S Events- how many per week, and how to track?

Nicest of the Damned · Post by **Nicest of the Damned** » Wed May 18, 2011 12:37 pm

Those of you who do S events, rather than S days: How many S events do you give yourself each week? Also, do you use HabitCal to track, and, if you do, how do you do it? Is any day with an S event yellow, or what?

My S days at this point usually consist of seconds at dinner and maybe one snack. I'm wondering if S events wouldn't work well for me. I like HabitCal, and would like to continue using it.

Blithe Morning · Post by **Blithe Morning** » Wed May 18, 2011 1:23 pm

I went to S events. I allowed myself 5 a week with each S counting as 1. So if I had seconds and a dessert that was 2.

But even that was too much tracking for me so I went back to Vanilla No S.

Nicest of the Damned · Post by **Nicest of the Damned** » Wed May 18, 2011 1:36 pm

Blithe Morning wrote:I went to S events. I allowed myself 5 a week with each S counting as 1. So if I had seconds and a dessert that was 2.

But even that was too much tracking for me so I went back to Vanilla No S.

Complex tracking does not work well for me. HabitCal is about all I can do, and even then, I'm often filling in several days' worth at a time because I forgot to do it for a while. And I seem to be stuck at the number of mods I've got now. I've tried adding more, and just got overwhelmed with the tracking.

The tracking does seem to help me, I'm just not very good at it. In fact, the lack of food journals or anything like that is one of the things that attracted me to No S. If I try to keep a food journal, I end up not keeping up with it, and having to reconstruct several days worth of meals at one time. Food journals or any other complex tracking is simply a no go for me.

Reinhard, you're a genius for coming up with a tracking system that even a disorganized, forgetful person like me can do.

Who Me? · Post by **Who Me?** » Wed May 18, 2011 1:52 pm

I think that in some cases, s-events are valuable. "I'm going to a party, I'll have a slice of that special cake."

But I think theres a temptation to carve out too many loopholes, and undermine the whole foundation of the plan.

TexArk · Post by **TexArk** » Wed May 18, 2011 2:07 pm

I think that the beauty of NoS is that it takes away lots of decision making. We don't have to think how we are going to spend our points or whether to share in the goodies in the teacher lounge, etc. When we add on I think we have to be careful that we are not making a simple plan complex. For me, the fewer decisions I have to make concerning food the better. I know that what I do would be considered deprivation to others, but it is simpler for me to have some absolutes...such as: I don't snack. Then I don't have to make a decision whether to snack or not!

Nicest of the Damned · Post by **Nicest of the Damned** » Wed May 18, 2011 2:19 pm

TexArk wrote:I think that the beauty of NoS is that it takes away lots of decision making.

This, too. I'm very good at justifying it to myself when I want to do something. No S is good because it takes away the opportunity to justify having a snack, or seconds (sweets are not so much of a problem for me, I can mostly handle that by not having them in plain sight).

I think I will stick to my current way of doing things. I don't limit the number of NWS days per month, but NWS days do need to have a reason to be. There has to be a holiday or social obligation, not just "I want to take an S day".

Starla · Post by **Starla** » Wed May 18, 2011 2:23 pm

I want to second what TexArk said. I didn't know how I could tell when something became a habit until I realized it was when I no longer needed to make decisions. I didn't ask myself "Can I eat this?" because the absolutes of S days and N days meant I already knew. The bright line rules of No S are what makes it simple in the long run. I could never give that that up. YMMV, of course.

Sienna · Post by **Sienna** » Wed May 18, 2011 3:08 pm

I agree. I've recently been in a bit of a plateau. Why? Well, it probably doesn't help that I'm at the weight I was in highschool - when I was an in-shape varsity athlete.

But honestly? Those bright line rules? Since April, I've let them get a little blurry. Net result? No real weight loss. The good news is that I didn't really gain it back - I just bounced around between 167 and 171.

Last week I re-committed to strictness. No more "well I skipped lunch, so I can have 'second dinner/lunch' at 10pm after eating dinner at 7" (Hello, Sienna, that plate of pita chips and hummus? That's called a snack.... And you know you aren't eating it because you are hungry, but because you are stressed and bored...) It's too early to tell if I've really broken the plateau, but I've been trending downwards and am at my lowest weight so far.

That said, I think its possible to responsibly have S events during the week (and in fact I used to before this recent road bump). But the key is making it so that the rules are still bright lines. For me that meant planning the S events in advance (no later than the weekend before the event) and a maximum of one event per week (I was also doing S days - so these are really more in lieu of NWS days).

milliem · Post by **milliem** » Wed May 18, 2011 4:24 pm

S events sound tempting to me, but I actually think it's quite good for me to try not to eat sugary sweet things for a few days straight. It seems the less of them I eat the less I crave. Same actually with high fat processed foods like takeaway - once i've started eating I have a hard time stopping!!

Like you say, it could be easy to justify having an S - I'm sure I would have used up all my weekly S events by Wednesday and would find weekends really difficult! Maybe if I allowed so many S events but started on a Saturday, if I used them all up on the weekend I go vanilla NoS during the week, if I show some restraint, have the remainder during the week.... hmmm. Something to consider if I find my S days continuing to be wild!

If you were to use S events rather than days, habitcal might not work (how would you track two S events in one day?) but a simple weekly tick sheet for whenever you have an S event could work.

wosnes · Post by **wosnes** » Wed May 18, 2011 5:11 pm

I eventually began to allow myself one S daily. Not a lot of tracking -- I know whether or not I've take an "S". I don't use Habit Cal at all.

I still allow myself one daily, but I'm amazed at how infrequently I take them. If I don't use the S on any given day -- it's gone; I can't say "Well, I didn't take an S yesterday, so I get two today."

The only exceptions to this are the major food holidays -- Thanksgiving and Christmas -- and a few other occasions throughout the year. There's no more than half a dozen of them total. On those days I just throw caution to the wind.

I don't think there's been a week since I began that I've taken an S every day or even the majority of the days.

Bear in mind, I've been following No-S for over 4 years and didn't start the daily S until about a year ago. For me, it allowed for more flexibility without going overboard.

kccc · Post by **kccc** » Wed May 18, 2011 5:16 pm

milliem wrote:S events sound tempting to me, but I actually think it's quite good for me to try not to eat sugary sweet things for a few days straight. It seems the less of them I eat the less I crave.

I agree with this.

My "vacation mod" is "one S-event per day, if I want it." I don't usually want that many S-days in a row, but sticking to straight vanilla on vacation seems a little too inflexible. Food is a part of vacation, especially when traveling.

That mod works well for about week-long vacation for me. But toward the end, I have a tendency to get sloppy. So, I wouldn't do it long-term. (But that's just me. I think wosnes does a small-dessert-each-evening mod, and it seems to work quite well for her.)

I do like the "one a day" limit - it keeps me asking "is this worth it?" and I think that's a good question to ask oneself.

Thinking... the trick for any mod of this nature is to keep the rules clear and simple, or "bright line" like Sienna said. And you might want to go back to the podcast trilogy on mods - they're good.

Nicest of the Damned · Post by **Nicest of the Damned** » Wed May 18, 2011 7:24 pm

KCCC wrote: My "vacation mod" is "one S-event per day, if I want it." I don't usually want that many S-days in a row, but sticking to straight vanilla on vacation seems a little too inflexible. Food is a part of vacation, especially when traveling.

I may steal this vacation mod when we go to Scotland this summer.

kccc · Post by **kccc** » Wed May 18, 2011 8:05 pm

Nicest of the Damned wrote:
KCCC wrote: My "vacation mod" is "one S-event per day, if I want it." I don't usually want that many S-days in a row, but sticking to straight vanilla on vacation seems a little too inflexible. Food is a part of vacation, especially when traveling.
I may steal this vacation mod when we go to Scotland this summer.

Welcome to it. I usually try to combine with the notion of "S-worthy treats." Some... just aren't.

NoelFigart · Post by **NoelFigart** » Wed May 18, 2011 8:15 pm

I could see a vacation mod of an S-event per day on vacation.

Otherwise? I think vanilla works better for me in terms of clarity.

Yesterday I'd had a bit of a rough day and I was trying to justify breaking habit in the face of it. Then I just laughed and said to myself, "Look, woman, it's a Tuesday. Is a bad day with a break in habit?" I could see abusing that using an S-event mod far, FAR too easily.

For me, no. S-events on anything but an S-day would completely screw that up for me, though if it works for other people, cool.

wosnes · Post by **wosnes** » Wed May 18, 2011 8:39 pm

KCCC wrote:
Welcome to it. I usually try to combine with the notion of "S-worthy treats." Some... just aren't.

This is exactly why it's been easy to allow myself an S daily -- and not take most of them. So many things we routinely consume before paying attention to the quality of the food we eat just aren't worth it.

NoSRocks · Post by **NoSRocks** » Thu May 19, 2011 3:55 am

Before starting No S, I used to follow a sort of variation on the one S Event per day. ie. 3 meals per day and one treat in the evening like an ice cream or whatever. It would have been fine had i been able to stick to it but unfortunately, there were still days that I would want to overindulge/nibble/binge/cheat/whatever. I was attracted to vanilla No S because of the clear cut rules which is a bit of an oxymoron since one can make their own choices about what to eat at meal times, S days etc. Again, another wonderful aspect of this plan!!

I don't think I could be trusted around S Events, though. As others' have posted - I think I would be tempted to cheat/overindulge during the week and be feeling deprived come the weekend if i had to make up for it.