Everyday Systems

hello everybody,

my name is andrea, i am from austria, europe and today has been my third day not-s-ing.
i love it. i am doing fine with it, i enjoy getting hungry for my meals. i don't need to fight down the slightest feeling of hunger by snacking. you can survive being hungry, WHO KNEW? just wait for mealtime, stupid! DUH indeed.

i am 33 years old and i have struggled with my weight since kindergarten. i was 4 when i was put on my first diet (by the pediatrician). talk about damaged by diets... i was anorexic before i turned 12.

i found this system via amazon, i wanted to thank user "oolala53". in her review of roger goulds' "shrink yourself" she mentioned the no s diet and i just googled it.

it made sense, it was simple and clear, so i started right away.

when i was a child, we used to eat like this. breakfast, lunch, dinner. no snacks, just water to drink. treats only on sunday or holidays. e basta.

but: having a mother who struggled with her weight all her life - after all, the women in my family stem from russian and italian farmers and are not at all petite fairies - her weird diet trials sneaked in plus she started working again and shared familiy meals did not happen so often anymore.

plus in the nineties we were all told that the traditional way of eating was no longer in order. you had to do weird food combining. you had to go whole grain. you had to do juice fasts and fruit days. you had to try the "new" weight watchers system.

i must have learned a weird lot from this. up until now i tried eating:macrobiotic, low-cal, low-fat, low-carb, starches only, vegan and low-fat, only veggies and fruit, yadda yadda yadda.

the only thing that stuck: i am strictly vegetarian and i am gluten-intolerant. that helped with digestive and inflammation issues, but the weight is stuck.

because, after all those years - i am an emotional eater AND restriction only leads to bingeing. of course i keep on working on the emotional overeating issue, but having a simple structure helps tremendously.

so. i am brave and sane enough to give up dieting and just eat the normal way, like we used not so long ago. i don't miss the snacks and i don't miss sweets. three normal meals a day feels like a giant liberation! just goes to show how messed up we have become.

and i know i must be doing something right because since i started this i woke up hungry every morning, looking forward to breakfast.

on the weekend i will go and get a slegdehammer to start shovelgloving (my husband wants to try this too).

love+light,
anra

Welcome! So glad you found NoS.

Hi Andrea- Austria is a beautiful country!
Thanks for telling us a bit of your story. I trust you will continue to find NoS a very good plan for sane eating. These boards are very supportive and helpful. Welcome!

Welcome!

Welcome, Andrea. I hope you find peace with food and good habits like many of us here.

Hi Andrea,

I'm originally from Austria too Welcome to the sanity of NoS.

thank you everybody for the nice welcome.

the more i read and think about this lifestyle, the more sense it makes.
today is day 4 and i feel so good and SO normal.

(warning, this may be a bit tmi for some ... but i am more than happy to report that my digestion works pretty fine since i started this. i think this is just because my belly has enough undisturbed time in between meals to deal with the food and digest it all properly )

@eschano, where are you from? i am living in graz, not born here but we live here for work and study.

and oh yes - can you explain to me what is "vanilla no s"? sound delicious!

have a nice day everyone!
anra

Hi Anra,

I'm from the Salzkammergut in Upper Austria but live in the UK Graz is beautiful!

Vanilla NoS is following the rules of NoS without any modifications (mods, such as what you eat or how many sweets you can eat and so on). I strongly recommend doing Vanilla NoS for at least 6 months if not a year before you start experimenting with mods, even if your S days are wild.

This lifestyle is amazing - so happy I found it. I'm sure you'll have just as much fun with it!

Welcome Andrea!

I live next door in Switzerland, near Zürich
_____
h

I feel a little bad for Dr. Gould that you found No S through my comment on his book on Amazon, but I'm glad you're here and enjoying your meals.

LOL Oolala! Now I'm going to have look up that book, although the title gives me a fairly decent idea of what it's all about.

Welcome Andrea! Best wishes on your NoS journey!
Mimi

hello neighbours and everybody.

the first weekend with s-days went pretty good. i ate my 3 plates plus i was allowed some sweet treats with the afternoon tea.
i had 2 pieces of my choice and was happy and satisfied. no binging or overdoing it.
we have a locked box that contains little chocolates, glutenfree mini-cakes and cookies that only gets locked open on occasion. i got the idea when i read that sugar containers used to have locks in the olden days. i seemed a bit drastic, but my hubby takes the key with him when he is at work - but it works! i know that there are no sweets available so i don't have to negotiate with myself if i can have a piece or not.

i intend to do this as long as my relationship with food and treats becomes totally normal and sane.

eschano - thanks for explaining vanilla no s. since the plan works for me as intended by the inventor i don't think i will have the desire to modify anything.
so, i guess i'm vanilla too

oolala - i have a feeling that dr gould is a very sane and reasonable man and i think he would support anything one can do to come to a normal way of eating, even more so if it can keep emotional eating at bay.

i'm full week in and i love it. the sanity and doability of this is even more important to me than weightloss. i do not weigh myself until i'm about 4 weeks in and i think in longterm goals ... how will i be in one year? that takes the pressure off.

love+light,
anra

ps - i started shovelglove. ouch.

Gould's focus was on analyzing the reasons behind the emotions and came up with all kinds of labels for them, plus an emotional persona he even named for the eater. I'm very much in favor of trying to create distance between "me" and my disturbing thoughts, but giving them another personality in me thinking them complicates things, IMO. But he did recommend rules of reasonable eating and one of them was having routines of meals and snacks. I did that for years. Still binged. And I could never figure out how to do all the figuring out what was wrong and what to do about it until I just accepted that no matter what, I wasn't going to eat until it was mealtime.

It's possible I am a bit stalled now because I had been trying to find a few more ways to spend that between-meal time to actually solve problems! Found out it's still too hard. But I can do less productive-yet-effective things to get me through, and that is good enough for now. He might say my most important work is ahead of me, but I agree that he would probably approve of not giving in to eating while I figure things out.

I envy your mild first weekend, but it's totally normal, too. Not everyone has to go through great turmoil!

I think the lockbox is a reasonable training wheel to simulate lack of access as it used to be. Maybe even a permanent strategy, though my mother hiding cookies didn't work on me. I don't keep sweets around anymore , though. I live alone, so no one else wants them. I gave up judging myself for not being able to have them around consistently without overeating them. Plus, I have small storage spaces. It doesn't make much sense to keep stuff around I eat so seldom. I allow myself sweets only in company these days. (I instituted that mod, the only one I consider official, at 2.5 years in.) I'm trying to do the same with all foods, though it does make sense to buy in bulk for some staples.

Have a lovely week two!

Welcome Anra!!!

I love the idea of a locked sweet box!!! Makes me think of the way they keep dynamite locked up!!! LOL!!!

today is day 16.

i just had lunch. i made myself some nice fresh cornbread as a side dish. (an authentic southern us recipe )

fresh warm homemade bread is my weakness, and cornbread is even lovelier.

before no s i would have been overeating because it's so good.

today - i stopped after one piece and i could not go any further.
even though it would have been so so so soooooo good ... i did not eat on because i just cannot stand being stuffed anymore. in fact, i just eat until i'm about 4/5 full, because that's when i feel satiated but i do not get tired or braindead after a meal.

THIS IS UNBELIEVABLE!

years and years i struggled. and now, in two weeks, 13 little words stuck in my head make all the difference.

Wow. JUST WOW.

hey merry kat,

that's a great reference =)

the locked box still works ... but i don't think about sweets a lot anymore.
on the weekend (my second s-weekend) the husband had to remind me that i could have something from the box ... i had forgotten about it.

Way to go, Anra!!

hello everyone,

i am quite busy with exam prep at the moment so i am not active here at all, not even reading or lurking.

but i just wanted to give a quick update - last weekend was my first official weigh-in (after one solid month in) and i am a bit more than 1 kilo down. i am even more delighted because i did not have an eating binge in about 6 weeks. yay!

i am content with this, because 1) i feel lighter than just one kilo and i look slimmer and flatter around the waist and the stomach area and 2) i had a great time eating, everyday.

this really is the way to go.

love + light,
anra

Great job!

Very inspiring post. Good luck!

Woohoo! Good for you!

No bingeing for 6 weeks; now that is a real victory!