Everyday Systems

DaveMc

Well, I think we need to make a distinction between encouraging people to go crazy, and encouraging people not to add extra rules in an effort to *prevent* themselves from going crazy. Wow, that was a convoluted sentence. :) But the point is, the "going crazy" part often fixes itself over time, wher...

DaveMc

But my first two weekends with S days ... Well, now, I'm gonna stop you right there. It's very difficult (and potentially problem-causing) to conclude *anything* after just a couple of weeks of NoS. I'd say give yourself time, and plenty of it (months!) before you start making any major adjustments...

DaveMc

BrightAngel wrote:
Who Me? wrote:you guys really are special.
I totally agree with Who Me's above quoted statement.

There's a "group hug" emoticon? Technology really is wonderful.

DaveMc

That's great to hear! Not just the numbers, but the way you're on a sustainable path -- great!

DaveMc

Wonderful. Congratulations!

DaveMc

If you're very much in control of when you really need to eat and when you don't, perhaps you don't really need NoS ... though as you say, it does provide a very useful structure that a lot of people find helpful even if they aren't trying to lose weight (or not trying to lose very much). For me, th...

DaveMc

Right, sorry, wosnes. Your point that not everything has to be about diet is well taken! I have to admit that I found the original article's point somewhat persuasive, though: as I understand it, the issue was that people were using the blocked arteries in ancient mummies as an anti-carb argument, a...

DaveMc

Well, to be fair, a lot of diets require you to check your brains at the door. The Mummy Diet is just more explicit about it than most. NoS, fortunately, is fully compatible with intact brains. (Edit: Oof, this may come across as more harsh than I intended. No offence meant, all around, it's intende...

DaveMc

Ha -- the slimming secrets of the dead: Never Eat Again, Lose Weight, Get That Skeletal Physique You've Always Wanted! Exactly! The Mummy Diet is going to happen, it's just a matter of time. Just follow these simple steps: 1) die; 2) have all your internal organs removed (losing dozens and dozens o...

DaveMc

Phew. When I saw the title of this thread, I thought we were going to be pointed to an article called "Egyptian Mummies: How Do They Keep So Slim?"

DaveMc

My two-year testimonial is coming up in July, and it's going to be *awesome*. :) (Short version: after losing 20 pounds the first year and getting to where I wanted to be, I weigh exactly the same now as I did last July. Assuming I don't suddenly put on weight in the next month, that will probably b...

DaveMc

Welcome aboard! It sounds like you're off to a great start.

DaveMc

I can't help chuckle at how the rise in weight among North Americans is always treated as a "mystery" to be solved. People eat more than they used to, and move less ... yes, their weight gain is a most perplexing enigma.

DaveMc

If it's not spam, it's doing an incredible imitation.

DaveMc

I'm confused ... As people gain weight, they turn from Democrats into Republicans?

[The blue/red shading was an unfortunate choice of colours, given the other way those colours are so frequently used!]

DaveMc

My "testimonial" can be found here: http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=6595 Short version: I lost 20 pounds over my first year, and I've kept it off since then. (It'll be two years in July.) I've settled in such that I feel like I can keep up NoS forever, which is the real "success" for me.

DaveMc

Clearly, people can gain weight while eating anything. People can also lose weight while eating anything. Moderation in all things! (Including excess!) The "diet experts" of the world have much to answer for, but perhaps the single worst thing is this insistence on certain magic foods being "the key...

DaveMc

I want to leave tracts all over kingdom come. I want to annoy people at airports. :) I feel like an evangelist about NoS, myself, but I very rarely actually say anything about it. (In my mind, I'm accosting people in airports, though.) I did, however, recently make my first "convert": I told a good...

DaveMc

I did some investigative reporting on the subject of milk, earlier today, in the form of picking up some milk cartons while I was waiting for my paad thai in the cafeteria. Results, for Sealtest 250 mL cartons (that's, um, 2.4 cubic chains, or something, in Imperial -- sorry, I just don't know): Whi...

DaveMc

Well, if we're reviving older polls, let me bump this one up ...

DaveMc

Well, y'know, most of the danger people are worried about with reading while you eat is that you're presumably going to eat too much without noticing. NoS helps with that, since (if you're following the one-plate guideline) you're deciding in advance how much you're going to eat. If you're strict ab...

DaveMc

Welcome back, everyone! I'm sure there's a catchy saying along the lines of "You're going to fail every time except the time when it works". *Lots* of people around here have taken multiple runs at this. It's a hard thing, changing the way you eat, and it's the *norm* to find it difficult! It's even...

DaveMc

Yes, we're really quite something, aren't we? Friendly, helpful, supportive, and modest. :) (But seriously, folks, this really is a remarkable community, almost entirely free of the non-stop flame wars that are so often the prevailing background on the Net. I guess one can point that out without bei...

DaveMc

I tend to think that moderate eating habits and moderate exercise levels should go hand in hand with moderate expectations about what size you're going to end up being. You're (probably) not going to be stick-thin or model-thin, but then again, why would everyone want to be? Models are skinny for a ...

DaveMc

This came up a little while ago in a different thread: http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=96941&highlight=#96941 Here's what I wrote at the time, and my opinions haven't changed in the past two weeks: Well, here's the thing: there can be a difference between "heavy" and "unhealthy". Not e...

DaveMc

I think this is a question that has many different "right" answers- no one size fits all! I do weigh daily, first thing every morning. "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so", as the artist formerly known as the Prince of Denmark noted. It definitely depends on your own reac...

DaveMc

Fruit is incredibly delicious. This is the one that I've been marvelling at, in recent months. Fruit tastes *amazing*! I doubt there have been huge improvements in apple technology since I started NoS, so it's probably me that's changed. I'm also learning that eating fruit comes with a considerable...

DaveMc

I've been around NoS for too long, I guess: I often forget how novel it seems to people, when they first encounter it! Funny stuff, though perhaps a bit unpolished for my tastes. On the subject of truth-telling, I recall a new member here posting, long ago, something like the following: She likened ...

DaveMc

Yeah, that's pretty funny. Is he following the eat-every-two-hours school of diet advice? As a student, I remember being baffled by the huge costs people would cite when they wanted to show how expensive it was to go to the movies these days. It took me a while to realize how they were getting their...

DaveMc

While we're on (or somewhere near) the subject, let me recommend Noel's post on sustainable fitness, here: http://noelfigart.com/blog/2011/03/28/let-the-minimum-be-the-maximum/ Much like with weight loss, it seems to me that long-term sustainability gets too little attention when discussing exercise...

DaveMc

Way to keep on habit, Noel! Well done.

DaveMc

Chocolates and Easter candy I leave to the kids. I really don't need jelly beans or chocolate bunnies. I'm 40, and while I really don't need jelly beans, I really *do* need a chocolate bunny around Easter! :) The size of the bunny has declined over the years: when I was a teenager, I would routinel...

DaveMc

amake616 wrote:According to my BMI ... I'm an insurance risk at 147 and perfectly dandy at 142 ...My common sense tells me that such a fine distinction is basically useless.

I agree with your common sense!

DaveMc

Well, here's the thing: there can be a difference between "heavy" and "unhealthy". Not everyone who is over the BMI range labelled "normal" is necessarily an unhealthy, unfit specimen. This is just a natural result of using population-level averages to define arbitrary cutoff values: of course any g...

DaveMc

Goodness me, I really must learn to be more precise in my writing. Wouldn't want my veracity doubted. No worries, it's just that my daughter's been reading Encyclopedia Brown, so I'm being exposed (again) to the worldview in which any (apparent) internal contradiction in any statement, however tiny...

DaveMc

(And the cookies are really GOOD). I was about to start cross-examining you: "Oh, really, Ms. Figart, the cookies are good? And how do you know that [dramatic pause] IF YOU DIDN'T EAT ANY?" [Dum-dum-duhhmm.] But then I realized you'd probably just had them some other time. So never mind, and congra...

DaveMc

Someone here once said "instead of thinking of it as hunger pangs, think of it as 'having an appetite' - which you are supposed to have at mealtime!" I think reframing it that way helps. Ooh, ooh! That was me! :) Though I doubt I'm the first, and of course Reinhard refers in the book (I think) to t...

DaveMc

Congratulations! Have you considered writing a "testimonial", if you haven't already? You qualify under the "rule of ten" guideline (ten months or ten pounds or ten percent of your weight) ...

DaveMc

How do you guys deal with the hunger pangs?!?! ... sometimes it's just hard. Yep, sometimes it's hard -- and you can change that to something pretty close to "always", right at the start. That first few weeks or so can be quite tough, but it really does get better. If you can tide yourself over wit...

DaveMc

Welcome back, and best of luck!

And though it may be a bit trite to point it out, I feel I should: there's only one person who can make you stick with this, and it isn't any of the rest of us.

DaveMc

"If you snack just as much as before, and add a big breakfast on top of that, you're not going to gain anything!" I think you meant you're not going to lose anything. And I agree with you. Well, not gain anything in terms of health benefits, which would include not losing anything in terms of weigh...

DaveMc

I don't get too worked up about breakfast. I know a lot of people feel it's necessary to eat a good sized well rounded breakfast or else you're doomed to be fat and unhealthy and that might be true for some people. My theory is that the "eat breakfast or you'll be fat" line is a classic example of ...

DaveMc

Mrandy1 wrote:i advertaintly posted the same reply twice---is there anyway to delete a post?

I don't think so, but fear not, this doesn't count as seconds.

DaveMc

I find myself agreeing with Noel always. I'd have expected, given your signature, that's you'd agree with her *sometimes*. :) But yes, heed the words of Noel! EDIT: To add a few more words: the standard advice (and it's standard for a reason, since it's pretty good) is to focus on getting the three...

DaveMc

reinhard wrote:For every copy of the No S Diet book you purchase, you will be forgiven one infraction, my child.

I have about 95 responses to that. I'll be nailing them to the door of your website, shortly.

DaveMc

Looking good! Say, do you do any kind of special diet and exercise? If so, you should really let people know about it!

DaveMc

nutritarian.com certainly has me on their side with this comment: Six-A-Day...Not The Way! You have probably heard itâ€™s better to eat six small meals a day. That is absolutely incorrect. The digestive track needs rest in order to properly digest food and to burn it off. Also, the body cannot rid i...

DaveMc

NoSRocks wrote:You will LOVE the No S Plan! It's the best eating plan there is!!

Would you go so far as to say that it ... rocks?

DaveMc

I remember saying, "Tough crowd!" And, sheesh, now I'm one of 'em. :) LOL! I remember that! One point that this brings to mind: I'm guessing that you're relatively new to NoS, imprisoned? If so, you'll probably find it easier to be part of the "tough crowd", after a while. When you've been doing No...

DaveMc

I had a similar question about birthday S days, when I first started NoS (a year and a half ago) -- I wanted to know if I could shift my birthday S day, since it was on a Saturday, which I felt was unfair. The answer was along the lines of, "You're free to do whatever you want. But no." I remember s...

DaveMc

Alas, treating St. Patrick's Day as an S day, if it has no particular significance to you, is probably on the slippery slope to Cousin's Hamster's Birthday S days.

DaveMc

Thats about the 5 a day rule. Basically yes, it means making sure you get a lot of fruit and veg, but although it sounds easy it's actually not when you try it. You may think you eat enough of them now but actually you can only manage 5 a day if the major proportion of your diet is fruit&veg. Three...

DaveMc

I've read that the cold water thing is diet myth. By the time it gets to your stomach, it's body temperature. I think you made the point...that transfer of energy (heat) to warm the water has to come from some place. :wink: It's not hard to calculate how much it is -- and while it's not huge, I sup...

DaveMc

OK, so every time the word oatmeal appears online lately, the words "steel cut" cannot be far behind. Can someone tell me what the deal is with oats being "steel cut"? Everyone seems to think very highly of them, but I can't figure out why the metal used to cut them should matter -- would "aluminum ...

DaveMc

I think I'm going to start selling "No-bars" so people start taking this diet seriously. It'll look just like a dietcandy bar except when you unwrap it there's nothing inside. I love it! :) Though on further reflection, maybe what you really need is a little locked box inside, that unlocks itself w...

DaveMc

librarylady wrote:This seemed unlikely to me - my body thinks it is starving when I eat three meals a day?

It seems pretty unlikely to me, too!

DaveMc

Half an egg? :shock: It takes either an enormous amount of discipline or some seriously ingrained traditions and habits to stick to half an egg for a snack. Makes Americans and their 100 calorie packs look like wimps, lol. To be fair, I may have made that one up while trying to think of an example ...

DaveMc

The missus is from the Philippines, and she tells me (and I've seen, on visits) that snacking is built in to Filipino culture: they have snacks several times a day, between meals, but in general people are (or have been, until recently) fairly slim. I think the key is that the snacks have traditiona...

DaveMc

I haven't seen the movie, but from Naughton's web site, he seems like a pretty strong low-carb advocate -- like, Atkins-level low-carb. (In one comment he mentions that he "avoids grains entirely these days".) Is that the stance in the movie? I have to admit, I default to skepticism about any such s...

DaveMc

My question is this - do you throw all caution to the wind on S days? I've never made any specific rules for my S days, and I've been fortunate enough to have pretty much the ideal outcome: at every stage, I've eaten "whatever I want" on S days, but the amount I've wanted has become more reasonable...

DaveMc

I'm 3 weeks in and the other day I realised that I like feeling hungry. Me, too! In fact, that sentiment has been expressed around here many times. As I've said before, you can think of it "being hungry", or you can think of it as "having an appetite" -- either way, it's a sensation of pleasantly l...

DaveMc

idon'tknow wrote:Dave Mc - are you (ie Canadians - not you personally) entitled to a holiday for the royal wedding?

I think we just get to buy the commemorative plates, no day off (and I won't be counting it as an S day).

DaveMc

Sorry, Canadian, here. I hear we share a Queen, though.

DaveMc

'just DO it!!' I hear you cry... Aw, you stole my advice! :) But seriously, you just have to pick a day and get started. NoS is gentle enough that it's not too hard to make it through a day following its rules, and then, lo and behold, you'll have started! The next day you'll be continuing, not sta...

DaveMc

I love the image of a NoS drill instructor: "All right, you apes! Are you BABIES? Do you need to EAT every TWO HOURS? NO YOU DO NOT! Drop and give me five (hours until dinner)! Hut! Hut!" (Of course, we incline towards gentler forms of encouragement, around here. But whatever works for you ... some ...

DaveMc

NoelFigart wrote:Part of what got me over it was some enlightened self-mockery, and remembering a YA book I'd read over the summer in which the characters could not always count on dinner every night.

*The Hunger Games*, by any chance? I enjoyed that series!

DaveMc

It's not my job to be a size 2. Off topic, but I've been wondering this for a long time: What is the deal with female clothes sizes being compressed into a single number? Even us doltish men normally get at least two numbers to describe any given piece of clothing (waist and inseam for pants; neck,...

DaveMc

First of all: yes, you *can*. :) Does my body get used to 3 meals a day. Did your bodies adjust. Most people do find that they get used to it, yes: I now have no problem with seven hours between lunch and dinner, or even longer, though I try to arrange for it to be more like six hours (breakfast aro...

DaveMc

Let me appeal to everyone to take a deep breath before we wade too deeply into an organic produce flame war, shall we? I know there are probably a lot of interesting and highly controversial issues to be discussed, there, but I'm pretty sure here isn't the place to discuss them, and it has the poten...

DaveMc

Well, I don't see "sometimes" as something you could have a problem with *before* NoS, and that's what I was asking about, here: "except (sometimes) on days that start with S" in inherently a NoS position. People not on NoS don't have S days and N days, so sometimes-ness (or the wildness of their S ...

DaveMc

Bumping this up for our newcomers ...

DaveMc

McWife and I have an approach that's romantic in its own way: we completely ignore Valentine's Day, *together*.

DaveMc

So, the other day I followed a link, and found myself staring into the yawning abyss of Nutritional Debates on the Internet. Endless back and forth about whether the Low-Carb People or the Low-Fat People are lying to you and trying to trick you into unhealthy eating ... Endless throwing around of di...

DaveMc

Will I ever get hooked on cucumber? :roll: I find little to love about cucumber, though I don't *mind* it. :) On the other hand, I've been amazed at how much I'm into fruit, these days. Apples, oranges, grapes, pears -- it's incredible how *sweet* these things are! (Baby carrots, too.) I eat one or...

DaveMc

Although there are sensible ranges, and you can probably tell without a chart whether you're *way* outside those ranges, I often think that the question "How much should a human weigh?" is sort of along the lines of "How much should a vehicle weigh?" Depends on the vehicle. [EDIT: Oh, and for 6-foot...

DaveMc

... BUT it just shows me that I have to count calories because the only way I can possibly lose weight is to eat 1200 calories a day and about 1400-1500 calories to maintain ... Well, everyone has to do what they feel is best for them. You'll find stories on this board from people who have been suc...

DaveMc

This is exactly what I did, during that first year when I lost 20 pounds on NoS: when I wanted to speed things up in terms of weight loss, I played with eating just a touch less per meal. (I always say that I lost 20 pounds in a year, but a suspect that I really lost most of them in the second six-m...

DaveMc

Off-topic, but I'd just like to thank you for not following the recent trend and making the subject into two sentence fragments. If this were an ad on a billboard or in a magazine, it would almost certainly have been "Oatmeal. Revisited." Drives me nuts! (Every time I see one of those, I think, "Sen...

DaveMc

The lack of good bread used to drive me crazy when I lived in Boston for a couple of years during my postdoc. I thought it was just a Boston thing (it's the only U.S. city I've lived in for any extended period). I mean, Toronto's no Europe, but it's quite easy to find extremely good bread, at reason...

DaveMc

Has any medical professional advised you to lose weight? I'd be fairly surprised if they had, at least for health reasons: according to the medical profession's favourite not-to-be-fully-trusted number, the BMI, you're right in the range of "normal", healthy weight. You used to be at the low end of ...

DaveMc

Now, I was assuming this whole time that you were talking about a combination of NoS and Glass Ceiling: I thought you'd pour alcohol over the dessert!

DaveMc

To be fair-minded, it's definitely one of those "do what's best for you" issues (as so many things related to diet and health are!) Some people find that regular weighing is extremely helpful for them. But if the number on the scale freaks you out and leads to negative reactions and even more negati...

DaveMc

I don't weigh regularly. I figure that I'm trying to improve how I feel and how I look, not to cause a specific number to appear on a scale. I step on a scale at irregular intervals just out of curiosity, but it's not my main criterion for how I'm doing. (As I've often remarked, I find it somewhere ...

DaveMc

I've read many posts like yours, by people whose relationship to food has been completely messed up by years of unsustainable diets. The good news is, I've *also* read many posts by those same people reporting, after a year or two of NoS (sometimes less), that they've made peace with food and can no...

DaveMc

I've read many posts like yours, by people whose relationship to food has been completely messed up by years of unsustainable diets. The good news is, I've *also* read many posts by those same people reporting, after a year or two of NoS (sometimes less), that they've made peace with food and can no...

DaveMc

I got a kick out of the Family Recipe Book, too, Noel. "Also remember if you donâ€™t clean up after yourself, you will die a horrible death." Ha!

DaveMc

"Two weeks in to NoS and a bit worried" could serve as a summary of almost *everyone's* experience, so you're definitely not alone! It does take time, but it's worth it. Once you get the habit of regular, moderate meals and limited sweets well established (and that's really what we're talking about,...

DaveMc

I'm reading all this conflicting information on these boards now and I'm getting confused as to what to eat. From what I understand, as long as it's not sweet, it's not a second and it's not a snack and it fits on my plate I can eat it. This second part is absolutely what you should be focused on, ...

DaveMc

It's amazing how much better this gets (for many people), over the first few months (often). (Caveats because everyone is different!) I've found, and I've heard the same from many others, that I'm now perfectly comfortable being somewhat hungry, and I can ride that state of pleasantly anticipating e...

DaveMc

I tend to have a few miscellaneous sweets scattered throughout each S day (M&Ms, chocolate almonds, that sort of thing), but my favourite "big ticket" items are: a Blizzard from Dairy Queen, or a home-baked treat (a cobbler, or chocolate chip cookies). Because these things involve either going somew...

DaveMc

Welcome aboard, Stack. A particular food is neither inherently good nor bad, but is appropriate or inappropriate based on context. Yep, I think that's a very important point! It also serves as the answer to a question I've often asked myself over the years, when I've seen skinny people at McDonald's...

DaveMc

One other question that's frequently asked: 5) My S days are too wild! Should I modify or eliminate them, or add restrictions? Am I going to sabotage myself on S days? The first response, here, is usually to find out how long the questioner has been doing NoS. If it's less than several months, the s...

DaveMc

I've heard a number of people mention other diets, here, that have things called "cheat days" or similar. And it's got me to thinking: I would like NoS a whole lot less if the name "special days" ("S days") were replaced by "cheat days", even if everything else remained the same. I think calling the...

DaveMc

I'd like to think that the following is a sign of the sanity of NoS as an approach: when reading your subject heading, my first thought was, "How is this a problem? Have some ice cream cake (if it's an S day), or don't. No problem." So, yeah, have your cake, and eat it, too. :) (Never understood why...

DaveMc

I've often heard the inverse version: "The bad news is, the food is terrible! The good news is, the portions are *enormous*!" (I think Billy Crystal used to use this one.)

DaveMc

Wow, check out the Great No Sweets Spike of 1820!

DaveMc

In a careless moment, I recently turned 40, myself. It's not so bad, when you consider the alternative. Happy birthday!

DaveMc

A 31-year-old teacher from Midtown Manhattan who had barely touched a banana in six years wanted to know if she could really consume them with impunity.

I always have my bananas with a side order of impunity. It's delicious!

DaveMc

The slope may be slippery, but maybe you should try it out a bit before you put on your cleats ... maybe you won't need them after all, or maybe you won't need them after a while. Before your first S day is arguably too soon to panic. :) But I understand where you're coming from, in terms of not wan...

DaveMc

I often interpret the "one plate" rule to mean "decide in advance how much you're going to eat". So if the food comes on a plate and a bowl (because I'm having soup or salad plus something else), I don't worry about it. I think the key point is to not just keep eating absent-mindedly. But everyone s...

Everyday Systems

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Re: New with question

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"Cheat days"