'll add more options soon (keeping the current behavior as the default).

Reinhard

Amen, Becca

Thanks!

I think shovelglove does exist somewhere on digg already but not it a very intuitive place and now I can't find it.

Reinhard

2) I haven't perused all the boards, but Overeaters Anonymous, at least years ago, called abstinence "three moderate meals a day and nothing in between." So there is some precedence for this as a tactic to curb overeating. There were no S days. Maybe that's why a lot of people didn't make it!? Ther...

Thanks for the link, Neptunus, going to the main habitCal page... now. In version 3, can the algorithm be adjusted to look at the week overall? Or is that too complex? KCCC, I'll look into this. I think that should be possible. I'll also update the instructions on the main page soon to describe the ...

Kathleen is practicing a really interesting No-s diet modification that I thought was worth promoting from the relative obscurity of the 21 club day thread: http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=47999#47999 I customized the diet a bit, calling it The No Hassle Diet. I made a few little chang...

Kathleen,

Congrutulations!

I like your 2 rolling s-days mod! Sounds very promising.

I think I'm going to mention it on the general discussions board (with attribution, of course). Hope it continues to work for you -- please do keep us posted.

Reinhard

Thanks again, Phayze. Just linked from the movements page. You are the Apostle of Non-Canonical movements.

Phayze,

I just linked to the individual Samurai* moves, but I'm afraid the day job calls and I'm going to have to put off links to these moves till a bit later. They'll be all hooked up by tomorrow at latest.

Reinhard

This move was first posted (along with some similar moves) by Phayze here:

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4176

You can find the video clip for it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCEl2OoAEkw

Reinhard

This move was first posted (along with some similar moves) by Phayze here:

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4176

You can find the video clip for it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdEcej6g5mA

Reinhard

This move was first posted (along with some similar moves) by Phayze here:

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4176

You can find the video clip for it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2YnZaB3KwY

Reinhard

Phayze -- I'm going to create three new discussion threads, once for each movement, just to be consistent with the current paradigm of one discussion per movement. They'll all link back to this thread and the appropriate individual clip. Thank you again! These are great, fun looking moves. I've actu...

Phase -- THANK YOU for taking the initiative on this. I'll put up links from the movements page as soon as you (and other good samaritan shuggers) post them.

Starting right now...

Reinhard

Welcome, Neptune!

I think you might be surprised at how heavy even a relatively light hammer seems by the end of 14 minutes -- but yes, you can greatly alter the amount of effort by positioning your hands.

Hope they weren't too frightened by your getup and just hid the heavier hammers

Reinhard

Yes, it was. Thank you! Sunday Sept 28: Blimits failure (I'm going to start tracking this now that the habitcal table view makes it easier to track larger numbers of habits). I'm going to lump together both blimits and anti-bookmarks here, since they're very similar. Monday Sept 29, Wed Oct 1: nosdi...

Welcome, Jayhawk28! I wouldn't call myself a runner, but I have (for the last year or so) run (very slowly, more like 10 minute miles) with a co-worker after work most Wednesdays. We're thinking of signing up for a 5K, too (I've never done anything of the sort and a little nervous about being the la...

Habitualrunner, Not sure if you saw/heard this podcast: http://everydaysystems.com/podcast/episode.php?id=34 It covers the subject in a little more detail than the book (and will certainly make it into the next edition if there ever is one!) I think blueskighs nailed the most important point: worry ...

Congratulations!

When you eat as much oatmeal as I do, you never have TMI situations

Reinhard

Welcome, Stephane! Great to see you here. I don't do much traveling these days so I can't really speak from personal experience... but it sounds to me like you handled it great. If you have some control over your meal times, you might want to adjust them a little towards the time zone you're heading...

Harper,

You are very welcome! I'm so happy no-s in general is working for you and that this episode in particular made a difference. If I ever do another edition of the book (sales are "steady" -- it could happen!), I'll make sure to squeeze in the ideas from this segment in somehow.

Reinhard

I either skip anything appetizery (bread, chips, etc.) on N-days or to wait and stick them on my main plate when it comes. Keeps it nice a clear.

As for fancy restaurants with salad courses etc., they're almost exclusively S-day affairs. So that's not much of an issue for me.

Reinhard

Welcome, Jenny! I think you'll find three meals feels surprisingly normal after a few weeks. It's pretty much how all your ancestors ate, after all. Regarding the sledge, by all means start with a broom. Carving out the time is the hardest, most important part. If after a week it seems like somethin...

Wow, thank you all!

It was a very nice day. Plenty of S, too.

Reinhard

Justen,

This is BRILLIANT!

I wish the official videos were this good.

OK if I like to it from the movements page?

Reinhard

drswife, I'm sorry you ran into such trouble, and I hope we can give you sufficient support to keep you on track this time. I'll think about maybe adding some kind of buddy or tandem or team mode to the habitcal... I think it would be neat and possibly quite helpful if it could be done intuitively a...

I measure in "bowls." :-) Does the job for me. Cutting sugarly cereal like granola with plenty of bulky fresh fruit and unsweetened cereal is another good, painless tactic. Pour the unproblematically "healthy" stuff first, then top off with the sweet stuff. Your bowl will look shockingly full way be...

John, 1. Give yourself bigger meals. It's ok if it seems like (or actually is) too much. The most important thing up front is to build the habit of sticking to single plate meals. Once you get that down, you can worry about plate size if you want -- though my bet is there mere sight of those enormou...

Whew, that scared me. Glad it was an easy fix and not a massive database failure.

Reinhard

I think part of it is there's something embarrassing about how simple it is... if it were complicated, well, that would explain why one hadn't been doing it. If it's really this simple, this obvious even, the implications aren't necessarily so flattering.

Reinhard

Congratulations! I'm so happy to hear this. No-s is good for losing, but maintenance is where it really shines.

Those of you who haven't already should have a look at blueskighs' recently posted "testimonial" for the back story:

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4120

Reinhard

And another:

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4134

Thank you, BonnieUK!

Reinhard

I'm glad you all like the changes -- and no bug reports yet. JackHacket -- "Tag Rename" will come with the tag edit panel. Thanks for the reminder. One remaining issue: printing is (still) annoying with the habitcal. It is actually possible to get it to print out with all the colors, but you have to...

Excellent!

Even at ordinarly prices, sledges are ridiculously cheap compared to most alternatives.

Reinhard

Bonnie,

Congratulations on passing the year mark and thank you for taking advantage of the occasion to contribute such a compelling, thoughtful, and well-organized testimonial!

Best of luck working out the vegan re-thinking -- I'm happy you're finding no-s a useful structure even there.

Reinhard

Dear KCCC, I'm so happy you arranged this as a "best of..." You've contributed so much wise, thoughtful, and generous advice to this bulletin board already -- there's nothing more helpful you could have done than consolidate and contextualize it as you've done here. Thank you for being one of the pi...

blueskighs, Thank you so much for this wonderfully detailed and thoughtful post (and follow up). I am so happy no-s is working so well for you. The title is brilliant too -- exactly what the focus should be. For those of you who haven't seen blueskighs' beautifully photographed blog, do yourself a f...

The new version of the habitcal I pushed out Friday now has built in personal olympics medals, assigned using approximately the same logic described here.

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4116

Reinhard

And (wonderfully detailed) numbers three and four:

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4120

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4123

We're on a roll!

Thank you blueskighs, KCCC and beckym!

Reinhard

Thank you, dai! This means a lot coming from someone who's lost double my numbers!

Best wishes getting started shugging and looking forward to hearing more,

Reinhard

Welcome and thank you!

I'll have to check out sparkpeople myself.

Reinhard

Wow, this is the first spam that got through since I added the "no snacks, no sweets, no..." fill in the blank to the registration from almost a year ago.

Maybe I have to add something shovelglove related. They'll never figure that out

Reinhard

Just released...

More details here:

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4116

Same link as usual:

http://everydaysystems.com/habitcal

Reiinhard

Everyday Systems

Search found 5900 matches

Happy Halloween 2008

Interesting mod: accumulating failure-proof S-days

Reverse Samurai (with video)

Samurai + Thrust (with video)

Samurai (with video)

HabitCal version 2