Are these fails?

[ARG]

Hi all

I have started No S from the information on the website,i'm waiting on the book arriving but it seems to be taken forever.

I wonder if you guys could help,iv got the no sweets and no snacks down but my fiance thinks my i'm breaking no seconds,a couple of examples are below.

Breakfast - i had a bowl of porridge eat that and then eat two slices of toast.

Lunch - had two small breaded chicken strips to start then burger and fries for main

Main meal - fiance put fries and two chicken burgers in the oven for me,the fries was a large portion so i eat them by themselves and went back and eat the chicken.

I know it's only meant to be one plate and there isnt a huge time frame between eating the fries and the chicken etc

I thought i was doing good with the three meals a day but know i'm not so sure?

Are the examples all fails??

Really appreciate your help.

ARG

[wosnes]

1. While having the book is great, all the information you need to follow No-S is on the web site.

2. I think those examples you gave are failures. However, NONE of them would be a failure if you sit down with the food in front of you and ate. For example, a bowl of porridge and two pieces of toast fits on a plate. If you can fit the chicken strips, burger and fries on a plate -- they're fine. Chicken burgers and fries fit on a plate -- it's okay.

Technically, by eating part of a meal first then going back for the rest of it, you're snacking or having seconds. Snacking isn't necessarily what you eat, but when you eat it.

[ThomsonsPier]

Hiho,

I haven't read the book and I seem to be doing all right. I don't necessarily stick to the one plate rule, but I've been here for a few years now and have a reasonably good idea of how much food I need. Obviously, I can't speak for you (and I don't know how big your portions were) but I would consider those to be failures, with the possible exception of breakfast.

To expand a little, your breakfast sounds like a perfectly good meal. If I ate that, I wouldn't consider it a failure, and the food would probably all fit on one (sloppy) plate. If you planned to eat a bowl of porridge and two slices of toast in advance, and put them in front of you, I'd say that was fine. If you ate the porridge and then decided to have more, I wouldn't. Bowl food can be tricky to judge.

Your lunch example consists of a starter and a main. However you dress it up, that's a plate and then another plate.

The problem I can see with your main meal isn't the process of going back for more, it's the sheer quantity. The one plate rule is there partly as a form of portion control and partly to make you aware of how much you're eating; seeing all of your food laid out in front of you can be surprising. The fact that there were too many fries to fit your meal on one plate means that there were too many fries.

Having said all that, sticking to three meals is a good start. Now you've established that, you have a good base to work on reducing how much you eat at each of those meals. I believe a number of people have eradicated only one S at a time, though I couldn't name names. Keep it up!

[reinhard]

Nothing really to add here....

That sounds like a lot of food (and pretty calorically dense food), and by putting it all on one plate in front of you at the same time it'll look like a lot of food, too -- which is the main point of the no-seconds rule. You could then legitimately go ahead and eat that mountainous plate of food. But my guess is you won't want too, at least, most meals. Gradually the sight of those big plates will grate on you and so provide you with an incentive to make them smaller. I'm not suggesting you starve yourself, by any means. Just don't allow yourself to deceive yourself about how much you're actually eating -- and odds are then you won't want to eat quite so much.

Reinhard

[ARG]

Hi everybody

Thanks for all the replys,it has really cleared up a lot of things.

One thing however,the whole bowl issue,so for porridge i would have a bowl,sit the bowl on a plate and have my toast around the side?

How about soup with a meal? Surely that counts as a starter but its just soup so..........

Thanks again

ARG

[Urban Ranger]

Arg, for my soup, I do put it in a bowl and put it on a plate. I dont for porridge but that's b/c when I have porridge, I don't have anything else, usually.

I don't use a large bowl, though. I use a bowl that is oh, it holds about a cup, maybe more. Sometimes I actually use a matching coffee cup. I put it on my plate and put the other things on there as well. My plate for soup might have a cup or sm bowl of soup, a wedge of cheese, a wedge of sourdough bread, cherry tomatoes or olives or something, and an apple or some other fruit or salad. I use a fine cheese and delicious bread so they're very flavorful at even a very small wedge. Sometimes I have soup and salad and do it the way they do at Panera with the you-pick-two things. Half the plate is salad, my cup of soup and wedge of bread or crackers or whatever I'm having are on the other side.

You've only just begun, Arg. You didn't know . . . now you do. You'll get the hang of it! I would like you to know this, though: the closer to vanilla you go, the easier it will probably be.

[Aleria]

If you're having soup and then, say, a pasta meal, that sounds like too much food to me. But for me soup usually is the meal, accompanied by maybe a slice of bread, which if I'm being nitpicky can go on a plate underneath the soup bowl.

Remember though, No-S is about what works for you. Reinhard reinforces the idea that it's better to eat lots in meal format at the beginning while you're forming the habit, and cut down on your portions later.

[wosnes]

I do the same as Urban Ranger with my soup. I put it in the bowl and put the bowl on the plate. I always have bread and usually fruit. There may be a small salad or vegetables as well. Sometimes I have some leftovers on the side.