Got rid of most of my diet books
Posted: Thu May 19, 2016 1:29 pm
When I was fourteen years old I found a book about nutrition in my parents bookshelf. I loved it. And I began to read more and more about nutrition, food and health. This interest finally led me to studying medicine. All the time healthy nutrition was a favorite topic of mine. From Ayurveda and Atkins over Blood Type Diet, Chinese Medicine, Counting Calories, Low Carb, Raw Food, Organic, Vegan to Paleo - you name it, I read it. And tried most of it. Still when the stressful work routine caught me I began to gain weight. After 7 years working in a hospital I had gained 7 kilos. And I thought: well, I have to work 30 more years - let's not continue this... javascript:emoticon(':)')
But I ate healthy. So what to do? This was when the No-S-Diet kicked in. It immediately made sense to me. It was the answer to most of my eating problems - I was just eating too much and too often. And I liked sweets cycling from "No sugar at all" over "well, just dark chocolate" to "this is totally unrealistic - let's just eat it...". The No-S-Diet solved all of these problems. Now, 2 years later, I got rid of these 7 kilos again and I keep them off. It is not a temporary quick fix - it is an totally easy to follow set of habits that will keep you in shape for the rest of your life.
Being a doctor you would automatically look for a diet that makes sense in a physiological way. And you would easily end up in the trap of producing something that is not applicable in real life in the long run, because you left out emotions, social situations, problems with will power and so on. Choosing a behavioral approach solves all these problems. And in my view it is a piece of genius. Einstein said you cannot solve problems on the level they appeared on but have to find a solution on another level (don't remember the exact words - but you get the meaning...). This is what the No S Diet does.
The thing is: it feels totally natural to be on the diet. I don't see a single reason why not to follow it till the end of my life. It is the perfect balance between structure and discipline to have an effect on the one hand and freedom and choice on the other hand making it work in real life for the long run.
So I use vanilla No S. I like to think of it as a framework or base layer for my eating habits. It gives me three plates a day to fill. When I am at home and can control what I eat I like to add a second level which is "healthy food". Also that I keep simple: always have some fruits or veggies and some protein on the plate. No big deal. But this is optional, a bit like the "intelligent dietary defaults" Reinhard writes about. My personal third level is adding the energetic approach of Traditional Chinese Medicine. To me this makes a lot of sense.
This is how I "integrate" my interest and knowledge about food into the No S system. The big change to before is that I so often had stiff ideas what to eat and what not to eat that I couldn't relax having some delicious noodles in an Italian restaurant, even if it was only one in a while. Now I can play with these levels and switch in-between them as appropriate to my situation.
This is the big freedom the No S Diet gave me. I (more or less) stopped reading books about nutrition where people tell me what to eat. Instead I started buying cookbooks and learn how to cook. My focus switched from nutritional value to "taste". How fantastic is that?
I got rid of most of my diet books, filling the empty shelves with cook books. And I always have some No-S-Diet books at hand as presents to friends and family.
Thank you, Reinhard!
But I ate healthy. So what to do? This was when the No-S-Diet kicked in. It immediately made sense to me. It was the answer to most of my eating problems - I was just eating too much and too often. And I liked sweets cycling from "No sugar at all" over "well, just dark chocolate" to "this is totally unrealistic - let's just eat it...". The No-S-Diet solved all of these problems. Now, 2 years later, I got rid of these 7 kilos again and I keep them off. It is not a temporary quick fix - it is an totally easy to follow set of habits that will keep you in shape for the rest of your life.
Being a doctor you would automatically look for a diet that makes sense in a physiological way. And you would easily end up in the trap of producing something that is not applicable in real life in the long run, because you left out emotions, social situations, problems with will power and so on. Choosing a behavioral approach solves all these problems. And in my view it is a piece of genius. Einstein said you cannot solve problems on the level they appeared on but have to find a solution on another level (don't remember the exact words - but you get the meaning...). This is what the No S Diet does.
The thing is: it feels totally natural to be on the diet. I don't see a single reason why not to follow it till the end of my life. It is the perfect balance between structure and discipline to have an effect on the one hand and freedom and choice on the other hand making it work in real life for the long run.
So I use vanilla No S. I like to think of it as a framework or base layer for my eating habits. It gives me three plates a day to fill. When I am at home and can control what I eat I like to add a second level which is "healthy food". Also that I keep simple: always have some fruits or veggies and some protein on the plate. No big deal. But this is optional, a bit like the "intelligent dietary defaults" Reinhard writes about. My personal third level is adding the energetic approach of Traditional Chinese Medicine. To me this makes a lot of sense.
This is how I "integrate" my interest and knowledge about food into the No S system. The big change to before is that I so often had stiff ideas what to eat and what not to eat that I couldn't relax having some delicious noodles in an Italian restaurant, even if it was only one in a while. Now I can play with these levels and switch in-between them as appropriate to my situation.
This is the big freedom the No S Diet gave me. I (more or less) stopped reading books about nutrition where people tell me what to eat. Instead I started buying cookbooks and learn how to cook. My focus switched from nutritional value to "taste". How fantastic is that?
I got rid of most of my diet books, filling the empty shelves with cook books. And I always have some No-S-Diet books at hand as presents to friends and family.
Thank you, Reinhard!