Everyday Systems

Hello,
This forum has been very helpful and I wanted to thank everyone for their thoughtful posts.
I'm about to begin my fourth successful day on No S. It just makes sense to me! I don't have a lot to lose but am increasingly concerned about how much I snack and eat mindlessly. I eat healthy, but I eat a lot -- especially snacks. So far, I feel great on No S.
I do have a few questions though.
The portions for my three meals have been healthy: vegetables, rice, fish, pasta. But the portion sizes have been larger than I would "normally" eat. I assume I'm eating fewer calories because I'm not snacking and have cut out sweets for my N days. But maybe not. Will I just end up eating the same amount of calories at the three meals as I did during six smaller meals previously?
How many of you have had to adjust downward the amount you eat during your three meals?
So far, I've been eating breakfast at about 8, lunch at around 1 and dinner around 6 p.m. I'm hungry before each meal, but not ravenous. Drinking lots of water.
I don't have a scale so I can't weigh myself to compare.

I think nearly everyone increases portion sizes when starting No-S due to fear of hunger. It's hard to say whether or not calories are increased or decreased when snacks are eliminated and portions at meals are larger than previously. It can be determined if you enter all your food into one of the online calculators -- but I certainly was never interested enough to do that.

My guess would be that you're consuming fewer calories, but probably not a lot fewer (not enough that you're going to see a pound or more of weight loss weekly).

Especially in the beginning I would err to the side of loading your plate. You have no idea how much food you take in when you snack all day. But when it's one plate, that's it.
I have really been one to load up at each meal. It's not hurting me at all, but I have noticed I'm getting more full now quickly. So maybe I can start cutting down. Regardless, just make sure you eat enough to get you energy until the next meal!

Okay, you're on your FOURTH DAY. It is way too early to be worrying about whether you are eating too much. Let the process happen and don't expect quick weight loss or everything to be over in a week or two!

But at first, I did add to my meals about what I would have had as a snack. Very quickly I cut that back to about half of the snack because it was too much. After a few months, I noticed that I wouldn't always get to finish lunch at work, but that I didn't miss the extra food. In this my third year, my meals are often even smaller just because that's all it takes and it's all I want. Of course, I'm still at the high end of my BMI, so the body has reserves to draw on, and that is what I want. But I think it draws on a trickle, and that is much better for not setting off the pendulum swing.

oolala53 wrote:Okay, you're on your FOURTH DAY. It is way too early to be worrying about whether you are eating too much. Let the process happen and don't expect quick weight loss or everything to be over in a week or two!

Way, way, way too early.

As Jim Lovell said in Apollo 13:

All right, there's a thousand things that have to happen in order. We are on number eight. You're talking about number six hundred and ninety-two.

Don't try to get everything perfect at once. That's a setup for failure. It's a very common thing to try to do. What normally happens is that you get overwhelmed by everything to do and keep track of, and you end up accomplishing nothing. This is why most people who made New Year's resolutions this year have given up on them by now. They tried to change too much, they got overwhelmed, and they gave up.

What you actually want to do is to work on a few simple things, and get them to the point where you're not having to think about them, you're just doing them. For most people, this will take at least a month. Then you can think about other improvements you'd like to make. But trying to get everything perfect all at once is just not going to work for the vast majority of people.