My No S Journey and New Found Key to Success

No Snacks, no sweets, no seconds. Except on Days that start with S. Too simple for you? Simple is why it works. Look here for questions, introductions, support, success stories.

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la_loser
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My No S Journey and New Found Key to Success

Post by la_loser » Sat Jun 22, 2013 7:33 pm

Happy summer to everyone. (Warning-this post is mostly all about me and what’s been a part of my journey-my health issues that have consumed me-but No S is a part of that landscape-read at your own risk-I tend to be a bit wordy! If for no other reason, it’s been rather cathartic to put all this down in words!) This whole post leads to my new-found mod to No S which is definitely working!

For those who are relatively new to No S, I am a stranger but I have been No S-ing off and on for five years. I first joined soon after purchasing the now famous Women’s World magazine featuring No S on the front cover about the time Reinhard’s book came out in spring 2008. Wow-what a great discovery. I bought a bunch of the books for gifts and have become a great believer in the system and have tried to follow the plan since then. I have definitely fallen off the wagon a number of times and always return as many other No Sers have done. I really feel like a true No S cheerleader even though I haven’t been as consistent as I should. However, reading some of the recent posts (I lurk a lot!) I have come to some realizations about my implementation of No S or more aptly, my lack of sticking with it. Many members write about working toward their 21 day challenge or trying for a perfect streak of green days and I would rarely be that “perfect.†Now logically, that shouldn’t have mattered and I should have listened more carefully to vmsurbat’s sage advice to “mark it and move on.†I even reminded people to do that and even started the thread that became a sticky called “No S Catch Phrase Glossary.â€

Then I’d get distracted and go back to my old habits, rejoin the “count your points†money making outfit, rarely stay within my points and here I’d be again. I have concluded. . . and it is working for me THIS TIME that I do best with having two HabitCals. I definitely think those new to this brilliant concept need to stick with Vanilla No S with no mods or tweaks for a SIGNIFICANT period of time. . . as in months or more before you even attempt any tweaks. . . but I strongly urge people to not view this whole thing as black or white or that you have failed if you have a red day or even a string of them occasionally. It’s OK. Same thing with the scale. I’m doing my best to stay away from it. I definitely can tell a difference in my clothes and when I happened to see my physical therapist yesterday for the first time in a few months, the first thing he said was, “that plan is really working for you isn’t it-I can tell you’ve lost.†Woo Hoo—see big smile on my face as my ego shot up immediately, of course.

So here’s my recent history and what I’m doing that has made the difference to help me turn the corner. Feel free to skip this pity party and go to the next post for my mod. . . It entails a lot of health history, but all of this plays into my mindset and mood over the last couple of years.

• Fall 2005: Messed up right knee followed by arthroscopic meniscus repair-did not prove to be highly successful but at least it eliminated the ugliest pain in my right knee. When I voiced concern that I was still having issues, that orthopedist said something to the effect that considering my age and my weight, I shouldn’t expect much. I was 55 at the time and probably about 40 or so pounds overweight at that point-still buying clothes in the misses section of the store! Well, that was certainly encouraging. After all, he was the doc-I thought I was doomed to a life of discomfort at that point. So on I trodded. . . not exercising at all and failing at every diet I tried. . . and I tried a bunch.
• Spring, 2008: Discovered No S! Yea!!! I began to “get it†although I didn’t lose much. . . even put weight on, but strangely with the No S thoughts stuck in the back of my head, I think it’s a miracle I didn’t just stuff my face and double my weight!
• Fall, 2009: My husband looked across the table at me on night and said, “what’s wrong with your face?†Uh, I don’t know, dear. . . turned out to be a tiny freckle sized melanoma on my right upper cheek. Wide excision followed with reconstructive surgery which resulted in a, what I thought was huge, scar. The scar faded over time and I was good to go. Thankfully, it was stage 1, in situ maligna lentigo-meaning it was only in the epidermis and had not progressed deeper or spread elsewhere.
• Fall, 2010: Took a nasty fall on vacation-look out for those speed bumps at resorts! Left knee issues persisted but my new wonderful PT took good care of me and it got much better. . . as in I could walk again without wanting to cry! A few cortisone shots to both knees bought me some time but pain still persisted and I had given up all physical activity that didn’t just have to be done. And my weight continued to climb. I wasn’t remotely inclined to do anything (including No S) except try to get from one day to the next.
• Winter, 2012: The fact that I had favored my “bad†right knee while the left one was more messed up, truly took its toll and the right knee completely went wacky on me. My orthopedist (a new one since I’d never been pleased with the first one on 2005) determined surgery was needed and said he thought I was probably too young (62) for total knee replacement so we should try to scope it again but it was my choice. Geesh, it had been so long since anyone had told me I was too young for ANYTHING, that I was so flattered that I decided to have it scoped again in April, 2012. It was evident early on that the surgery wasn’t enough. I was to the point that I’d sit in my car in the garage when I got home and listen to the radio rather than being willing to face the seven steps to get into the house. Upon hearing that, my PT said, “you know, they say it’s time for a TKR when your quality of life has deteriorated to such a degree that you can’t carry on your everyday tasks without significant pain.†He had this idea that my just sitting in the garage wasn’t a good thing! I shared that story with my surgeon and told him that he might have thought I was too young for knee replacement. . . but I had decided I was too young NOT to have it. He looked at me with a huge realization across his face and promptly said, “you know, I never thought about like that.†I didn’t want to lose good quality time with my family, chasing around my granddaughter, waiting till I was “old†enough to have the surgery.
• June, 2012: Total right knee replacement-a real “pain†to deal with, but a relief to know it would be a vast improvement. Continued PT with Scott. That knee progressed well, but it was obvious that the left one was in pretty bad shape too.
• October, 2012: Made plans for left TKR for November, then a guy ran a light and totaled my less than a year old Camry. Are you kidding me? After I realized I was ok but that it was equipped with knee airbags (who knew?), my first thought was, this better not have messed up my new knee! Good news-no serious injuries there and had a new Camry in less than a week.
• November, 2012: Left TKR. And surprise, surprise-when the doc opened it up, he discovered my patella tendon was in shreds from the 2010 fall I’d taken. Oh, geesh, maybe that’s why that knee had been swollen and painful for all that time! So he repaired that too. Ironically, the initial therapy for TKR is to get it moving ASAP to prevent scar tissue buildup; however, the treatment for a patella tendon repair is to keep it immobile for six weeks. Hmmm. . . a little contradiction in treatments. I had to wear an immobilizer for what seemed like forever but when I went to PT, Scott was allowed to take it off and do PT on the table with it. What a mess.
• December, 2012: Had an ultrasound to check for possible pulmonary embolisms (a common side effect of TKR’s) and they spotted a 2.5 cm (yeah, that’s over an inch) asymptomatic kidney stone lodged in my upper kidney.
• January, 2013: Lithotripsy (blasting it) failed to budge the stone. Put that on hold since it wasn’t giving me any problems. . . and have I mentioned, my weight had continued to climb to my highest EVER!
• February, 2013: Lost my dear mother-in-law and our precious little 15 year old poodle within a few days of each other. More pounds. . .
• April, 2013: Discovered two new “freckles†on my melanoma scar line. Although the biopsy was stage 1, in situ again, significant treatment ensued. Wide excision on April 22 then even wider (more than an inch and a half) on April 30 till the margins came back completely clear. Be grateful I’m not posting pictures-it was definitely not a pretty picture. . . but at least the melanoma is gone.
• May 9: Plastic reconstructive surgery, entailing more than 55 stitches plus staples and a “reverse flap facelift.†(Guess I’m going to look really young on one side!) Scar is HUGE but already looks much better and the doc is confident that it will virtually gone in six months. . . well, we shall see about that. Oh, well, when I complained about the messing up of my face, my husband was quick to point out that “skin grows back, I just don’t want to be a widower.†That was one of the sweetest things I’ve heard in years!
• May 25: School’s out and I am back, baby, No S speaking. I cancelled every subscription, plan, blog or whatever that is not related to No S. I’ve gone back and re-listened to Rein’s podcasts and I came out swinging. Even throughout the last few weeks till now, I’ve managed to stay on track with the “mod†that I have finally come up with that is truly working for me. Those details in the next post.
• June 11: PCNL-Urologist cut a hole in my back, snaked a tube to my kidney, broke up the stone with a laser and sucked all the little pieces out.
• June 19: Oh, yeah, hub had his knee scoped. . . but I’m married to Iron Man-he’s already up and at ‘em-he just finished vacuuming!
• And now I’m Good. To. Go. Period. I. Hope.
I am so done with doctors and appointments.
LA Loser. . . well on my way to becoming an LA Winner. :lol:

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la_loser
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My mod that's working

Post by la_loser » Sat Jun 22, 2013 7:36 pm

So here’s what I’ve done to get myself back on track No S wise. I’ve already lost about ten pounds in the last month, give or take what moment I weigh! Lots to go, but I definitely feel better physically and more in control of myself and I do trust the system and I think with my double Habitcal, I’m going to continue to do just fine!

My official Habitcal is what I call my “Strictly_Speaking_No_S†Plain old vanilla No S. And I am completely honest with marking it. . . before I used to bargain with myself and say things like, “well, since I really didn’t have a bunch of sweets on the weekend, I’ll just let this Monday’s tiny little dessert not count so I can keep it green. But I never had a real picture of my compliance. . . or if I did, I’d get discouraged and blow off the whole thing for a day or a week or whatever. But this time, I’m not beating myself up for any reds I incur. The only tweak to this one is that if I have a Saturday or Sunday when I have absolutely no desire or opportunity to have sweets or snacks and I don’t even think about it, I mark that S day green instead. I don’t TRY to keep weekends green. . . but at the end of the day, if I haven’t taken “advantage†of the opportunity, I want to document it. But it doesn’t mean I try to take an S day in the middle of the week for no reason.

But here’s the catch, I have a second HabitCal called “One_S_or_Less†For this one, I don’t necessarily delineate whether it’s supposed to be a routine S day or not. If I have one or no snacks or seconds or sweets on a given day, I mark it green. Period. If I were to have seconds AND a sweet, it would be a red day unless it’s an actual S day. (and it would be red on my Strictly Speaking as well of course unless it was an S day.)

I am confident this is going to be an ongoing successful solution for me. It probably wouldn’t work for others. But I am happy to report that although the past 28 days have yielded 5 red days, I had three Saturdays that ended up true green. AND best of all, in the last 28 days, I have straight greens on my One S or Less Habitcal. Period. For ME, it’s more valuable to know that having one dessert on a Tuesday is less harmful than having seconds at every weekend meal and multiple sweets and snacks all weekend. I’ve never had a problem with S days gone wild like many people do, thankfully. Reinhard’s warning about S days to “not be an idiot†has rung true with me in a major way.

Today, Saturday, will be a real S day-we’re having guests for pie and homemade ice cream. Yea! And there will be zero guilt!

I don’t do a written daily check-in. . . part of what has always appealed to me about No S is its simplicity. Don’t overthink-don’t sweat the small stuff. I want to spend my time and energy on my life, my family, etc. , not obsessing over little stuff. Trying to get rid of the diet-head mentality to me means dropping the mental calculations and the fretting over this and that. Being able to do this is so freeing!

I’ll update this as I determine that my mod continues to work. . . so far so good. I waited a month to even note it at all and since I’m seeing progress, I thought it was time. Now that it looks like my massive medical nightmares are done, I hope to be able to keep these habits firm.

I would discourage anyone who is just getting started to jump into my mod without giving the real deal a chance to work-we are all different! Thanks for listening. 8)
LA Loser. . . well on my way to becoming an LA Winner. :lol:

r.jean
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Joined: Fri Dec 24, 2010 7:47 pm
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Post by r.jean » Sat Jun 22, 2013 8:02 pm

Wow. Great post.
I like your mod. I have always marked weekend days green if I happened to not have any snacks, sweets or seconds. However, I like the idea of a second calendar for one no S or less. It seems like this would help keep you away from the WTH effect.
I am also impressed with how you fought through your personal challenges. It is hard to take care of yoursef when so much else is going on.
Congrats.
The journey is the reward.
Maintenance is progress.

wosnes
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Re: My mod that's working

Post by wosnes » Sat Jun 22, 2013 8:31 pm

LA_Loser wrote:So here’s what I’ve done to get myself back on track No S wise. I’ve already lost about ten pounds in the last month, give or take what moment I weigh! Lots to go, but I definitely feel better physically and more in control of myself and I do trust the system and I think with my double Habitcal, I’m going to continue to do just fine!

My official Habitcal is what I call my “Strictly_Speaking_No_S†Plain old vanilla No S. And I am completely honest with marking it. . . before I used to bargain with myself and say things like, “well, since I really didn’t have a bunch of sweets on the weekend, I’ll just let this Monday’s tiny little dessert not count so I can keep it green. But I never had a real picture of my compliance. . . or if I did, I’d get discouraged and blow off the whole thing for a day or a week or whatever. But this time, I’m not beating myself up for any reds I incur. The only tweak to this one is that if I have a Saturday or Sunday when I have absolutely no desire or opportunity to have sweets or snacks and I don’t even think about it, I mark that S day green instead. I don’t TRY to keep weekends green. . . but at the end of the day, if I haven’t taken “advantage†of the opportunity, I want to document it. But it doesn’t mean I try to take an S day in the middle of the week for no reason.

But here’s the catch, I have a second HabitCal called “One_S_or_Less†For this one, I don’t necessarily delineate whether it’s supposed to be a routine S day or not. If I have one or no snacks or seconds or sweets on a given day, I mark it green. Period. If I were to have seconds AND a sweet, it would be a red day unless it’s an actual S day. (and it would be red on my Strictly Speaking as well of course unless it was an S day.)

Today, Saturday, will be a real S day-we’re having guests for pie and homemade ice cream. Yea! And there will be zero guilt!

I don’t do a written daily check-in. . . part of what has always appealed to me about No S is its simplicity. Don’t overthink-don’t sweat the small stuff. I want to spend my time and energy on my life, my family, etc. , not obsessing over little stuff. Trying to get rid of the diet-head mentality to me means dropping the mental calculations and the fretting over this and that. Being able to do this is so freeing!
Wow, what a time you've had! Glad to hear you and your hubby are on the mend.

Your "one S or less" sounds like a mod I came up with for myself within the last year or so. I don't track it, but I allow myself one S daily (usually a sweet). What is amazing to me after several months is how little I use it.

I don't use habitcal. I found it made this too much of a "diet" and made me concentrate on success and failure rather than habit building. It took away the simplicity of No-S for me.
"That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do. Not that the nature of the thing itself has changed but our power to do it is increased." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"You are what you eat -- so don't be Fast, Easy, Cheap or Fake."

clarinetgal
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Post by clarinetgal » Sun Jun 23, 2013 5:58 am

Wow, that's quite the journey! I'm glad you have found something that works for you! :D

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MerryKat
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Post by MerryKat » Mon Jun 24, 2013 11:30 am

Wow!! You have certainly been through the mill with health issues.

So glad to hear you are now back on track and doing well.

Congrats on holding onto No S thru out and for returning to it. I am also back (again!) and also following Vanilla No S with no add ons or mods (for me a surefire way to fail). I love the idea of your second habitcal but for me it would be too much tracking and that leads to me chucking in the towel.

Good Luck and so nice to have so many friends of old still hanging in there and returning.
Hugs from Sunny South Africa
Vanilla No S with no Sugar due to Health issues - 11 yrs No S - September 2016 (some good, some bad (my own doing) but always the right thing for me!)

Bssh
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Location: London

Post by Bssh » Mon Jun 24, 2013 1:58 pm

Wonderful post!

I too have used "one S or less" mod very successfully to lose a lot of weight. I found that allowing myself a small dessert after the evening meal really helped me stick with this way of eating and often I wasn't bothered about the dessert.

I'm trying vanilla S for June but I don't beat myself up if I have a "red" day (which usually means a small dessert!). After all, I've lost more than 68 lbs now.
Start BMI 36, current BMI 19, goal BMI 19.
Losing by combining intermittent fasting with NoS.

wosnes
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Location: Indianapolis, IN, USA

Post by wosnes » Mon Jun 24, 2013 2:45 pm

Bssh wrote:After all, I've lost more than 68 lbs now.
Good for you!
"That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do. Not that the nature of the thing itself has changed but our power to do it is increased." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"You are what you eat -- so don't be Fast, Easy, Cheap or Fake."

noni
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Joined: Fri Feb 27, 2009 2:01 pm

Post by noni » Mon Jun 24, 2013 2:58 pm

Wow..... did someone wish you an interesting life? Glad you and your lovingly-observant hubby are doing well, now.

Welcome back to No S. You have the right attitude for it. And thank you for taking the time to share with us.

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Christine
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Post by Christine » Mon Jun 24, 2013 4:05 pm

Hi LA_Loser, What a fantastic, inspiring outcome to all of your sad & scary events. The best to you and your loving husband, thanks for sharing all of this!
I'm a Mac

oolala53
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Post by oolala53 » Wed Jun 26, 2013 6:38 am

Man, I'm lucky.

Congrats on your mod. I think it might not even be the worst thing for a newbie, if she was really struggling, I mean the one about allowing one s on N days. Even Reinhard said at one point that people might consider phasing each of the s's in.

Here's to your new lease on life and knees!
Count plates, not calories. 11 years "during"
Age 69
BMI Jan/10-30.8
1/12-26.8 3/13-24.9 +/- 8-lb. 3 yrs
9/17 22.8 (flux) 3/18 22.2
2 yrs flux 6/20 22
1/21-23

There is no S better than Vanilla No S (mods now as a senior citizen)

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butterfly1000
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Post by butterfly1000 » Wed Jun 26, 2013 12:42 pm

r.jean wrote:Wow. Great post.
I like your mod. I have always marked weekend days green if I happened to not have any snacks, sweets or seconds. However, I like the idea of a second calendar for one no S or less. It seems like this would help keep you away from the WTH effect.
I am also impressed with how you fought through your personal challenges. It is hard to take care of yoursef when so much else is going on.
Congrats.
I agree! Great post!

I might try the second calendar for one No S or less. I have major problems with the WTH effect -- when I mess up, it continues to the end of the day -- I tell myself, the day is red already (makes no sense I know because I'm just making matters worse). I've tried dividing the day into 2 (afternoon and evening) and tracking them separately but that doesn't seem to work.

L.A.: It's posts like this and the support on this site that keeps me coming back even if I haven't been able to stick to NoS yet. :)

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la_loser
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Thanks for your responses!

Post by la_loser » Wed Jun 26, 2013 3:48 pm

Thanks for all the supportive responses. I've had a busy week in my role as MeMa to an eight year old summer theatre actress-what can I say, preparing to be in the bird chorus is tough work! And this reminds me of an example of how I had a RED day yesterday on my real HabitCal and a GREEN day on my One S or Less one. She gave my husband one of those easy ice cream makers for Christmas and we finally, last night, got around to making ice cream. I wasn't about to miss out so I had a probably 2 oz. serving of delicious homemade ice cream that was a real family affair. Had I not had that extra HabitCal, it would have been really easy to invoke the WTH and have a second bowl and maybe extra helpings of dinner as well. (r.jean-that's what you were saying in your response, I think)

To Wosnes, I totally get why you don't use a HabitCal. To me, one of the real beauties of No S is that we don't have to "count" things. . . that's why Reinhard refers to the SAD diets as "substance accounting diets." When I was doing Vanilla No S off and on for years, I'd quit even marking my HabitCal after a few "fails". . .for one, because I would feel like a failure plus I'd get busy with life and just not get to it. My hope is that once I've been doing my double HabitCal for a while and get myself really into a groove of only occasionally having that one S per N day and I know that I'm not abusing it, then I'll probably drop recording on a daily basis. Also when I have enough data to prove to myself that it's working on a long-term basis. At that point I won't need to keep documenting. In the back of my mind, I'm thinking that hopefully will happen by the time school starts back since that will have given me about twelve weeks to cement my efforts and to have some significant progress, weight wise, as well. And it is amazing how freeing it is to know that I CAN have a little something if I want it. . . and I usually don't take advantage of the option.

I think it's great that those of you who commented have strong feelings about "yes, that really works for me" or "no way, it would send me straight down the wrong path!" -- we do know all know ourselves better than anyone!

About all my medical drama, etc. this year-yes, it was crazy to go through all of those issues but honestly, none of the physical stuff I went through was life-threatening or permanently disabling. The melanoma of course was potentially life-threatening but we did get to it quickly. The knees and the kidney thing was painful and a pain to deal with but nothing unbearable. (Or maybe my threshold for what I'll put up with has changed!)

But when I think of how many people have so many worse problems to deal with than I have had and who have had to deal with ongoing serious critical issues, then I realize that all of my mess was temporary and a part of the journey. This too shall pass! I still have lots of knee pain - the arthritis doesn't vanish after TKR and my face has a long way to go to get rid of the scars but hey, I'm still here, kicking!

This forum is such a wonderful and positive place to be! Kudos to Reinhard for his vision and willingness to keep it going. How fun to hear from people from all over the world!
LA Loser. . . well on my way to becoming an LA Winner. :lol:

oolala53
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Post by oolala53 » Wed Jun 26, 2013 4:06 pm

I love that you have such a great attitude about your medical issues. You're right. Could be worse!

And thank you for reminding me of our clever leader's other interpretation of SAD. Really puts them on par par with the other one referred to in the wider world. Which is worse, eating too much poor quality food all day or counting the good stuff? I think an outsider would have a hard time choosing.
Last edited by oolala53 on Wed Jun 26, 2013 7:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Count plates, not calories. 11 years "during"
Age 69
BMI Jan/10-30.8
1/12-26.8 3/13-24.9 +/- 8-lb. 3 yrs
9/17 22.8 (flux) 3/18 22.2
2 yrs flux 6/20 22
1/21-23

There is no S better than Vanilla No S (mods now as a senior citizen)

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la_loser
Posts: 629
Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2008 2:43 pm
Location: Deep in the Heart. . .land

Thanks for your responses!

Post by la_loser » Wed Jun 26, 2013 4:25 pm

Oolala,

I've meant to say. . . I think you and Wosnes and I have a lot in common-except I've still got lots to lose (pound wise)-diet head baggage I've already lost! I'm 63, a little older than you, but that's ok-I'm immature for my age!

I love your byline about what you count. Awesome!

And as an aside. . . I was in San Diego on vacation at Christmas time in 2010 when I tripped on a speed bump and triggered this latest set of catastrophes; still managed to see a lot of lovely spots while we were there though. It's a beautiful area!
LA Loser. . . well on my way to becoming an LA Winner. :lol:

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