Everyday Systems

Noel, This is great! Rose posted something similar a while ago which I'm having trouble finding. I think I really may put something like this directly on the site to make it easy for the less technical (who may not even have excel) to do the same thing. I think I've underestimated the importance of ...

No, I wouldn't call it a sweet.

Skipping meals is a TERRIBLE idea. Some relevant teaser content from the book (pages 53-54): Is It Extra- Good to Eat Fewer Meals? Skipping meals, especially breakfast, is strongly asso- ciated with obesity. It isnâ€™t extra-goodâ€” itâ€™s extra- bad. You may feel like youâ€™re doing something virtu...

Nice! I'm very happy to see someone actually doing this. My wife now does yoga while I shug most nights -- sort of an absurd contrast, but shows you how flexible and useful a structure focusing on the time rather than the kind of exercise can be. When your SG arrives, habit-wise it will be no sweat ...

Yeah, it may be a little weird, which may prompt some people to shug covertly, but it's hard, there's no shame to be felt on that score. I think people consistently underestimate it because of both the (charming) goofiness and the fact that it doesn't feel that heavy -- until you start swinging it. ...

Ouch, sorry to hear that resting52. Most of the moves work the back hard, which is great for strengthening it, but perhaps a little much if it's in very poor shape to begin with. I'd advise maybe starting with a broom or something very light to get a sense of the moves and build the habit. Then very...

Great to see you again here, Phayze! And thanks for the details. That is a great deal re the insurance.... wonder how they monitor that. Perhaps they know that a shugger would never so dishonor himself as to lie about or exaggerate his exploits. Spiderman is a tall order... but I think, if you throt...

JD4, Sorry the scale hasn't been more cooperative, but do remember that you shouldn't really expect to have lost much more than one and a half pounds in three weeks (half a pound a week)-- well within the margin of error of a typical household scale. It sounds like you've got the habits largely down...

It's funny that structure is a comfort. It is funny. A lot of us associate structure with something confining and oppressive (as it certainly can be), but good structures are a support, something you can lean on, something that gives you more freedom than you'd have without, flopped out helplessly ...

I think you'll find that SG *does* give you a "cardio" workout, since there are no breaks between sets. I'm pretty winded at the end of my 14 minutes. Plus, of course, the muscles it piles on are fat burning machines. Besides SG I walk (to and from work M-F, about 17 minutes each way, sometimes also...

I'm glad you dug this up again, BrightAngel. I'm fond of it too -- and had completely forgotten about it. I think I'll link to it from the "DUH" on the home page...

Congratulations! It's a little tricky to put an exact number on how long it takes to form a habit, but there's no question your dentist had it about right. And exact numbers are motivationally very helpful -- they give you something concrete and attainable to strive for (and congratulate yourself on...

Congratulations, Laff! This is my favorite metric...

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=398

Reinhard

My coauthor, Ben Kallen, was enormously helpful in terms of editing and encouraging and lending the book a touch of Authority -- but the most helpful thing he did was giving me a very long leash. The goal was to keep the basic tone and style of the website, without it reading like just a printout of...

magme, For most people I'd advise putting it all in front of you at once, so you can see it. This reduces the scope for self-deception. But if you're accustomed to eating in courses and want to continue doing so for gastronomic reasons, I'm sure you can adapt the system to your preferences. It just ...

Jill, I'm very happy to hear this and thrilled to have had anything to do with it. Congratulations! It is funny what huge and unexpected positive side effects these three little rules and one exception can have. It's a little astonishing that they work at all, they're so simple, and moderate and obv...

Congratulations!

And thanks for the details.

Reinhard

I do think unpleasant hunger between will largely go away (there will always be odd occasions where you didn't plan quite right, but strictness makes you a good planner FAST). 3 meals is PLENTY by world historical standards -- most of your ancestors would have counted themselves lucky to eat that of...

Congratulations! You are very welcome -- nothing gives me more pleasure (not even a good amazon sales rank :-)) than to see people succeeding on No-s. 4 pounds in a month is actually exactly in line with the "half a pound a week" that Brian Wansink advises people to expect for sustainable weight los...

Congratulations on 17 days on habit! Almost to the magic 21... Two things to keep in mind regarding the scale: 1) sustainable weight loss is VERY slow -- a very crude approximation is half a pound a week (just 2 pounds a month). 2) household scales are not terribly accurate AND your actual weight wi...

Congratulations! I've actually been amazed at how effective simply drinking water is at making me forget about "hunger" between meals. I usually stick with cold water (and hot black coffee) but I suspect one reason it might help even more is that it forces you to slow down. The "full" signal has tim...

Congratulations! Welcome.

Well, if you starve people enough, they "starvation mode" no longer cuts it, and they get very skinny (and die). But don't worry, I don't think no-s will put anyone in danger of going into starvation mode (or dying). 3 meals a day is PLENTY by world historical standards. In general, I get very suspi...

My unscientific sense was that it used to be roughly 50/50.

But woman's world significantly altered that balance.

Reinhard

Welcome, Terrylynne!

Trying out the moves with a broom or a vacuum cleaner is a great idea. It's safe, it's cheap (free!), and you can start on the really hard and important part immediately: building habit.

Best of luck and let us know how it goes,

Reinhard

Thank you for posting this... Maybe I should put a disclaimer on the home page that says something like "DO NOT EXPECT ANY RESULTS FOR THE FIRST MONTH." People seem attracted by the long term focus, but are then frustrated that it actually takes a long time. I'm torn, when people post in frustration...

Congratulations! Especially on the enjoyment! (amazing how hard the latter part can be at first -- it's such a novel concept).

Reinhard

Congratulations!

I'm one of those annoyingly lucky people who always had good cholesterol even when I ate like a beast, but I've heard a lot of stories like this from lots of no-essers. Amazing what a little bit of moderation and the spotlight of three single plate meals can do!

Reinhard

Nossuzy, I'm sorry to hear this. That's certainly frustrating. But if you were able to adhere to the literal rules, I think you still made progress you can build on, even if the scale isn't cooperating just yet. If nothing else, you've built habits which provide a solid platform for further efforts....

I like the idea in principle (what about a "jubilee" year off? :-)). But I'm afraid I personally might have trouble sticking with it -- and then, on the "broken windows" principle, with other things. You might want to start with the weekly mod first and see how that goes. Best of luck and thanks for...

April 18th: glass ceiling failure. Just 1 drink over, but this has been happening more often than it should these last few months. I think because I've been considerably more sociable. Still, that's no excuse. Have to be vigilant. What happened this time was I had a couple drinks with coworkers afte...

My advice is focus on carving out a regular time more than the particular kind of exercise.

More here:

http://www.everydaysystems.com/podcast/ ... .php?id=31

Good luck!

Reinhard

Welcome, Kim! As you've seen already -- you have quite a few compatriots here.

flipturn, Thanks for the questions! Not too pedantic at all! I was an English-major/librarian, as you may remember. I didn't really think about the "e" in bing[e]ing... I think I (or my spell checker) just thought that the preferred spelling was without the e. They both seem to be legitimate, with g...

The rule isn't actually "no sugar," -- it's "no sweets." Sweets are foods that have enough sugar in them to actually taste very sweet. A good rule of thumb is, "is it sweet enough to be dessert?" If so, skip it. If not, don't worry. You don't have to read labels or drive waiters crazy. People will d...

BrightAngel, I'm sorry you don't think vanilla no-s (or at least, vanilla S-days) will do the trick for you, and I would be very cautious about coming to that conclusion, since I think people almost always jump the gun when they identify S-days as the problem, but it certainly *could* be the case fo...

Great article. Wish there were more on the subject. Permasnacking is such a glaringly obvious problem -- and yet almost entirely neglected. I'm not one for corporate conspiracy theories, but this is a little suspicious...

Reinhard

Well, I tried it. And I did kind of feel like I was spending too much time in "handoff" mode (which I think tried to compensative for by dangerously speeding up the handoff -- which quickly got, well, dangerous). Good idea, though. And maybe I'm just not doing it right... If you wind up sticking wit...

No need to apologize! If you couldn't find it, neither could others. Posting to a bulletin board should require hours of background research to figure out whether someone's posted it before. If it's interesting or useful and not screamingly obviously covered, then a refresher is always in order. Rei...

Welcome, oakdryad! I'm hugely grateful to Mistress Krista for all the new shuggers she's sent my way over the years. Those of you who aren't familiar with her site should definitely check it out: http://www.stumptuous.com/cms/index.php There have been a bunch of rowing/paddling motions mentioned ove...

Congratulations. That's great!

Well, I'm sorry to hear this. S-days are supposed to be the reward -- the most enjoyable days. If they're not, well, I'd put the primary focus on trying to enjoy them more, on proactively planning something really nice. I think that will ultimately result in your eating less (and stressing less -- t...

Diane,

This business with the "red=stop" (and the rest) is brilliant! And in retrospect, so obvious. It is a habit "traffic light" after all.

Making a note to quote you on the main habitcal page...

Reinhard

Thanks for posting this, and sorry it's taken me forever to give my 2 cents.

Tabata sounds a little too extreme for my taste, but tastes vary (and change).

Maybe I'll give it a try when I have nothing particularly pressing to do for a week or so to recover

Reinhard

I like it! Amazing no one's suggested this yet... The only downside I can think of is that you might wind up spending a third of your time in not particularly exerting "handoff" from one side to the next... but maybe it actually is exerting, and/or the other benefits you describe more than make up f...

Just occurred to me that I never responded to the original post... I would LOVE to actually smack things with a sledge. It's just so darn inconvenient in my little condo. On the plus side, I think "catching" the sledge is actually great exercise. More here: http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.ph...

Welcome, Vladimir! And congratulations on your success so far -- both physical and psychological.

Swinging a sledge is better than therapy, ain't it?

Reinhard

This may be true, but women as well as men (I think even more women than men) have reported significant success on No-s. So relax, it isn't a race. Even if it takes longer, with these moderate eating behaviors in place, you'll like where you wind up.

Please do!

If you have a photo on flickr or some other photo sharing site, you can embed it in your bulletin board post using the "Img" (Image) button.

As others have pointed out, it's GREAT that you're no longer fooling yourself about excess. The scale might not show it yet, but this is huge progress! You have good "mealing" habits down, and you see that your plates are excessive. The sight of this excess bothers you. This isn't a problem, this is...

Congratulations! You have a great attitude and are off to a great start. Keep us posted.

Not only do I talk to myself, I RECORD myself talking to myself

http://www.everydaysystems.com/podcast/ ... .php?id=27

Reinhard

One feature I've been thinking about adding to the habitcal for ages is a way to more specifically describe failures (and S-days), either with an option to add qualifying text ("I snacked.. but caught myself") or a simple number ("2" -- meaning 2 S-events). I don't think extra colors are a great ide...

Welcome, Jamie, fkawn, and MerryKat!

I don't know what makes me happier -- to see new people getting it, or to see an old timer who's has to tough out some pretty rough spots work themselves into fighting trim again. It's pretty close!

Reinhard

Excellent! It certainly is an option (though I haven't quite gotten around to making it an automatic part of the habitcal yet).

Reinhard

I love it!

A very concrete example of Aristotle's idea that virtue itself is a habit.

People are using the habitcal to track a pretty astonising range of phenomena... much more than I'd initially anticipated. I'm thrilled!

Reinhard

Yes!

Here's a previous discussion on the subject:

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic ... ight=jared

Reinhard

But I do know it's more "mind-hunger" than "stomach-hunger". I think this is true and important to realize. Sure, sometimes there will be actual, physical hunger if you didn't budget your last meal quite right and it's been a while. But most of the time it's more like a nervous tick, something OCDi...

Glad to hear you're feeling better.

Don't worry about excessive S-days -- the only thing you should worry about is ENJOYING them. And the key to that is NOT worrying. If you enjoy your S-days, in time, they'll become more moderate.

Reinhard

Dear lmt2pt, If you're going to weigh yourself, do it methodically, tracking the moving average in excel or some similar program -- or erratic fluctuations are going to make you crazy. But I'd suggest forgoing the scale altogether (except maybe for a contained burst of measurements once a month, or ...

Welcome, foxylady!

And thank your daughter for me for spreading the word.

I hope you continue to enjoy no-s and looking forward to hearing more from you,

Reinhard

Hi Carla, Well, let's diagnose. It's possible that no-s might not work for you, but I'm pretty confident it can at the very least provide a useful base of operations. 1) The 14th is 8 days ago. That's a blip. You shouldn't expect anything in such a short time frame. Think months. Years. A lifetime. ...

Woah, woah woah! Let's settle down here. I'm sure no offense was meant -- but of course there's a fine line between "speaking home" (which I'm all for) and being offensive. And then challenge provokes defensiveness, and things quickly get out of hand. So 1) no more animal metaphors here, please (exc...

This is fascinating. My (not very rigorous) sense is that most people say "sweets" but discover it's "snacks." For me personally it was without a doubt "seconds." (though none is a problem at all anymore) Of course, as many people have pointed out -- there is significant overlap between the esses. M...

Jaymiz, I'm very happy you liked it! Thank you for letting me know. One of my favorite things about thinking it terms of habit instead of results is that while on one level it's very long term (a lifetime, ideally) on another level it's instantaneous. The moment you change your behavior you are a su...

I don't fill fill out partial cards for the future -- although that might not be a bad idea. I currently just use google calendar, and copy the task to my daily punch card when the day comes. It works pretty well. I haven't really had a problem with missing future appointments, etc. For future tasks...

Sadly, nothing official (or unofficial) to report just yet. Though one way or another, I'm sure it'll happen someday. Thanks for the "woman's work" tip. There are a few already, and I've tried to keep the "canonical" movements very manual labor oriented (even though military analogies keep creeping ...

LauraAnn, I don't think this is crazy at all. I have to admit, I came up with no-s purely to deal with my weight. But I quickly discovered that (though it handled that problem very effectively) the best part was how it restored my enjoyment of food. I no longer swing between the obsessive quantifica...

Well, it depends on a lot of factors, like how much you have to lose to begin with, how tight your compliance is, and sheer luck. As a rough rule of thumb, Dr. Brian Wansink (author of Mindless Eating) gives half a pound a week as a sustainable rate of weight loss. Obviously there will be quite a bi...

It's a tough call... My gut feeling is play it safe and go with 8, but if you go slow and keep your hands high on the shaft towards the hammer head I guess you will get more mileage out of the 10 without it being unduly brutal up front. But avoiding injury and not having your workout be so hard that...

James,

Congratulations, that's amazing!

We might have to see how YOU hold up under a lot of greasepaint!

(the men's magazines haven't started biting yet -- but I think it's just a matter of time)

Reinhard

They'll get theirs when the shovelglove book comes out

Deb,

All this new traffic on the site is great -- but I'm having a hard time finding my old friends! I think I only found my own thread because I made it "sticky."

Very glad to hear you're doing well -- and not just diet-wise. Have a great trip!

Reinhard

I'm very sorry to hear about your knees, Mandy.

Do you have any ideas for more knee friendly exercises? Swimming, maybe? Biking? (I won't suggest anything involving sledgehammers)

Reinhard

Welcome! Good luck.

Welcome to the club, blueskighs!

I'm so happy to hear this (been checking your blog sporadically too -- thanks for putting it up!)

Reinhard

So far, this site is drama-free, and that's the way I like it. It's getting a little hard for me to monitor for drama since the woman's world article hit and posting volume started soaring here -- so if you do notice anything, please don't hesitate to email or private message me to draw my attentio...

gacfree, If you can manage this risk, and the benefit of making it through to the next meal without too much pain and suffering is worth it, then great. I personally wouldn't do it, but I'm not you. Lots of people have successfully tweaked no-s for their particular preferences or circumstances, and ...

I'm sorry, that sounds horrible. I have a hard time imagining how sticking with 3 meals a day could be causing this.... but if it's really bothering you, please check with your doctor.

Hope you feel better soon,

Reinhard

Nothing wrong with coffee -- unless you pour a ton of sugar in it (unlikely unless someone else is pouring for you, which I guess is the case with some of these "coffee-drinks"). Coffee has a ton of fiber and antioxidants. And to paraphrase from "sideways," it tastes so, ahem, good. I drink mine bla...

In Mindless Eating, surveys show we make over 200 food decisions a day Mindless Eating is a good book, but this number is part of the problem: that's too many decisions to make well. It's just hopeless. So instead of focusing on making them better, No-s focuses on reducing their number. 3 meals mig...

talk2kim67, Twizzlers are fearsome opponents :-) Own up on your habit calendar and move on -- and keep those twizzlers at a safe distance, preferably out of the house. It can take a long of screw ups to get build a new habit like this -- and I know that can be enormously frustrating. But take comfor...

I know other diabetics have done no-s, quite successfully, by adding additional meals or provisions -- but please talk to your doctor. If he told you do eat a certain way, I am not medically qualified to advise you otherwise.

Reinhard

Orange juice is sweet, no-s approved, and very traditionally breakfasty. How about that?

Reinhard

Good luck -- Looking forward to my hug

Do be careful about obsessing to much about the scale, though...

http://www.everydaysystems.com/podcast/ ... .php?id=24

Reinhard

scyence,

Congratulations! That's an impressive start.

Note to others: don't be discouraged if your first few weeks aren't quite as spectacular -- no-s is a very moderate diet, and results tend to be slow (but lasting).

Reinhard

You are welcome to modify the diet to suit your particular needs and preferences -- if you want to keep your yogurt and nuts and night, it's certainly fine with me. Just make it an officially recognized fourth meal. But I'd suggest trying to incorporate it into one of your three meals first and seei...

It's certainly possible -- but I would caution you against getting too excited about it. Scales are just not that accurate and even if your scale is exceptional in this regard your actual physical weight will naturally fluctuate quite a bit even in the course of a single day. More here: http://www.e...

This has never worked reliably, as far as I can tell. I'm not sure it works reliably anywhere. Why? The update messages look too much like spam. They tend to get intercepted by anti spam software. I guess I could look into trying to reword these messages to get around the spam filters, but I doubt I...

I am worried that the drinks will do me in because that has been engrained in my brain from other diets. i.e. that alcohol is the worst kind of sugar, turns right into fat, etc... Hmmm, that must be why the French are so fat :-) I don't think, big picture that moderate alcohol consumption should be...

Men have been drinking beer for thousands of years. For most of that time, most of them were skinny. Obviously, beer has calories, and if you drink too much they'll add up -- but if you stick to a "glass ceiling" of a drink or two a day (depending on how big you are) I don't think you'll have a prob...

Well, I didn't do as well as I had planned. The goal on S-days is to ENJOY yourself. Focus on that and I think you'll wind up eating much less excessively (and much more pleasurably). Don't despair if you find it hard to do this at first -- it's a huge shift of mindset and can take a while to get d...

I'm deeply touched by how enthusiastically the book has been received -- but don't worry, I'm a long, long way off from being a millionaire :-) You get famous WAY before you get rich writing books (and I'm not quite sure I'd consider myself famous yet). :-) Will people stop buying Women's World maga...

That's great, Lilly. A dog is a perfect personal trainer -- among many other things. I'm sure you've all seen these already, but to my mind the best kind of "movements" you can do are "useful movements": http://urbanranger.com and the second best kind mimic useful movements: http://shovelglove.com R...

The funny thing to me about these diets is that they propose these very strange and historically unprecedented ways of eating to achieve what was until very recently a very normal condition -- being thin. Why not simply revert to our formerly normal behaviors instead of doing something new and weird...

Welcome, Melsie52! It's great that you've caught yourself and switched to something moderate before you came crashing down again. Too many people only "get moderation" when they've hit rock bottom. I think if you can get over the initial hump of habit building, and be patient as far as results are c...

Welcome, Lisa! I think you'll be very happy with no-s IF you realize that this is a slow, long term process, and that you're unlikely to lose weight quite as fast as your friend did. Because it's such a moderate system, it's very pleasant to be on, and sustainable over the long term -- but it's also...

Noel, You're absolutely right. Knowing when to stop tweaking the rules is as important (if not more so) than coming up with the right rule to begin with. I love the musical and martial arts analogies to no-s. They're sort of surprising on the surface, but very appropriate, if you think about it for ...

Welcome! I've been a compulsive snacker ever since my childhood This is going to be a hard habit to break, but it's important. I think for most of us eating between meals is the biggest source of excessive calories by far. On the bright side, you really won't be depriving yourself of anything by not...

Welcome! I'm used to eating whenever I'm hungry. So are most people today -- which is why they're overweight. No-s reverses that -- you'll train yourself to get hungry only when it's time to eat. In the meantime, you might get a little hungrier than you'd like between meals. That's OK. It's natural ...

Everyday Systems

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Sorry No-s is taking up all the oxygen lately...