Everyday Systems

What habits are easiest for you? Which are the hardest?

For me:

Easy: no sweets, not eating after dinner (surprise!)

Hard: not snacking during the day, saying "no" at social occasions

Betty

Easy: S Days

No Snacks ... No Seconds

Hard: No Sweets I guess simply cause I like my chai tea lattes and when I crave something on N days that is mostly what I crave

Blueskighs

As much as I would never have thought so...the snack have been harder on me. Eating off of three plates has been a true effort - I guess I used to graze a lot!

The sweets and seconds aren't any effort at all, and had anyone asked, I definitely would have said, SWEETS would be my downfall. Not so, surprisingly enough.

Weird! The things you learn about yourself...

I don't have trouble with the no sweets and no snacks, because I've eaten this way before and also I like routine. The hardest for me is no seconds, because I'm a big eater and I truly enjoy food and the experience of eating so sometimes it's hard to stop. It feels sad - like, "The meal is over already? Dang." Working on it!

I'm with blueskighs on the S days being easy.

Otherwise, EASY: No snacks, no 2nds
HARD: no sweets

The hardest for me is no snacking at bedtime. It is a total beast of a habit and the hardest to break.
I'm okay with no sweets as long as I don't eat too many sweet things on S days. That seems to mess up my blood glucose levels so I don't dare go too wild. Not total deprivation, but certainly not a whole box of chocolate nutties
No seconds has never really been an issue. Seconds make me feel uncomfortably full.

The hardest for me is no sweets. In the beginning I was hungry before every meal, which made me realize that I was a snacker before No-S and that's why I wasn't getting hungry, but now that I've adjusted to that I rarely miss snacking. I don't seem to have any social occasions during the week, so I can't say not snacking during a social occasion is a problem. But, week after next my hubby is on vacation and his sister and her family will be here visiting. I think I'll be declaring some of those days as S-Days!

And, like OG and Blue, I've gotta say I love the S-Days!

Easiest - no seconds - super easy at breakfast and lunch - those are meals where seconds aren't really an option. Dinner is harder as there is always something left over and the smaller the left over the more tempting to just polish it off. But I try eat a good amount - always round out dinner with salad or veggies so that I am truly satisfied when the meal is over.

Medium - no snacks. This is where my long term emotional eating comes in. But now that I am really in tune with my hunger I know the diff between hunger and trying to satisfy an emotional need. But it comes up so fast that I find it hard sometimes to get a grip before food finds its way in the old pie hole.

Hard - no sweets. This is really only hard after dinner. I guess years and years of indulging in my night time dessert are just harder to kick than anything else. This has nothing to do with hunger or even emotional eating, it's just a habit plain and simple. I can go for days and days without it being that bad of a yearning, but it's always there. And some days its soooo hard. But overall this is without a doubt the easiest plan I have ever followed so I am not going to screw it up because there is no alternative for me.

Hard: S days. I don't do well with "freedom".

I'm great during the week -- no sweet cravings, no seconds. Never did the snack thing. Weekends I'm all over the place.

f

There have been a series of hard things, sort of in sequence, and things that have gotten easier.

The first hard one was snacks - I'd really bought into the "mini-meals" approach, and had trouble cutting them out. Now, don't give them a second thought.

The second hard thing was admitting mistakes. I wanted to rationalize them away and "make up" for them. No, admit it, learn, and move on. I'm much better at that - and changing that pattern has improved my whole life, not just my eating.

The third hard thing was S-days. I had almost-perfect N-days, but would fall back into awful perma-snacking habits on S-days. Those have gotten MUCH better, but I don't quite feel that they're on autopilot yet. (Maybe after 21 S-days, I will!) The key there is "think enjoyment" and plan for really good meals and treats.

Easy things for me were sodas (don't drink 'em anyway) and other caloric drinks; sweets after the first week (after a while off sugar, I don't crave it); and learning to enjoy "trigger foods" in moderation (that last surprised me, but I'll take it).

For those of you who found not snacking hard, how long did it take for the perma-snack beast to die?? I have been eating very hearty meals (esp. if I compare them to some of the check in posts I read), certainly enough to maintain my weight , but I still get very hungry before each meal. Sometimes so hungry that I can't think about anything else. Many days I end up resorting to a glass of milk.

As a card-carrying hypoglycemic, I was a 6 meals a day gal for maybe 20 years. Now, with very little sugar and caffiene, I can usually go 5 hours without a meal. But even so my body clearly has some readjusting to do, and I find it discouraging that this readjustment seems to be taking so long.

Ok, I'm impatient. Need to hear the success stories today. How long did it take y'all to stop thinking about/craving mid morning and mid afternoon snacks???

Thanks, Betty

Hmmm...

Not indulging the sweet tooth after dinner....but that seems to be fading too. Snacking seems really close to the surface - that is, least well controlled so far. If I didn't 'fence around the law', I could easily see how it could get out of control ("C'mon....it's just a piece of cheese! Cheese is good!" etc)

Betty wrote: As a card-carrying hypoglycemic, I was a 6 meals a day gal for maybe 20 years. Now, with very little sugar and caffiene, I can usually go 5 hours without a meal. But even so my body clearly has some readjusting to do, and I find it discouraging that this readjustment seems to be taking so long.

Betty,

There is a "medical loophole" on the 3 meals a day rule - do read it. You might truly be better off with more than 3. If you're making it 5 hours, try 4 meals and see how that works.

You can get slightly smaller plates, and just spread out what you're eating. And a planned meal is generally better than an un-planned snack.

If you do think it's okay for you to work on the 3 meals (and seriously, you may want to discuss this with your doctor), then you might try what I did as a transition: I set up a "limited list" of okay snack food. Healthy stuff, that I liked but wasn't SO attractive that I'd eat it just to eat it, if you know what I mean. If I became ravenous, I could have ONE item from that list to hold me.

That phased out over time, but it was better to "set myself up for success" than to keep feeling like a failure.

Good luck!

Social pressure is the only part that remains hard for me. I'm pretty good about dodging it most times, but when push comes to shove, I cave. Still, push doesn't come to shove very often, something I was surprised (and relieved) to discover.

I used to have trouble resisting the urge to "clean up" after dinner pots etc. with my mouth, but I resolved to be very strict about recording any such infractions in the habitcal and that was the end of that.

Reinhard