Everyday Systems

I stumbled upon the NoS website by accident, and it seems just what I need after being plagued with a vicious cycle of starving and binging. It's about moderation, eh?

My motivation to "diet" is twofold. First, I want to lose weight and not feel so tired from the crappy food I eat. Secondly, I want to lose the guilt I associate with eating. What an awful thing it is to have such a convoluted relationship with something that can be so lively and wonderful!

I've tried NoS for about a week with mixed results. When I had good NoS days, I felt accomplished. I struggled with not having my granola bars that tided me over in the mornings and afternoons, but found that tea and coffee could surprisingly keep me going and satiated in between meals that are larger than normal for me (i.e., my caloric distribution was shuffled around).

The days when I had sweets got pretty out of control. I guess this is natural when you're trying to form new habits, so despite the guilt that's always associated with eating sweets, I'd like to stick with the NoS attitude.

My question is this: how does counting calories fit into the NoS plan? Before I found NoS, I'd been counting calories through TheDailyPlate.com, with success. It's nice to track what I'm eating, but I can't help feeling this is not a way to set up a habit, since I don't want to log every food I eat for the rest of my life. On the other hand, losing weight is math, and when I track a 3500-calorie deficit, I know I have lost a pound. Plus, it ensures my meals aren't high-carb, low-fiber monstrosities.

What does everyone feel about counting calories when you're trying to lose weight whilst changing your habits/relationship with food on the NoS plan?

You don't need to count calories, just eat three good plates of food each day.

dinosaursue wrote:What does everyone feel about counting calories when you're trying to lose weight whilst changing your habits/relationship with food on the NoS plan?

It's not that calories don't count. They do. They really do.

You COULD fill a plate with bacon and it would be to the letter of the No S law.

When you're trying to establish the habit of not snacking, it isn't even that horrible an idea to just fill a plate and be done with it. Once you've got THAT habit down, THEN you can start tweaking.

I do try to make any meal I eat half fibrous veggies by volume (you know broccoli, green beans, salad, whatever -- fruit if it's breakfast), then 1/4 whole grain/really nutrient dense carb (brown rice, beans, sweet potato, oatmeal if it's breakfast, that sort of thing), then 1/4 lean protein. If you're not eating a lot of fat, the calories will take care of themselves with this and you'll be eating an insanely healthy diet.

I did NOT try to do this until I had the idea of NO SNACKING down first. That took awhile. A LONG while. Get the habit first. It's the most important part.

Thanks. Changing the habit of snacking and eating way too many sweets is so hard. When I was counting calories, I lost weight, but I also was obsessive about what I ate and pretty much grazed throughout the day on foods that, although very healthy, were not helping me foster a healthy relationship with food. On NoS, I'm working on my relationship, but the results aren't as dramatic...well, mostly 'cause I have little semi-cheats.

I'm going to focus on the no snacking, which is really hard. I'll try to partition my plate up as you suggested, but I think you're right in saying I should try to do one thing at a time. A marathon, not a sprint, eh? Well, if only they made cookie dough-flavored chewing gum. Then all my weight problems would be solved!

And really, once you fill a plate up with bacon once, you tend not to do it again in a hurry.

NoS is kind of self-regulating that way

While it is true that losing weight boils down to caloric inputs vs. expenditures, I do not think consciously doing this math is helpful (or even possible) long term. No S provides a shortcut to caloric restriction that bypasses the math. It's sort of like how the simple act of walking across the room "boils down" to enormously complex biochemistry and physics -- if we had to consciously understand this in order to do it we'd never move an inch.

If you are concerned about excessive S days (podcast pending, really! Book release knocked me temporarily off schedule...), there are many other tactics besides calorie counting. Like: intentionally and proactively rewarding yourself on S-days to pre-empt resentful bingeing (this is my favorite tactic, on a number of levels). And/or plan 3 full meals each S day -- with a really nice desert after dinner as a reward, and or a sweet breakfast like pancakes or waffles. Then you keep the rough pattern of your weekdaily, meal based eating and don't start permasnacking (which isn't actually very satisfying, even on S days). And/or simply waiting for a few weeks of the "self regulating" disgust silverfish mentions to whittle down your portions (this, multiplied by weekday habits starting to carry over, becomes remarkably effective after a few weeks). The most important thing is not to get discouraged -- big picture, if you're good during the week, you will get your weight under control. The big danger of excessive S-days is not the calories, but the potential for discouragement -- and then either giving up or reactively loading on all kinds of new, unmaintainable restrictions. That's a real danger of course, but it's much easy to beat back if you're aware of it.

Reinhard

Not sure if it's 'disgust' - one of the best things about NoS is that there is no guilt or disgust. Physical illness, on the other hand, is a great teacher. A few all-out weekends and you start to appreciate the advantages of consequences-based learning!