Poll for "Vertically Challenged" No Sers

sophiasapientia · Post by **sophiasapientia** » Fri Jul 23, 2010 2:53 pm

I know that some of us are "vertically challenged" and I'm curious as to how that has impacted No S for you. Have you had to adapt No S to work for you? Or has vanilla No S, with no modifications, worked great?

sophiasapientia · Post by **sophiasapientia** » Fri Jul 23, 2010 3:01 pm

I do a slightly modified version of Vanilla No S. I've found that I do have to watch my portion sizes and use smaller plates. If I ate 3 regular meals a day on our "regular" plates (12"), I'd gain weight, unfortunately.

Beyond that, I just eat 3 meals a day and have unrestricted S days (though I tend to plan a special treat or 2 for each S Day and stick to the 3 meal structure.)

I'm just a smidge under 5'3", 35 years old and active.

idontknow · Post by **idontknow** » Fri Jul 23, 2010 8:32 pm

I haven't lost a lot of weight - about 6lbs since end of April. I use 11 inch plates but they have a wide raised border - the actual eating area is 7 and 1/2 inches. I try not to overfill my plate and I eat sensible food. If I could only follow these rules on S days I would have lost a lot more....

loop · Post by **loop** » Fri Jul 23, 2010 8:49 pm

I'm the same height (5'3") and have not really lost weight doing NoS (I've been doing it for several years). I have even gained weight in that time, but I'm guessing less than I would have without it. I will admit that I'm not the strictest NoS'er, I don't follow NoS when I'm on vacation, and also I eat out a lot, so that may well explain much of my weight gain over the years. I also have arthritis and have limited walking ability, so I'm more sedentary than I'd like to be.

I've kept with NoS despite not losing weight because it's sane and moderate and healthy. Also, it has turned me from someone who would get cranky and shaky if I didn't eat every 4 or 5 hours, into someone who is fine with going 6-8 hours or more between meals.

I decided in March of this year that because I was kinda sorta maintaining, that perhaps I should do something more drastic to lose weight (10 lbs for a start), and then see if I could maintain that loss with NoS without too much work. If that worked, then maybe I could try another 10 lbs, etc.

I had lost 50lbs on weight watchers 9 years ago, and then slowly regained it when keeping track of points got to be too much work. So I started keeping track of points during the week, but kept weekends as S days. I kept up with the NoS rules, as they are so ingrained in me, there didn't seem to be any reason not to. This actually helped counting points be easier, as it made it easier to track stuff (fewer possible inputs) and the three meals does help keep calories down. Having the weekend to look forward to also made it easier to "behave" during the week.

The nice thing about still doing NoS, was that if a situation came up where I knew I would be way exceeding my points for the day, I still had the NoS rules to fall back on, so it didn't feel as all-or-nothing as weight watchers had felt in the past.

Anyway, my weight went up and down between March and June (a week's vacation and a bunch of birthdays didn't help :) but overall I lost 6 lbs. That may not sound like a lot to many people, but given that I hadn't managed to lose weight at all with NoS alone, I was happy with that.

This month I decided to stop counting points. Even my easier version of weight watchers was starting to be annoying. I instead resolved to make sure I got regular exercise, cooked at home more often, and started shovelgloving consistently. I think the experience of counting points did help me reduce default portion sizes, and in addition I've cut out most added sugar/honey during the week (not so much for the calories, but I think I do get hungry more easily if I'm consuming sugar).

So far I've lost 2lbs this month, and I'm happy I've been able to do that without counting points.

Watching portion sizes is probably key for me. Counting points enforced that for me, and often I even still felt a little hungry once I was done eating my allotted portion, but lo and behold, 15 minutes later I felt satisfied, and able to make it to the next meal. So I'm trying to keep that in mind now that I'm not counting points.

[edited to add a couple of things I forgot first time around]

mimi · Post by **mimi** » Fri Jul 23, 2010 10:54 pm

vertically challenged

Just a little humor...

I've often wondered this when I hear the term vertically challenged being used to refer to shorter folks...what then is the politically correct term for taller individuals like me?

Are we vertically enhanced??!!

Thoughts anyone?

DaveMc · Post by **DaveMc** » Sat Jul 24, 2010 12:23 am

The poll results at the moment are an interesting lesson in statistical skepticism: it's a landslide for "Yes" (83%), with a tiny minority going for "Other" (16%). Except that if you look at the actual numbers instead of the percentages, it turns out to be 5 people for Yes, and 1 for Other ... so maybe we need more data before we make any conclusions.

I'd vote, but I'm not qualified ... Maybe there are only 6 vertically challenged NoSers on the forums? Nah, must be more than that ...

July2010 · Post by **July2010** » Sat Jul 24, 2010 1:28 am

I am 5'1 and following the plan like it is in the book. I'm in my second week and have lost 5 pds so far. I only just started to exercise this week.

sophiasapientia · Post by **sophiasapientia** » Sat Jul 24, 2010 2:27 am

Thanks to all for the responses so far! The reason I created this poll is because I've had the impression, based on my own experiences w/ No S & what I've read on the forums over time, that shorter folks, and especially shorter folks who have less weight to lose, often either need to do some tweaking or plateau after an initial loss. I'm just wondering if this empirically true, based on other forum members' experiences, or not. I'm curious if "keeping Green Days Green," without any modification, has been sufficient for shorter No S ers over time. (But as Dave said, it is hard to come to any real conclusions based on 6 or 7 responses.

)

loop -- Congratulations on your 8 lb loss! That's fantastic!

July2010 -- Welcome! It sounds like you are doing great!

mimi ---

sheepish · Post by **sheepish** » Sat Jul 24, 2010 6:45 am

Depends what you count as a "mod" - I'm 5'3 and I've realised that three meals a day just leads to me maintaining my weight but two meals a day with a weekly 24 hour fast leads to weight loss. But vanilla No S doesn't tell you how many meals a day to eat so what I do is technically not a modification at all.

sophiasapientia · Post by **sophiasapientia** » Sat Jul 24, 2010 10:58 am

sheepish wrote:Depends what you count as a "mod" - I'm 5'3 and I've realised that three meals a day just leads to me maintaining my weight but two meals a day with a weekly 24 hour fast leads to weight loss. But vanilla No S doesn't tell you how many meals a day to eat so what I do is technically not a modification at all.

A 24 hour weekly fast definitely counts as a mod.

While eating 2 meals isn't technically a mod, I do see it as an added tweak to make No S work (so "Other" for the purposes of this survey." )

Also, skipping S Days or only having one S Day a week or less are also mods.

Starla · Post by **Starla** » Sat Jul 24, 2010 12:08 pm

I'm vertically challenged, but I think my horizontal endowment has enabled me to be successful on Vanilla No-S.

vmsurbat · Post by **vmsurbat** » Tue Jul 27, 2010 7:19 am

I've been away for the past 10 days and am just checking back in here. I'm 5'2" and follow Vanilla NoS. Now, as a family we have ALWAYS used different sized plates at different meals. I have lunch-sized plates and dinner-sized plates. We use the lunch-sized for 2 meals and the dinner-sized for our main meals. Not sure if that is a "mod" or not. It just has always made sense to me that breakfast-lunch-dinner do not consist of the same amounts of food and smaller plates mean less washing/more room in the dishwasher.

Also, I know I can't eat as much as my 6' husband, so in one sense my portions are smaller than his, but only because my actual needs are less. I eat until I am satisfied (all on one plate, of course) and so does he....

HTH,

Tiggycat · Post by **Tiggycat** » Sun Aug 22, 2010 3:49 pm

I'm just starting No S today but I have a long history of diets not working for me because the recommended amounts of food are too much for a 5'0" office worker.

I do walk a fair bit (to and from the subway and around the mall at lunch) but don't do any other exercise.

I have a nice 'antique' plate that I bought at a garage sale and it is tiny compared to my 'modern' china - so once I get used to a single plate then I plan to use that one to help reduce portions more.

BrightAngel · Post by **BrightAngel** » Sun Aug 22, 2010 4:26 pm

Tiggycat wrote:I have a long history of diets not working for me
because the recommended amounts of food are too much for a 5'0" office worker.

As a 5'0" person, I've also found it very discouraging,
over the years, to see each new published Diet tell us about their "break thru" easy plan,
and, upon further investigation, find the plan actually comes in around 1400-1500 daily calories.
I have 6 years of daily data proving that my personal TOTAL daily burn is 1050 calories,
and I GAIN weight even on a 1200 calorie plan.
The general food and calories recommended by Diets is simply for larger, younger people.

Tiggycat · Post by **Tiggycat** » Sun Aug 22, 2010 6:47 pm

BrightAngel, I knew I was right even though I didn't do the math like you did.

I tried telling people I gained on WeightWatchers and they said I was either miscounting or lying!

Most diet doctors say you should never go under 1200 calories and I know I'd gain on that.

I see a 'little person' on the train to work sometimes - she is my age and under 4' tall and I can't imagine she can eat anything near the 'minimum' - she isn't fat so she must have learned what works for her.

Everyday Systems

Poll for "Vertically Challenged" No Sers

If you are vertically challenged, have you had to modify No S (ex. eating smaller portions, using smaller plates, fasting, etc) in some way?

Poll for "Vertically Challenged" No Sers