Everyday Systems

What more endorsement do we need?

I've GOT to find that on youtube...

Thanks biglambo!

Reinhard

Hi newb_E, I walk through blizzards and heat waves, but I live in relatively temperate new England, so I don't have to too often. As for the sweat... well, if it happens it happens. I sweat a lot less now that I've burned off all this extra luggage. For me, braving the elements is part of the urban ...

Thanks for the suggestion, zoolina! It doesn't sound petty at all -- we're dealing with human psychology here! Details like this can make all the difference. It wouldn't be technically difficult at all to spell out each day's status, but I do like the solid green. I find it aesthetically pleasing, a...

Thanks, all! So far, so good... Not that this is at the forefront of my consciousness right now, but we were in the hospital 3 days and I missed just 2 days of shovelglove and 1 of No-s. I think I'll give myself these as legitimate special days. And sleep deprivation burns a lot of calories, I'm tol...

Our second child was born Wednesday night. She's healthy and doing great, but her presence is obviously going to take a bit of a toll on my online activities for a while. So please be patient if I take longer than usual to respond to posts and emails. Thanks in advance for your understanding, Reinhard

I'm glad you approve Deb!

You've been with us since yahoo group days, so you've got a deep experience of all the ways we've used to track progress so far. I'm very much looking forward to hearing what you think once you've used it a bit.

Reinhard

Thanks for these ideas, KCCC! Habit definition definitely sounds like a good idea (and not hard). Mixing tags is a bit tricker, but here's a way I might do it... you could select multiple tags and tick "composite view" or something. I'm not quite sure what would happen in the case of conflict (red i...

I added it (to the main everydaysystems page, too). Thanks for the suggestion!

Very expressive drawing... (the words aren't so bad either). I'm flattered!

http://www.bigtimeattic.com/blog/2007/0 ... ngels.html

(Thank you, Zander!)

Reinhard

Hi Roseha, "sleep" should work.. (as should "7_hrs_sleep" -- it accepts letters and underscores, I can make it accept other characters if people really care). There is a limit to the length of the tags bug it's much longer (and there's no limit to the number of tags). Ah, I just read to the end of y...

Snack-Meal Independence Another great term, Steve. Now that I've gotten the book out, moved the sites to the new server, and released the habitcal I can finally focus on making those content updates I've been talking about forever (including a bunch of great quotes from you). As soon as baby comes,...

Thanks!

Must have gotten left behind on the old server during the move this morning.

Just fixed it.

Reinhard

Congratulations! Nice habits, nice results, and a nice habit building period of time under your belt.

Jumping rope does sound like a great supplement/complement to shovelglove. There's gotta be a reason all those boxers are so into it.

Want to be the first to add it to the HabitCal?

Reinhard

OK, the move seems to have worked. Let me know if you notice anything weird.

I've decided it's finally time to move my sites out of my basement to a professionally hosted machine (in the last 7 days alone we had a power outage, lost our internet connection, and had a server crash). I've transferred nosdiet.com, shovelglove.com, and urbanranger.com already. everydaysystems.co...

Time to get this stuff out of my basement!

I already moved the other sites last week and they seem to be working fine.

everydaysystems.com has a few more moving parts so it'll be a little trickier... but I'm confident that by the end of the day everything should be working.

Reinhard

Another crash... moving to new server today(?)

Other sites already moved.

Reinhard

Julie, You know, I think an "almost made it" when it's quantified like this can be very motivating for next month. Just one more day... I'm confident you can do it. My May 2007 Personal Olympics standings: Nosdiet: gold (0 failures, 1 NWS day) Glass ceiling: gold (0 failures) Weekend Luddite: gold (...

Sorry about the injury... but congratulations on the habit! That's a great milestone, and I know how you feel.

I missed a shovelglove day Wednesday (pregnancy related scare -- everything's fine) and I felt like a kid who didn't get to go the the playground as promised.

Reinhard

Welcome the the bulletin board, Elizabeth. I'm very excited to see how the punch cards are catching on. I too put down fun stuff as "tasks." Less to remind myself to do fun stuff than because if it takes time it displaces other tasks and I need to budget for that. Plus it makes me not resent fun stu...

Michael Pollan's stuff is always good, but this article is especially worth reading because it's not about huge societal forces beyond our control, but simple, small, obvious things we can do right now. Thanks for the link! (and the very relevant quote).

Reinhard

I don't (yet) inflict No-s on my daughter, and I don't think I ever will in its strict form (though a bit trickles down because I'm usually the one who cooks meals and that gives some structure). My daughter was born less than three pounds, so we've always had the opposite concern -- we'd love for h...

Welcome and congratulations, Groovia! Do be prepared for days and weeks when the scale won't be so cooperative... sustainable weight loss is a slow, bouncy business. It's good to keep the focus on "days on habit" instead. I just pushed out a tool to help people do this: http://everydaysystems.com/ha...

Thank you for your kind words, wantobehealthy (you too, mimi)!

I am so happy you kept bouncing back and are now seeing good results.

Keep at it -- if there's ever a "new updated version!" I'll make sure to squeeze you both in

Reinhard

congratulations, mimi!

Hi Xtal, I'm glad you like it! It's definitely a keeper for me. On the rare days when I didn't make a card, I made a retroactive card the next day, just to record what I'd done. A useful little finesse I've been doing for the last few weeks: write and box a "main event" (or "leitmotiv," for the oper...

Thanks for the clarification, Jishin -- and welcome to the group. I'm not remotely qualified to advise on hockey simulating moves, but there seems to be quite a lot of google hits for "hockey sledgehammer training." http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&q=hockey+sledgehamme...

Xtal, Thanks for reporting this problem even though you figured it out in the end! It helps me prioritize what to fix. I'm sure others will not be able to figure it out and just silently give up... OK. I fixed it (sort of). Now there's a message that says what to do. I'm not sure if this is the best...

Sinnie, I'm glad you like it! Let me know if you have any problems/questions/suggestions. Brandon, You have to select the habits you want to display from the list, then hit "show." By default no habits are selected, so no calendar is displayed. I admit that's not immediately obvious... I'll think ab...

KCCC,

Sorry about the slip ups...

I think putting NO-s on your todo card is a good idea.

I don't personally because at this point it's fully automatic for me, but I do put shovelglove on the list.

Reinhard

Nice new site! I put the link on the interviews page.

Thanks for the kind wishes!

I was stunned to find that 90% statistic about snacking, and from such an authoritative source. I guess I'd always had a hunch, and knew it made a big difference to me personally, but it's great to have this kind of quantitative backup.

Reinhard

Nice! I always thought baseball was the natural match for shovelglove, but this works, too.

Reinhard

Thanks, Deb! I'm so glad you're gracing us with your presence again!

Nothing new to report since last checking.

Except a new experimental way of checking in.

Reinhard

I've been talking about doing this for ages -- well, it's finally done. "Done" is probably too strong a word for it -- let's say it's finally ready for someone besides myself to bang on. http://everydaysystems.com/habitcal/ I'd be very grateful if some brave souls would be willing to try it out. If ...

i Mr. B, I haven't experienced anything like that that I can remember. In the very beginning I occasionally got a little sore, and I was a devout weenie about taking days off when this happened. Which I'm glad about having done -- since I think that perhaps excessive caution bought me time to get st...

Wow. I've been astonished at the range of prices, but I've never seen that low. Seems like amazon does a fair amount of experimentation (sometimes in the other direction, unfortunately). Seems like their prices are back up to middling levels right now... but let's keep our eyes open. Thanks for the ...

You absolutely belong here! Your biggest problem (though not your only problem) is obsessing over food. No S is probably the only diet out there that will stop you from doing this. You can feel confident that you're not being a glutton without obsessing over every mouthful. Gluttony and obsession --...

At long last, I found time to squeeze out another podcast segment:

http://everydaysystems.com/podcast/episode.php?id=28

Reinhard

Phaze,

Great to see you here again (x6)!

And it looks like you spent your time away productively. Impressive, congratulations!

Still, I'm glad the shovelglove is coming back into the picture.

Keep us posted and say hi to Peggy and Annie,

Reinhard

noodle, All I do is walk and shovelglove 14 minutes every N-day (last month I started jogging once a week, but that's years after those pictures). It really doesn't take much. You just actually have to do it. And keep doing it. It's persistance in small things over a long time, not heroic efforts. T...

Cutco! Henkels is too classy to sell door to door.

But the same league in terms of product quality.

Reinhard

Congratulations and welcome to the club, Paul!

Hmmm. Mouse ears... the only emoticons that have ears look like Satan.

Sorry!

Reinhard

I love cooking... and I used to be a knife salesman so I've got these beautiful samples (I was a terrible salesman but I fell in love with the knives. Chopping is like meditation for me. But between balancing a kid (or two), a demanding dayjob, some semblance of an intellectual life, and an active "...

I'm not sure if I count, but at this point the only thing that ever gets me is social pressure. You could put me in a room full of the most delicious French pastries and I wouldn't think of touching them on an N-day. But insert a guilt-tripping relative into the room and there might (rarely) be a pr...

Shamrockmommy, I'm sorry you haven't seen progress -- but nursing is a tricky time. Dieting is something you want to be VERY careful and moderate about. That you've been able to largely set up these habits is an astonishing testament to your willpower. I have a two year old at home, and we're expect...

Hi Kevin, Well, the sad truth is that as with any exercise program there I'm sure there is a very high attrition rate. I think shovelglove is about as good as it gets in terms of sustainability -- but even so, any exercise, even something as fun and unobtrusive as this, is hard to stick with. What p...

Ozarka, Sorry if you feeling like you've gotten a lot of flak on this... while I'm emphatically not a proponent of counting calories, I guess I can understand why just as a sanity check it might make sense occasionally to check some default foods. I would caution against putting too much emphasis on...

Cook with cast iron. Cheap, soulful, gastronomically unbeatable -- and healthy (unless you have hematomachrosis).

Best of luck getting past this,

Reinhard

Hang in there!

You're so close... I hope having the goal so near in site will defend against those bagels.

From the mob of no-essers here on the board cheering you on in this final stretch,

Reinhard

Hoist the sack is also great for triceps.

Reinhard

Here's a system I've been practicing pretty successfully for a few months. Problem: spending too much money on luxuries. Solution: look at your expenses and decide which categories of spending you want to reduce. Every time you buy something in that category, write it down. Rationale: keeping track ...

Their ~$$es perhaps, but not their guts. :-) From: http://www.fiu.edu/~health/links/t-z.htm Women tend to accummulate fat in their hips and buttocks, giving them a "pear" shape. Men usually collect weight in the abdomen, giving them an "apple" shape. And alas, the "apple" tends to kill you: Persons ...

Sorry, bulletin board shorthand. N-day = "Non-S day" (basically, weekdays) S-day = "days that start with S" -- Saturday, Sunday, and "S"pecial days (holidays) I should probably cover these abbreviations more thoroughly on the home pages (explanations are hiding there, at least on nosdiet.com, but no...

Hi Zoolina, That's a nice tweak... work/life divide is a serious issue for many people, myself included. I'd considered using separate cards, too. But for me the pro of having all my daily imperatives in one place outweighed that (plus I work from home at least once a week which kind of complicates ...

It happens. Welcome back!

Breakfast seems to be the meal people think most they can skip. But they're just sabotaging themselves -- they'll more than make up for it with snacks later.

Reinhard

Yeah, 14 minutes every N-day, no breaks, that's the important thing. Which movements, the order, how many reps per set, and whether you repeat movements are all details you can vary. Do be careful to go slow starting out. You have plenty of time to get stronger. If you get impatient and rush you're ...

Well, thanks for clearing that up :-) Besides the functional strength, there is something quasi-mystical about shoveglove that I think should counteract the voodoo. Try this move new move: strangle the chicken Hold the hammer in front of you, head down, as if for "butter churn." Now pretend the hand...

Welcome, Ann!

Sorry about your knee, but zoonlina is right, you probably can't extrapolate from this first week.

Still, I hope you find No S useful, even beyond these 6 weeks.

Best,

Reinhard

Interesting thread! But sorry, I'm way too ignorant on this subject to add much... I've read enough on both sides of the argument to know that there's a lot more to it than initially seems to be the case. I buy organic milk and free range eggs because I feel sorry for the cooped up cows and chickens...

I forgot about that 23.79 pounder...

A little out of my price range, but I'd be very grateful if some millionaire shugger bought it through the link above

Reinhard

I tend not to worry much about my lower body because I walk *a lot*, but I have occasionally incorporated squats (Hindu and otherwise). Here's a video from a classic Indian film (that's been posted in this forum a few times already -- it's great) showing both a squat that uses a shovelglove-like imp...

And I didn't consciously eat any more. My appetite has always been such that the only think I have to worry about is eating less.

Hi (again) yaki, Not sure what the increments are in Germany... but here they tend to be (in pounds): 8, 10, 12, 16, 20. I started with 12 pounds. That was kind of heavy. I don't think I'd recommend starting heavier than that unless you're in very good shape already. As you get stronger, you can hol...

Hi All,

I'm sorry about the high volume of unusually obnoxious spam these last few days.

I just added some anti-spam mods to the bulletin board (in addition to my home brewed stuff) that I hope will stem the tide.

Thanks for putting up with this,

Reinhard

Hi erniep33, There are three ways to approach this, all with pros and cons 1. tough it out and stick with three meals. Pro: clearly "right" Con: may not be possible. 2. do some virtual plating as described by Jan. Pro: more humane Con: virtual plating can degenerate if you're not careful. 3. just gi...

Hamish, That is pretty disturbing... I'm sure I'd be in similar shape if it weren't for weekend luddite. If you want another way to quantify this a bit, you can download the google web history plugin for firefox. It gives you a "heatmap" little calendar or how many google searches you did each day e...

Very impressive. I think you're going to like the "habit calendar" tool I'm working on now. It's (also) very spartan.

Reinhard

Welcome back, Deb!

The bulletin board isn't the same without you.

Reinhard

My April 2007 Personal Olympics standings:

No S Diet: Bronze (1 failure, 3 exemptions)
Shovelglove: Silver (0 failures, 3 exemptions)
Weekend Luddite: No Medal (4 failures)
Glass Ceiling: Gold

Reinhard

Congratulations Jane and Mimi!

Nothing new to report since last check-in, but I forgot to report that april was a disaster for weekend luddite -- 4 failures (had to get the next draft of the nosdiet book done).

Reinhard

Pretty good!

More here:

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=1885

I'm slow, but it's a respectable distance given I haven't run in years, and I'm not going anywhere near capacity.

Reinhard

Until someone funds me to build a lab, anecdotal evidence is the best I can hope for -- thanks! I fished up an article in men's fitness that sounds like almost as if it was written with shovelglove in mind: From: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1608/is_4_21/ai_n13667727 ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY ...

Thanks for posting these, fungus. "Pick onions" sounds particularly intriguing (and I think I even understand it).

I'll try them out tomorrow.

Reinhard

Congratulations on your second anniversary, Jan! Sorry I missed it by a few days.

Glad it's working for you, KCCC!

I'm still at it with the daily cards, too. And batting a thousand for the monthly resolution cards in 2007!

Reinhard

Sorry I didn't see this till now.

When you edit a post, there is a little box the says "font colour" right above the text box. Select the text you want to color, then choose the color from the box. It will display as funny looking markup code until you hit preview or submit.

Reinhard

Hi zoolina,

That's not a bad idea -- and it would be pretty straight forward assuming I get the rest of it working. Maybe we could even subdivide into mini-teams, so the people you aren't "letting down" aren't anonymous.

Reinhard

Welcome, Atom!

Wow, that guy grew about a foot taller!

Just kidding, pretty impressive -- as is the rest of the site.

Thanks for the post!

Reinhard

Welcome! One of the trickiest bits about shovelglove is throttling that initial enthusiasm into something moderate and sustainable. The hard part is not doing too much. Because if you do too much, not only do your risk injuring yourself, you also make the less superheroic efforts that are all you ar...

I think urban mountain ranger had *a lot* to do with the fact that I can jog all of a sudden to some degree. And it's such a beautiful system because it doesn't take *any* extra time -- in fact, I usually beat people who take the elevator. Alas, you have to live or work upstairs, which I no longer d...

Fruit juice is fine. Just make sure it isn't fruit flavored sugar juice. If you're worried about drinking too much, squeeze your own. It'll taste better, be healthier, and unless you've got a lot of time on your hands to devote to juicing, keep you from drinking too much. Drink it out of a fancy win...

Cab54, I second KCCC's milk vote. It's liquid so it doesn't violate the literal rules and won't mess with your habit. It's caloric and protein rich so it will satiate real hunger. It's soporific so it will put you to sleep so you can stop worrying about this. If you try this and it gets too bad, the...

I got discernible (if not exactly) bulging abs from shovelglove. It took many months for me to notice this, and the fact that I no longer eat like a pig probably also had something to do with it. I didn't really come up with shovelglove to get movie star ripped, but to get in sustainably decent shap...

What I find helpful is knowing that I'm going to have to report in here -- in detail. If I catch myself early, I know I can make it sound not too bad. If I keep going whole hog, I know I won't want to have to report that. Even if you aren't posting failures here, it can be helpful to resolve to note...

I took yet another shovelglove NWS day on monday (april 30). I was on "vacation" from work, finishing up the nosdiet book. Dubious. My personal olympics standings for april are not going to be particularly impressive. Did some virtual plating at a restaurant yesterday, but it worked out fine. Not mu...

Congratulations again, Hilary and Tiffani! Always great to see you here.

Reinhard

Welcome to Personal mount olympus, Linsay (was getting lonely here!).

Among the many, many things I'm planning to do in may is get an interactive online habit calendar/traffic light out that could automatically (among other tings) do medal assignments.

I'll post my april standings shortly.

Reinhard

I hit 4 miles on my 3rd run. And I think I could have gone a lot farther (my running partner and I were both trying to out-gentleman each other in terms of not pushing the other too hard). We were going pretty darn slow (10 minute miles), but considering it was only my 3rd run in about 8 years, that...

Welcome, biglambo. No worries, we're all a bit mental here. :-) If you do just the basic 14 minutes a weekday, you'll get yourself into surprisingly good shape. "non-boring workout", huh? Glad shovelglove shows up there... I wonder if there's some tweak I could make to get it to float a little highe...

Yeah, I wouldn't spit out. That seems just wrong (and dangerous). I taste when I cook. You have to. But you do also have to be careful to keep it just tasting. Take a small bite. What I find helps keep me in line is I say to myself, "OK, now I'm tasting." It's a very conscious, limited thing. I'm mi...

Great quote (and observation). I think a lot of the difficulty people have with moderation is that they just don't see excess -- or at least, the point at which something becomes excess. It's not so much a defect of willpower as a kind of blindness. No S draws these big goofy lines around excess, so...

Lucius, If you're feeling hungry at night, have a glass of milk. It's technically allowed, has calories and protein to fill you, and apparently also has a soporific effect. Be firm and patient and habit will make this much easier. 3 meals was what most people did through most of history ("famine, sw...

Welcome, Grimmy!

Glad we've saved you from the yuppie gym (though most people usually save themselves after a few weeks... I'd like to see a graph of gym visits over time for most of these establishments).

If you do shovelglove for 14 minutes straight, it's actually VERY engaging.

Reinhard

This is a great quote... thanks for bringing it to my attention.

Just in time, too, my next (last?) draft is due tomorrow.

Thanks again Steve and Jan!

Reinhard

http://www.webmd.com/content/pages/10/1671_51408 Some highlights: the study found that the French participants didn't snack, generally defined as consuming one to two between-meal foods, such as a handful of peanuts and a glass of orange juice. "The French ate less than one snack a day. Here in the ...

If you don't make it, you HAVE to tell us the story

(wouldn't mind hearing it in any case)

Best of luck. Those green blobs can be motivating -- glad you're using them.

Reinhard

Yes, this is a great movie (great series of movies) and I was floored when I watched it last year and saw this scene. Some other discussions about it: http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=46 http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=1391 The move he's doing is very impressive, but it lo...

You sound incredibly sane and healthy.

Best wishes with your fine tuning, and keep us posted.

Reinhard

Everyday Systems

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Will be a bit distracted next few weeks...

Maybe this should be my 2007 during...

WARNING: about to move site

Moving everydaysystems.com to new server today

HabitCal Habit Calendar (Alpha)

A 90% diet solution -- in 2 words (podcast)

Financial Confessions

Sorry about all this spam! Upgraded defenses

French Paradox? No Snacks.