Everyday Systems

Dear all,

I've been lurking here for a while, and very happy with "No S"! What a relief... I've always been quite slim, but I do have some VERY BAD binge-y eating habits that I know will catch up with me someday as I get older and my metabolism slows down. I'm trying to use "No S" to get myself into some good permanent habits.

I just have a little modification that I made up for myself and like and want to share, because maybe it'll be helpful for other folks. My main problem is eating way too much in social food situations. Like--before I started no S-ing--I'd go to a dinner party vowing to only eat very small amounts of the nutritious things on offer, and then my id would rebel at the unfairness of such a draconian rule and so I'd eat ALL the peanuts before dinner. Especially if it was an informal, mill-around thing without a plate you could use to judge portions.

So I invented this method to deal with the problem of the MANY situations where there just isn't one plate--social occasions, cheese-and-cracker time, cocktail parties where there's good food and it's at dinner time and no one's going to get a meal with you afterwards but you have a little napkin not a plate, restaurants with a small-plate format (tapas, what have you), multi-course meals, restaurants if everyone's sharing, dinner parties where there're various salads, breads, and stuff being passed around... Sometimes there just aren't enough S days to absorb all these situations. For me, I found "virtual plating" just TOO advanced (especially with a drink or two in me, which tends to come with the territory). I had a hard time being sure whether I'd done it right or not, so then I'd decide that I hadn't, and if I hadn't, why not eat ALL the olives? Or it would just seem too hard to keep track, so then I'd throw up my hands and eat cookies. Stupid, but I can be like that. That's why I need a little structure; that's why I'm here.

So, my solution--in these less-than-ideal situations, when it's not an S day--is to take "no seconds" really literally while completely ignoring Reinhard's explanation of what that means. I take "no seconds" to mean you can take one serving from each plate on offer (ONE forkful from your friend's plate if she's raving about it and begging you to try it, ONE chip with salsa at the restaurant, ONE olive plus ONE cracker with cheese during hors d'oeuvre-y time, ONE item from each plate if you want it during cocktail-party-as-dinnertime.) And then you do NOT touch that plate again. And no sweets. This is just a way to deal with mealtimes that take the form of small plates or hors d'oeuvres. Naturally, when there's a cheese and fruit and cookies and crackers and hummus etc. spread around and it's NOT a meal time, then I just don't touch it at all!

And sometimes, at meals, it just feels more civilized to have things on different plates. I like to have my fruit and salad on the side. I think feeling "civilized," and making the meal look pretty, is important. Definitely the French like to put things on different plates. So I prefer to discard the "one plate" interpretation, but keep strictly to the "no seconds" rule--the bread basket doesn't go around again.

Anyway, with my "alternative to virtual plating," I feel like I can deal with social food situations without fuss, and get my OCD-tendencies working for me, not against me!

Am curious to hear what other people do in these kind of smorgasbord-y situations. This works for me because I have a good eye for portion size, and usually just order a soup or appetizer at a restaurant to avoid the overheaped plate, but have a tendency to eat, like, elevenths of things if they're tasty.

Thanks, Reinhard, for inventing this brilliant approach.

M

Just realized I wrote this a little ambiguously: I don't mean just one bite from each plate, which, in some contexts, would be crazy, but one normal-person serving (one cracker, yes, but one serving of salad or one piece of bread with one pat of butter, or one normal serving of the fried rice going around...) Of course this only works if you have a good idea of what a normal-person serving is. I do, so it works. It keeps me from having 6 normal-person servings in a row, which is sometimes my tendency.

Mary, love your suggestion. I have been scanning the board and always like the variety of ideas that people come up with to combat odd ball situations, or just modifications that are necessary to some of us.

Something you didn't address and I would like to, is that I hate to make a spectacle of myself (diet wise) in public. I just want to do my thing and not get an earful about it. But with your idea everyone can see that you are indulging in all the goodies too, but not over doing it. Actually I don't think people notice now much we aren't eating, but they always seem to notice when we don't eat at all.

I am trying hard to get my S days balanced out a bit rather than a free for all. It's hard to break the mentality that I won't be able to have certain things for another week so I better stock up on them while I can - even if I don't really want them all that badly. I was thinking about last weekend and I think I could have applied this idea and felt better about those S days.

I will let you know how it goes, the next time I have an occasion to use it.

Thanks
Dawn

Mary,

Thank you for posting this! It sounds like a very sensible modification -- and it's still "literally" compliant with the no s rules (which, superficial as it may seem, is actually an important safeguard). It's open to abuse, of course, but if the alternative is certain failure, then a bit of risk is preferable to that -- especially if you know that you can manage that risk (virtual plating, as you point out is also open to abuse, maybe even more so). And I'm pretty sure others have reported using a similar interpretation as well, so you have company as well (I'll see if I can dig up the posts).

Best of luck and keep us updated! If it works for you, it's likely to work for others as well.

Reinhard

Hey, Dawn and Reinhard,

Thanks! Yeah, making a spectacle of oneself one way or the other (refusing any of the homemade guacamole your best friend made, OR eating all of the guacamole, OR, even worse, doing first the one and then the other) is no good. So "no seconds" works well!

Oh my gosh, my appetite is so much more normal when I don't eat any snacks. They "spoil your appetite"--don't just make you not want the next meal, but make your appetite generally out of whack and unpredictable.

Not to be too darkly conspiratorial, but I think the explosion of snack culture in American since the 1970s has a lot to do with our unbridled capitalism of the same era... If you have a nation of snackers, they're always going to be going into stores, probably buying other stuff while they're at it. (And junk food profit margins are huge.) Snacks keep you in the habit of CONSUMING all the time. And the "grazing" espoused by diet gurus just feeds into it. What I love about this approach is it frees you from having to buy stuff--you're doing what's good and sensible for you, not for somewhat else's profit margins.

What a refreshing approach!

M

What I love about this approach is it frees you from having to buy stuff--you're doing what's good and sensible for you, not for somewhat else's profit margins.

Indeed.

Mary, I love your idea! It will definitely simplify things when you are at a party. Thanks for your input!

I don't think it would work for me. I went for Chinese buffet the other day, and I knew if I allowed myself a salad plate and a main course plate I would over-do. Maybe as I become better at self-control?

Becky

How interesting to hear this, Mary!, you know, yesterday, we went out with my husband, we don't do that much, only a few times a year, so when we do, we go all out!.
Anyway, we went to a casino and to the buffet restaurant in it, once we paid, my husband looked at me with a frown and said : you are going to eat, I mean we paid for the food, already, arent you?.
So, I did just what you suggested, I took tiny amounts of different stuff and put them in my plate, I was able to fit seven different stuff in one buffet plate, which as you know, aren't all that big.
My husband was satisfied that he got a "good eating deal for the money" (God, I hate that concept!) and I left having eaten a lot of different stuff without feeling even remotely stuffed, now, those tiny half-a-serving spoon-portions didn't look so ridiculous any longer.
But I did wonder if I had done things right, or perhaps violated a rule or something.
And now I see that was the right thing to do, in a few plates or in one plate, just eat a little of each thing; thanks for posting this, Mary!.