Everyday Systems

Welcome back, Storm! I think the long term trick is to do no more than you know you can do FOREVER (or at least till very old age). Throttle your energy into something consistent and regular. If you can manage a little consistently, then consider adding a little more. But be very loath to risk what ...

Hi Planner Lady,

I describe it in these 2 podcasts:

http://everydaysystems.com/podcast/episode.php?id=18

http://everydaysystems.com/podcast/episode.php?id=19

It's continuing to work very well for me.

Reinhard

Steve, I'm glad this resonated with you! I've been listening mostly to philosophy and religion courses recently. I tried some science but I've found that doesn't work too well through the ear... my mind wanders. I think there's something inherently visual about science and math. History is going to ...

I finally got the GTD book a couple weeks ago, and it looks great, but as I mentioned in my audiodidact podcast, I have very little time I can devote to sit down reading so I despair of ever getting through it.... BUT I have just ordered an audiobook version through my library network. So hopefully ...

Very, very true. Thank you for posting this! It's amazing how badly we want to generalize, especially in the least appropriate situations -- novel ones. I can't tell you how many (completely false) wise sayings and generalizations I've spoken into my tape recorder at the outset of new projects. Rein...

Congratulations on the upgrade, Farnsrocket, and welcome, Lutherdog. I find "butter churn" relatively easy compared to the other movements, but hard enough, especially in the context of all the other movements. I also do a fair number of them, (42 each side), at least on my "heavy" days, which might...

I've heard this is a terrible movie, but those Spartiates sure are buff. And the workout that got them that way (at least for the movie) has a thing or two in common with shovelglove: http://www.gymjones.com/knowledge.php?id=35 Pity they didn't hire me as a consultant. Maybe I'll get my chance when ...

I'm not sure about the UK... I'll ask.

Thanks for your interest! I got the first draft in on schedule (March 1). My editor seems happy.... waiting for detailed feedback to start the next round. Originally, I was told to expect publication in spring 2008. But things are moving pretty quickly so who knows, maybe it'll happen a little soone...

In case you need another excuse...

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/diet.fit ... topstories

I think it gets harder for some people because 1) the novelty wears off 2) progress is slow and 3) stress rears its ugly head. One and two are hard to do anything about except mentally budget for. Nothing stays novel forever, and slow, sustainable loss and maintenance is the point of the No S Diet. ...

I think this is the problem: then my life will go to hell for whatever reason with work or whatever, and then my whole eating and exercise schedule gets disrupted for only a few weeks, and hello, weight gain! You want to get yourself into a routine that can weather inevitable stresses better. Be mod...

Very cool! Youtube is great... I had an idea (that I'm never going to get to) for a theater related site called "the internet shakespeare company." The idea is user/actors record and upload audio mp3 files for specific characters in a play, say mp3 files for every snippet of dialog for Polonius in H...

Sorry, was spam. Some always gets past me. Especially on weekends.

Thank you for posting this, Steve! I'd never heard of the "Hrair limit." I love it! Sci-fi with references. And right on, as you point out, for everyday systems. Gotta stick this on the home page somewhere... I wish I'd seen it before doing my "top 5 arbitrary numbers" podcast. Maybe I'll see if I c...

Sounds "substantively" OK to me.

Just make sure to have them as part of your meals.

Reinhard

New podcast episode:

http://everydaysystems.com/podcast/episode.php?id=26

Reinhard

Best wishes this round! Great attitude. Hope you're fully recovered.

Reinhard

Welcome to the club and congratulations! Not just on hitting the goal, but on building a strong habit as you've clearly done. It's natural to be skeptical at first. I was too and I invented the thing! It's an amazing, almost embarrassing what an outsized effect these simple little rules can have. Su...

I don't quite do MITs (though that's a good idea), though I sometimes circle the number in front of tasks that have lingered from the previous day's card. I guess I don't want to distract myself from really trying to budget and follow through well enough to get everything on my list done. I try to o...

I'm happy the cards are working for you KCCC and Joel! KCCC: the mantra idea is great... may try that myself. I'm still slowly refining how I do them... but it's pretty stable. I'm getting better at keeping my errand column as 10 rows or less, and my routines are slowly becoming better and more sust...

I'm glad you're finding it useful! There's a computer programming saying, "prefer convention over configuration" which reminds this reminds me of. A naming convention (like a mnemonic compound name) is easier to remember and deal with than explicit "configuration" (writing down or struggling to reme...

Julie, Sorry it's been so long since I've popped in here. I'm very impressed! A few slip ups, but mostly success. And you seem to be honest with yourself without being ruthless -- that's great. Nice save with the orange juice the other day -- always go for the beverage before a solid snack. Even if ...

Welcome! As someone who likes to cook and does it every day, tasting can be tricky... you have to do it to make sure the food turns out alright, and yet it can degenerate into snacking. I've found that just being aware of this issue has kept it from becoming a problem. Also the fact that I know if m...

Vacation days can go either way -- but it's important to decide one way or the other and not just let it be a guilty mishmash. Valid reasons to make an S day a vacation day are 1) you have very few of them 2) your vacation involves travel to some place where there are culinary delights it would be a...

That doesn't sound too awful as failures go. It sounds like it would have been really weird and awkward not to eat in waves and you did ok under the circumstances. Just let it roll off and keep going. As for stress and craziness... the best antidote to stress is routine. The temptation when things g...

Jan, I'm so glad personal olympics is working for you! I've found it a really useful structure. If it keeps working for me and you and the other "beta testers" I'll emphasize it more up front. Belated happy birthday to your daughter! We're expecting our second child in early June. That's going to be...

Thanks for the information, sixty! That device certainly does look practical.

But I kind of enjoy working with the resources at hand. It's fun! A bit of an intellectual challenge. And of course, I don't get nearly enough vacation for this to be much of an issue

Reinhard

Steve, Great to see you here again! And glad to hear you're still urban rangering (and then some). These are great suggestions -- simultaneously very original and in the spirit of urban ranger/everyday systems. They're all great, but I particularly love "name the course." I've occasionally/unsystema...

The most important rationale for the "one plate" rule is that you see what you are about to eat. It may be excessive, but at least it should be consciously excessive. The idea is that the mere consiousness of excess will gradually whittle away at it. There are two kinds of virtual plating, one more ...

I have no idea... I suspect it's some character encoding thing. I'll do some homework and see if I can come up with a fix either on my end or yours.

Reinhard

Welcome, Mary Rose!

Starting with a broom is great idea. The hardest parts are building the habit and not overdoing it. A broom is great for both of these.

Lent is a perfect time to try out no-s. Best wishes and looking forward to hearing more from you,

Reinhard

My February 2007 Personal Olympics standings:

No S Diet: Gold (0 failures, 2 exemptions)
Shovelglove: Bronze (0 failures, 4 exemptions)
Weekend Luddite: Gold
Glass Ceiling: Gold

Thanks Deb!

Sorry these trips tend to be short and very concentrated... an unbelievable number of relatives on boths sides we have to squeeze in plus 10 hours of driving.

Nothing to report since last checkin.

Reinhard

Welcome girligrant!

I sent my first text message yesterday from my cell phone (I'd been stubbornly resisting the technology) so in one way or another we're all newbies here.

Are you doing shovelglove or the no s diet (or both)?

Reinhard

I just added this to the testimonials page. Sorry for the long delay...

http://nosdiet.com/testimonials.html

Congratulations and thanks again!

Reinhard

Welcome, redbaerd!

We actually have a separate forum which is devoted to regular progress tracking. You're welcome to keep posting here, but it probably makes more sense to do it there.

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewforum.php?f=8

Reinhard

Well, thanks for spreading the word at such great personal risk (and escaping before things got too ugly)! Low carbers can be prickly... one trick that might work is by pointing out the commonalities (there are some): 1. no sweets is (pretty directly) a form of low carb 2. no snacks indirectly limit...

Oops. I published this as an aac file instead of mp3. Just fixed.

Why did apple have to invent this redundant and incompatible format? It's such a pain in the aac.

Reinhard

New podcast episode:

http://everydaysystems.com/podcast/episode.php?id=25

Flora, It's funny that while most diets don't succeed in making us any thinner over the long run, they do succeed in making us hate and obsess over food. One of the reasons I can recommend the No S Diet to just about anyone with a clear conscience is because even if it doesn't wind up working for th...

Welcome!

No S is good for losing weight, but it's great for maintaining.

Best of luck and keep us posted,

Reinhard

Good luck! It certainly starts with an S... though I think the word "spirits" usually refers to distilled alcoholic beverages like vodka or whiskey, not fermented ones like wine and beer. And do keep in mind: thin Europeans have been drinking wine and beer with their meals for millennia. I don't wan...

Thanks for decloaking unKle! I'm glad it's working well for you. I have no idea whether skipping days would be marginally physiologically more effective.... I'm happy enough with the results I've gotten, and I know if I did anything more complicated or less regular than every weekday it just wouldn'...

Welcome! I'm glad the madman video didn't scare you away!

It stays fun, even years into it. You just have be disciplined enough to take that first swing every morning.

Keep us posted,

Reinhard

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Just kidding. Good luck with your new routine and keep us posted. Pick up a sledgehammer now and then and you can still think of yourself as a part time shugger.

Reinhard

Took a shovelglove vacation day friday (we were traveling to visit family in NY/NJ). There wasn't any temptation worth making it a nosdiet s-day, so I kept it an N-day for that. Had to make an exception to weekend luddite on saturday because I was worried about the safety of a good friend. I'm not g...

Congratulations! That's quite an accomplishment. I love it when people manage to lose even more weight than I did on No-s. Thank you for taking the time to post this testimonial. I'll post this to the main testimonials page as soon as I get a minute later today (just back from vacation and scramblin...

Thanks Deb!

2 "special" S-days since last checking for shovelglove and nosdiet (valentines day and presidents day).

Otherwise nothing to report.

Reinhard

Welcome, Martin! That is pretty hilarious, about the snow shoveling. Comic pragmatism: there's something to it. Unfortunately the actually money making part has somehow eluded me :-) I will eventually collect more info about these moves and publish it on the main movements page, but I'm wrapping up ...

Welcome! Have a glass of milk or juice. Yes, they have calories, but it will keep you from getting too hungry and breaking the literal rules. As your habit gets stronger, you'll get less hungry between meals. Really. I know it's hard to believe because snacking is so pervasive today, but that's how ...

That is a rather enormous amount of sugar... but I guess the question is, is it a problem? Is your habit solid otherwise? Are you losing/maintaining to your satisfaction? Would giving up this yogurt be a dangerously large sacrifice? From what I understand, most yogurts that don't taste disgusting ar...

Welcome, Betty! There's a big range. Some people find it easy from the start, most people run into some trouble. So my advice is: be optimistic to jump right in and give it a try, but pessimistic enough to realize that it might take more than one try to get it right. Don't hesitate to reach for a dr...

We limit "sweets" instead of "sugar" or "carbs" for two reasons: 1) "no sweets" (during the week) is enough to do the job. 2) going further than that (restricting all sugar or all refined carbs) is painful, complicated, historically unprecedented, unsustainable and unnecessary. It's not a matter of ...

Welcome, Janine! This is a very moderate, humane diet, but you actually have to do the little that is required, and that can take so patience and persistence to get down. Your enthusiasm is great, but do budget for that.

zoolina, You didn't give a lot of detail about what the failures were, but I get the sense that you we're just super stressed and said "the hell with it?" 3 bad days is nothing you can't make up for in three good days. It's not the end of the world. Frankly, the only place it makes much of a differe...

Ray makes a good point... the thing about a moderate system is you actually have to follow it systematically. Because you're only cutting off a bit around the edges, there's not the same leeway of excess than an extreme system will give you. No-S has exceptions built right in, so you don't want to a...

There seem to be three groups of people who do no s (besides those who just give up right away): 1) those who do not do significant exercise and maintain weight 2) those who do not do significant exercise and lose weight 3) those who also exercise and lose even more weight I haven't heard of anyone ...

milzar, I know it's not easier, but it's even more important! And I was on the other end of the scale once too, you know... I don't know why it never bugged me. It certainly helped that it tended to be cooperative. But I didn't give it a whole lot of opportunity to be uncooperative because I didn't ...

215... I got some catching up to do. I'm nervous I'm going to be nowhere in this league when I finally get around to it.

Just for the sake of comparison, this is free weight or nautilus? Sounds like free weight... which is even more impressive.

Reinhard

It's an S-day, and like Halloween, an S-day that's largely about S. So relax, you're fine.

(unwittingly) apropos my recent podcast, my wife got me a 10 POUND CHOCOLATE BAR from Trader Joe's for valentines day. I had no idea such things existed. The perfect present for a diet guru!

Reinhard

James,

Great to see you here again!

Thanks for the advice. It's been tricky trying to stay true to the simplicity of the plan while coming up with enough material to fill a book. I think I'm managing...

Reinhard

Double welcome, randallh! Double double welcome I guess. To you and your wife, and to two systems.

Most important piece of advice: be patient. It may take a while to get the behaviors right, and it may take a while to see results.

Best of luck and keep us posted,

Reinhard

How I lost 10 pounds, overnight, without even trying.

Podcast here:

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

Reinhard

Thank you for starting this, Mike!

I will use this as the basis for a more comprehensive movements page.

Reinhard

12 pounds at the end of a stick is much heavier than 12 pounds right in your hand. 12 pounds is on the heavy side for a 6 foot guy to start with. 8 pounds will be plenty hard.

Reinhard

Breakfast: mestemacher black bread. A well stocked fresh "fruit shrine" conspicuously in view. Buy fruit in season and it tends to be both cheaper and better. Squeeze your own citrus juice into fancy wine glass to make the paltry amount that comes out seem like something special. Unrefrigerated tast...

Thanks again for all the suggestions and encouragement. Sorry I've been so lousy about posting the bulletin board recently but my first draft is due in 2 weeks and I'm scrambling to get it done. Wow am I sick of thinking about diet!

I took last Friday as a vacation S-day from shovelglove. Nothing else to report.

200 pounds.... wow. This independent verification is getting compelling... very curious (and a little scared) to get on a bench press and see what I can do...

I noticed the pushups boost too (though now I've been doing them regularly for a while).

Reinhard

I'm glad you like it Sinnie! As for when you should start... I'd try to stick with calendar months just because it's clearer. So it depends on how imperfect you were so far this month, I guess. Maybe just keep track as a trial month and realize you aren't going to be winning any medals... just try t...

New podcast segment: Convenience is stronger than you are. Accept this fact. But with a little planning, the convenient thing doesn't have to be too awful. Case in point: 'optimize your oatmeal.' http://everydaysystems.com/podcast/episode.php?id=23 (not no-s specific, but most relevant to No-s so I ...

Judy, Does it surprise you that you were gaining weight, or did you kind of have the sense that you were eating too much? Do you really think it was S-days, or were there problems with your N-days? S-days tend to get more blame than they deserve... but obviously, it certainly is possible for them to...

I should have visited your site in 2006 when my new years resolution was "learn math." I didn't learn much math, but I did learn some humility

.

Reinhard

I think if you focus on the behavior, you won't have the numbers creep up on you like this. If you are eating moderately, why would you change anything when you got to a certain weight? You'd just continue to eat moderately. People managed to be thin and stay thin before there were scales. They mana...

Please don't apologize for the poor organization of this site! All the movements that have ever been discussed should be much more obviously arranged than they are.

That being said, I think this one is new. Sounds interesting... what was the book you saw it in?

Reinhard

Yeah... there is something very therapeutic about swinging an imaginary weapon. A Freudian might even call it "sublime."

Reinhard

The "glove" does make a difference with this move...

Reinhard

I just wanted to report that I'm still doing the once a month finances thing (except I had to move it to the "financial 4th" instead of 14th because one of the due dates changed). Such a simple system, but really helpful. More for the worry that it spares me than anything else, since I tended not to...

Pile it on until your "mealing" habit is firm and secure. Do not risk habit for calories. At that point, when you've got this thing down pat, you'll probably have an excellent almost intuitive sense for how much it takes to see you through to the next meal without hunger or excess. If not, you can s...

The official No S Diet way of determining your ideal weight: 1) eat moderately 2) see what happens. I'm semi-serious. Actually I'm totally serious. People were much thinner before they had household scales. These numbers tend to just freak people out, and it's very hard to come up with meaningful, r...

Judy, I'm so sorry to hear this, but I hope and suspect it's just a freak of the scale. I'll often go up or down as much as 5 pounds or even more in a single day (when I bother stepping on a scale, which I usually don't). Please take some more measurements over the next few days to confirm whether t...

Deb, I'm sorry about those sobering numbers... but at least it's clear what the cause was, and what you know you can do about it because you've done it before. Glad to hear the first two days back on system felt good! Best wishes and please spare us no detail, Reinhard P.S. you guys look (and sound!...

Welcome to the club, Bee, JustAnnie!

And great to see the founding member, Kevin, popping in for a visit -- this has been a great thread you set up here.

Reinhard

Cool site. I've seen it before, probably posted to the board here somewhere. I like this: In my opinion, there is no need to progress past a 20-pound sledgehammer. From: http://www.rosstraining.com/articles/sledge.html Nice skin for his phpbb, too... one day I've gotta look into that. Reinhard

Wow. Sorry about the table... I think between my smacking myself in the head "churning butter," Kevin's hammer head flying off, and your kitchen table, we have sufficient material for a "shovelglove mishaps" page :-) Hoping we'll never have anything more serious to put there, Reinhard p.s congrats o...

Have you seen the testimonials page? http://nosdiet.com/testimonials Not everyone quoted there is still active on the bulletin board, or for all I know still on the no s diet, but it is evidence that significant weight can be lost on No-s, which, given the moderation of this approach, is perhaps the...

What you want to avoid is irregular, uncontrolled eating... it doesn't sound like your "virtually" split afternoon meal falls into that category. What I'd try to do is regularize this as much as possible. Why not just officially eat 4 meals instead of 3 divided by some variable whatever? Then you're...

Yeah... as Kevin said, up and down three pounds just sounds like normalcy. Either don't weigh yourself except at long intervals, so that the amounts involved are more significant, or weigh frequently and systematically and track the average. My preference is for the former. But it requires a certain...

I've always eaten some healthy food -- I just also ate a ton of unhealthy food piled on top of it. Now that I eat less food overall, a greater percentage is healthy, but I'm not sure the absolute amount has changed much. Maybe a little, just because of the "spotlight effect" of limited opportunity e...

You could probably smash them with a sledgehammer

The great thing about being tired after a mile is the thought of how much rapid progress you are going to make.

Reinhard

You'll be amazed how quickly you get used to it. Every upgrade feels impossible at first, but now my old hammers feel like toys.

Another minor weekend luddite violation. My ipod was running out of gas and I decided to recharge it. I wouldn't have counted that as a violation in itself (since I hadn't touched the keyboard or the mouse!) but when I plugged the ipod in my mac started shouting at me about my hard drive being full ...

I don't do a warm up. I do a cool down of shadow boxing afterwards (in lieu of stretching).

Reinhard

I don't plan much. If I do, it's based on practical considerations like the fact that my toddler will explode if she doesn't have dinner in front of her by 6:15. And I have good healthy default foods on stock, especially for breakfast (black bread, fresh fruit) and lunch (oatmeal, nuts, seeds, dried...

My breakfasts are substantial -- but so are all my meals. I never skip breakfast (or any other meal for that matter, but the idea of skipping breakfast seems especially horrific).

No more than 3 meals but no less! Let the maximum be the minimum.

Judy, I'm not sure if you saw this recent post on this other thread, but it certainly seems like it's possible to lose significant weight while "reclassifying fruit and cottage cheese as non-foods." Again, I can't recommend this based on personal experience, and I'd advise trying vanilla no-s first,...

Too solid Flesh,

Wow! 40 pounds!

That's testimonials-worthy. Mind if I quote you there? (feel free to elaborate, here or in another thread, and I'll quote that).

You didn't by any chance email me privately a few weeks ago, did you?

Reinhard

Podcast here:

http://everydaysystems.com/podcast/episode.php?id=22

Reinhard

Except for the eating between meals, all those points harmonize perfectly with No-S. I do #1 and #3 now. If dried fruit counts, I have fruit or veg with all three meals. Regarding fruits in between meals: it's certainly better than the alternatives, but there is the danger that then you feel the rig...

Everyday Systems

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