Everyday Systems

I love the simplicity and common sense of this diet. I love the writing style and lack of ego of its author. I see how it can work long-term.

But I'm on Day 10. I gained three pounds over the weekend. Unlike Reinhard's, my weight is usually very stable at 124 pounds. I'm a fairly small middle-aged female. I'm an idiot. I can't expect to stay at the same weight or lose the 4 pounds I want to lose if I'm eating more--for me especially sweets-- on the weekends. Time for me to "tweak".

Your weight was fairly stable before you started noS, but wasn't it because your eating patterns were the same whatever the day ?

NoS is inherently cyclic and personally I almost always weigh 1-2 pounds more on Mondays than on Fridays. Sometimes it's more than that - stomach/bowel/bladder contents count, as does water retention.

You can compute averages if you want to have objective data regarding your progress. See here a chart I made last year .

Of course you can tweak. I've done my fair share of tweaking myself and I will probably continue to tweak occasionally. But in the end, I found only the basic rules of NoS are really sustainable long term... that and a basic check of meal composition (visually check that the proportion of protein, veggies/fruit and carbs is not too unbalanced on most meals).

Short term fluctuations in any system are rarely indicative of long term trends. This is a long term (tens of years, quite easily) eating plan, meaning that ten days is insufficient to form any useful opinion.

Of those ten days, four have been S-days. This means that the first two days allowed you to behave exactly as you had been before, leaving seven days of useful data (today isn't over yet).

I'd give it a bit more of a chance as is. Patience!

ThomsonsPier wrote:Short term fluctuations in any system are rarely indicative of long term trends. This is a long term (tens of years, quite easily) eating plan, meaning that ten days is insufficient to form any useful opinion.

I'd give it a bit more of a chance as is. Patience!

I agree. Beyond that, I'd ditch the scales or at least not pay much attention to them. Not only does our weight vary from day-to-day, it varies during the course of day and often by several pounds.

Relax.

ThomsonsPier wrote:Short term fluctuations in any system are rarely indicative of long term trends. This is a long term (tens of years, quite easily) eating plan, meaning that ten days is insufficient to form any useful opinion.

I'd give it a bit more of a chance as is. Patience!

I agree. Beyond that, I'd ditch the scales or at least not pay much attention to them. Not only does our weight vary from day-to-day, it varies during the course of day and often by several pounds.

Relax.

I used to compulsively weigh myself every morning and track the results - did this for over 10 years.

Every monday morning that I tracked my weight was up - no matter how good I had been over the weekend and I recon it is because I drink less water over the weekends and I eat different foods, I also do different activities - all of these impact on my body and daily scale weight.

I know that when I was doing WW I would often have two great weeks on a trot only to have the scale go up! This can be caused by many different reasons.

I have stopped this behaviour in favour of building the No S habit and only weigh monthly now.

Your body is still adjusting to the changes in eating patterns that you are now following and is waiting to see what mad thing you might do next. I would recommend putting your scale in the cupboard for a month and concentrate on building the habits of No S.

Thanks for all the helpful comments! I do know that being a pig cannot be an option for me (I must quash that before my next S day!) but your comments on being patient are well-taken.

I was just listening to the Michael Pollan interview and he said something that I've heard before and makes sense: "Eat all the junk food you like -- as long as you make it yourself." Think about it -- if you had to make the French Fries or potato chips or Twinkies or cookies or cakes or whatever, you wouldn't eat nearly as much of it because it takes a lot of effort in the making of it -- not to mention the clean-up.

I don't think I could make the Cheetohs!

Hi Jesseco,

I would take a close look at the chart Rose linked to (thank you again for posting this, Rose!). The individual measurements seem to be jumping all over the place -- but the trend line is very clear. If Rose had been obsessing over individual measurements, she might have quickly concluded that it wasn't really working.

10 days is not time to start considering tweaks. I would give it at least a solid month -- preferably more. I think you'll find, at that point, that you no longer have to tweak.

The best "non-tweak" I know of keeping S-days reasonably moderate is proactively rewarding yourself -- thinking in advance of an especially nice treat. That way you'll be less likely to just grab everything in sight. Random crap just won't seem all that appealing when you've got something really good in mind.

That, plus, your N-day habits gradually carrying over, should almost certainly be enough, long term, to keep your S-days from being damagingly immoderate.

And remember, an occasional over the top S-day will happen (especially at the beginning). It happens to me too, even now. Don't worry about it. The biggest danger of such excesses is not the excess in itself, but to provoke you to take revenge on yourself by piling on loads of unsustainable new rules.

Reinhard

Thank you. I did study Rose's very helpful chart (thank you, Rose!) and do find it impressive. But I really think I personally need just a little more structure on S days; I'm not sure what.

I understand how it is a big danger to impose unsustainable rules, and do not want to do that. But it was very discouraging yesterday to feel so bloated that my pants, which haven't been tight for a long time, were uncomfortably so!

I'm taking the cautions seriously--thanks--they are very helpful. I will give myself the especially nice treat next S day, but try not to cram everything in just because I can!

Jesseo, you might check out Dawn's thread on S-day challenges.

I do suggest waiting until you go one month on "vanilla" No-S before making changes - gives time for new habits to settle. At first, there's a tendency to eat a LOT at meals because "this is all I get." It takes a while to get over that.

In fact, I might suggest you wait until you have a PERFECT month on N-days... there's a real tendency to blame S-days for N-day failures.

But I understand needing more S-day structure. The trick is NOT hemming yourself in so that it's like any other diet. And waiting one month is a good start on that.

KCCC, I agree with you (in principle, at least!) but gaining weight (or also belly as in my case!) is discouraging if done right off the bat.

I am also reading Dawn's thread and enjoying it immensely. I will TRY to not tweak the diet for a month, but I will also TRY not to be a pig on S days!