Everyday Systems

How long did it take you to REALLY get this down? I mean to the point eating 3 meals and not snacking was automatic and you really don't think about it anymore.

Marianne wrote:How long did it take you to REALLY get this down? I mean to the point eating 3 meals and not snacking was automatic and you really don't think about it anymore.

It already happens to me...sometimes and most of the time.

I've been doing No S for 4 years. It seems in the last year, I feel I've hit a new level where it is increasingly the default.

Most of the time. A few nights ago I was irritated I couldn't eat ice cream at night.

That sounds like such an easy question! To be honest, I don't remember but I think it was about a year into it.

I have found that feeling a need to eat between meals is dependent on what I eat. I don't mean that a meal must have protein or fat or carbs. I mean that if I eat processed foods it's much more difficult to get to the next meal without wanting to snack. If I eat real foods, I have no problem.

About 3 years into it, and I now seem to have lost my sweet tooth and no longer actually have S Days and now am experiencing real weight loss results. I am hoping to incorporate S events i.e. Thanksgiving, Christmas etc. but for now, pretty much taking things as they come.

As for the N Day compliance, once I got my head around it, it took about a month or two for it to become automatic. The S Days were my biggest hurdle with this marvellous eating plan.

But everyone's different. Congratulations on finding the No S Plan and giving it consideration in the first place. It is the only eating plan that has worked for me long term

Reinhard says there is no before and after. Only before and during. So we're all during.

How long "it" will take any one person is very unpredictable. There are many factors involved and I don't think anyone knows what they all are or how to calculate how they would all work. I don't think anyone here had any idea how hard or fast or easy it would be.

I've been at this 32 months. The first three months were a breeze. Then I had a hard time off and on for well over a year and weekends are no longer wild but aren't tame, either. I have a stressful job as a high school teacher and I sometimes still get thoughts after the students leave to go binge on cookie dough or chocolate or whatever on N days, which is what I did for years. The difference is that it's usually just a passing thought. I do something else, and soon it's time for dinner. I still eat more than I'm hungry for on weekends, though not really a lot of food, but my eating life is very manageable, and I will never go back to eating more than three meals a day. Having snacks or sweets on N days is just not in issue except for my beloved mochas. If anything, I might eat fewer meals after I retire. And though I think about food and sometimes still think I have a problem, I realize I don't, really. I don't wish I could eat more or more often or different foods. Besides a little overeating on weekends, I'm actually content, most of the time.

However, I want to gently ask why you ask. Because you have to understand that the majority of people fail at weight loss or habit change because they want it to be easy after a few weeks or months. They want to find what will get them to a low weight and then they'll live there happily for ever. It RARELY happens that way (lucky Reinhard), though the diet programs and books will claim it will. (I want to see those people five years later.) What's typical is to go through a honeymoon when motivation and hope carries the day. Then it gets hard or challenging. This is when MOST people quit and live to regret it, chasing after new programs that fail, going back to other ones, failing... Then eventual loser/maintainers push through slips until the habit gets reinforced enough that it becomes more natural. The cycle can be anywhere from several months to a few years to decades. And honestly, most people fail. They chase and chase what they think will be easy. A few reach a point at which they realize it's likely nothing will be, and they commit. Or they have a real health scare, or a family member does, or... etc. Then sometimes what they choose can seem easy because they have decided-- really decided in a cool moment, not usually after a gorging-- there is no going back.

And for some, it never gets easy. I'm on a maintainers' team on a weight loss site and I can tell you most of them stress about it a lot more than I do and they've been at it for years. They talk about still being tempted and it still being hard. They fear going to a restaurant where they don't know the calorie count of all the foods.

I believe this has a lot more to do with body hatred and fat hatred. I believe, though I have no proof and it is counter-intuitive, the greater the self-hatred over the weight, the longer it will take. Because it keeps feeling like everything is riding on what you do every day. That can work for the short term, but not usually for the long term. (See exceptions above.)

No S shows more of the characteristics of what is likely to work long term than just about anything out there, if you can believe researcher Baumeister (who doesn't comment on No S but on strategies for the long term in his book Willpower). By work I don't necessarily mean get a person skinny, but that it will have a person learn joyful, moderate eating. And we do have some skinnies here, too.

I know you didn't ask for such a pitch, but I just hadda!

Great posts oolala and Dr. Collins.

I want to add that your body is UNIQUE in the universe and it's the only one you'll ever have in this life.

So you might as well love it. Don't worry about perceived or real inadequacies.

NOBODY IS PERFECT!

Jethro, so true!
____________
Heddi

There's a big gap between morbid obesity and the low end of the "normal" BMI range.

2 months. I'm not thinking about it at all. I've been through a couple of situations where previously I would have stuffed myself for hours and days but it didn't even occur to me.
There are some times when I'm tempted but day to day NoS fits so well into my work life that I don't even consider snacking or seconds.

But as Oola said: it's all during so things may change and I'm early on in the process. However, I do believe that sometimes it can also just be easy. It is a very individual experience after all and it doesn't need to be hard for everyone. Once you have the rules that is.

Yes.

Tricky question... I can speak to my experience (I haven't - not even close - and I have been at it for a year), but surveying the community in an attempt to project the consensus onto your own journey is trickier... and depends on several moving parts.

Obviously, there are folks like Reinhard who, once the problem is pointed out, take programmatic steps to address it and mitigate it. It is almost as if the chief hurdle for this group is identifying the issue. In his book, Reinhard admits that he is not a 'user' of food (more than sporadically), or a binge eater - so his 'issues' around found were mostly practical and, once a practicum was created to counter-balance them, he found success. That is not to mitigate the challenges he's faced along the way, merely to point out areas where he did not initially have a known deficit (namely, mental health issues around food).

For many of us (bingers, compulsive eaters, emotional eaters, etc), adopting No S is a more protracted process. Think about all you might have to do if your issues with food pass the 'how much' and move into the 'why':
- Stop using food as tool of control, coping, distraction, escape, etc... that means you have to learn to deal with emotional issues you may or may not be prepared to deal with
- Possibly diverge from the eating habits of your friends/family... which can strain relationships (again, food is highly emotional to people - even those without food 'issues')
- Accept the result (i.e. weight loss) that comes from a pattern of behavior, rather than a radical caloric intervention (this means you may have to accept your body, and, even after losing weight, acknowledge that the frame with which you view it is, likely, rife with unrealistic emotional filters)

There is no doubt about it: 3 meals is plenty of food for most people in most situations. The issues around adoption of No S are thus, far less biological in nature, than they are emotional. Where do you fall on this continuum? If 'food is just food' to you, then your adoption will likely take less time. If you frequently 'use' food to try and get something (emotionally) that it cannot give you (since its merits are, mostly, meant to be biological), then it may take you far longer.

Due to my own, pre-existing food issues, I have seen extended periods of green days, followed by equally lengthy periods of red days. My weight is, largely, unchanged from the day I started 'following' the No S parameters. By 'weight-loss' standards (or, heck, even by 'compliance' standards), I'm not sure I qualify as a No S success story.

But not every change can be measured in weight. Some non-weight loss related positives:
- My weight did not go UP from the last year (which, if you read Reinhard's book, he urges is unique in today's world)
- I no longer over-analyze WHAT is on a plate. As a former orthorexic eater, this is a dramatic improvement for me.
- I am now 100% sure that diets don't work long-term and feel, strongly, this is the right way for me to eat. Believe me, reconciling yourself to that fact is big if you have dieted multiple times throughout your life. You need to commit your thoughts to this way of eating, and, even when you stray, it will become your new 'measuring stick'.

So maybe it will take you a full year to gain some of the emotional/mental healing and acceptance required to focus on just the details of the program. Maybe it won't. It depends on what kind of eater you are, what your pre-existing issues are, and how long it takes you to accept that No S is 'it' for you. So, here is my advice:
- Stick to it. If you fail, treat it appropriately. Don't ditch the concepts just because you go into a 3 day/week/month tailspin. You know, deep-down, that this way of eating feels 'right' to you and that's why you are here.
- Be kind to yourself. Realize that this may take a while. You are not going to un-do a lifetime of ANY kind of habit overnight. If it takes a year to learn a lesson that will benefit you the rest of your life, that is time well spent.
- Learn what kind of eater you are, what your issues are around food, and work on them, slowly.

Reinhard is right - there is only 'during'. I wish you great peace and success on your 'during'!

-simmstone

I first found NoS in April of 2007...I reached my goal last week. Have I been losing weight all along - NO. Not until I made up my mind that I was going to do it...and that was at the start of this year - 2012. I have stopped and restarted NoS many, many times - probably at least a dozen or more. That was a major part of the problem...I'd follow NoS and do very well, then get discouraged with the slow weight loss, think another "diet" or no diet at all would be a better route to go, rediscovering that NoS is the only way to go and feel sane, get back on the wagon again, then offset the good work accomplished Mon. - Fri. with over-the-top S days, or just too many red days, period. Rinse and repeat...rinse and repeat.
Finally I decided to work on my head habits as well as my eating habits and used The Beck Diet Solution (which isn't a diet at all) while I followed NoS. I also made up my mind that I was going to lose my extra poundage once and for all...and I did. Now I move into the most difficult stage - that of maintaining my 40 pound loss. I'm determined to accomplish this too.

Mimi

mimi wrote:I reached my goal last week.

Congratulations Mimi

mimi wrote:..I reached my goal last week...my 40 pound loss...

Wow, congratulations! That's wonderful.

mimi wrote:I have stopped and restarted NoS many, many times - probably at least a dozen or more. That was a major part of the problem...I'd follow NoS and do very well, then get discouraged with the slow weight loss, think another "diet" or no diet at all would be a better route to go, rediscovering that NoS is the only way to go and feel sane, get back on the wagon again, then offset the good work accomplished Mon. - Fri. with over-the-top S days, or just too many red days, period

I'm still in the stage where I keep trying NoS, get discouraged, try something else, doesn't work for long, come back to NoS....

I'm glad to hear that after many trial and errors it can work.

Congratulations!!

CONGRATULATIONS, MIMI! WONDERFUL NEWS!!!

Wonderful news, Mimi!