Everyday Systems

I am relatively new to No S and have been wondering all day about whether or not to count today as a Special Day. Once a year I attend a graduation dinner at my place of employment. It's not my graduation, nor a family members. It is a celebratory atmosphere. So I have been thinking about whether or not I would have dessert. I have also thought about counting tonight as an S event and having tomorrow be an N day.

How do you long timers handle these things? How special does a day have to be to call it special?
Thanks for your input

serenity88 wrote:How do you long timers handle these things? How special does a day have to be to call it special?
Thanks for your input

Don't worry about knowing if a day is special or not right away. If I know in my heart it's a celebration, it's a celebration. Sometimes my heart shifts a little towards my stomach, I'm sure, but early on just getting the habit to be automatic on n-days is what the work is.

For me, parties at work aren't usually something I would be celebrating. But once or twice a year they are.

Someone here had a whole set of rules to help determine if an event was "special." As I recall, they're good, but too complicated for me. Here's my basic rule: if I make plans for an event, it's special. Also, special events don't occur frequently. If this happened weekly or monthly I'd question its "specialness." But once a year? It's special.

Right now I count everyday as a special day!

A general rule-of-thumb is just "containing" the number of Special Events you have each month. Most people stick to 2 or less Non-Weekend S-days (NWS) per month.

In your place, I would probably consider this "special" UNLESS I had a host of "more special" events this particular month.

I'm pretty stingy with NWS days. Apart from the obvious (Christmas, Thanksgiving, my birthday), I ask myself "Can I enjoy this event as an N day?" Usually, the answer is "Yes." I can celebrate someone else's birthday without consuming cake. I can have dinner out and keep it to one plate without dessert. I had 9 non-weekend S days in my first year of No S. But some events really ARE food-centered, and if I decide I need an S day, I enjoy it without guilt. If I take an S day on a Friday, I think "Woo hoo! 3 S days in a row!" I don't trade one of my weekend S days.

The most important thing is finding a way that makes sense to you and fits in with your lifestyle and your goals. Good luck!

Thanks to those who responded. In the end, when dessert came, I didn't want it and thought I could choose something better on an S day. That is a rare event!

That's great! You made a clear choice in favour of something more delicious.

I had developed a metric for determining an S day, that I reposted below from a post from 2008. I don't use it all the time as most NWS days are fairly self evident but to help keep me honest when considering opportunities.

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My metric for special days:

A) How often does this event happen?
(1)Regularly (2)Yearly (3)Once every two years or more.

B) Who is involved?
(1) People I know casually (2)People I consider close friends (3)Near family

C)How meaningful is this event to me personally?
(1)Not very (2)Some (3)Quite a bit

In order for me to call it a Special Day day, it has to score a 7.

Luckily I don't have too many events in my life that could possibly qualify as S-Events, so I don't have trouble identifying them.

Annual holiday party at work? S-Event

Choir member's/co-worker's birthday? No

Annual celebration dinner at church? S-Event

Friend's wedding shower? Could have been S-Event, but I didn't want the cake, had one plate of food, and kept it as an N-Day.

Day my boss brings in a birthday treat for me (not on my actual birthday) - S-Event

I went back in April and turned one failure into an S-Event because it was the day after my birthday (which had been a regular S-Day) and I had only one other S-Event for the month.

You've already had a lot of input but I wanted to add that it might be important to consider the event in relation to the myriad opportunities in our culture we have to overdo food, esp. sweets. If we want to be moderate, and would also like to reach and maintain a weight that was average 40 years ago before all the influences that have driven the average weights up, I think it is better to err on the side of caution. In contrast (I'm a Libra, so I often sound wishy-washy as I consider both sides), it might be good for someone to go ahead and allow more NWS days in the beginning and either wean herself off them or have them gradually drop away. So, both of these might go into determining an S day. I also think the more a person was a binger on sugar before No S, the better it is for that person to limit the exposure to S days. I believe sugar-freak is healed largely by having a big backdrop of N days so that the other experiences are more obvious in contrast.