Imperfect? You can still get results
Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2011 1:25 pm
I was weighed this morning at the Drs and it made me realise that I qualify to do a testimonial now as I’ve lost over 10 pounds. Around 15 pounds, to be exact.
The Numbers Bit
I’ve never been one for regular weighing so I’m not sure if 15 pounds is exactly correct but I have been regularly measuring and I’ve definitely gone from a 34 inch waist to a 30 inch waist. I was a UK size 16-18 and I’m now a UK 14-16. It also takes me from “obese†according to BMI to “overweight†– just!
This has taken me about 6 months on No S.
Background
I’ve tried No S before, I think three or four times, the first time in 2006, but I’ve always stopped within 2-3 months. I think the difference for me this time was that I properly internalised that it’s better to try and sometimes fail than give up in disgust because I’m not perfect.
I do still have plenty of failures. If I take out the anomalous 10 failure month, I fail on average 3 times a month, which is almost once every week! But I’m still losing weight. I find this quite motivational in a way – despite being a short (5’3) woman, with PCOS (a condition that makes it difficult to lose weight), I didn’t have to be perfect to lose weight on No S.
My interpretation/practice of No S
I basically do vanilla No S (which I think predominates on the testimonials board, though not on the general board, which I think is interesting!) but I do a couple of minor things differently:
I eat two meals a day rather than three – lunch and dinner. This is within the rules of No S but slightly unusual. It works for me because I am rarely hungry for breakfast and, if I do eat breakfast, I’m usually hungrier for the rest of the day. It also means that I can have slightly bigger lunches/dinners.
I don’t do the one plate thing. This is largely because it just doesn’t work well for the types of meals that I usually eat (Indian food, mezze/tapas style food). Instead, what I try to do is only eat what I intend to eat. So, with Indian food, I might think to myself “I’ll have two rotis, two spoons of curry, a handful of rice and a ladle of dhal†and I’ll count it a “fail†if I have more than that. It’s similar to virtual plating but the difference is that I’m not fussed if it wouldn’t fit on one plate, the issue is more about whether or not I intended to eat it.
Some observations and general thoughts on my experience so far
What I absolutely love about No S is that it’s sustainable and fits into my life.
That said, it is definitely not a habit for me yet. Six months in, I still have to put in some mental effort into it and (as I said above), I still have quite frequent failures. I also track my success/fail/special numbers and ratio quite carefully via a spreadsheet. (It’s v. similar to habitcal but I like to be able to run off my own numbers so I prefer it. Yes, I am a geek.)
S days. I don’t restrict these at all. I’m not sure whether I just don’t have as much of a problem with binging as some people on the forum do or whether I just worry about it less but I just haven’t messed with these at all. Every now and then – maybe once a month – I have an S day when I just perma snack but that’s quite often on fruit (as I love fruit) so I don’t think it’s such an awful thing. Overall, I think S days help me to stay on track during the week.
Exercise. I used not to really do any because I couldn’t find something that I’d do five times a week and what’s the point of doing any if I can’t do it five times a week? Obviously, that was ridiculous. I’m getting over that now and figure that the best exercise is the exercise that I will do. That’s walking to or from work (4.5 miles) 3-4 times a week and a martial arts class once a week. Since I live in London and don’t have a car, I usually walk a couple of miles a day just in the course of my day-to-day living. That’s not as much exercise as I could or should do but it’s a lot better than nothing!
Before I started No S this time, I genuinely did not think that I snacked that much. I come from an Indian background and my family has always been big on traditional mealtimes, cooking from scratch, etc. I tracked for a while “things I didn’t eat because I was doing No S†for motivational/interest value and the results were really surprising to me. Turns out, that I did a lot more “office snacking†than I thought I did – biscuits in meetings/birthday cake, that kind of thing. I also ate a LOT of fruit. Yes, fruit is healthy but the quantities that I used to eat as snacks made it pretty unhealthy. I still eat a lot of fruit on S days but I’ve cut down on it on N days significantly.
Going forward
I’d like to lose a little more weight – not necessarily a lot more but another couple of inches to get my waist firmly under 30 inches. I think it’ll probably be harder than the first six months were when I had more weight to lose so I’m going to be working on:
Reducing my number of failures to try to get this to be a proper habit
Reducing my portion size for dinner a little (not a lot, just by 10% or so)
Reducing my alcohol intake (I have an alcoholic drink almost every day, usually just the one but it’s adding extra calories that I don’t need)
Potentially adding in another exercise class once a week – probably yoga or pilates
Thank you Reinhard!
The Numbers Bit
I’ve never been one for regular weighing so I’m not sure if 15 pounds is exactly correct but I have been regularly measuring and I’ve definitely gone from a 34 inch waist to a 30 inch waist. I was a UK size 16-18 and I’m now a UK 14-16. It also takes me from “obese†according to BMI to “overweight†– just!
This has taken me about 6 months on No S.
Background
I’ve tried No S before, I think three or four times, the first time in 2006, but I’ve always stopped within 2-3 months. I think the difference for me this time was that I properly internalised that it’s better to try and sometimes fail than give up in disgust because I’m not perfect.
I do still have plenty of failures. If I take out the anomalous 10 failure month, I fail on average 3 times a month, which is almost once every week! But I’m still losing weight. I find this quite motivational in a way – despite being a short (5’3) woman, with PCOS (a condition that makes it difficult to lose weight), I didn’t have to be perfect to lose weight on No S.
My interpretation/practice of No S
I basically do vanilla No S (which I think predominates on the testimonials board, though not on the general board, which I think is interesting!) but I do a couple of minor things differently:
I eat two meals a day rather than three – lunch and dinner. This is within the rules of No S but slightly unusual. It works for me because I am rarely hungry for breakfast and, if I do eat breakfast, I’m usually hungrier for the rest of the day. It also means that I can have slightly bigger lunches/dinners.
I don’t do the one plate thing. This is largely because it just doesn’t work well for the types of meals that I usually eat (Indian food, mezze/tapas style food). Instead, what I try to do is only eat what I intend to eat. So, with Indian food, I might think to myself “I’ll have two rotis, two spoons of curry, a handful of rice and a ladle of dhal†and I’ll count it a “fail†if I have more than that. It’s similar to virtual plating but the difference is that I’m not fussed if it wouldn’t fit on one plate, the issue is more about whether or not I intended to eat it.
Some observations and general thoughts on my experience so far
What I absolutely love about No S is that it’s sustainable and fits into my life.
That said, it is definitely not a habit for me yet. Six months in, I still have to put in some mental effort into it and (as I said above), I still have quite frequent failures. I also track my success/fail/special numbers and ratio quite carefully via a spreadsheet. (It’s v. similar to habitcal but I like to be able to run off my own numbers so I prefer it. Yes, I am a geek.)
S days. I don’t restrict these at all. I’m not sure whether I just don’t have as much of a problem with binging as some people on the forum do or whether I just worry about it less but I just haven’t messed with these at all. Every now and then – maybe once a month – I have an S day when I just perma snack but that’s quite often on fruit (as I love fruit) so I don’t think it’s such an awful thing. Overall, I think S days help me to stay on track during the week.
Exercise. I used not to really do any because I couldn’t find something that I’d do five times a week and what’s the point of doing any if I can’t do it five times a week? Obviously, that was ridiculous. I’m getting over that now and figure that the best exercise is the exercise that I will do. That’s walking to or from work (4.5 miles) 3-4 times a week and a martial arts class once a week. Since I live in London and don’t have a car, I usually walk a couple of miles a day just in the course of my day-to-day living. That’s not as much exercise as I could or should do but it’s a lot better than nothing!
Before I started No S this time, I genuinely did not think that I snacked that much. I come from an Indian background and my family has always been big on traditional mealtimes, cooking from scratch, etc. I tracked for a while “things I didn’t eat because I was doing No S†for motivational/interest value and the results were really surprising to me. Turns out, that I did a lot more “office snacking†than I thought I did – biscuits in meetings/birthday cake, that kind of thing. I also ate a LOT of fruit. Yes, fruit is healthy but the quantities that I used to eat as snacks made it pretty unhealthy. I still eat a lot of fruit on S days but I’ve cut down on it on N days significantly.
Going forward
I’d like to lose a little more weight – not necessarily a lot more but another couple of inches to get my waist firmly under 30 inches. I think it’ll probably be harder than the first six months were when I had more weight to lose so I’m going to be working on:
Reducing my number of failures to try to get this to be a proper habit
Reducing my portion size for dinner a little (not a lot, just by 10% or so)
Reducing my alcohol intake (I have an alcoholic drink almost every day, usually just the one but it’s adding extra calories that I don’t need)
Potentially adding in another exercise class once a week – probably yoga or pilates
Thank you Reinhard!
