Just trying to get it off my chest...
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Just trying to get it off my chest...
Several months ago I introduced a mod which worked perfectly well: instead of S days, I was having three desserts a week. I lost "vanity weight", felt great, and looked great. Then just for the sake of my own curiosity, I started counting calories. On some N days I wasn't even reaching 1300 calories, which - if I am to believe calorie need calculators - is the absolute minimum for 5'1", 110 lbs, moderately/very active 28-year-old. To maintain my weight I should be consuming 1800-1900 calories a day! So I counted, and counted, and counted some more. With three nutritious meals a day my average was usually 1600 calories - still within "weight loss" range, but I didn't want to lose weight anymore, so I figured I could add a legitimate dessert a day to fill the gaps. And yes, I'm finally maintaining, thank goodness, but I HAVE to have dessert every single day. I can't stop, the cravings are enormous. In my book, having dessert every day is not a balanced way to eat, so I've decided to cut it down by doing vanilla No S once more. And boy, how anxious I am!
Now I'm afraid I'll either gain or lose weight if I stop counting calories. My S days were always wild, and I feel I was losing the same 3 pounds over and over again. However, I think it's necessary for me to make gaps between "sweet days" longer to regain control over my excessive sugar consumption, and the most natural way to do it is to go back to vanilla.
My plan is to combine vanilla with some perfunctory calorie counting (no weighing my food, thank you very much - I just want to be sure I'm eating enough). On S days:
- no solitary snacking, ever
- desserts after lunch and dinner or on social ocassions
- don't bring any treats home before the actual S day
- protein based breakfasts with 0 sugar.
Guys, honestly - am I overthinking the whole issue?
Now I'm afraid I'll either gain or lose weight if I stop counting calories. My S days were always wild, and I feel I was losing the same 3 pounds over and over again. However, I think it's necessary for me to make gaps between "sweet days" longer to regain control over my excessive sugar consumption, and the most natural way to do it is to go back to vanilla.
My plan is to combine vanilla with some perfunctory calorie counting (no weighing my food, thank you very much - I just want to be sure I'm eating enough). On S days:
- no solitary snacking, ever
- desserts after lunch and dinner or on social ocassions
- don't bring any treats home before the actual S day
- protein based breakfasts with 0 sugar.
Guys, honestly - am I overthinking the whole issue?
Unless you go to a medical clinic to measure your metabolic rate, you won't know it for sure. Furthermore, food calorie counts are notorious for being off.
If i were you I would eat according to whether you are satisfied, not an arbitrary calorie number.
If i were you I would eat according to whether you are satisfied, not an arbitrary calorie number.
Last edited by Jethro on Thu Jul 11, 2013 6:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Perfection is not attainable. But if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence."
- Vince Lombardi
Sometimes you need to take one step back for every two steps forward.
Time heals everything!
90% of a diet is 60% mental
- Vince Lombardi
Sometimes you need to take one step back for every two steps forward.
Time heals everything!
90% of a diet is 60% mental
I am new to this, so I am sure more experienced no-S-ers will provide some wisdom -- but one thing came to mind while I was reading: You can up calories in a lot of delicious, non-dessert ways if you don't want to lose more weight: cheese gratin, extra bread, heavy cream to finish your soup, I could go on . . .
"The second you overcomplicate it is the second it becomes the thing for which it is a corrective." -- El Fug
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The thing is, to reach 1800-1900 calories I had to force down all the savoury extras = displeasure, whereas desserts always went in smoothlyjw wrote:You can up calories in a lot of delicious, non-dessert ways if you don't want to lose more weight: cheese gratin, extra bread, heavy cream to finish your soup, I could go on . . .
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I wonder whether increasing protein with each meal might help with sugar cravings - I know I want to eat less sugar when I eat more protein. Then add in more fat to help bump up the calories...
Also, would increasing fruit help?
Dried fruits and nuts mixes are high in calories and might satiate the need to taste something sweet.
Also, would increasing fruit help?
Dried fruits and nuts mixes are high in calories and might satiate the need to taste something sweet.
Start BMI 36, current BMI 19, goal BMI 19.
Losing by combining intermittent fasting with NoS.
Losing by combining intermittent fasting with NoS.
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I think you might be over-thinking it. Go back to what you were doing when you looked and felt great.
"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."
"You are what you eat -- so don't be Fast, Easy, Cheap or Fake."
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You're absolutely right. I wasn't particularly comfortable doing vanilla, as I believe the concept of S days is reinforcing my "diet mentality" - I prefer having desserts evenly and predictably spread out in time. I'll be trying to drop calorie counting, but I know it's going to take some time. Thanks for the sound advice!
I wasn't comfortable with vanilla No-S, either, but it didn't have anything to do with diet mentality. Weekend S days just didn't work for me.Imogen Morley wrote:You're absolutely right. I wasn't particularly comfortable doing vanilla, as I believe the concept of S days is reinforcing my "diet mentality" - I prefer having desserts evenly and predictably spread out in time. I'll be trying to drop calorie counting, but I know it's going to take some time. Thanks for the sound advice!
"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."
"You are what you eat -- so don't be Fast, Easy, Cheap or Fake."
1) If you've ever been overweight and then lost weight, you will need several hundred fewer calories a day to maintain than you would if you had never been overweight.
2) I have a membership from a long time ago on a bodybuilding site for women, and they say the number of calories needed to lose weight for most women is actually lower than many sites claim. There are members on that site who eat 800-1000 calories a day to lose. There are a fair number of IFers there, too.
I think this is the problem with losing vanity weight, even if it happens by accident, if it's okay to say. It makes people want to hang onto it, and they start trying to eat to manipulate the scale and stay low. I lost some this winter, and I'm back up. I started trying to eat even less, and what had been coming rather easily started being a burden; things got out of hand, the pendulum swung, and I started eating more of this, then of that, yada yada yada.
Also, I've participated for years on another site online devoted to bingers and the single thing I see over and over as a problem is their insistence on trying to eat just a little something sweet often, like every day. I really, really think that for anyone who has had a problem with sugar, it works better to have it much less often. Another site that purports to help women with cravings says that having at least 4 days sugar free at a time seems useful. No S just asks for one more day.
Though my S days were wild for well over two years, about a year ago I instituted two mods. 1) I couldn't eat cookie dough more than once every 30 days (though I've ended up not having any, I don't think, for the whole year.) 2) I can eat sweets only in the company of others, which cuts way down on them because I live and spend a fair amount of time alone. I've failed at that one only a few times, but even that has usually been mild. So, I often now have weekends on which I have no desserts or sweets at all. I always leave the option open, but, though I continue to think fondly about them, when it comes down to actually eating them, it often doesn't sound that appealing. When I'm actually hungry, I want savory foods, and when I've had my savory foods, I'm often too full to enjoy a dessert fully. I can't claim that I can take 'em or leave 'em easily, but it's not the torture it was.
However, I'm visiting a friend this weekend and I will find a time to have something I really love, such as a slice of chocolate mousse cake or the like. No more eating a 12 oz. package of Hershey's kisses. Or a pint or more of ice cream. All of which would then be followed by grazing on mostly starchy stuff. All while not hungry.
I actually still sometimes miss the initial experience of overeating sweets, and every time I think I'm just going to let myself go for it, I end up not doing it and being so glad later because I got so full from my one scoop of ice cream or whatever. (And because I don't want to trip the wire on all that.) But all those foods are so dense in calories that it can be very easy to down a lot of them fast-- and feel pretty crappy in a couple of hours. Plus not get hungry for literally 12+ hours. And I miss eating even when I'm not hungry! But only on weekends.
So, even after all this time, sweets are not carefree for me. But manageable and I'm grateful for that.
So, all that to say that at some point, you may consider not thinking you have to have dessert after lunch and dinner on S days. Remember, it's SOMETIMES. This is down the line. It doesn't have to be tomorrow.
2) I have a membership from a long time ago on a bodybuilding site for women, and they say the number of calories needed to lose weight for most women is actually lower than many sites claim. There are members on that site who eat 800-1000 calories a day to lose. There are a fair number of IFers there, too.
I think this is the problem with losing vanity weight, even if it happens by accident, if it's okay to say. It makes people want to hang onto it, and they start trying to eat to manipulate the scale and stay low. I lost some this winter, and I'm back up. I started trying to eat even less, and what had been coming rather easily started being a burden; things got out of hand, the pendulum swung, and I started eating more of this, then of that, yada yada yada.
Also, I've participated for years on another site online devoted to bingers and the single thing I see over and over as a problem is their insistence on trying to eat just a little something sweet often, like every day. I really, really think that for anyone who has had a problem with sugar, it works better to have it much less often. Another site that purports to help women with cravings says that having at least 4 days sugar free at a time seems useful. No S just asks for one more day.
Though my S days were wild for well over two years, about a year ago I instituted two mods. 1) I couldn't eat cookie dough more than once every 30 days (though I've ended up not having any, I don't think, for the whole year.) 2) I can eat sweets only in the company of others, which cuts way down on them because I live and spend a fair amount of time alone. I've failed at that one only a few times, but even that has usually been mild. So, I often now have weekends on which I have no desserts or sweets at all. I always leave the option open, but, though I continue to think fondly about them, when it comes down to actually eating them, it often doesn't sound that appealing. When I'm actually hungry, I want savory foods, and when I've had my savory foods, I'm often too full to enjoy a dessert fully. I can't claim that I can take 'em or leave 'em easily, but it's not the torture it was.
However, I'm visiting a friend this weekend and I will find a time to have something I really love, such as a slice of chocolate mousse cake or the like. No more eating a 12 oz. package of Hershey's kisses. Or a pint or more of ice cream. All of which would then be followed by grazing on mostly starchy stuff. All while not hungry.
I actually still sometimes miss the initial experience of overeating sweets, and every time I think I'm just going to let myself go for it, I end up not doing it and being so glad later because I got so full from my one scoop of ice cream or whatever. (And because I don't want to trip the wire on all that.) But all those foods are so dense in calories that it can be very easy to down a lot of them fast-- and feel pretty crappy in a couple of hours. Plus not get hungry for literally 12+ hours. And I miss eating even when I'm not hungry! But only on weekends.
So, even after all this time, sweets are not carefree for me. But manageable and I'm grateful for that.
So, all that to say that at some point, you may consider not thinking you have to have dessert after lunch and dinner on S days. Remember, it's SOMETIMES. This is down the line. It doesn't have to be tomorrow.
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)
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)
I am on board with those who feel that you need to worry less. The key to No S is that it helps you build healthy habits without obsessing. Being aware of what foods are healthy and making good choices as often as I can within the Vanilla No S structure is the key for me. My relationship with food has changed. I eat healthier and enjoy my food more.
The journey is the reward.
Maintenance is progress.
Maintenance is progress.