Everyday Systems

Hi -- this is my first post here.... (shout out to JS if she's reading).

I need to lose quite a bit of weight. I've "dieted" myself up to quite a bit. Throw quitting smoking in the mix and a few pounds trickling on each year (for 10 years) and it's time for some effective changes.

Glad to come across this information as lately my journey has led me farther and farther away from dieting.

I like the idea behind changing your habits rather than monitoring and regulating food and carrying calculators and books around everywhere.

Anyway, here I am. I need a good, positive start. I need to feel success again and for that reason am wanting to set myself up for goals I know I can absolutely reach. That led me to thinking I'd just focus on one S at a time at first.

Did you start with all the S's at once? How did that go for you? If you were going to start off with just one of the "S's" for the first 21 days, which would you choose and why?

Welcome to the forum.

I threw all the S's in at once, but gave myself a mod. I allowed myself fruit at any time, so I guess really I started following No sweets and no seconds straight away then added no snacking about 3 weeks in, but fruit was all I snacked on in that time. When I had got used to it, I stopped having the fruit, or rather only had it at meal times.

If I was going to do 1 at a time I think I would have done No sweets first because I think thats a crucial one, then no seconds followed by no snacking as thats the hardest for me.

Hello, welcome to NoS!

I started with all 3 S's at once - the initial 2 weeks were all green (e.g. all successes) but since then I've had good weeks and bad weeks... I think I've had more weeks where I've had at least one 'failure' than weeks where I haven't. However, it's been... 4 and a half months now, and I'm still sticking with it I have NEVER dieted seriously before in my life, but just the knowledge that even not eating sweets, seconds or snacks for say, 4 days out of 7 is far healthier than my previous eating habits keeps me on track.

It's probably worth saying that in the first couple of weeks I didn't cut out sweet or calorific drinks as I thought that would be too much for me to cut out all at once. Now I never drink sugary sodas (although I do drink diet sodas) and rarely even fruit juice.

Some people have had success cutting out one S at a time - for some people it's been one a week for 3 weeks, for some it's been one every 3 weeks. I think it really depends on you what S you decide to cut out first - I never really had an issue with seconds, but I have a MAJOR sweet tooth! If I was just going to cut out one I think I'd do Sweets - I have found that the less sweet things I eat, the less I crave - and I think that would be easier for me to succeed at if I were to not worry about eating snacks.

Sorry for the ramble, good luck!!

I gave up sweets, seconds and snacks all at once, but I noticed that my time between lunch and supper is too great (and I don't eat a giant lunch), so I added an afternoon tea at 3:00PM (a cup of yogurt, or something similarly small).

If you've been a habitual overeater, your stomach will have actually stretched out. It can take 2-3 weeks (in my experience) for it to shrink down to the point that you are full with a normal-sized meal. So cut yourself some slack if you have to heap up your plate in order to make it on "just" three meals a day.

Food with a lot of fiber in it is slow to digest, so upping that in your meals (i.e. more veggies and fruits) can help you feel fuller for longer.

But you will feel hunger between meals. This is normal! Ride it out. The more your stomach shrinks to a normal size, the less you will feel it.

First of all....welcome! You'll find wonderful people here, always ready to give you some encouragement so come back often!

Second...Have you read the book? If not, I highly recommend doing that. You'll get so much information there. I don't think I'd understand why this plan works so well without reading it. I've read it at least 3 times...and sections of it more than that.

I have the hardest time with snacking so for the first week I allowed myself two things I could snack on...bananas and rice cakes. I didn't want to let myself just eat anything as a snack, but these two items seem always to fill me up so I stuck to those for the first week or so. If attacking one "S" at a time helps you - go for it. Just don't let yourself drag it out too long since not eliminating all three "S"s will delay seeing results.

Whatever you decide, come back often & visit....you can do this!

janie

keriamon wrote:But you will feel hunger between meals. This is normal! Ride it out.

This bears repeating. You will feel hungry between meals sometimes. This is normal, OK, not a failure, and not likely to harm you if you have a normal metabolism. (If you have diabetes or something like that, it might be another story. Talk to your doctor.)

The food industry has talked up hunger like feeling hungry is a red emergency alert that you need to eat something. Of course they would do this- it helps them sell more food. That doesn't make it so. The tobacco industry used to deny that smoking was bad for you. That didn't make that so, either.

If you could seriously injure yourself by not eating for a few hours, no one would ever fast. People do, for religious and all kinds of reasons. If it were that harmful, the practice of fasting would have died out centuries ago, or would only be practiced by a few non-mainstream groups, like snake handling for religious reasons is.

I've only ever gone with 2 of the three, no snacking and no seconds. Since I can have a sweet anytime, I try to make it special every time. I used to love candy bars, but they just aren't meal-worthy anymore.

I am also allowed a single chocolate whenever I am willing to get up for it. If I'm already up, I didn't earn it. I was particularly trying to break the habit "stopping when they're gone", which is hard because they're so good. Not starting is an easier habit, but am I really never going to have chocolates again? It helps to reinforce the habit to stop after you have one by increasing the investment of effort required to get the 2nd. If you grab one as you go out of the door for more than 20 minutes, that time alone will help reinforce the habit that 1 is (usually) good enough to stop after, but it's not what I did. I used to have 1-5 chocolates a day (and sometimes finished the bag). Now I sometimes do, sometimes don't, and sometimes finish the bag. But I don't worry about it.

Back to candy bars: I might have them on weekends, when I branch out to snacks and seconds. Now I'm trying to learn that I should not buy them because they are on sale. I'm a sucker for sale candy.

Hey Georgiapeach

Thanks for the JS shout out.

There is another post discussion on the second page called "Question for long-time No S'ers" that talks about starting with one S. You should read that too.

Hello All - This is also my first post here. I've been reading a lot of the discussions and it has been very helpful and exciting. I'll be officially starting No S on Monday - although this is the first diet I could start on the weekend! I actually stumbled upon No S a couple of years ago. I'm not sure why I didn't start it then. Of all the diets I've done, this just make complete sense!

I'm looking forward to this (hopefully) forever change in my life!

Jodi

Seems to me, the meal structure is the part of NoS that sets it apart from other diet plans. I'd say start with 3 (or however many) meals and get out of the habit of snacking. That would mean you could have seconds or desert to see you through to the next meal. Then maybe give up sweets during the week- eat a little more "real food" at meal time even if that means seconds. Lastly, stick to 1 plate at meal times.
That's just my 2 cents on what would seem a humane way to ease in to the NoS lifestyle, but I know we're all different.

Welcome! I think you're going to like NoS, and I hope it helps you as much as it's helped so many of us.

I introduced all three S's at the same time, but everyone is indeed different, and in general the idea is that the bar should be set at a point where you think, "Gee, I can do *that*, no problem!" (We often turn out to be wrong about how easy it's going to be to clear that bar, but having it at least *seem* like a cinch is a great way to get started.) If that's somewhere other than all three S's at once, for you, then go for it!

There's a blurb about this by Reinhard on the main NoS page, in fact. He recommends doing all three if you can manage it, but then goes on to note:

"I've often thought that gradually progressing one S at a time might be a good way to become a full no-esser, say start with no sweets for a week, then add no seconds the next week, then no snacks on week 3 (or go even slower and give each the full magic habit-building three weeks). That way you could build willpower and habit even more incrementally. Unfortunately I'm not aware that anyone has successfully done this [ update: it seems like someone has (and rather successfully!) http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=6287 . I think the trouble is that even full no-s is slow in terms of yielding measurable results, and lack of patience is an even bigger problem for most people than lack of short term willpower."

Hi..I'm fairly new to No S, just a couple months under my belt.

I started with all 3 S's (mon-fri). I wasn't really a sweet eater so that was not hard, seconds on occasion, but snacking was the all out monster. What I found for me was that if I snacked, I ended up binging. I do have over the top weekends, but I've been told those will taper as well. I also learned we are human and make mistakes, it is impossible to be perfect.

I read a few of these posts and think that you find what works for you. One S or all three.

Enjoy the process of building new habits for you.

p.s. I do use 9 inch plates, perhaps you can buy yourself a really cute one just for you ...make eating special.

If you're worried that all three S's will be so difficult for you that it could put you off the plan entirely you might want to consider doing them one by one. I started with all three and no snacks and no seconds were a breeze. No sweets on the other hand...whole different ball game. I still struggle with no sweets.