Everyday Systems

This week has been a flop! Wednesday marked the beginning of week four and let me tell you I am getting nervous. I am nervous that this is actually going to work(how silly), I am nervous because I have lost 5 pounds but don't see any physical changes in my body (I'm being impatient), and I have been hungry and grumpy this whole week(probably because I reach for the carbs and not the protein). I was going to make Saturday a No-S-day just on principle because I have been bad this week but then I realized the best way to get back on track is to adhere strictly to the routine I know works! It's Friday and I am really trying to be good, Fridays usually become S days out of osmosis but these last couple of weeks I have done much better. I had tried this diet before and totally messed it up and didn't have a good attitude. This time I am doing much better by far and have actually lost a few pounds. Here comes the weekend and I am going to try and bake something or at least make whatever sweet I have be very special, instead of that Hagen Daus bar I got last Saturday and ate in two seconds flat! Have a good weekend everyone and I will try to check in tomorrow.

You are doing really well, totljenn, and your S day plans sound great. Have a good weekend.

Thanks so much! Happy S day!

Hope you are content with how your weekend went. As Reinhard has said, the program itself doesn't change. Our attitude changes, and that may include eating more slowly, putting different foods in different amounts on the plate as time goes by, realizing we prefer not being too full, etc. As my spiritual teacher says about the purpose of life: enjoy the show.

I second what Oolala said - by working on the behaviors (the habits) our thinking and feelings slowly evolve all by themselves. So don't panic, just keep doing what you're doing!

Thanks to you both. I reined it back in pretty quickly and have since lost another pound. It is all about forming new habits. I read that it takes 3 weeks to develop a new habit and I feel like I am getting there. Today is the beginning of my 5th week on No-S and I have lost 6 pounds!

WOO HOO! Good for you!

totljenn wrote:I was going to make Saturday a No-S-day just on principle because I have been bad this week

No. Don't do that. It's not a big step from there to two problem behaviors:

1. Making every day an N day. That won't work, because it amounts to giving up sweets forever. You will get cravings for them, and they will build and build because there is no outlet for them. An all-N-day diet is not sustainable over the long term.

2. If S days can be taken away for bad behavior, why not extra S days for good behavior? You might say you exercised today, so it should be an S day. This ends with every day being an S day, which is obviously not going to make you lose any weight.

You need both N days and S days to lose weight and have your lifestyle be sustainable over the long term.

It's normal and perfectly OK for you right now to be eating a Haagen-Dazs bar in two seconds flat on an S day. You're in your fourth week of No S. This is not the time to be working on anything other than the basics- not snacking, not eating sweets, and not having seconds on N days. Everything else can wait. The problem is, you've got a finite amount of willpower. If you try to change everything about how you eat at once, you spread your willpower too thin, and end up actually accomplishing no changes. This is why most New Year's resolutions end up failing. Eventually, the No S rules will be habits for you, and you won't have to consciously think about them as much. That's the time to start working on other eating habits that you have and don't like. Divide and conquer. Don't expect to get everything perfect right away. Most diets expect people to get everything perfect right away, and we've all seen how well that works.

Hear, Hear, Nicest.

Nicest of the Damned wrote:This is not the time to be working on anything other than the basics- not snacking, not eating sweets, and not having seconds on N days. Everything else can wait.

Heed her wisdom. She speaks much truth. You'll be okay, honest.

NoelFigart wrote:

Nicest of the Damned wrote:This is not the time to be working on anything other than the basics- not snacking, not eating sweets, and not having seconds on N days. Everything else can wait.

Heed her wisdom. She speaks much truth. You'll be okay, honest.

Something to remember: Food should be neither a reward nor a punishment.

Being hungry and grumpy in the first few months of No S is also normal. That will eventually go away, but it takes time, and there's no way to rush it.

You don't want to get into counting protein or carbs to try to keep from getting hungry and grumpy, or into modifying your meals (at least not yet). You don't want to be counting protein or carbs because those aren't sustainable behaviors for most people. That's not something that can easily become a habit that requires no conscious thought. You shouldn't be worrying about the content of your meals yet, because that will take the focus off of establishing the habits of not snacking, not eating sweets, and not having seconds on N days. And that is where your focus needs to be right now. Any other diet changes (unless your doctor tells you otherwise) are a distraction from that right now.

You will eventually learn from No S that you can be hungry sometimes, and it's not the end of the world. Another meal is coming in a few hours (or less), you can wait till then.

You can also find ways to deal with being grumpy that don't involve food. This is a shock to some people, but there are reasons why people get grumpy that don't have anything to do with food. Your problem might be that you're tired, or that you're having to do something you don't enjoy. It's a mistake to try to use food to deal with all feelings of grumpiness. A lot of us who are overweight got that way at least partly because we habitually used food to deal with negative emotions. Food is not the only way to deal with the negative emotions that everybody has at one time or another, and it's not the best way to deal with them. "Low blood sugar" is not the only cause of grumpiness, and food is not the only solution for grumpiness.

I put "low blood sugar" in quotes in my last post, because I'm skeptical of a lot of people's claims to have it. In many cases, they're not diabetic, they've never been diagnosed with a blood sugar problem by a doctor, and they have no evidence of having low blood sugar other than being hungry and cranky.

If you've been diagnosed by a doctor as having blood sugar problems, or have used something objective like the blood-sugar testing kits that diabetics use and found that you do in fact have low blood sugar, this does not apply to you.

I think it's harmful to stick the label "low blood sugar" on the feeling of being hungry and cranky, without some more objective evidence of low blood sugar. It sounds much more serious than "I'm hungry and cranky", and makes people think they need to snack, when really they don't.

People get hungry sometimes because they have established a routine of eating around that time. These routines can be changed. We know they can, because people move to different time zones, and they all eventually adjust to the local eating schedule. But, just like jet lag, that adjustment takes time, and there doesn't seem to be a reliable way to safely and painlessly speed up the process for everybody.

Disruptions to your normal routine are also something that can cause crabbiness, all by themselves. Parents of small children are acutely aware of this. It happens to everybody. You will eventually adjust to a new routine- people do it all the time. But it will take time, and you might feel a little out of sorts during the adjustment period. Don't be hard on yourself for being grouchy, and don't think it's abnormal or permanent. It is neither.

Nicest of the Damned wrote:I put "low blood sugar" in quotes in my last post, because I'm skeptical of a lot of people's claims to have it. In many cases, they're not diabetic, they've never been diagnosed with a blood sugar problem by a doctor, and they have no evidence of having low blood sugar other than being hungry and cranky.

No, a sugar crash isn't about being hungry and grumpy. In a sugar crash, you get this really distant feeling, a buzzing in your ears, and darkness closing in on your field of vision that just about finishes before you see the nice ground coming up to greet you.

NoelFigart wrote:

Nicest of the Damned wrote:I put "low blood sugar" in quotes in my last post, because I'm skeptical of a lot of people's claims to have it. In many cases, they're not diabetic, they've never been diagnosed with a blood sugar problem by a doctor, and they have no evidence of having low blood sugar other than being hungry and cranky.

No, a sugar crash isn't about being hungry and grumpy. In a sugar crash, you get this really distant feeling, a buzzing in your ears, and darkness closing in on your field of vision that just about finishes before you see the nice ground coming up to greet you.

OK, if you're getting that kind of symptoms, and especially if you have some blood sugar measurements to back them up, then I'll believe you really do have low blood sugar. But I have heard people claiming to have low blood sugar simply because they are hungry and irritable. Hunger and irritability alone are not evidence of low blood sugar and needing to eat something RIGHT NOW, is all I'm saying.

Nicest of the Damned wrote:

NoelFigart wrote:

Nicest of the Damned wrote:I put "low blood sugar" in quotes in my last post, because I'm skeptical of a lot of people's claims to have it. In many cases, they're not diabetic, they've never been diagnosed with a blood sugar problem by a doctor, and they have no evidence of having low blood sugar other than being hungry and cranky.

No, a sugar crash isn't about being hungry and grumpy. In a sugar crash, you get this really distant feeling, a buzzing in your ears, and darkness closing in on your field of vision that just about finishes before you see the nice ground coming up to greet you.

OK, if you're getting that kind of symptoms, and especially if you have some blood sugar measurements to back them up, then I'll believe you really do have low blood sugar. But I have heard people claiming to have low blood sugar simply because they are hungry and irritable. Hunger and irritability alone are not evidence of low blood sugar and needing to eat something RIGHT NOW, is all I'm saying.

I've heard a doctor say that most of the people who say they're hypoglycemic have never been tested and probably are not.

NoelFigart wrote:No, a sugar crash isn't about being hungry and grumpy. In a sugar crash, you get this really distant feeling, a buzzing in your ears, and darkness closing in on your field of vision that just about finishes before you see the nice ground coming up to greet you.

If something like this happens to you or someone around you, even once, get to a doctor ASAP. You should probably call 911 (or whatever the emergency number is where you are).

If you're losing consciousness, that's not something you want to self-diagnose or self-treat. What if it happened while you were driving down the freeway at 70 MPH? You could die or kill someone.

Nicest of the Damned wrote:

NoelFigart wrote:No, a sugar crash isn't about being hungry and grumpy. In a sugar crash, you get this really distant feeling, a buzzing in your ears, and darkness closing in on your field of vision that just about finishes before you see the nice ground coming up to greet you.

If something like this happens to you or someone around you, even once, get to a doctor ASAP. You should probably call 911 (or whatever the emergency number is where you are).

If you're losing consciousness, that's not something you want to self-diagnose or self-treat. What if it happened while you were driving down the freeway at 70 MPH? You could die or kill someone.

Yes, that's the point. It's not something you self diagnose! But that's what a real blood sugar crash looks like. You do faint and you do need serious medical attention to manage it.