Seventh year
Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2016 1:41 pm
Hi everyone, I'm checking in after another "year on habit" with NoS. Here's last year's post in case you want to see that:
https://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopi ... ht=#162007
(And that one links again to the previous year, so you can follow me back into the dawn of time if you're so inclined.)
Back then, I was concerned that I'd regained 14 to 18 of the 20 pounds I lost way back in year 1.
I can now announce that, although I'm not back to my year 1 minimum, I have lost somewhere between 5 and 10 pounds since last year (depending, as always, on what day you ask). So I'm up about ten pounds above my lowest weight, but I'm back on a downward path!
How did I do it? Childishly simple, here's the plan I've been following:
Days 1, 3, and 5: No carbohydrates of any kind.
Days 2, 4, and 6: Only carbohydrates.
Day 7: I can eat absolutely anything I want, as long as it is gluten-free and has been prepared with silver cookware by a left-handed chef in the light of a full moon.
(Repeat weekly)
I'm kidding, of course.
What I've actually used is the much less exciting method of eating a little bit less and exercising a little bit more, while following vanilla NoS (no extra special constraints beyond what's on the cover of the book). I also did implement my plan from last year of actually weighing myself once in a while, so I now get about five or six data points a month. Plotted on my phone, the weight-vs-time graph shows a long, slow, smooth decrease over the past year. (Well, except for a big spike in December/January when we visited relatives in Asia, where "I'm on a diet" doesn't always feel like a socially acceptable reason to decline food. They also have this dessert thing that's mostly made of butter and sugar and is insidiously tasty ... It wasn't my finest hour in terms of moderation.) But after that blip, the slow-but-steady decline started right back again.
I think I've succeeded in slightly down-shifting my sense of what's an appropriate portion of food, and I'm just going to stick with my current approach. Seven years in, I'm starting to think that this might just be a sustainable eating style, for me.
Big picture, I'm 10 pounds lighter than I was seven years ago ... But I also know I can reduce a bit further if I keep on my current trajectory.
To anyone just starting out, let me say that I do remember how hard it was, getting started. Those first few months were tough, and I came to realize what people meant when they pointed out that "simple" was not the same thing as "easy". But these days (and for about the past six years), NoS requires zero effort on my part, it's just automatic. It's completely accepted by my family as one of my (several) quirks, and it really doesn't create any difficulty in daily life. If you're slogging through that start-up phase, do stick with it: you can do it! And there's a long-term, stable solution waiting for you on the other side.
https://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopi ... ht=#162007
(And that one links again to the previous year, so you can follow me back into the dawn of time if you're so inclined.)
Back then, I was concerned that I'd regained 14 to 18 of the 20 pounds I lost way back in year 1.
I can now announce that, although I'm not back to my year 1 minimum, I have lost somewhere between 5 and 10 pounds since last year (depending, as always, on what day you ask). So I'm up about ten pounds above my lowest weight, but I'm back on a downward path!
How did I do it? Childishly simple, here's the plan I've been following:
Days 1, 3, and 5: No carbohydrates of any kind.
Days 2, 4, and 6: Only carbohydrates.
Day 7: I can eat absolutely anything I want, as long as it is gluten-free and has been prepared with silver cookware by a left-handed chef in the light of a full moon.
(Repeat weekly)
I'm kidding, of course.
What I've actually used is the much less exciting method of eating a little bit less and exercising a little bit more, while following vanilla NoS (no extra special constraints beyond what's on the cover of the book). I also did implement my plan from last year of actually weighing myself once in a while, so I now get about five or six data points a month. Plotted on my phone, the weight-vs-time graph shows a long, slow, smooth decrease over the past year. (Well, except for a big spike in December/January when we visited relatives in Asia, where "I'm on a diet" doesn't always feel like a socially acceptable reason to decline food. They also have this dessert thing that's mostly made of butter and sugar and is insidiously tasty ... It wasn't my finest hour in terms of moderation.) But after that blip, the slow-but-steady decline started right back again.I think I've succeeded in slightly down-shifting my sense of what's an appropriate portion of food, and I'm just going to stick with my current approach. Seven years in, I'm starting to think that this might just be a sustainable eating style, for me.
Big picture, I'm 10 pounds lighter than I was seven years ago ... But I also know I can reduce a bit further if I keep on my current trajectory.
To anyone just starting out, let me say that I do remember how hard it was, getting started. Those first few months were tough, and I came to realize what people meant when they pointed out that "simple" was not the same thing as "easy". But these days (and for about the past six years), NoS requires zero effort on my part, it's just automatic. It's completely accepted by my family as one of my (several) quirks, and it really doesn't create any difficulty in daily life. If you're slogging through that start-up phase, do stick with it: you can do it! And there's a long-term, stable solution waiting for you on the other side.
oh great..... thanks for the laugh