Old Timers Success

[TexArk]

I would like to see some members of this board reporting successful weight loss (even if it took a long time) or successful maintenance as encouragement to those who are starting.

I am afraid that many of our successful folks just leave the board and we are more inclined to post when we need support and are stuck or gaining.

I do appreciate the success stories of making peace with food, stopping bad habits, etc. but Reinhard showed real weight loss and improved fitness and I do think it is happening out there.

Please share for those who are struggling with the slow pace or lack of weight loss.

I really want to hear some weight loss success stories from NoSers in addition to the habit changes which I am not discounting.

[Thalia]

I'm not a good poster girl, but I've been doing No S for about two years, I think? Maybe more. I got down 23 pounds below my starting weight, but then got sloppy with portion sizes (buying lunch on workdays) and was never really getting any exercise, so I put some back on -- around 13 pounds from my lowest No S weight.

I regrouped in April, and I've taken off about six pounds of what I regained so far. So I'm now down 16 pounds from where I started originally.

That sounds like a failure. But this is BY FAR the most long-term success I've ever had with any diet, and I've done many over the years. Here's why I still consider myself successful with No S:

• I never regained all the weight.
  I never started snacking or eating sweets during the week -- that's just habit for me now.
  I did start eating too much, but I didn't start bingeing -- my usual pattern has been high compliance and quick weightloss, followed by an eventual plateau, then unrestrained bingeing and disordered eating and a rapid regain until I weigh more than my starting weight.
  I've never stayed on any diet plan for more than about four months before the pattern above appeared.
  No S has never induced disordered eating, food obsession, or self-loathing in me.

[TexArk]

Thanks, Thalia. That's what I wanted to see.

You have lost, had a setback, and regrouped without regaining it all back plus more and now you are headed down again. NoS is not like other diets where we lose, regain even more, and then move on to another "promising" diet.

I think these testimonies are important for new folks and struggling ones as well. Folks are actually losing weight while making peace with food.

[kccc]

I found No-S in 2006, I think. My weight at that point was rising... yet again... and I could not FACE another round of Weight Watchers. I'd already lost-to-goal on it twice, but it required SUCH constant attention that I felt exhausted just contemplating it!

I lost the excess - probably not that much by then. I expect I was in the low 150's. My current weight (as of this morning) is 143. (I'm 5'6'', so in the 140's is good in terms of BMI. Where I feel best is 145 or under.)

Since then, I've generally maintained with little difficulty. I did have one "back-sliding" period when I was under great stress, not able to exercise as normal, and eating out too much. You can check my testamonial page for details. That's past... and I lived though it without the level of desperation I used to feel when my weight rose on WW.

I consider myself a success story because:
- I've acually been able to maintain!
- Minor rises in weight have been quickly addressed, without emotional stress
- As a MAJOR bonus, I get to enjoy food! That's a big switch from the former source-of-stress it used to be. (I could not eat and feel deprived, or eat and feel guilty... no in-between. That's no way to live!).
- I feel I have a much more healthy and "normal" approach to eating now. I like that feeling a LOT.

I have bumped up my exercise recently, just a little, and noticed that my weight is slowly, slowly drifting down. We're talking maybe two pounds in the last four-five months - so slow that it would be invisible to most. I'm okay with it - it feels like my body settling where it wants to be. I like being able to trust that it will level off where it should.

[DaveMc]

My "testimonial" can be found here:

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=6595

Short version: I lost 20 pounds over my first year, and I've kept it off since then. (It'll be two years in July.) I've settled in such that I feel like I can keep up NoS forever, which is the real "success" for me.

[oolala53]

I've been consistently No S-ing for 16 months. I took off 8% of my weight in about four months last year. I've been wavering a bit and never have had consistently tame weekends, but I've kept the weight off and anticipate losing even more because I've started to incorporate exercise (I'm the one who started the 90-day challenge), and my weekends are getting better.

[vmsurbat]

I really want to hear some weight loss success stories from NoSers in addition to the habit changes which I am not discounting.

Dear TexArk,

My story will be more like a novel!

I've been NoSing for 2 3/4 years--it is the only "diet" plan I've ever followed. And I've pretty much stuck with vanilla NoS although I do think our meals have gotten slightly more healthy over the years. We were already eating good food, mainly real food, but little fresh fruit because I always thought we'd have that for "snack" but we never did--pretzels, trail mix, nuts, muffins, etc. always won out over fresh fruit.

Since I am no longer fooling myself about WHEN we will eat fruit, we have it twice daily, sometimes as part of the meal (fruit salad, smoothie for breakfast, topping for yogurt), sometimes as dessert, which just means at the end of the meal instead of during!

My NoS journey thus far:

Year 0 (end of 2007-preNoS):

I was 50 pounds overweight and feeling generally miserable about myself and life. A much needed physical revealed that I had a hypothyroid condition. I got started on meds and found the perfect combo after 3 months. I assumed my extra weight would melt off as I was feeling pretty good and decided to "watch what I eat." 6 months later, I hadn't lost anything and was probably 5 pounds heavier.

As much as I didn't want to, I decided that I needed to "diet" and maybe that would jump start some weight loss. Using the internet, I looked into dozens of possible diets and had to cross them off as utterly unrealistic for our lifestyle (missionaries in south-central Europe). The NoS diet came up and was the last one (literally) that I looked at because I had mistakenly assumed that the NoS part stood for no sugar. I decided to take a look anyway because nothing else had seemed feasible, and while I assumed that NoS was promoting the use of honey, perhaps I could still sub white sugar to some degree and might glean something of use. The original poster had been quite enthusiastic about the plan...

I found my way to the NoS site, was amazed to find the common sense approach, knew it could work in my situation, and started immediately. That was July 13, 2008! A Wednesday if I recall correctly...

Year 1 (July 2008-2009):

I did not have a history of binging or anything like that. And even though I had pretty full plates and S Days which took advantage of the freedom from the rules, I managed to lose weight. I think my biggest culprit pre-NoS was "snitching" while cooking (we live overseas and I cook quite a bit from scratch). I probably ate the equivalent of at least one extra complete meal daily....

I followed vanilla NoS. I ate all my usual foods. I bought the book 5 months in and read it over at least 3 times. I built up a repertoire of helpful-to-me mottos and motivations. Even after almost 3 years, I still need and use these daily: One=Done; Mark it and move on (my own contribution!!! from my first fail!!); Are you in control or is your appetite?; Build the muscle of willpower; and all those other sayings in that one sticky at the top of the boards....

That first year I lost 30 pounds. After an initial 6 pound loss in a month (I weigh monthly), I never lost more than 3 pounds per month, and by the end of the year, was losing only 1/2-1 pound per month.

Year 2 (July 2009-2010):

This was the year I played with NoS tweaks. When weighing monthly, I could never be sure that my 1/2 pound loss wasn't just a mere variation, so I wanted to rev up the NoS diet. I tried calorie counting, preparing diet-y foods, NoS events instead of NoS days, and I don't remember what all else. I ended up ditching ALL of them except for the general principle of 1/2 plate of veggies/salad, 1/4 plate grain, 1/4 plate protein which is hardly a "mod" in my opinion and I never count it as a failure if for some reason my plate doesn't match the guidelines.

This was a good learning year. I found that I could not regularly drink lightly sweetened beverages (technically allowed on NoS) at meals all summer and lose weight. (FTR: We had guests for 3 months straight that summer so the meals were a little fancier than normal--usually we drink water). I found that having two biggish sweet treats on two S days was too much for me--instead of cake one day, cobbler the next, or cheesecake one day, and brownies the next, I did much better and was really more satisfied with a light treat for the first S day (a homemade cookie, for example) and a more desserty dessert on Sunday. (We have guests over for Sunday lunch every Sunday so that is always a "feast" kind of meal....)

I also found that though I said my chosen form of exercise was walking, I was fooling myself. I had bought a pedometer the previous year, used it briefly, then forgot about it. Halfway through Year 2, I began using the pedometer and challenging myself to improve the number of steps I took. I went from a baseline of 3000 steps per day to averaging 7000 steps per day. I believe the additional steps played a significant role in my weight loss that year as I lost a total of 8-10 pounds.

Year 3 (July 2010-Present):

Back in July 2010, my weight loss continued to be quite slow and seemed stopped, in fact. My monthly weight hovered in the same place for several months. I thought I was done losing. I felt that another 10 pounds or so would be good, but since I was eating so reasonably and had made such great strides (especially as a 50+ year old woman with Thyroid issues), I was satisfied. Maybe not thrilled, but definitely satisfied.

In November of 2010, we went on furlough for 3 months. This is like an extended working vacation. We ate out often, guests at other people's homes, with "company's coming" meals. I figure this furlough was the acid test of the NoS principles. Every other furlough I gained at least 10 pounds. I was hoping to gain no more than 5. I did my best to follow NoS when I was providing the meals, but if we were guests, and our host/hostess had worked to make a nice dessert, I would enjoy a small piece. I took walks when I could. I had no scale, so no way of knowing how I was doing. This period also included the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays and we very much enjoyed having our family of 7 all together again for the first time in 2 years!

I enjoyed the foods I had missed, namely chips and salsa. I am not exaggerating when I say that I had chips and salsa nearly every day. But, I always had them as part of a meal, the chips nicely placed on my plate.

On our return, Feb. 2011 to Montenegro, I was thrilled to discover that I had LOST ONE POUND! I couldn't believe it. I knew I had not gained much, but I really didn't expect a loss, either.

Anyway, since then, in Mar. 2011, it dawned on me that I really wasn't getting hungry by my next meal, the way I had been when first starting NoS. And I actually missed that feeling. A little hunger brings a happy anticipation of a good meal. So, I consciously chose/choose to eat just a little less. If I used to serve myself 3 pancakes for breakfast (which I did), I now have two. If I used to have a serving of potatoes AND bread and butter (which I did), I now have less of each, or maybe just the potatoes or just the bread, whichever I want more. I used to regularly have milk, juice, and coffee at every breakfast. Now, if I am having fruit in another form, I'll skip the juice. Just very little changes, actually. I've lost 4 pounds in the past two months, so maybe I am NOT done with losing. Thus, this year I've lost 5 pounds so far...., down 45+ pounds since the beginning.....

I am very much looking forward to posting my third testimonial this coming July when I finish 3 years of NoS. Check out the testimonial board as well for further inspiration from successful "old timers."

HTH,

[oolala53]

While some may be disappointed by the rate of loss, it may be good to know that a medically supervised study on weight loss for the obese, it was considered a success if the members lost 7 pounds and kept it off for a year! Most everyone else in the study did worse! I know that sobered me up. And isn't it better to be solidly DOWN after a year being delighted with your eating?

I may have said it somewhere else so sorry if I'm repeating but I had lost weight several years ago and put almost all of it back on, then committed to No S and lost it again. I ran into an old colleague and she said, oh, you kept that weight off. I said, yes, I did, because my weight has been relatively steady for a year, and I'm stronger than I've ever been in the habits.

[r.jean]

Good idea for a topic. I have enjoyed reading these posts.


I am not exactly an old timer at No S, but I have had some great successes in the almost 5 months that I have been doing Vanilla No S. My 5 month weigh in will be on Friday (5/20), and I will stick an update on this post of my total loss. At the end of the 4th month (on 4/20) I had lost a total of 23.4 lbs and had reached my first 10% loss. I posted last month in the testimonial section so anyone interested in details can go there.

I am 55 and have been overweight off and on since my 20s. In my childhood, I felt overweight because I was larger than my petite relatives and friends. However, I really was not overweight then.

I gained too much weight in college but took it off when I moved out on my own. I gained again with my first two children, but I took that off too. After my 3rd child in my early 30s, I never got down to an average BMI again. Over the years, I lost a little and gained a little until my weight ballooned to 70 lbs over an average BMI. In 2010 alone, I gained 20 lbs.

I was never good at conventional dieting. I tried Weight Watchers and Atkins at different times and had some success on each but could not go back and do them again. I periodically lost (and gained back) some weight by just working on my eating and exercise habits. However, the weight just slowly crept up. After the 20 lb gain in 2010, I knew I had to do something.

When I discovered No S, it seemed like a miracle. It was so perfectly suited to my needs and my lifestye. I have not looked back. This will be my lifetime plan.

PS: Besides Vanilla No S, I have gotten back on track with exercise and have not had a red on my exercise calendar since the first month. For me, this is essential to feeling well and losing weight and has become a (healthy) obsession.

[BrightAngel]

Great Thread. Congratulations to each of you.

[jellybeans01]

it was good hearing everyone's stories