Everyday Systems

I am feeling a huge relief in not counting calories and getting over my "diet head" and just concentrating on building the habit of 3 meals a day....BUT I am sort of panicking a bit that I am just going to maintain my weight instead of losing these stubborn lbs.

I'm just trying to make good choices that fill me up enough because if I skimp too much then I will get too hungry between meals and from my experience that will just lead to binge eating. I am in no way filling up my plates too much either.

I've only been doing this 2 weeks with 2 yellow days, 2 red days, 10 green days and I am not weighing myself but I can absolutely tell that my clothes fit the same way and I have not lost a single pound and may very well have gained and I am not close to that time of the month (sorry guys if you are reading) so I'm getting nervous.

I know, it's early days and I should be concentrating on building habits but it's just hard when I see commercials with such dramatic weight loss and picking my child up from a play date where the parent is telling me all about their astonishing weight loss.

Urgh... I just want this weight off.

I'll try to be patient because even if I did lose I suppose in two weeks I can't exactly expect my clothes to be hanging off of me.

Worst case 5 year scenario on No S: you do vanilla No S faithfully and you maintain.

Most likely 5 year scenario on every other diet plan: you lose weight and then rebound so you are 5, 10, 20 lbs heavier then when you started.

So far, you haven't been part of the small percentage of people who lose weight and keep it off using specialized diets. There is no reason to think this will change. No S really is your best hope.

As No S becomes a habit, you will modify and add exercise so weight loss will be a reality. Your weight loss won't be fast and you might not become a size 6. Regular meals with reasonable portions is how people have been maintaining their weight for millenia. For most of human history, they ate this way because this is how food was available. The problems of too much food is a relatively recent phenomena.

Trust this process. You have the rest of your life to modify and tweak to get the weight loss really going. First get the habits down. After that, you can fit any sort of eating plan into the habits that works for you, assuming the worst case scenario above.

The simple answer is that you won't know until you've been on the plan for awhile. Give it some time, get the habits down, then worry about whether or not you are losing or maintaining or gaining.

And remember, the first step to weight loss is stopping weight gain (aka maintenance).

I know, it's early days and I should be concentrating on building habits but it's just hard when I see commercials with such dramatic weight loss and picking my child up from a play date where the parent is telling me all about their astonishing weight loss.

I've been at this diet for 6 months and have lost nearly 40 pounds. I *know* that vanilla NoS works for me. But I still have at least another 40 pounds to go. And so every time I see those stupid "I lost a bajillion pounds in just 3 weeks!" commercials, I get antsy. I have to remind myself to stay patient and that while my weight loss may not be super fast, this is a sustainable lifestyle. And so what is another year or so of being fat, if I can spend the rest of my life being not fat?

After all, it was the tortoise that won the race

THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU.

I needed to hear all of that. Everything you guys said is so true.

Thank you for taking the time to respond to me because I really felt the need for some support and encouragement today.

I really appreciate it.