Everyday Systems

If it doesn't get too monotonous, I don't see anything wrong with it -- especially if it's good bread. That line of the Lord's prayer "Give us our daily bread" used to be meant a lot more literally than it is today -- for many people, for much of history, bread was the primary food. Everything else ...

Welcome, thtrchic! Sounds like you are securely in.

Great attitude, want2bhealthy. Keep at it. You'll be amazed how easy it becomes once you get these habits in place. Getting them there is hard, though, so don't let your guard down.

Reinhard

Congratulations! That is hard core.

My 2 year old daughter, unfortunately, adores escalators, so I haven't been quite as pure. But I'm still walking to the 7th floor at work twice a day (until we move).

Reinhard

Nice! Glad it's working well for you. Chores become fun after this. I'm looking forward to the first big snowstorm of the season.

Well, I would stick with 14 if you have time. Less is fine if you don't, but my guess is, once you start, you'll realize you do. It doesn't have to be a uniformly intense 14 minutes. If you're beat halfway through, switch to something lower intensity. Jog in place. Stretch, even. That way you still ...

Nice! I didn't remember that verse....

Might be good to stick on the home page as an invitation to all womenfolk.

Keep on drivin that steel!

Reinhard

Wow.

Is the hammer head gold? (it actually looks kind of goldish). How on earth could a sledgehammer cost that much? You'd think they'd give a little more text to justify a price like that, but maybe they figured they could just rely on those two rave reviews.

Wow. That's scary.

Was it a hammer you used for a lot of other stuff? Was it ancient?

Reinhard

Wow, this is becoming the diet of diet book authors :-) Fast food is tough. If it's a temporary situation then I'd say: 1) no supersizes or double burgers or burgers that are named after the quality of largeness (that's just seconds rolled into firsts) 2) no sugar soda (obviously a sugar s) If it's ...

NoelFigart, Thanks for performing that interesting bit of data gathering! I love it when my hunches get quantified... I do think habit will tone down the hunger between meals. If it gets too bad, consider a forth mini meal (don't call it a snack!), but I think habit alone will do the trick if you ca...

Sorry I took so long to pop in here... I think I have this instinct for when people mess up and only get to their checkins then. :-) That's tough, with free food shoved in your face. I don't know if I'd be able to resist that. Cut yourself some slack. You've been really good so far, despite the fact...

Welcome, Jent! Just be glad your high school weight was something to aspire to -- so many kids nowadays are in pretty sad shape by then.

Welcome back, want2bhealthy! Hope you make it this time and that it really sticks.

Thank you, Deb and KCCC! I do get a kick out of doing them. I've been talking into a voice recorder now for years, just for my own personal use, so it's great to be able to turn this hobby, something I'd more or less do anyway, into something useful for other people (podcast on my autopodcasting hab...

Zoolina, From the title of your post it sounds like your behavior has been not quite perfect, but from the body it sounds like your behaviors have been good, you just haven't been seeing the results you want. I popped over to your checkin for some clarification and it looks like sort of a mix :-). S...

I did a search on the username that posted ("OSfllwrb") this because it was such an oddball name and it had been registered several times. Google gives over 106,000 hits. That's one prolific spambot! Now if I could only figure out what it was trying to convince me to do or think... it's either so de...

You are very welcome, Jim!

Yeah, it doesn't surprise me to hear that no-s might not scale to the requirements of competitive athletic competition....

But I'm very happy to hear it's working so well for you now.

Reinhard

That's a good idea, David.

Funny how we need excuses for virtue nowadays

Unfortunately the building our group is going to be moving to is only 2 floors high.

I'll figure something out...

Reinhard

Larissa,

Just go really, really slow, and put your hands closer to the head if it feels too heavy. Keep it up and in a few weeks you'll be thinking about a 10 pounder

Hope you can move your arms well enough to post!

Reinhard

Hi Marreta,

Last time Allan posted he was going through some tough family medical issues... I hope he and his are OK, but I haven't heard anything since.

(if you're lurking here, Allan, we wish you the best and would love to hear from you again)

Reinhard

I like the idea of a crock pot... (Jid actually does mention it above, too).

Any recommendations on a particular model?

Reinhard

Podcast here:

http://everydaysystems.com/podcast/episode.php?id=21

Judy,

Don't worry about the juice. Much, much better than breaking down and snacking.

Buffets are tricky... nice work!

I'm happy "doing it for the book" is encouraging you!

Reinhard

P.S. I'd love to hear more about your book. I email you.. sorry I haven't yet but things have been nuts.

It can be tough in the beginning, but your appetite will adjust. It's all about habit. Your appetite has been led to expect frequent propitiation and it's a little irate that things have changed. But it will learn. 3 meals is plenty by historical standards. Give yourself big plates to keep the hunge...

Deb, sorry to hear about your double weight/work whammy... You sound like you're taking it in good stride. Good plan to not expect further loss until the weather and your health clears up... maintenance is hard enough, under the circumstances, and so important. Best to you and Richie and looking for...

I don't have a rule about when I drink my drinks, but I usually have them with dinner because that's when I enjoy them most. So sure, enjoy your drinks whenever.

Just to clarify: glass ceiling is a separate (but compatible) system from the no s diet.

Reinhard

(fresh) Fruits are great during the week -- just make sure to eat them with meals and not as snacks. Not only are they good in themselves, but they're bulky and crowd out less healthy stuff from your plate.

Zoolina, Welcome! 1. Light is better to start. Worry about building the habit and getting the moves down smoothly. I've advised people to start with a broom just to get this part down, so I doubt your starter sledge is too light. If after a few months it seems very easy and you've been sticking to y...

Johnny, I would wait and see if this is actually a problem for you instead of launching a preemptive strike. My guess is that it will not be. Overburdening oneself with restrictions is the top reason people fail to stick with diets for any length of time. It's a far bigger problem than a few extra c...

I do have S-drinks and N-drinks, but the decisive factor is sugar.

I love a mojito or Caipirinha, but only on S-days.

Otherwise, straight glass ceiling is all the governs my alcohol consumption.

(I'm German, so beer *has* to be OK)

Reinhard

It's not a human being (or even a live troll). It's a spambot. I've seen this one before. It's unusual (and hard to filter out) because it's political rather than pharmaceutical or pornographic. I don't know if that's just a cover (all roads lead to viagra and porn) or if it's genuine propaganda (wh...

I don't think that quote should be read as meaning, "no French person EVER snacks PERIOD" but rather "the French do not habitually snack on a daily basis." So I think the No S weekend exception passes even gallic muster. Could you reduce calorie consumption a little more if you extended this S rule ...

Welcome, Ray! And thanks for the review. Good "diet" books are a rare breed. I'm currently reading Mindless Eating, which is also actually pretty good (the author did lots of experiments which are very relevant for no-s, like how much more people who refill their plates eat compared to those who kno...

Wow! That's impressive.

I'm a couple floors below you still, but it is amazing how fast one gets used to it.

Sadly, our group is moving to the second floor soon and I'm going to have to find some other way to get my vertical rangering in.

Reinhard

Your arms would fall off :-) Seriously, try it if you want. But I think it would be awful. 5 days a week is plenty, but not so much that it isn't fun any more. And 14 minutes is enough time to get you in good shape without being a real imposition. Apart from the purely muscular aspects, it's really,...

Tried it this morning... nice! Feels like great ab work (the eternal newbie worry).

I think I'm going to do a youtube of new "experimental" user contributed moves. Then all of you who proposed them can let me know if I'm doing them right.

Reinhard

I'm flattered, but my wife is MORTIFIED that I put up a shirtless picture of myself on the internet, so it may be a while before that happens again. I went through my iphoto library this morning and couldn't find a single 2006 picture where I wasn't some semi-obscured prop for a child or pet... so I...

Noel,

Sorry I somehow missed this post.

Sorry about your injury... but I'm very happy to hear the habit traffic light has been a useful structure for you.

Hope you can add shovelglove and urban ranger soon!

Best,

Reinhard

Hmmm. Is this a commission?

I'm not an awful worrier myself, but I do worry more than I'd like... and my wife could certainly use some help in that department. I'll see what I can do.

By the way, what color did you choose? (and why)

Reinhard

Welcome, Farnsrocket! Sorry I somehow missed this thread till now.... Wow, I gotta say when I first saw this I was laughing and skeptical. You can keep laughing even once you ditch the skepticism. :-) 8 to 12 is a big jump... be careful. The trick is to go as slow as possible while still moving forw...

Took 1 non weekend special day (Martin Luther King Day).

Nothing else to report.

OK! I'll dig up or produce a better picture. Consider it a placeholder.

Reinhard

Hexagon, Most weight loss -- and almost all sustainable weight loss -- is very, very slow. I think half a pound a week, is what I read somewhere (Mindful Eating, I think). This is such a small amount that it's impossible to detect on a granularity of days, difficult on a granularity of weeks, and it...

You gotta youtube this

Congratulations both on your artistic creation and the true life story that inspired it!

Reinhard

I'd be careful about this... I know "only eat when you're hungry" sounds reasonable and natural, but hunger is a very unreliable guide. Hunger evolved to warn us of impending starvation, not to help us navigate superabundance. No one in human history could have afforded to eat whenever they were hun...

Mondurvic, Wow! That's incredible/sobering. Thank you for sharing that. I'd love to hear more details, but I don't want to pressure you. There's an ancient Greek saying "call no man happy till he is dead." I guess one could also say "call no man thin till he is dead." I hope I'll still be thin and o...

I updated the before and during page for 2006.

http://nosdiet.com/beforeafter.html

Too bad this didn't occur to me during 2006 or I might have been able to take a better picture... just grabbed a still from the shovelglove video.

Reinhard

Podcast inspired by one of Deb's recent posts:

http://everydaysystems.com/podcast/episode.php?id=20

I've always kept my workout exactly the same for both sides. I do notice that my left side is still slightly weaker, but it's not a huge difference and so I don't care. I figure if I do the same thing long enough on both sides, they'll wind up more or less the same.

Reinhard

That's brilliant! There's even something logical (not that that's necessary in doublespeak) about excess virtue being doubleplusungood.

Reinhard

Wow... I'm glad to hear it. I've got to see if I can reproduce that experiment. I haven't been around a bench press in years. Chin ups is another "independent metric" I'd be interested in, but the only time I'm ever around something that might serve as a chin up bar is at the playground, and I'm too...

Annie, It certainly is a help to eat at the table. I don't know if it's 100% necessary, but if you can do this, why not? It's a powerful, ritual association that builds the habit and raises the bar for eating anywhere else, and it's just kind of nice, especially if you're sitting down with family an...

Sorry to hear about you being sick, but wow, that's great news about the job! Congratulations and best wishes! Not only is it a great, great thing in itself, but considering how much you've been able to accomplish here in terms of diet and exercise while all this crazy stuff was going on, imagine ho...

Christi, Sue, Thank you for your thoughtful responses! I'm so much happier to hear that plain old simple vanilla no-s has made a difference to you than that you dig my latest untested brain child. It's interesting what you say about how simplifying the problem of overeating makes people realize that...

I'm astonished, reading (more carefully, this time) the wikkipedia article that hlidskjalf linked to above, at how will my chain of self command maps to the GTD 43 folders filing system (I'd seen the 43 folders site, but somehow managed to avoid discovering what it referred to). OK, time to spend so...

Minor weekend luddite violation: had to print out a map. Minor glass ceiling violation: had 3 glasses of sangria at a birthday celebration at a spanish restaurant. Lot's of great excuses, and not a very serious violation, but still, clearly a technical failure. No news is good news on other fronts. ...

The "21 day club" is a nice way to motivate to build some habit fast, but it has the disadvantage that one little failure can seem inordinately discouraging and derail your efforts entirely -- you might feel that since you messed up your winning streak and are back to 0, well, what's the point of co...

Hi Jim, I've heard of GTD and I must have read something about it at some point, though it doesn't seem to have stuck because all I can remember is what the initials stand for. I probably just didn't give it enough time. Thanks for the suggestion. I'll take another look. Now that I'm branching out i...

It's awful stuff. And ask yourself: do people in skinny societies eat this way? If not, why take this enormous, expensive risk? Plus it's disgusting. When you're suffering from abnormal behavior (overeating) the solution isn't to do something even more abnormal (stuffing yourself with chemicals, tur...

Congratulations! Wow. That's like winning a race with a broken leg.

Reinhard

Jenny, Welcome back! You put your finger on what is most necessary: patience. This diet isn't hard, in terms of strenuous effort or deprivation. But it is hard in that in demands that you give it time and restrain yourself from jumping after the next quick fix or "improving" it with extra restrictio...

Great to see you again here, Tricia! I'm glad No-s still seems like an attractive system to you even though you had some trouble with it and drifted away for a bit -- especially given the bitter, disillusioned, permanent breakups people tend to have with other diet plans.

You're very welcome. It's a great feeling to be of use to people.

Welcome to the group.

Reinhard

OK, dug my scanner out of the basement and got some images up. I'll turn these into a real, cleaned up web page with some more context, but for now, it's just images. To see some daily "foot soldier" cards: http://everydaysystems.com/cards/2007/01/ (file names are date + side (a or b) of card) The l...

MD -- I'll scan the images tonight if I can figure out how to get my scanner running and post the link here. Thanks for your interest! Schnebit -- I just started using the cards this month, but I've been doing monthly resolutions for a while, and yes, I limit myself to one new resolution a month. Bu...

I touched on this briefly with "chain of self-command," here's more (but still not enough, I keep thinking of obvious stuff I should have added):

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

Reinhard

I used to really like it. As Jan wrote, the feeling of order was nice after the chaos and excess of the weekend. But now, years into it, I don't notice it so much anymore -- because my weekends (usually) aren't that excessive anymore. I'll always have something sweet on an S day, and it'll often dou...

Welcome back, mommashell!

As for wasting food, you're absolutely right: if you make your mouth the garbage disposal, you make your whole body a sewer. Now that's a waste.

Reinhard

Thanks for popping by, bladite. Isn't the web great for vanity? It's like the magic mirror in snow white -- you look at yourself and really learn something. Shovelglove wii.... it could be one of those games where you have to build an empire with all kinds of resources: gold that needs to be mined, ...

All the buzz about the apple iphone today made me remember a critical component of that famous commercial:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... commercial

That ain't no ipod she's hurling at big brother.

Reinhard

Reinhard: How did you feel when you first started with the 16lb hammer? How about the 20lb-er?

In the very beginning, each upgrade felt ridiculously hard, like I'd never be able to do this. But in a surprisingly short amount of time, less than a month, I think, it felt totally normal.

Glad to hear you're still with it Kayvan (and that you've got the kids involved!)

Belated welcome, ProfMom! Thanks for sharing your routine. Say hi to Joel for me.

Reinhard

Looks fun!

Not sure how to replicate it with a sledgehammer, though.

Thanks for the link,

Reinhard

If you find 21 straight days too discouraging, try combining monthly resolution with personal olympics. For example, in January, if you don't mess up at all, you get gold, if you mess up just once, silver, twice, bronze. Having tiers of goals to shoot for means you won't be too discouraged by a fluk...

Congratulations, Julie! Looking forward to more.

Reinhard

Welcome back, last martian! I remember you -- you've got a very distinctive username, among other things.

I've got nothing against personal modifications -- whatever works for you. I'm flattered just to have loosely inspired anyone's success.

Best wishes this time around,

Reinhard

Welcome, Dasha! A lot of people tell me that No-s is just a more explicit or slightly different formulation of what they'd done successfully in the past. I do think it will get easy for you eventually, but it's a matter of months and years. That might seem like a long time now, but not when you cons...

If you don't like the military analogy, you can choose a different kind of hierarchy (corporate, feudal) -- though military is the clearest (that's where the term "chain of command" comes from). I like the idea of syncing the metaphor with personal Olympics, but it's not a strong hierarchy, and that...

Congratulations and welcome to the Club, shamrockmommy!

Officially, as far as the No S Diet rules are concerned, it doesn't matter how big your plates are. But it does obviously make a difference, both because you can't fit as many calories on a small plate and because you'll get that Pavlovian "empty plate = done" signal sooner, so you'll want to eat le...

Wow. Very impressive. I will officially stop worrying since you clearly know what you're doing, and am honored that my system is the subject of such an impressive "mod" -- that's a real milestone. Maybe it even warrants a section (or mention) on the home page...

Reinhard

And I've gone ahead and made it sticky. Thanks for the suggestion!

Hi Annie,

I'm glad you liked it.

The transcripts are linked to from this page:

http://everydaysystems.com/podcast/

(click the "Read more..." link)

Maybe I should label that more clearly... like "transcript." I'll think about it...

Reinhard

Good luck with that goal, Joel! That's an almost an inhuman amount, but as I posted a while back, my wife's uncle does about that many (a few more, actually), so it is possible. Since you mention it, I've actually got a (significantly more modest) chain of self-command project involving pushups. I'v...

Sorry about that, Pete!

Almost every account with an icq number is clearly a spambot.

But I'll see if I can make this a little more refined and avoid false positives...

Reinhard

I'm overwhelmed by all these suggestions! Thank you! I keep meaning to sit down and respond to them all but I think I'm going to have to pick them off one by one at this point. Stay tuned (and keep em coming!).

Yeah, you don't have to shovelglove if you do No-s. The systems are compatible but independent.

I drink at least 2 cups of black coffee a workday, sometimes 3. One with breakfast, one between breakfast and lunch, and sometimes one between lunch and dinner. A leading source of antioxidants!

Reinhard

Welcome back! I'm thinking monthly resolution plus personal olympics might be a better default starting structure than 21 consecutive days. The idea is, resolve to do the nosdiet for 1 calendar month, keeping track of any slip ups. At the end of the month, if you had 0 slip ups, you win "gold," 1 sl...

I love it! The "EngelSaxon" (though I shouldn't claim credit). But yeah, needs a bit of space... and it would be hard to do slowly since you sort of have to throw the hammer and hold on. He uses very light hammers, which might be necessary given the momentum you need to achieve. I'm not even going t...

This is cool stuff, but be careful. Even if you can get the extra weight to stick without flying off, I'd be nervous about adding extra weight to a shaft that wasn't designed to support it. But let us know what you do, fungus. I promise I won't wag my finger after the fact. Fungus, is it just amazon...

Nice first week, Deb. As for Friday, one thing I've found really helpful if I've run out of time or am close to running out of time and profoundly don't feel like shugging is to just start. 9 times out of 10, I'll finish the 14 minutes then, even if I didn't think I had them. And since the 1 time in...

Hang in there laura. It's all about habit. What you "can't" do now will seem easy once you've retrained yourself a bit.

Reinhard

I like it... there have been a few posts about using cards or dice to randomize workouts. I'm in a bit of a rush now, but I'll see if I can dig them up and post links here later.

I wonder if I could publish a custom shovelglove deck with cafepress or something...

Reinhard

I'm glad you guys got something out of it. Immediately after I published it all kinds of little improvements and corrections occurred to me. Next week's podcast will contain some mopping up.

Welcome! Don't be fearful -- this is a very kind and gentle diet. It requires a bit of firmness up front and some patience, that's all.

Not that I know of... but that's a good idea. I'll look into it. I'm still dabbling with a habit calendar page that could replace the bulletin board checkin completely.

Oh, I should clarify: there are no off days for glass ceiling. So when I say "all systems S day," glass ceiling is exempt, because the damage I could do in one day off from that could be pretty limitless.

Took an all systems S-day for New Years. Otherwise no news is good news.

Great to see your new thread here, Sinnie.

I'm very happy to hear that even 60-70% No-s was so effective.

I think you'll find that 90-100% not only gets you better results, but is even easier, because that kind of consistency really trains habit and makes it automatic.

Best wishes,

Reinhard

Best in 2007, LoveULife!

You know, Jan 1 is generally considered an S-day...

Reinhard

Everyday Systems

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Extreme Moderation

2006 "during"

What if you don't have 14 minutes?

Personal Olympics

Personal Punch Cards Podcast

Shovelglove 1984?