Everyday Systems

Hello all! Here's my one month check in...my idea is to try to do this monthly and organize my thoughts about the past 4 weeks...and to provide an update for anyone interested.

So I started at 271.4 and I'm now at 262.2...down 9.2 pounds total! The first week I lost 4.6 pounds (I'm sure it was mostly water weight), the 2nd week I only lost 0.8 pounds. Each week after that I have lost 1.6 and 2.2 pounds, respectively. I feel pretty good about the progress I've made so far, especially considering I'm not working out. As far as my physical activities, I'm taking advantage of opportunities to be active but not obsessing about it...and with the good weather lately I have being getting in some yard work. I don't expect to continue to lose 2 pounds per week as I did this last week, but it was a nice surprise.

I feel like my body has adapted to eating less, although there are still times that I get hungry between meals. I have to admit that I'm not totally following the "no snacks" thing to a "T" because on some days I will have a small 150 calorie bag of chips at 4 o'clock. I haven't needed to eat this snack every day, just on certain days when I have had a light lunch and I need something to tide me over until dinner. When I do eat the snack, I make it a point to savor it and eat it slowly...and I recognize my purpose for eating...only as a means of getting to dinner. I know I'm getting away with this because I have so much weight to lose...at some point I will plateau and I will eliminate it then.

I see a lot of people on here talking about how the post dinner munchies is a hard one to overcome, this was a hard one for me as well. I have found that getting to bed on time really helps this, I try not to get in bed any later than 10 or 10:30. An added bonus is I've started feeling better from getting more sleep!

I have high hopes for sticking with this diet, it has felt very natural and I have not felt like I am depriving myself. Maybe it's all in my head but I feel that my digestive system may have adapted to eating less food, I seem to feel full sooner and feel discomfort if I eat a relatively large amount of food (or maybe I'm just finally listening to my body, ha ha!)

Hoping to cross the double digit weight loss threshold next week!

Congratulations on a great first month!

Wonderful! Really concentrate on how much better you feel, as that will sometimes have to keep you going. I think the tactic of basically weaning yourself off the afternoon snack is fine, if your intent is to let it go as time goes on. If you practice, your body will get better at tapping into your stores so you "snack" from the inside out. I sometimes still get ansty about eating something in the afternoon. It was a decades-old habit.

I can't believe now that I was a solid evening eater for so long. No matter how late I stay up now, it doesn't matter. I know I'll never regret NOT eating when I wake up in the morning.

See you next month!

Dear BurtMacklin (dear fellow newbie!!):

What awesome news! You have found your own way to do it, to get started. It sounds like you are totally making progress. Whatever works for you, right? So if you need the "safety net" of an occasional afternoon snack, no problem... I take it you are fully implementing the other two S principles (no seconds, no sweets) and those already go a long way, for sure!!!

The night-time eating is just a bad habit, albeit hard to eradicate. I am so glad this is suddenly NOT a problem for me. (Very unexpectedly.) Hitting the sack & getting some extra ZZZs is a great solution, killing two birds with one stone, so to speak - no more eating AND feeling more rested.

As Oolala said - you won't regret waking up after NOT eating late at night.
And if you are anything like me, you have woken up with "food hangovers" and asked yourself "oh, my, why did I eat all that, what was I thinking?" I myself wake up in a better mood and with more energy, now that I am somehow miraculously managing NOT to eat, eat, eat at night.

Won't say the thought has not crossed my mind - it has. But I am feeling able to not act on that thought. And it sounds like you, too, are experiencing that wonderful feeling of the food not controlling things.

HERE'S TO CONTINUED SUCCESS FOR YOU!!!

Congrats on your weight loss, and figuring out a strategy to make No S livable for you at this time.

Wow, congratulations, what a great start!

Moderate eating and incidental exercise while you sort out your yard is a winning combination - very sustainable!

Well done. Thank you for sharing your success, it inspires people like me who wonder whether this will ever work.

Great success! Thanks for posting. It's an inspiration.

It's a relief to not have to feel like you need to eat all the time. I'm shocked when I think how ingrained snacking all day long was for me.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

It's great to hear you've been losing on No S. I wish you all the best for the future with this!