Everyday Systems

Hi,
I was just wondering..does anyone else make the distinction between small and large S days? I tend to find that whenever I have a non-weekend S day ( e.g. friend's birthday)..i use that excuse to binge like crazy the whole day..even more than I would on a normal weekend, just because it seems like an 'opportunity' to grab and make the most out of??

So this thursday is one of my close friend's birthday..and incidentally there's a strawberry flan sitting in my fridge right now which one of my housemates made..I managed to deny a piece of flan today because it is an N day..but i'm really worried I'm going to end up attacking it on Thursday because it will be my friend's birthday and thus an 'S' day...

I was thinking shall I make thursday a small 's' day, and give myself a red if I have more than what's required of the s day (i.e. a piece of my friend's bday cake)...or is that too restrictive???

Sorry if that sounded too long-winded and confusing!

Things like birthdays and Thanksgiving/Christmas dinners I'll eat more S's than typical S days.

My son's b'day was yesterday and the cake was so completely tasty and moist that I had 2 pieces! but there ya go.

Today was a successful N day

I think small s and big S make perfect sense... IF it works for you. The only way you'll know is to try it.

I tried "small s" on regular weekends, and I found it too restrictive, and rebelled. But I think I could do it as you describe, so that "friend's birthday" equals "b'day cake only".

Good luck!

Makes sense to have big and small S-days.

I usually use an S-day (any S-day) as an excuse to eat everything, so I am going to try if this will work to keep me from overeating.

I don't consciously make a distinction between the two, but I do keep a calendar in my kitchen and I get a sticker for no s days and a big "SDAY" in marker for my sdays. on s days, I write down what my treats are, so it might say Sday 3 bowls of ice cream and 6 cookies (eek!) or it might say s day 1 sopapilla with honey.

I don't systematically do this, but I think it's a great idea if you're having trouble keeping S-days from resembling professional eating contests.

For those who are unfamiliar with this tactic, I think it was first described here:

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=28066

and further elucidated here:

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=30447

Simply keeping a count of S events (or a log of what you actually ate), without imposing a hard limit, might be helpful too. It'll exert a gentle pressure to keep the count from getting too embarrassingly high without stifling you with extra restrictions. And it might help to diagnose what a reasonable lowercase s-day limit might be. Warning: I tried this a few weeks ago just to see how annoying it was and I have to admit, it's not nearly as nice as the feeling of complete freedom I have on a "no tracking" S day. So there is a cost, even here. Still, as a temporary measure, if you're having trouble with unrestricted S-days, it's worth considering. It's certainly a lot less annoying than most other "extras" I can think of.

Reinhard

For myself, I do not impose additional measures on S days, I just let them be S days. I am a perfectionist by nature and adding extra rules is the begining of the end for me.

I have found that as my N days become more natural and ingrained my S days (even at social functions where snacks are the main focus) are far more controlled.

I figure that small S days are those days in which you let yourself some leniency towards that S that you would enjoy at that particular day the most, maybe you want to have sweets, maybe you want to have seconds, maybe you want to snack here and there? then do it without remorse.

And big S days... well, to me those would be days in which my Ss can't be controlled, holidays in which there's a full house and no time to be thinking about Ss and what not, wedding parties, baptisms, long distance travel, than kind of days in which you are completely out of your daily routine.
Those days, just go with the flow; there's always time to make up for it when you go back to your normal, daily routine.

I kind of do this sometimes. What I do is treat it as an N-day during the workday and an S-day after work.