Everyday Systems

Hello, everyone!

I was introduced to the concept of NoS several years ago and have always found its simplicity alluring. Yet, for whatever reason, I never felt confident enough to actually give it a try. I've never technically been overweight, but I've found in recent years that my eating habits consume so much of my consciousness that I'd really just like to try living my life without thinking about food as much as I do.

I've read a lot of people's success stories, but one thing I've always wondered is this--for you petite girls out there, how well has this worked for you in maintaining (or slightly diminishing) your weight? I am 4'10" and 118 pounds (although 105 is usually where I'm most comfortable). I'm wanting to shed about 10 pounds in a leisurely fashion, but I'm wondering if NoS might not be best suited for someone in my situation? It might also be worth noting that I have PCOS, so losing extra weight has always been a monumental struggle for me, which might be why I've maintained such an obsessive mentality regarding food. I'm 28 years old and mildly active in that I walk for about 20-30 minutes five days a week. I am not currently taking any medications or undergoing any sort of hormonal therapy for my PCOS.

Just curious to hear everyone's thoughts! Do you think NoS will work for me? Are there any modifications you other petite chicas have tried that made it more of a successful endeavor? Please share and... nice to meet you!

Gracie

Welcome!

I'd think about it this way--what do you have to lose by trying it for several months?

It's definitely casual, and it can definitely help with the food-thought-obsession struggle. Whether it would help you lose since you are so close to your goal weight is hard to predict, but it's certainly an easy and painless method to try that brings a lot of normalcy to eating habits.

Hi, Merry!

Thanks so much for the warm welcome and rational thoughts. I suppose you're right--what's the harm in at least trying? I also appreciate your confirmation that this can help in normalizing obsessive thoughts regarding food. That's certainly been my struggle for years. It's lead to me maintaining a healthy weight, but at the expense of my sanity. Worth it? It's up for debate.

Haha, anyhow, I'll certainly be giving this a full-fledged start on Monday! For you personally, do you find yourself utilizing the HabitCal? Or do you have a different way of logging/tracking your days? I'd love any tips or advice you can provide.

I appreciate your time, Merry. Thank you so much!

Gracie

Well, I'm not quite as short as you (5'2") but am older (mid-50s) with thyroid issues, and NoS works quite well for me. With new health issues, I have to adapt (generally, eat a little less), but NoS makes that easy to do with its sensible 1 plate, 3 meals life-style.

As Merry said, at the very least you will gain sanity and enjoyment of your meals! And, at best, you'll slowly lose those few extra pounds.

I highly suggest you go the Sticky of Stickies post and look for the NoS catch-phrase thread. It is a GREAT help in gaining a new, healthy mindset to go with the NoS lifestyle.

Best wishes for good NoS success!

gracearbag wrote: Haha, anyhow, I'll certainly be giving this a full-fledged start on Monday! For you personally, do you find yourself utilizing the HabitCal? Or do you have a different way of logging/tracking your days? I'd love any tips or advice you can provide.

I appreciate your time, Merry. Thank you so much!

Gracie

I do! For the first year, I only kept track of eating, but this year I added on a tracker for exercise too. (For my exercise, I only track the type of exercise--I use yellow for walking, or green if I do elliptical or another workout for at least 14 minutes--mainly it's just to encourage me to exercise! I don't use reds for that one). I like that habitcal is so easy to use, and that it's easy to see at a glance if I'm getting off track. Those silly little squares can be so motivating, LOL! And it's such a small amount of tracking that I don't feel it's overwhelming like calorie counting.

Some people only use the habitcal to get on track initially or if they feel they need it to get back on track if they are straying. I just keep using it, and since I check in on the board most days, it's easy to also check off my habitcal.

Thank you for your words of encouragement and tips, vmsurbat and Merry! Today is officially my first day of NoS, so I'm VERY excited! I'm not sure what sort of success I'll see weight-wise, but I'm genuinely looking forward to no longer feeling like a mental slave to food.

I haven't dabbled with the HabitCal yet, but I will be tinkering with it this week to see if I like it as a method of tracking progress. I'm sort of old school and really enjoy pencil and paper for keeping myself organized (I've been attached to my daily and monthly planners since middle school, haha)... we'll see which method I adopt longterm. I'm guessing that it doesn't matter, as long as you're holding yourself accountable and have a way to objectively see how well you've been complying with NoS.

One other thing that popped into my head--how often do most folks weigh themselves on NoS? I usually weigh myself once a week (typically Saturdays, first thing in the morning)... would that be considered excessive? Not frequently enough?

Thanks again for all the tips! I'll be making my way through quite a few stickies today. Fortunately, work should be pretty slow...

~Gracie

Hi Gracie,

I'm probably out of the ordinary, but I'm a daily weigher.

Weight isn't really a stagnant number, you can vary up to 5 lbs on a given day depending on what time of day you weigh. So I like to look at trends instead of any individual weight. To look at trends, you need more information, so I weigh every morning. I then plug my information into Trendweight.com (I have it linked to my fitbit) to do the trend analysis for me.

Because I'm only looking for a data point for my trend analysis, the particular number on the scale that morning holds no emotion for me. I'm simply collecting data and it helps me to understand my personal weight fluctuations better.

Gracie wrote: One other thing that popped into my head--how often do most folks weigh themselves on NoS? I usually weigh myself once a week (typically Saturdays, first thing in the morning)... would that be considered excessive? Not frequently enough?

You'll find the whole gambit--I know someone on here who weighs twice a day, daily, weekly, monthly, and not at all! Do what you're comfortable with.

I weigh daily to understand daily fluctuations as Zoid said.

Thanks, Zoid & Merry!

I appreciate all the information. I'll give myself one week to adjust to NoS, then I'll see if I can transition into daily weigh-ins. I know my mental state can be a bit fragile, so I wonder if it's best for me to leave it to once a week... we'll see how I do.

Thank you so much for all the input. I'm excited about getting a chance to post about my first day. So far, so good!

~Gracie

How about weighing after three weeks of total compliance? Then weigh for one week straight and average it.

Weighing will be your reward for the REAL target habit.

Honestly, I wouldn't change anything about how you weigh unless you want to. I don't think daily weighing works for everyone (I do it because I find weekly weighing and monthly weighing actually discourage me MORE than daily--no big surprises with daily weighing and if I'm suddenly up or down 3 lbs. in a day, I know it's not "real".)

I really like your idea, oolala53! Your mentality about it being a real reward for actually adopting the new eating habits makes a lot of sense. 🙂

Thanks, Merry! I’ll trial some weighing options, then if I find that it’s distracting me too much, I’ll probably revert back to my tried and true 1x/week. I’m really looking forward to the positive changes that are to come.

~Gracie

Hi there! So, first of all, I am not petite, as I am 5'7'', but thought, I would jump in. Ever read the book "French Women Don't Get Fat"? It's a very similar concept to this. Eat only at meal time. Don't snack. Avoid sweets. This is supposedly the way that all French women eat and from my understanding, there are a fair amount of petite French women. Hope that helps.

Hi, levictoria!

Thanks for chiming in! I definitely love hearing more perspectives. I have not ever heard of that book, but it sounds fascinating. I have been to France twice, and I can certainly say that pretty much everyone I met was itty bitty (not necessarily in height, but certainly in weight).

It's definitely great practical advice... I look forward to investigating this additional resource.

xx

Actually, it's mostly the urban French women who eat like that. The author herself was someone who would eat a couple of bites of something and stop if it wasn't perfect, and then not replace it with anything else. A bit "ideal" for me.

Short women who have been overweight do have their work cut out for them. They often need a lot less food to be slim than the amount that's considered necessary in our culture. They need even less food to be slim than short women who have never been overweight. Curses!

But you can't ask yourself for much more than just eating what you consider reasonable for a period of time and then seeing if you really need that much. No one is going to get and stay slim if it demands feeling like you "can't" eat. It has to feel like a fair trade.

I am short (5"1"), older, so it's been tough to maintain my weight loss. No breakfast M-F and very small plates. The weight was easier coming off than maintaining, but that may be because the thrill is gone, and I wanna eat!

And I also weigh myself everyday to keep a close check. Once a week wasn't working for me.

I have read a fair amount on the Blue Zones, areas in the world in which a significant percentage of the people live to 100. It's not largely advertised but I found one site that told about the average calorie intake of the citizens.

Hold on to your hats: the average for women was 900-1500 calories a day. Average. Meaning if they ate more for celebrations, they tended to eat less other times. Though some women can eat more than others, I"m assuming the lower average was for shorter women.

I don't recommend this, but it just puts things in a perspective.

Thanks for the input, noni and oolala! I actually have a copy of the Blue Zones, due to my husband's role as a professor of Anthropology and Human Geography. It's a good read, for certain!

I've always thought it to be interesting how some people find it strange for someone to say they only eat 1000ish calories. If you are as short as I am, I think it makes sense that we'd need less food (unless training for a marathon or something along those lines). I've never been a fan of calorie counting, but I know that my maintenance for weighing within the mid 100s was around 1500 kcal/day.

It's really not too much of a sacrifice, especially since there is the allowance of variability! If you indulge more in one day, then just take it easy the next. I've always been a believer that your weekly averages make a bigger difference than one single day's choices, anyhow.

It's not to say that some short, small women eat more and somehow burn it off. But you'd know if you were one of them already...