Everyday Systems

Hi all,

Weighed myself this morning and another 2lbs off. That is 35lbs in total.

If I was reading this and this was someone else’s post I would be full of questions. How are you doing it? What are you eating? Do you exercise? Etc etc. So I thought I would answer those questions.

I eat three plates of any food each day. Nothing on those plates is high sugar or sweet. I don’t snack. I don’t have seconds. My exercise of choice is lots of cleaning the house and ironing because I hate cleaning as much as exercising, I must clean so it kills two birds with one stone and I get a clean house in return.

My S days are more S meals because one day off the rails would equal diet over. S events are Christmas dinner and Christmas tea. Dinner so I can have some Christmas pudding and custard and Christmas tea so I can have trifle and some Christmas cake. Other than that I have genuinely gone right off puddings, sweets, cakes, biscuits and chocolate so I have stopped eating these for the sake of it. I now enjoy any coffee between meals any day, regardless of its calories or ingredients so long as there isn’t any sweet syrups. I have zero cal sweeteners in my coffee. On my birthday we will order a takeaway curry and I will pack the curry, rice, some naan bread and an onion Bhaji on one plate so I won’t break any rules. I won’t bother with a birthday cake. The foods I love and crave I can have any day, I now dream of cheese sandwiches, a bag of crisps, and an apple and don’t even think about anything else so there is no deprivation at all.

Four out of seven evening meals are meat & veg. Takeaways are once in a blue moon. McDonalds happens occasionally but again it is just a diet drink, the chips and a burger, nothing else, not made large or supersized just regular.

So there you are, that is what I do and that is what is working. If you push the rules to the limits don’t expect to lose weight. In the book it says on S days SOMETIMES seconds, sweets or snacks - SOMETIMES is the word - you don’t have to eat those Ss for the sake of it. I use the ruler of - Don’t be an idiot or ignore common sense!

Have a good week!

Anne xxxxx

Congratulations to you on developing strong habits and making progress! I am still working on getting consistent.

I am pretty good about eating 3 meals and keeping it to one plate. I like to cook, and I always eat breakfast with my kid, so that part came naturally to me. I try to make a good 1/2 or at least 1/3 of the plate to be vegetables or fruit. I have plateaued a bit on my weight loss and probably need to get more strict on my habits. I have a red day most weeks. On the weekend, I often have more than one S, which also could be contributing to my slowdown. However, it also makes this way of eating seem quite comfortable and normal.

I have also fallen off the wagon on exercise during this winter. Most days I walk 3,000-6,000 steps just in my general life, but beyond that, not so much. Once the ice and snow melt, I do run about 10+ miles/week.

Jenji, you will get there.
I have actually found that since stopping eating sugar that my body now reacts really badly to it. I have found that when I eat cake I get bloated and gassy and my mood plummets especially if the cake is iced. I’m guessing that I have an issue with yeast and that this could’ve been causing me problems for years.

I think you have to get to a point when eating the high sugar foods really disagrees with you to the point where it actually puts you off eating those foods again. I have craved chocolate bars and then when I’ve come to eat them I have found that they taste absolutely disgusting. It was almost as if my mental image of eating them was far better than the actual reality.

The biggest shocker for me has been disliking puddings in restaurants after a meal out. I suspect I’ve always had the pudding because it’s been on offer and not actually because I genuinely wanted it. On Mother’s Day here in the UK we went out for meal and I had a pudding and it was vile. Next time I go out for meal I plan on having a really nice coffee afterwards instead of a pudding because I found it that unpleasant.

I suspect that a lot of the positive changes that I have made and continue to make, I am able to do so because of stopping all the psychiatric medications that I was on. I may become a real pain in the ass to try and convince people to stay off any form of medication wherever possible because of the massive changes that I have witnessed first-hand. The detrimental impact of the drugs I’ve had to take over years, could not be exaggerated and have had consequences so disabling that I often wonder whether I should sue the doctors who had me on them for so long knowing how ill they made me.

Keep going Jenji, you will get there in the end. It has literally taken me years to get to this point, years of red days, but the key is to not give up you will get there in the end - that i do know.

Way to go Anne! Thanks for the tips too. I admit I used to be an idiot on. every S day but this past week I'm finally getting it right. Hope I can have your successs someday!

Your comment:

My exercise of choice is lots of cleaning the house and ironing because I hate cleaning as much as exercising, I must clean so it kills two birds with one stone and I get a clean house in return.

I love this, and will remember it next time I am dreading the household cleaning chores!

So glad you found success with no s !

Thanks for the encouraging post. I especially need to remember this in the moment of temptation for lots of different foods:

Mustloseweight wrote:...my mental image of eating them was far better than the actual reality.

As Oolala so helpfully reminds me, I can wait...

Keep up the good work, and congratulations on the clean house.

It is such a simple process. I have people ask me (when I am on task with No S...) how I lose weight.

When I tell people the protocol they are incensed that I do not snack, or can stick to a plate a meal. Usually I hear, "You need to eat six meals a day to rev up your metabolism..."

I recall when Reinhard was on Jimmy Moore's podcast and afterward the low carbers were hands in the air about eating rice, or having bread with a meal.

It is almost like Moses, telling the Israelites to look at the staff to be healed, but such a simple thing was not appealing.

Keep at it, and if you need a house to clean let me know.

I dunno, I feel my meds saved me, but maybe I lucked out with the diagnosis. Or maybe the problems will show up later, but the problems that I took them for were pretty bad! And they didn't interfere with No S. I'm so glad for you getting off them was a turning point in so many ways. I plan on weaning myself at some point, but just not yet.. Still like my sleep.

I've continued to lose some weight in the past couple of years as I've adjusted again what's on the plate and some meal timing. Sometimes colleagues ask me what I've done and I say, well, it's taken 8 years and it started with three meals a day on weekdays. Now hardly anyone even asks any followup questions. (I don't think they can get here by starting with my most recent habits. I couldn't have! Unless I was sick.)

I suspect that some people have to be idiots for awhile on S days to get really convinced that they shouldn't be by their own experience. Nothing like really seeing that something is making you miserable to get willing to bite the bullet!

Anne, it sounds like your bullet these says is delicious.

Anne, I like the idea of getting exercise from housework as well and killing two birds with one stone. (I do also enjoy a good walk outdoors as well, so I do that when weather permits.) Very good post! Congratulations for losing 2.5 stone.

Fantastic news, Anne - and so encouraging. Thanks for outlining your "secrets" for us!

Yeah, housework. Because I don't have a lot of tolerance. I often set a timer for 14 minutes, quit mid-project, and go from room to room. I couldn't believe some days how many steps I accumulated! And more pleasant rooms to look at.

I'm happy to hear about your success. Thank you for sharing this with us here