Everyday Systems

I followed NoS for about a year with great success. I got rid of the vanity weight that was always bothering me, learned to take control of my insane snacking habits (especially late-night snacking) and in general became a lot more comfortable with my body and my relationship with food. What's more, prior to doing NoS, in order to keep my weight relatively stable I felt like I had to run obsessively (20+ miles a week!), which I never really enjoyed. But after learning to eat more sensibly, I found running that much simply wasn't necessary.

Recently, I've taken the effort to sort of move beyond NoS. I feel like eating within those strict parameters for a year was enough time to really change my whole approach to food, and that I no longer need to place as many limitations on myself--or, more accurately, that saying No sometimes doesn't even really feel like a limitation at all, just an exercise in common sense =)

For the vast majority of the time, I still stick to three squares a day and no snacking, and that works well for me. I am vegan, though, and occasionally if I have a meal that I find wasn't really satisfying or filling enough (which happens sometimes when eating out because menu selections are limited) I might need a small snack to tide me over to the next meal. For instance, last weekend I ate at a seafood place with family and had to order a relatively plain vegetable salad, and my meal didn't have any starches or protein. Obviously, that wasn't the most satisfying meal in the world, so later that afternoon I had a handful of pecans and whole grain cereal--no biggie.

The biggest change, I think, is when it comes to desserts. I definitely have a sweet tooth, and I noticed that when I limited myself to only being ABLE to have desserts on Saturday or Sunday, I would pack in wayyyy too many things, end up feeling sick, and spend the next day or two waiting for the bloat in my stomach to go down. It felt sort of gluttonous and ridiculous, not to mention childish. Do I really need an "assigned" time where I can snack? Am I that unable to handle myself? After a year on NoS, I can happily say the answer is no. Now I know I will never have dessert every day, but if the opportunity comes up on a weekday, depending on the occasion, I will take it. I'll be more relaxed about it too, because I know I can have dessert again whenever I feel like it--that is, I don't have to have 3 servings of pie in one sitting JUST because its a Saturday, because I know that if I want one slice on Tuesday, that's really just fine.

This has worked really well for me! I think I may have even lost a little bit more weight, because there's never a time where I feel the desire to gorge myself or get what I feel is my S-Days' worth of treats. Has anyone else experienced anything like this?

That is great, marygrace!

Even I, the "founder," haven't so deeply trained myself in moderation that I would feel comfortable throwing off the training wheels for good. But it certainly makes sense that no-s might do that for you and others. As a bunch of conscious rules no-s is great, but it's even better as a tool for re-training your unconscious habits. As you follow the rules, they change you.

But I would advise people who are considering moving beyond no-s to be very careful. You can't really ever forget how to ride a bike once you've learned it -- but you can unlearn moderation. So in general I'd say keep the training wheels on a good and long time after you think you've gotten it down, just to be sure. And if they're not feeling obtrusive (I like the rules, I think I'd keep abiding by them even if I didn't need them), it's safest to keep them on forever. And easy -- the more you let these conscious rules form your unconscious habits, the less you'll find those habits bumping up against them. You'll barely notice them.

But it sounds like you're doing exactly what's right for you, margygrace. I just wanted to caution other people who might not know themselves quite so well. Congratulations and thanks for letting us know!

Reinhard

marygrace wrote:What's more, prior to doing NoS, in order to keep my weight relatively stable I felt like I had to run obsessively (20+ miles a week!), which I never really enjoyed. But after learning to eat more sensibly, I found running that much simply wasn't necessary.

I think it's interesting that you found running 20+ miles weekly "obsessive." I'm not a fan of The China Study, but one of the things I found interesting about it is that the people they had to call "sedentary" (generally the elderly and infirm) because they got the least exercise of those they studied, walked or biked 2-10 miles daily.

Wosnes-

I guess when you break it down, I was running about 4 miles a day, 5 days a week, which took about 40 minutes per day. Certainly, 40 minutes of vigorous exercise 5 times a week isn't obsessive--I certainly wouldn't think anything of it if someone else said they did that. I guess it just felt obsessive to me because it was something that I really disliked doing, and it turned into like this guilt thing where I was "good" if I forced myself to run and "bad" if I didn't. What's more, if I ran, I always made myself think that I deserved to eat whatever I wanted, because I'd burned so many calories.

I definitely encourage people to be active, and still lead a pretty active life myself. I ride my bicycle to work every day (about a half hour ride each way) and usually walk to a lot of the places I need to go. But since all this activity is integrated into my lifestyle, it doesn't feel like a chore. It's just a normal thing that I don't really think about.

^ That's cool! I try to make my cardio and urban rangering a part of my travel as well. I find it much easier to do and much more enjoyable when it has a purpose of getting somewhere as opposed to just exercise for the sake of exercise.

Truth be told, I hate exercise for the sake of exercise so much that I don't even bother trying anymore, I just never stick with it. It's amazing how much I am enjoying shovelglove but I think it is purposeful in my mind as I can link it with garden work and things like that easily so it's not completely pointless like most other exercise.