Everyday Systems

Thalia

Um, more or less every day. Maybe five times a week? It helps that my scale is really inexact -- it only reads to half-pound increments -- so I'm not getting highly detailed measurements anyway! I pretty much figure that the lowest figure I see in the course of a week is probably the most accurate, ...

Thalia

I like to weigh pretty frequently because it makes me LESS obsessed -- it makes it obvious how much my weight fluctuates day to day, and how little that number actually means. I can vary four pounds from one day to the next -- I'm obviously not gaining or losing four pounds of fat a day! I've done W...

Thalia

Yeah, most of us have a few good failures in there before it sticks.

Thalia

You're doing great on compliance! I do kind of notice, though, that you don't eat any fruit or vegetables at all, most days. Do you just not like them?

Thalia

How funny -- I'd never heard of klobasneks in my life until last week, when Gourmet ran a story about them, and now here's one in real life! They certainly made them sound delicious.

Thalia

We save pancakes for the weekend -- mostly because thigns are too hectic on weekdays. I personally consider pancakes an N food and syrup an S, but I would not worry about what you already ate and just consider adjusting for the future.

Thalia

GoLean Crunch IS tasty. It makes my jaws tired, though! It's also way too sweet for breakfast, to me.

Thalia

GoLean is revolting, though. I think it should lose "best cereal" points for that.

Thalia

I never saw the need to add sugar to spaghetti sauce and salad dressing, either, but they always do to the bottled ones! I don't like things that sweet, but I think I'm in the minority of Americans on that one.

Thalia

Post Raisin Bran is pretty sweet -- the raisins are covered with sugar, and the flakes are sweetened too, I think. I'm guessing it's total grams of sugar, including the naturally occurring ones in the raisins.

Thalia

I combine it with cooking from scratch as much as possible, avoiding processed or diet foods, half-assed locavore, and eating things that taste good.

Oh, and I make it a point to eat a lot of fruits and vegetables in my three meals.

Thalia

I think that if you need to read the nutrition label, you probably shouldn't be eating it

I totally agree. But I still eat cold cereal because I'm lazy -- I just look for something that's whole-grain.

Thalia

Welcome! You guys make a really cute couple!

The snacking thing is amazing, isn't it? It took me WEEKS to stop wanting to eat in the afternoons and after dinner. Now I don't think about it, but at first that urge was so strong, almost a compulsion.

Thalia

I think if my standard for success was perfection, I'd backslide after a month, too! That's kind of exhausting.

Thalia

I have had some FABULOUS S days, and I don't regret them a bit! I have found, though, that it's hard for me to snack on weekends, even though I have free rein to do it, because I'm not really ready to eat between meals anymore. I'm still full from lunch up till dinnertime. The actual meals, however,...

Thalia

Well, I'm sure he'll lose faster -- because who wouldn't? -- provided he can stick to it for that long. But man, does that sound miserable and nutritionally unbalanced. I'm pretty sure that in a year, though, a No S-er is going to have maintained more of a loss than someone who did an extreme diet a...

Thalia

I think fluctuations in hunger are normal and to be expected -- how active you're being, hormonal issues, weather -- they all affect us. If you're hungrier than usual, I wouldn't try to ignore that cue from your body. I'd plan heartier meals for a few days. Hot stews, lots of legumes, add another pi...

Thalia

Removing the S days would totally make sense if this was a short-term crash diet looking for quick results -- I can give up desserts and snacks entirely for three months, sure, and no doubt one would lose weight faster that way. But the point with No S is that you do it forever, and I don't think it...

Thalia

My (skinny) husband keeps a notebook where he does a sketch every night -- sometimes pencil, sometimes pen-and-ink, occasionally colored pencil or pastel. He's done it for years -- that certainly keeps your hands busy!

Or you could whittle. That's manly.

Thalia

I am REALLY GOOD at Weight Watchers. I follow all the rules and work and work at it and I always lose weight. I am like a poster girl for "working the program." But I cannot work and work and work at EATING for the rest of my life, and as soon as I go off, I gain tons of weight because restricted ea...

Thalia

This is my second try at No S, and I forgot all about the 21 Club! So here I am, a little late. It's actually been a month, and seven pounds gone. Here's some of the stuff I've noticed. I have been brown-bagging my lunch for both financial and plate-control reasons (I even made a separate Brownbag h...

Thalia

I love that essay, thanks!

Thalia

Are you going out to restaurants or bars, like for happy-hour nibblies? If so, can you fill one plate with whatever there is to eat, and stop at that? You could pick at it gradually while everyone's hanging out ... Congratulations on making it several months! I've just finished my first, it's very i...

Thalia

Mark Bittman's new book "Food Matters" outlines his "vegan until dinner" eating style, and he offers a lot of ideas for lunches. Can I remember what they are right now? No, I cannot! But basically, anything that would make a good vegetarian dinner will work for lunch, if you have access to a fridge ...

Thalia

Wow, Simply Recipes looks great! Oxtail stew -- I need to make that before the winter's over.

Thalia

TV can definitely be a problem, I think. It's totally physically passive, for one thing, so you're burning nothing. And it's usually pretty mentally passive too (though there is certainly thought-provoking stuff to watch as well), so I, at least, come out feeling kind of limp and unenergized. I do n...

Thalia

I do embroidery and counted cross-stitch, and they are very effective at keeping your hands busy.

If only it wasn't possible to read and eat at the same time, I would never have gained the weight in the first place!

Thalia

I think, especially for those of us who are veterans of a lot of dieting, it's very normal to feel weird and guilty about S days at first.

Congratulations on a great start!

Thalia

I made several things from this site:http://smittenkitchen.com/ Over the weekend. Obviously, you would not want a bunch of those car-bomb cupcakes sitting around your house, but I made the warm butternut squash and chickpea salad for my brownbag lunches, and baked the light wheat bread. OMG, they're...

Thalia

That sounds great. I think the single biggest change most of us can make that both cuts calories and improves food quality is just to increase veggie intake.

Thalia

I think you got the wrong attribution on your quote there.

Thalia

I liked most of that, but he is pretty gungho on the evils of grains for someone who is throwing out magical diet restrictions!

Thalia

I'm back as well -- gave it a shot last year and it worked, but then I kind of drifted off. I think grabbing lunches out was my downfall.

I started three weeks ago, am brown-bagging lunch (I even set up a "brownbag" calendar in Habitcal) ... and I'm down five pounds.

Thalia

Joe's Special fits into this family of recipes too (scrambled eggs, hamburger, onion, and spinach -- yummy, cheap, filling, and nutritious!).

Thalia

I get a little anxious about S day eating, too -- like I'm not REALLY supposed to take advantage of an S day to, you know, eat. We made pancakes yesterday, and I had four, with butter, and I felt guilty about eating the fourth one, S day or not. I didn't NEED it, I wasn't really still hungry, I just...

Thalia

I just read Julia Child's memoir, "My Life in France," and I was really struck by one anecdote -- when she and her cowriters handed in their draft of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, the first thing the editor said was that the portion sizes were too small for Americans. I think the portion-size...

Thalia

So, I'm doing small bowls and a salad plate on the side (instead of a dinner plate). It seems like a very reasonable amount of food. Like, last night (OK, it was an S day anyway, but it was still a No S type of dinner) I had a small bowl of split-pea soup, and on my salad pate a cup or so of sauteed...

Thalia

I agree with the poster who suggested looking for at more low-density foods -- green vegetables, fruit, soups, stuff with a lot of fiber, hot cereal ... these are very bulky so they fill up your plate (and stomach) without a ton of calories. I did the Weight Watchers Core program a few years ago wit...

Thalia

Thanks! That's very sensible. As, I guess, I should have expected.

Most of my "eat in a bowl" stuff tends to be pretty filling and/or low in calories, so it would be hard to get too carried away with it.

Thalia

I like that one. Salad is so physically bulky that if you have a heap o' greens, hardly anything else will fit on the plate! And then you end up famished at bedtime. The mod I am considering is One Fruit After Dinner. I really like to eat a grapefruit or some grapes or berries in the evening, and I ...

Thalia

I eat a lot of soups and stews and hot cereal, especially this time of year. Any rules of thumb about how to "virtually plate" a bowl of something, plus a salad or green vegetable and a slice of bread?

Thalia

Wow, I've totally been forgetting to post. If Friday was day 12, this must be day 17. I've been plugging along like a good little No-S'er -- my only issue is that I am not in a position to plate my lunches, and I'm pretty sure they're too big. No snacks and no sweets = extremely easy, though.

Thalia

Day 11 - SUCCESS

B - Shredded wheat

L - Chicken Sandwich, salad

D - broiled chicken, pasta with tomato sauce, green beans, chardonnay

God, my menus have been boring lately. I'm usually more creative in the kitchen!

Thalia

Day 10 - SUCCESS

B - Oatmeal with blackberries

L - chicken sandwich, chips

D - broiled chicken, green beans, pasta with tomato sauce, wine

Thalia

Day 9 - SUCCESS

B - Shredded wheat, grapes

L - pasta with kale and sausage in cream sauce. Too rich for my poor tummy, hence ...

D - Green salad and pomegranate seeds. I was queasy all afternoon from the pasta ...

Thalia

Day 8 - SUCCESS Kinda a big lunch, though. I just have to start brown-bagging.

B - um, waffles?

L - Chicken sandwich, chips

D - Brown-rice sushi, wine

Thalia

Day 5 -- SUCCESS

Um, I can't really remember what I ate. I think it was:

B - Shredded wheat

L - salmon panini, green salad

D - Leftover chicken made into sandwich, and maybe another salad or something, it's all a blur

D6 & 7 - S days

Thalia

Day 4 - SUCCESS -- I guess, although I think lunch counts as funny business I need to handle lunches better, though B - Shredded wheat milk L - Chicken sandwich, chips. No plates available and this may have been more than a "plateful" D - small BBQ chicken salad, cup of split-pea soup, glass of char...

Thalia

Thanks, Hilary!

Day 3 - SUCCESS

B - 2 frozen waffles with butter

L - a burrito from the tacos al carbon place, about 10 of the chips that came with.

D- linguine al vongole, green salad

Walked kid to school, walked to lunch, took stairs

Thalia

I can't compete with the color diet! The weirdest thing I did was the Bloomingdale's E.A.T. Healthy diet -- the theory was that you could train your appetite not to want to eat anything good by just never eating it. So you had three days at the beginning when you ate nothing but vegetables, half an ...

Thalia

Day 2 - SUCCESS

B - Oatmeal with mixed fresh berries

L - Chicken sandwich

D - Leftover linguine ala vongole, green salad

Walked kid to school, took stairs at work.

Thalia

Day 1 (again) - SUCCESS B - shredded wheat L - Chicken panini, salad D - Bowl of avgolemono, a little chicken, good crusty bread, green salad. SO YUMMY! Walked a little over a mile taking kid to school and back. I seem to be down around seven pounds since mid-August. this is definitely not a crash d...

Thalia

I've been sick all week with a yucky cold. Technically that makes them automatic S days, but given that this is the first three weeks, I'm not counting anything that doesn't help me establish the habit of observing N days. So, today is Day 1 again. Sigh. On the positive side, I am not finding this h...

Thalia

Day 14 - SUCCESS

B - oatmeal, berries, etc.

L - chicken panini, green salad

D - odds and ends: shepherd's pie, a little leftover Korean pancake, dandelion greens, cauliflower salad, and two of the appetizers from Sunday's party -- dates stuffed with parmesan and wrapped in bacon. WOW.

Thalia

Day 11 - SUCCESS . Um, what did I eat? Last Friday seems like a long time ago ... B - Scrambled egg, slice of buttered toast L - Chicken sandwich, green salad D - glass-noodle soup from Whole Foods with shrimp, bean sprouts, and other veggies. Yummy! Glass of wine. Days 12 and 13 - S days. Saturday ...

Thalia

Day 10 - SUCCESS

B - Oatmeal, berries, milk

L - Venetian chicken sandwich, fruit salad

D - leftover fish with tomatoes; succotash; dandelion greens. Chardonnay.

This is so easy that I feel like I am cheating somehow. Like there's some kind of catch that I didn't understand.

Thalia

Day 9 - SUCCESS B- Oatmeal with berries L - udon soup with tempura; two pieoces of inari sushi; a little dish of fruit salad; a little dish of hijiki salad. Definitely a LARGE lunch by my standards, and I left much of the soup and noodles. D - Cod poached with garlic and yellow tomatoes; mashed yuko...

Thalia

Day 8 - SUCCESS B - Oatmeal with mixed berries L - Tuna sandwich, some small tomatoes and spinach D - Leftovers: chicken thigh, succotash, sliced tomato with feta and olive oil. Chardonnay. funny business: I had some grapes and a couple of figs after dinner. There had been room on the plate for them...

Thalia

Would exercise help? Go for a quick, brisk walk? Sometimes that helps me wake up ...

Thalia

Using a plate with instructions printed on it seems to go against the spirit of eating "normally" and joyfully, to me. I want my dinnerware to be pretty and practical and add to my pleasure in the meal, not lecture me!

Thalia

Day 7 - SUCCESS

B - Oatmeal with mixed berries

L - Shrimp California roll with brown rice, fruit salad

D - Homemade succotash (YUM), broiled chicken thigh, plums. Glass of chardonnay.

Thalia

Days 5 and 6 - SUCCESS -- of course, given that they were S-days. And I got both a almost-2-mile walk and a four-mile bike ride in on Saturday, plus a trip to the farmer's market Sunday. So, a good weekend all around.

Thalia

Day 4 - SUCCESS B - cold cereal with milk L - two shrimp tacos, salad, about eight tortilla chips D - shrimp with tomato/feta sauce; couscous; salad; fruit. Glass of chardonnay I was an afternoon meeting where they brought in a big bakery box of good chocolate chip cookies, and I didn't take one! I'...

Thalia

Oh, I read the "diabetic" part as being worried about developing diabetes. If you actually have it, you need to follow a doctor's orders!

Thalia

Hm. Maybe you could try, just as an experiment, having two N-days a week? Two days in a row every week for a few weeks, to see how it feels. And as you succeed, add days until you only have sweets on the weekend? I'm not a big sugar person (I just tend to eat too much!), but any of these might help:...

Thalia

Day 3 - SUCCESS B - cold cereal with milk L - Lentil soup D - Turkey burger, whole-wheat bun, cheddar. Green beans and green salad. Chardonnay. Exercise - yes, finally. Up and down the stairs at work twice, walked seven blocks as usual to take kid to school, a 20-minute bike ride (not much, but that...

Thalia

Day 2 - SUCCESS B: oatmeal with skim milk and a chopped pluot L: Was supposed to be a roasted chicken panini, but they screwed up and gave me a turkey meatball panini; green salad. I was able to fit it all on a plate, but the sandwich was too much for me and also kind of gross. I ended up throwing t...

Thalia

Day 1 SUCCESS B: oatmeal with milk and a chopped plum L: leftovers -- ratatouille and cauliflower/potato saute thing from a Deborah Madison recipe. Delicious, but I should have planned better and gotten some protein in there. D: Chicken and dumplings, side dish of green beans with parmesan and olive...

Thalia

I found this site after googling "French Women Don't Get Fat" -- I had just read the book and was curious about reviews and experiences with it. Well, No S is VERY similar in a lot of ways. The French Women idea is that you walk everywhere and take the stairs, eat small portions of high-quality in-s...

Everyday Systems

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