Everyday Systems

Hello,
For the first time in ages I am feeling a little inspired having found this diet and the support on the forum. Today has been my first day and I have struggled, but I suffer from binge eating disorder and eat a lot daily so I knew there will be some adjusting of my appetite to make.
I have a few questions just to make sure I am doing this right.

The 3 plates a day, are they small plate sized for breakfast and lunch and dinner plate sized in the evening?

If you want to have fruit or yoghurt or another separate thing to the main part of your meal, do you physically include them on your plate to allow for them, or do you fill your plate with main part and then eat the fruit etc afterwards?

Can you include alcohol as part of your plan? What are the rules please?

Thank you for your help.

Lozy

Hi Lozy
I am happy to try and answer your questions if I can!

Plate size, I use regular plates, probably because I am greedy! I know there are some who deliberately use a smaller plate to control portion size but it doesn't work for me, I just end up feeling hungry and cranky!

Everything should fit on the plate. So its fine to have fruit, yoghurt etc and I often do for lunch, so I might fit in a sandwich, apple, satsuma and yoghurt. That's a fairly standard lunch for me. Dinners, I just forgo dessert of any kind and have a main meal. That's just what works for me.

Reinhard says in the NoS book that a glass or two of alcohol each day is fine. Personally it suits me better to cut out alcohol in the week, that's my own personal rule though and might not suit you.

If you wanted to read up on the details a bit more, I have found the NoS book a great help, I bought the kindle version and referred to it often in the early day to get it all straight in my head.

Hope that helps a bit and as always I am sure some more experienced No Sers will come along soon and reply!

Thank you Bluebell for your information. I tried to buy the Kindle version for my iPad but it won't download it, so I will order the book. Just wanted to get a few things straight to get me through these first days. Yesterday was hard. I'm so used to overeating that I had to cope with physical hunger, light headedness and mental hunger too. I haven't said no to anything in a long time and in the morning I was faced with a lovely dessert that needed eating. I was so close to eating it, but threw it in the bin. Then I spent the day with a friend, was just going to be the morning but she asked me to stay and served lunch which was a few crackers and a yoghurt and I knew it wasn't enough given how overweight I am and how much food I need. Later in the afternoon she offered chocolate biscuits that I desperately wanted and said no too. When I got home my dinner was still 2 hrs away and I was ravenous. I waited though and am pleased that I did it. It was not an ideal day at all, I know I needed to eat more, but the most important thing to me was to achieve a success on my first day. Thanks for everyone's support.

Hi Lozy
I also started on Monday as well, and like you I'm also one for snacking in between meals. I also have a very sweet tooth.
I found the first couple of days I was really hungry a couple of hours before dinner. I also start to get irritable and light headed and was very tempted to snack.
I think I wasn't having enough breakfast. I was having my usual 2 weetabix. I had 3 weetabix yesterday and changed my milk from skimmed to semi-skimmed. I also made a pasta salad for lunch and this kept me full until dinner yesterday. I'm definitely enjoying my main meal more and rather than leaving any which I usually would because I'd snacked all day, I'm actually eating it all up.
Well done for avoiding the temptation of biscuits and that desert. It's not easy so well done.

Welcome and congrats on your first day! It's definitely a change and there can be some bumps in the road as you figure out what will work for you, how much is enough food etc...

With regard to plate size, there are no rules (well, other than if you are eating out and the plate is more like a platter, LOL!). You are free to choose your size plate (and going up or down in size can help you get the right amount of food for you to not be hungry but still lose weight.)

Everything should technically fit on the plate. If you don't want to physically put the fruit on your plate, then leave a space on your plate where it could fit. The main idea is not to load up on (perhaps unhealthy) food and then add fruit on top of that--but to consider everything you want to eat as one plate. The book has instructions for special situations (like soup). For yogurt, I'd put the actual yogurt container on your plate too. You want to get used to seeing how much you eat all at once, rather than having lots of little add-ons (which make it easy to fool ourselves with regard to how much we are actually eating).

Alcohol is allowed (Reinhard uses a "glass ceiling" method of 2 drinks--I think that's on the main page too. If not, look through the podcasts, I'm pretty sure there's one about the glass ceiling.)

Hope you have a good first week!

I allow a piece of fruit or a plane lettuce/tomato salad on the side as an extra. Somewhere Reinhard said that was OK.
I vary plate size according to my appetite that meal. NoS allows for that.
I only drink occasionally, but don't consider that as part of my noS plan... I can't hold more than a few drinks in a day, so it's not much of an issue.
Good luck! I think NoS is the best diet thing going!

Thank you Princess, Merry and osoniye
If there is a choice in plate size I think I'll go large!! I can see as you get used to eating less you can adjust really easily. I had a really challenging first day, but today I had my good choices preplanned and although I'm hungry I felt more in control. That always makes me feel better when I'm in control.

I haven't read all the posts, but as an ex-binger/compulsive overeater, I'd say not to worry about plate size at first. You're not out to lose weight to start, though you might. You're here to prove to yourself that you can eat regularly, and go without regularly in a decent rhythm. (Statistically, just ending bingeing does not foster much weight loss, though those wanting to make some money on the web like to imply it's automatic.) I had already done some things before No S that made some of it easier without even knowing it.

If you are still having a lot of problems in a week or so, I have an idea, but I don't want to suggest solutions for a problem that may go away on its own. The less drama, the better.

Hi, i know i'm a little late, but:

Welcome und the best wishes for your NoS-Journey.

Because your questions are answered i would like to add some tips, that i learned in my first attempts of NoS (took me some before i "got it")

1. Forget everything from every other diet you ever learned! Do not combine other Diet-Agendas with NoS. It overcomplicates the process and makes it harder. There are no Bad-Foods, there is no Junk-Food just food. One plate at the time, three plates a day.

2. Don't try to eat "extra healthy" or try to limit you food in any way (except of course the NoS-Rules). Don’t skip the fries because there is an option for a salad. Don’t listen to you inner monolog when it tells you to only fill you plate to 3/4 .

That were the most severe of my errors. Try to restart your eating-habits.

Fill your plate with food you like (except sweets on N-Days), not with food somebody said you should eat. There is no plate-police. No one will arrest you, when you take a large plate or pile some food on your plate. You can correct those things, after you got the eating rhythm as a habit internalized.

NoS Alone is a slow System to lose weight. It can be faster if you integrate some mild exercise (i.e. shovelgloving and/or urban rangering) but it will never become a crash diet. After you accepted that, all you need is patience.

3. Eat very slow. It’s a personal tip and something I got from my grandfather as a former P.O.W. in the UDSSR. Chew your food as long as you can, until it is mostly liquefied. It did a heap of good for me and greatly reduced my hunger between meals, maybe it could help you too?

Thank you GermanHerman. They are very good tips and I will take them on board. I had a really good first week in terms of weight loss which has meant that this week my inner voice has been telling me different things. Last week it was all about stopping myself breaking the rules as I was so hungry. This week it is about filling my plate so I'm not hungry, but trying to limit the calories. This is dangerous territory for me. I have years of restrict and binge cycling. Also today I broke and had a banana
as I felt faint. So not enough on my plates. I need to try not to 'judge' my plates. It is very hard.

Oh my gosh, you did well to refuse those sweets on your first day! congratulations for that!

I just want to add my encouragement for your journey here. I have always been an overeater, and I can promise you that as you stick to this strictly, your appetite will adjust. My first week or so, I filled my plates FULL, and on S days tended to go a bit overboard. If it takes you a few weeks of doing that, to keep from feeling ravenous between meals, then do it. Eventually, your plates will be more reasonable, your appetite will be tame, and even if your tummy does grumble between meals, you'll find out YOU are in charge and you don't have to eat every time your stomach gripes.

That sanity is THE MOST important thing, for me anyway. It's absolutely marvelous to be at home, with a fridge and pantry nearby, and not be hovering in the kitchen, or opening up the fridge when I'm bored.

Have you started a HabitCal? That is helping me a lot, too.

well anyway. Welcome! and may you find peace with food through this most amazing and simple way of life.