Everyday Systems

Uh, I would say it's not normal... but it sounds like the worst has passed, so maybe it's fine at this point. Hopefully it was just really bad habits protesting loudly, but please be careful. If you have ANY doubts, please don't trust random people on the internet, however well meaning we seem to be...

Hey, there's nothing to confess. You're allowed to eat whatever you want on S-days. You CAN'T fail. And I think once you fully process the fact that you're free, you won't binge anymore -- because bingeing is a reaction against restrictions, it comes from resentment. You're appetite just hasn't full...

I don't know if I'm going to be legally allowed to post the entire article (I suspect not, though I'll ask) but it does look like they're going to let me post an image of the cover. More soon... I'm very excited to hear the book is going to be more or less immediately available overseas! THANK YOU f...

Marking a calendar with stars or colored marks or a using the online habitcal is a great motivational technique. Another (perhaps complementary) idea is to write a little todo list for yourself every day -- with No S on top. Make no-s your only todo if necessary (best to keep the list short in any c...

Welcome, Jenny!

Snacking is the big one for most of us.

It'll be hard at first, but in time it gets easy -- the firmer you are, the faster.

Keep us posted and don't be shy about asking for help or advice if you run into trouble,

Reinhard

Welcome, Jill! The hunger is mostly habit. It'll pass if you're firm. All those little snack cues (boredom,stress) will lose their associative power. Instead, mealtime and hunger will gradually start to go together. If you need to placate hunger somehow, try a drink, even a caloric drink. Milk is go...

You are absolved.

Good to have you back.

Snowing here now...

Reinhard

No, these are big, high rep count sets.

I don't recommend starting out with such high rep counts, and even I don't do them 5 days a week. Lower is better -- safer, more interesting, and I think approximately as good a workout if you don't rest in between sets.

Reinhard

Welcome, Marie! You've got the right attitude. The great thing about No-s is that the hard part is all up front. It's not like your typical deprivation or counting diet which seems fine at first, but then become intolerable as you start to miss the restricted foods or get tired of counting. No-s act...

sgtrock, There's not a huge amount of difference, though there is some. As you point out, the main difference is that chop the tree is horizontal, the fireman is (mostly) vertical. I think (very unscientifically) that the significance of this difference is that chop the tree works the abs and forear...

Murphysraven, I like it... I've done similar things from time to time. A similar "challenge" that I occasionally give myself is to see how long I can simply hold the hammer above my shoulders, in whatever positions I please, moving or not moving. It's surprisingly difficult. Sort of like a boxer kee...

Tommi, You understood what I wrote correctly, but I guess that's more of a historical record of what I did rather than what I'd recommend doing to start out (and I've actually since gone down in rep count). My recommendation (7 rep sets) is not quite as obviously locate as it should be... it's on th...

Amazing how all these esses reenforce each other

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-D ... -Salt.html

Of course, they miss my preferred solution: focus on the snacks and you get less salt as a bonus.

Reinhard

It's good to feel like you're eating too much! Better than not feeling it, like when you're permasnacking all day long. Because in time, that feeling will nudge you to eat less. Put the excess out in the open and the problem will largely solve itself. Besides, I bet you're eating less even now, thou...

Thanks for sharing your routine!

I'd suggest probably reducing the rep count considerably at least for the first few months to reduce the chance of injury...

Reinhard

Nice! Much better than the annoying beep my timer makes.

Thanks for posting this.

Welcome tommi and Greenman67! Sorry I didn't get a chance to welcome you Tommi before you hurt your bicep... hope that gets better soon. Do be very careful. Do not shug if anything hurts and try lower rep sets to distribute the workout more evenly over different muscle groups. Injury from overdoing ...

Ouch. Sorry to hear it. I don't think shovelglove is different from other exercise routines in terms of the risk of overdoing it. Just take it easy for as long as it takes and then slowly try again (if you're still interested). Stop the moment anything hurts and take the next day off. I find that ve...

I love the idea (excellent details, too, tommi). Unfortunately I know from coding vastly simpler programs all day long that this is not something I could pull off in my spare time... Though I'd be happy to contribute, if someone wants to take the lead on an open source shovelglove wii project (or ha...

Yes, I'm pretty excited!

It looks like there's going to be a cover story on No-s (with a photo of one of our bulletin board members!) in a major (U.S.) national magazine in early April.

I'll post details (along with the identity of our covergirl) as it gets closer.

Reinhard

Wow. You're right. What a great sign.

(and I'm even outselling a few of them

)

Reinhard

I took it. Seems like a pretty unambiguous S-day (if you have someone who could be construed as your valentine, at least). As for overdoing it: 1) go for quality, if you can. Skimp on that and you'll more than make up for it with quantity. 2) instead of resolving to just eat one chocolate (impossibl...

Thanks for the explanation.

Sounds fun! (though not as fun as a sensor that could withstand/detect the force of impact of a sledgehammer

)

Good luck!

Reinhard

I guess in the awkward neologistic tradition of blog and blist I should call this "brationing" (web rationing). A tad obnoxious, but fits better on my todo card then spelling it out (even more so further shortened to "bration").

Reinhard

You can do a four meal version of no-s -- though since you're currently snacking on fruit, I'd probably limit fruit to mealtimes to compensate. You can also/instead try just having bigger, more fibrous breakfasts -- like a big bowl of oatmeal with nuts and fruit. It's cheap, nutritious, quick to pre...

Hello, Wiifitguy!

Sounds excellent!

So what's this game like?

Wonder if I should contact nintendo about licensing a shovelglove game... or some kind of reverse pac man where you're running away from snacks and sweets until S-days when you can gobble them up...

Reinhard

Sounds like it qualifies to me!

Dear Laura, KCCC is very right. Don't worry about how much you weigh, etc. Just worry about your habits. Get your habits in shape and that's a good in itself -- plus results will follow. Your goals should be moderate behaviors -- moderate eating, moderate exercise. No outside force can prevent you f...

No-s is automatic for me at this point.... but for other, less established systems I find the "visual motivation" of the habitcal to be an enormous help. Why tarnish your calendar with an unsightly red splotch when there are less than two days left? Other ideas: start planning your S-day treats. If ...

Welcome, Daisy! Depending on how much you weight, a pound a week is actually pretty fast. Half a pound is good progress.

Reinhard

A long time ago, I started keeping a list of anti-bookmarks, web sites that I wasn't allowed to look at from 9-5 because they distracted me too much from my job. This worked brilliantly -- cutting out a very small number of sites (most of the benefit came from these 3: slashdot, nytimes, fidelity) s...

I should have known better than to start a new thread about such a sensitive topic... we had a pretty heated discussion about it a couple of years ago. Though it was pretty gentle by web standards, it came as close as any here ever has to a "flame war." So first off, THANK YOU ALL for remaining so c...

Welcome Dawn! I'm glad you find the rules so on target -- but as others have mentioned, the exception is kind of critical, too. Unless you're some kind of saintly hermit in the desert who's really into mortification of the flesh, there's no way you're going to do without any esses at all forever And...

sgtrock, It seems paradoxical, but throttling your interests is the key to sustaining them. It's a little like tai chi: move as slowly as possible while still moving. The really hard part is not the progress, but limiting your progress, wrestling with your initial enthusiasm to build sustainable hab...

I always put nuts in my oatmeal. Plenty of protein. Maybe that would help? Although from what you describe a bigger bowl would probably have made the most difference. As for protein vs. fiber vs. fat vs. whatever, I think it's important to some degree, but vastly less so than sheer bulk and the forc...

On the no s home page I give 3 reasons to avoid artificial sweetener. #2 is: you *know* that in 10 years scientists are going to discover that they're even worse for you than real sugar. Well, it hasn't even been 10 years and: from: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/nutrition/05symp.html?em&e...

Welcome, Elizabeth! And congratulations on your good start. Do be cautious about reading too much into scale fluctuations -- it's great when they're going your way, but they won't always, even in the best case scenario. This is a long term diet and you don't want short term movements to discourage y...

Welcome, MainEac! I think no-s is much more cook-friendly than other diets. After all, there are no blanket categories of food you can't eat. And the emphasis on meals is just good gastronomy. Probably the biggest challenge will be defining and limiting "tasting." It's obviously a professional neces...

Dear Deb,

Sorry things have been rough lately.

I hope our prayers and vibes did some good at least.

Let us know how things are going,

Reinhard

Jan,

Very belated congratulations on the birth of baby Zach!

I'm so sorry I haven't been popping in here more frequently -- my own babies have been very distracting.

Also glad things seem to be going well no-s-wise.

Best,

Reinhard

Daisy,

Belated welcome back and congratulations on your string of successes so far!

Reinhard

One at a time is VERY important. At least for the first break in period. People tend to mess up not because they aren't ambitious enough, but because they're overambitious. They take on too much, and as soon as it inevitably becomes too much and they slip, their sense of perfectionism is outraged an...

This can be tough. There is a huge investment and value in good habits you've built. But sometimes, like say a software program that did it's job well for many years and is suddenly rendered obsolete, you do have to let them go. On the bright side, in both cases, the "programming expertise" you gain...

Hi Apple, I'm sorry you're feeling unpleasantly hungry between meals, but I'm confident that with a little patience and tweaking this will go away. 1. The best cure for hunger is habit. 4 meals a day is PLENTY. The longer you consistently eat this way the more hunger will learn when it's time to eat...

Thank you, Deb. They're both doing fine.

Reinhard

Thank you for posting your routine, Murphysraven! Shovelglove works the abs. I do no other ab exercise and I have discernible six pack. Remember that the original inspiration for shovelglove came from the abs of French coal miners. You might not feel it it the abs compared with other muscles because...

It doesn't seem to have made it to the online version, but there's a little picture of me with a sledgehammer on page 30 of the (physical) February 2008 edition of Boston magazine.

Reinhard

Welcome, rbergstr! The difference between woodchops and fenceposts is tricky to explain... Conceptually, fence posts are higher, and part of the move is a swinging wind up. With chop wood (the shovelglove move, no idea about actually wood chopping), I imagine the chop happing somewhat lower and ther...

On most diets, you put on a big show that you're on a diet ("no carbs, please..." , "let me get out the calorie counter") which has the advantage I guess of impressing some otherwise unsympathetic people. The downside is that as soon as these people aren't looking you start gorging yourself. On the ...

Hi Marick, Drinks don't count as *snacks*. You can drink whatever you want whenever your want -- unless it's a *sweet* (loaded with sugar, like cola). Non-caloric, non-sweet drinks are obviously best, if you can swing it. But being able to swing it is, for most of us, precisely the hard part, so don...

I have two daughters, one is a vacuum cleaner and eats everything you put in front of her. The other eats like a sparrow and has to be cajoled bite for bite. In both cases, putting LESS in front of them helps. For the sparrow, it's less daunting. She winds up eating more. And then there's less to fe...

Good luck, infoproj! I've been amazed at what a difference "glass ceiling" has made for me. To think that such a huge, potentially life threatening problem can be solved by a cutesy little pun... but it really has, for me. The yin/yang sounds appealing... but it is nice to have free weekends on all ...

Congratulations, Sean! No-s is not quite as conspicuous as on-deck shovelglove, but it does present challenges of it's own. :-) I think you have put your finger on the two biggest practical steps to achieving weekday success. I don't have an explicit drinking schedule, but I pretty much always have ...

Great discussion! Sorry it took me so long to weigh in. I sort of integrate this "morning optimization" into my daily cards. Tasks I KNOW I'm going to get done because some human or animal will scream don't need explicit formulation -- so I can skip writing down stuff like "brush teeth" and "make br...

OK, one month of "tasks" down. http://everydaysystems.com/habitcal/view/?o=2&sc=1&m=1&y=2008&t=nosdiet&t=shovelglove&t=glassceiling&t=weekendluddite&t=tasks Not bad -- but definitely a lot spottier than my other habits. It'll be interesting to see if habitcal reporting will encourage better complian...

Take one (or two or three) and wrap them up for Saturday -- you're almost there! Think how much more you'll enjoy them then. If you really don't think you can make it through the week without chocolate, remember that you're allowed a teaspoon or two of sugar in your coffee or tea -- you can realloca...

jan 21: NWS day (Martin Luther King day) for shovelglove. jan 26: weekend luddite failure. I'd missed one and a half days of work that I had to make up for because my wife's back went out earlier in the week and then of Friday our three year old daughter fell and had to get nine stitches. Everything...

Marick, I'm so happy you and your sister are enjoying these podcasts -- thank you for letting me know! It's also helpful to hear which episodes people like best. I know others have singled out the "strictness" episode as well.... maybe I should figure out some kind of voting mechanism, or at least a...

Mark, You are awesome. You've thrown down the gauntlet. 40 pounds is exactly what I lost. Took me about a year of nos + shovelglove, but it's stayed off for 5 years and change now without any yoyoing or significant worry. The hard part is up front -- soldier on past that and it only gets easier. Bes...

WELCOME, Murphysraven! This is great news and I'm hugely impressed by your perseverance. It's funny how it can suddenly just click. I wish there was some kind of formula for when that happens -- there seems to be a huge variation, but it's striking when it does. I'm so sorry it's taken me a full wee...

WinstonWolf, Thank you for posting your routine and keeping me company here! It's interesting to see how people incorporate shovelglove into larger routines... yours sounds VERY hard core. I guess even I do some non-shovelglove moves like pushups and squats, but it's just a little sprinkling and I e...

I read this too, and I think there's a certain amount of obvious truth to the idea that willpower is a limited resource like a paycheck that you can "use up". But I think it's an incomplete picture. I think a better analogy is that willpower is like a physical muscle. Your muscle power is a limited ...

Dear Betty, This is a common question -- and though it's come up frequently on the bulletin board and we have many (very good, I think) anwsers, it's trickier to find them than it should be. I'm going to devote my next podcast (some time in February) to this issue. I think I'll call it "S-days gone ...

Congratulations! You'll be amazed how much easier the next such triumph is going to be. It doesn't take many to form a big habit.

Reinhard

Well it looks like the military analogy is even more apt than I thought! Here's a recent email I got from a soldier in the united states air force (suitably anonymized in the interests of national security :-)): Hello Reinhard! (sorry for the long e-mail, it rambled a bit) First, let me say that I l...

Warning: transcript needs some serious spell checking...

http://everydaysystems.com/podcast/episode.php?id=33

Thanks for the freezer tip. Trying that...

Shannon, Well, sorry about all that physical and psychological stress and it's dietary side effects.... but I'm impressed no-s worked so well for you in the past, and that you have a fond enough memory of it to give it another go. Not that you did this, but I think there is a temptation, once you re...

laura, I'm sorry to hear this, and I sympathize, but I'm afraid I'm not really qualified to give advice... I guess try your best not to make no-s a trial and feel guilty when you slip up -- look at it like more of an adventure, that you're stuck in some physically challenging situation and have to t...

I'm on it. Mucho prayers, vibes and wishes coming your way.

BuddhaLite, I'm very happy shovelglove is working so well for you, and thanks for providing details on your routine (any interest in cross posting this bit to the new routines forum?)-- but do heed Betty's warning about progressing too fast (Betty, I'm really sorry you had to "learn the hard way" --...

Welcome, AUlderyan. There's no question that momentum makes some of the moves easier. But there's also something very satisfying about the rhythm of it, of one swing merging into the next. Since I'm happy with the physical results I've gotten, I'm not tempted to give up my satisfying momentum for po...

Betty, I'm very sorry to hear you're having a hard time, but please don't let yourself feel miserable and beat yourself up -- not only does it feel really bad, but it winds up being the most ingenious of excuses for giving up completely. Just try to be practically minded about it. First, try to diag...

For 2008, I've started tracking a new habitcal tag: "tasks." It works like this: every day I do all my chain of self command tasks, I not only mark a star on the card as I'd been doing before, but now I also give myself a green success on the habitcal. If I don't get everything done, then no star --...

I don't know about that... You might be amused to know that one of my friends thought that NoS might not be for her because you looked "Too Hollywood". Well, I'm very flattered! It may not be the POINT, but I certainly don't mind :-) Have a fantastic 2008 and I hope your book sells out in the first...

I like it in principle (it's actually come up a bunch of times over the years on the bulletin board and its yahoo group predecessor) but at this point I'm too much on auto-pilot to want to make conscious decisions about what to do next between movements. Since I almost always do the moves in the sam...

Below is a repost from another discussion, just to seed this forum with something potentially useful. At some point (soon, I hope) I'm going to create a routines section on the main shovelglove site with a list of "canonical" and "non-canonical" routines, sort of like I did with the movements. Each ...

Welcome, franxious! You are very, very welcome. It's funny how striking and important that feeling of normalcy can seem. Before you start no-s, you might think, "yeah right, whatever, I just want to be skinnier." Then after a few weeks "on habit," it's like an epiphany -- eating is pleasurable again...

Thanks all who submitted photos! We actually got a fair bunch after my last desperate plea -- and one that seems to have captured the editor's interest. So I'm closing this "contest." I'm deeply grateful to ALL who submitted -- you are a generous and GORGEOUS group of young ladies. Please send me yo...

I think all the twisty moves are great for the abs: drive fence post, chop wood, chop tree, the fireman. Plain old shovel is good too. But I wouldn't worry about it. The routine as whole works the abs plenty. Your abs might always be playing a supporting role instead of starring as they do in contri...

Hmm. My experience with increased strength and plumbing were not so positive... but I did learn a valuable lesson: "if it's stuck, the solution is not always to push harder." I also learned the plumbers make A LOT of money.

Reinhard

This just in: deadline for submissions is NEXT TUESDAY (Jan 22).

Eighty percent of success is showing up.

-- Woody Allen

Reinhard

I drink whole milk. Not huge quantities, but with the full fat stuff, you don't need to. It tastes great and is very filling. If you are feeling snacky between meals it's as potent as B-52 strike. I never drink skim or reduced fat -- nasty diet stuff that only makes you feel like you have license to...

I'm sure theres loads of gorgeous NoS women here! As am I. But I haven't gotten loads of submissions yet... So please, if you more or less meet the quantitative criteria, don't let concern about the qualitative criteria hold you back (that you're not good looking enough, etc). First off, you're pro...

I find it helpful to keep in mind the fact that stress eating is going to make you more stressed out, not less so. You feel stress because there's chaos all around you, there's too much to do and you can't get a handle on it. To give up your routines introduces only more chaos and more stress. If yo...

Mrs. Engels does not shovelglove, alas. But she has recently started doing 14 minutes of exercise along with me (I shovelglove, she does yoga, pilates, whatever). Those of you who are intrigued by shovelglove but find it a little too weird or scary: you can still benefit from the basic structure of ...

Before no-s, I used to come up with all kinds of grand and elaborate resolutions -- and never stick with them for long. I could do any crazy thing for a short amount of time, I had "will strength," but no "will endurance." But no-s was a really lucky idea. Sure it required a bit of "will strength" u...

You look great, Deb! And hey, 4 out of 6 criteria isn't bad. I'll certainly pass this on. Note to other potential "cover girls": though it's great if you want to post here, you can also email me privately. If you meet the other criteria (more or less), please don't worry that you aren't beautiful en...

Sean, That is awesome: Shovelglove on the deck of a guided missile cruise ship. I wish I could see that. We've had some good public shugging reported here, but I think this takes the prize. Thank YOU! And let us know if you make any converts -- I can see it already: Shovelglove as the unofficial wor...

Welcome, walkerlori! Looking forward to getting to know you, too.

Reinhard

I know this sounds crazy... but anyone interested in being on the cover of a major national magazine? All you have to be is: female 22-38 years old attractive with a "great smile" (please don't be modest! think the "dove" ads. "real" is in.) at or near goal weight lost at least 15-20 pounds on no-s ...

I don't have any special gear, just an umbrella and a water resistant windbreaker (and a certain indifference to getting wet).

Keeping a dry set of cloths/shoes at work is a good idea... but I can't say I do it.

Reinhard

Welcome! hehe, I just listened to the podcasts about results. So what I mena to say was... I'll keep you posted as I find success establishing unconscious behaviors into habits! Don't worry, you'll see results all right. But the habits are what you should focus on. Looking forward to hearing good ne...

Dec 31, Jan 1: NWS days for shovelglove and No-S (new years)
Jan 6: weekend luddite failure. Got an OLPC XO for my daughter and she insisted I provide tech support.

Johnny, I wouldn't make the working significantly longer than 14 minutes. Every minute you add reduces the chance that you'll stick with it long term. If you want to add rigor, then reduce the rest periods. But if you feel like you're getting sufficient work out as is, then leave it. There's no reas...

Wow, that looks all so complicated! Yeah, I guess it does... but it took a few months to get to that level. My first version, which I'll try to dig up and post today, was a very simple mess of boxes. A lot less "data", and a lot less organized. Every week I got more ideas for tasks I wanted to get ...

Some (cautiously) pro-coffee links: From: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=4D780891-E7F2-99DF-3C18F74AAAB7965E A traditional eight-ounce (237-milliliter) cup of coffee could contain as much as 1.5 grams of fiber and 3.2 cups nearly five grams of fiber. But, of course, a "cup" is relative t...

Not until now... thanks for pointing this out.

Jason must have changed the url. Don't have time to figure out what the new one is (if any), so I stuck a local copy on my server and am pointing to that now.

Reinhard

I drink at least 3 cups a day and don't view it as a problem.... If you're worried, just do a "glass ceiling" of say 2 a day. Giving up completely seems like a crime against the soul. I can't believe that the balance of giving up a great pleasure vs. gaining some small and dubious health benefit is ...

Yeah, a lot of the moves have military analog (this one especially).

Speaking of Spartans, I'm just finishing up a teaching company course on the Peloponnesian War.

It's really quite excellent (and pricey, wait for it to go on sale for 70 bucks or get it for free from the library).

Reinhard

Everyday Systems

Search found 5900 matches

Salty Snacks Mean More Sodas for Kids

Web Ration = Bration

Site Rationing (distraction management)

Metabolic Syndrome Is Tied to Diet Soda

Boston Magazine Pick up

Podcast 33: 2007 Annual Compliance Review

Really primitive habitcal/chain of command integration

Reinhard's current routines (Jan 2008)

Wanted: No S Diet Cover Girl