Help w/S days PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Dawn]

I'm back after a long and backward journey. Well I have been up and down and up again. I think I am around the same weight I was when I was here around 2 years ago, so I haven't done too much damage but I have been in that loop that we all long to escape from.

I really loved the No S plan and it just makes so much sense for me. Meal time has never been my down fall, it's the time inbetween that kills my weight loss efforts. I feel like I live in the perfect storm for temptation. I work from home and I have 3 teen sons so I am in the kitchen cooking all the time.

I did very well on No S, well during the week that is. The S days undid all the good the N/S days did and I just never got out of that cycle and felt like I was still in that roller coaster diet loop again. I lost eight pounds in about a month and then put it back on and stayed right where I started. I would consistently lose 2 pounds during the week and put it right back on by Monday. The way I was doing it was the perfect maintenance plan, only I still needed to lose the actual weight.

I left thinking I would find something else and come back to No S for maintenace. Well here I am so you can see I didn't do any better out there with any other plan.

I would really like to hear from people who had the same problem with S days and figured a way around them. I've heard a lot of people say they limit themselves to X amount of S's on those days and that's it. But do others find that if there isn't a very good reason to S that they simply don't? I know this is all about habit building and I know last time I built a habit of going nuts on S days and I just couldn't seem to stop. I also know what deprivation can cause problems in the long run and last but not least I need to make this as simple as I possilby can.

Love to hear suggestions.

Thanks
Dawn

[NoelFigart]

If you've been doing it for several months and not getting the results you need to, then yes, a mod is appropriate in my opinion. Several months is a long enough time to give it a good test.

Have you checked out Reinhard's "S-Days Gone Wild" series? It's quite good and can help you choose what you think you need to do and try it for awhile.

[Kathleen]

I can tell you that I've had the same problem. I didn't want to restrict eating on S Days, so I've decided now to go down to only Sundays and two additional floater days per month for unconditional permission to eat. This diet did get me over food obsession. Now I just need to lose more weight -- about 65 pounds more!
Kathleen

[Dandelion]

I've only been NoS for about five or six weeks, but that's the way it's been going for me. And my S days aren't even that wild.

I haven't decided how to handle it yet - maybe I'll get some ideas from this thread, too

[Remy]

I am a bit of an all or nothing type of gal. Binge or starve are two eating plans that I have been good friends with in the past. So I have also been known to go overboard on S days.

What has worked for me is to pick foods that I really like but consider "treats" and have them on S days at meal times. So, I don't normally eat croissants, crumpets with honey, toast with butter, fries, pizza, chips etc (although I could as they are permissible) on N days.

On S days I might have crumpets with honey for breakfast. That seems to satisfy my feeling of freedom and indulgence. I then usually will pretty much stick to the N day rules after that, maybe I might have seconds at dinner.

I occasionally will have an "S day gone wild" but they are fewer and far between.

I realise that my choices could all be considered N day foods but I have never thought of them as anything other that 'treats' and not something to have regularly.

[Dandelion]

For me that would work the opposite. If I decided to declare all kinds of normal, everyday foods like crumpets, pizza or toast as off limits, I'd set myself up for an all out binge. Plus, I would just plain hate trying to live like that.

Grass-fed butter and raw honey are healthy staples in my house, and crumpets are special - but only cuz I can't buy them here and I don't make them all that often

[buttercreampillow]

I'm just offering this as a possibility--feel free to take it or leave it. The most helpful thing I heard on the S Days Gone Wild podcast was to treat yourself to something really spectacular on S days. The idea is that you will lose so much interest in a bunch of mindless permasnacking if you contrast it to the really great treat you're giving yourself.

A couple of weekends ago, I asked my fiance to take me somewhere that I could get a really great dessert, like a fancy piece of cake. We went to cheesecake factory and I had a piece of dutch apple cheesecake. That was really great, but I couldn't even eat it all because it was so rich and sweet. That dessert kind of calmed me down and made me satisfied for a couple of weeks.

Hope this helps.

buttercream

[BrightAngel]

I would really like to hear from people who had the same problem with S days
and figured a way around them.

I've heard a lot of people say they limit themselves to X amount of S's on those days and that's it. But do others find that if there isn't a very good reason to S that they simply don't?

I know this is all about habit building and I know last time I built a habit of going nuts on S days and I just couldn't seem to stop.

I also know what deprivation can cause problems in the long run and last but not least I need to make this as simple as I possilby can.

Dawn, My numerous attempts at 'vanilla' No S
(beginning April 2008)
have all been unsuccessful,
so I don't have the kind of solution you are probably looking for.
What I consistently find (even after long time-periods) is ..
the more I deprive myself on N days
the more I overeat on S days.
which locks me into a Binge/Fast cycle.

After participating in this forum for over a year,
and watching myself and others,
I suspect that people who cannot achieve 'success' at 'vanilla' No S
perceive themselves
as more deprived by some of the 'vanilla' no sweets/no snacks/ or no seconds limitations
than the people who 'succeed';
and/or
3 meals/no snacks/limited sweets doesn't seem 'natural'...
... sometimes because it never before was their personal lifestyle--even in childhood.

As a child in the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s, my family usually ate 3 meals a day
but they also snacked frequently,
and ate sweets whenever they were available, which was pretty much every day.
'vanilla' No S feels 'unnatural' to me, similiar to many other diets.

The National Weight Loss Registry is a non-profit organization that is conducting research
on weight-loss maintenance of those who have lost at least 30 lbs and kept it off for years.
(I've been participating in the study for the past 3 years).
Their data shows that the vast majority of those people who keep off lost weight have certain factors in common.
One high percentage factor is that they don't treat eating on weekends as different from weekdays.

What seems to work best for me is to make certain
that I choose to follow only the No S principles
which do not trigger extreme feelings of deprivation for me,
and at present I personally, have "S" events whenever appropriate,
and don't have "S" days each weekend.

For many, many years of my life while obese,
I dieted on weekdays and binged during weekends.
That practice was a Habit of much of my Adult Lifetime.
and as you know, Habits are harder to break or repace than to form.
I am very fond of Reinhard's Habit concepts.
and his ideas have led me to do quite a lot of research on Habit.
At this time I am working to establish and maintain positive eating Habits,
although they are not 'vanilla' No S,
they do involve some No S concepts.

Success is available to you.
Just figure out what will work for you, and follow through.

[Starla]

The keys for me:

1) Make meals I enjoy on N days, so I don't go into the weekend feeling deprived.

2) PLAN a treat for each weekend day. This ensures that I'm having something I want and I'm not just in "shoving food in my face" mode.

3) Don't worry if I eat more than I wanted to. You cannot fail on S days! S days need to be stress free, at least in terms of food consumption.

Good luck!

[Kevin]

Maybe you have to plan your S-days a little?

How about seconds for any meal - if you want, desert for any meal - if you want, but just one snack between meals?

I'll bet you could pull that off.

[clarinetgal]

I'm still working on my eating, but I'm sort of eating in a way that Brightangel mentioned in her post. I can very easily follow the no snacks and no seconds rules almost perfectly (I rarely ever snack or get seconds), but it's just too hard for me to give up sweets. When I tried doing Vanilla No S, I felt deprived all of the time, and I binged on weekends -- undoing my weight loss efforts during the week.
Now, I'm not losing (I'm maintaining), but I'm at a healthy weight anyway, and I'm much happier with my way of eating. I do allow myself one treat a day, either with lunch or dinner. Since I started doing that, my eating on the weekends has been better, and I'm not bingeing nearly as much as I used to.

[wosnes]

I just posted this on the "Vanilla or nothing?" thread, but it might be helpful here as well.

As a result of reading about the mods and tweaks, I've decided to make another modification: I'm going to eliminate Saturday and Sunday as routine S days. Instead, I'm going to take S days as they come. I don't think I'm going to set a weekly or monthly cap on them, unless it seems like I'm having too many. I suspect that I'll end up with more flexibility and fewer monthly S days than by allowing 8-9 (weekend days) plus another couple of floating days.

I've found that with rare exceptions (Thanksgiving and Christmas) most things are actually S events rather than S days.

Maybe the problem with S days is that it's two whole days of being able to snack, have seconds and sweets 4x/month. Instead, maybe it would be wiser to indulge when something is special for you. Some weekends might be nothing. There may be a random Thursday out to dinner with friends when a special dessert seems appropriate. Going to the movies? Enjoy some popcorn -- and so on. As long as there aren't more than 10-11 of these days/events per month, it shouldn't be a problem.

Why should I eat something just because it's Saturday or Sunday?

[noni]

I found that doing Vanilla no S and having wild weekends still caused me to lose a little weight each week. The problem is that it is becoming harder and harder to face Monday.

I would plan for the S days by buying sweets by the ton, freezing those that needed it, then indulging on the weekend. The stuff I was buying would have never tempted me when not dieting. This diet is about habit and putting food in it's proper place but if that worked for me, I wouldn't have the wild weekends nor struggle so with N days.

I'm going to try to BUY less sweets for myself, and just go for quality and bake on weekends. I still don't know how I'm going to handle N days.

We talk alot about habit here and not so much about weightloss, but if we are forming good eating habits one way or another shouldn't we still lose some weight? Has anyone who modified the No S diet with sweets during N days lost weight and was able to form good moderate eating habits as well?

[Bfrilkins]

I've never done S-days. Mostly because it's perma-snacking on weekends that was getting me in the most trouble in the first place. So I allow myself one single S per day. And by single S, I mean a single measured portion (counted, weighed or measured). Usually I go for chocolate in the evening, or some other dessert. (It's quite motivating to bypass all kinds of snacks/sweets during the day knowing my chocolate is awaiting).

This way I can have moderation 7 days a week.

I love the fact that there is wonderful leftover mac & cheese sitting out in the kitchen right now. It's calling my name, but it's doomed for the fridge tonight!