Everyday Systems

Hi there,
I am a 42 year old homeschooling mom of 4. I am 5'1" and started out weighing about 153. I am down to 145 after about 3 weeks to a month of No S. I do suspect a lot of it was water weight and the loss will slow down. (the last week, I don't think much of anything has come off) No biggie, I am just happy to be eating the way I feel like I am supposed to without having to learn a whole new way of eating and cooking. At first I was thinking of going paleo but as I researched it, I felt defeated because it was so different from what I am used to and I know my limitations. I knew I could never keep it up. Thank goodness I ran across the No S diet on a homeschool forum and checked it out!
So, I am loving the No S diet for all the reasons you all do, it is just sanity and gives me a boundary within which I can live and feel comfortable with my eating without being obsessive about food or feeling fat.
I do have a question.
I keep seeing "vanilla No S" and I just wonder what that means. If someone could enlighten me I would appreciate it!
Thanks,
Stacey

Welcome and congratulations on your success so far.

Vanilla No-S means No-S without any modifications: No snacks, no sweets, no seconds, except on S days.

That is kind of what I thought, I just wanted to be sure.
I guess that is pretty much what I am doing although I am trying to cut down on potatoes, rice and pasta which had become staples for every dinner.
I am also thinking of trying TTapp. Has anyone else used that? It seems pretty sensible and simple too.

StaceyH wrote:
I guess that is pretty much what I am doing although I am trying to cut down on potatoes, rice and pasta which had become staples for every dinner.

I think they should be staples of every meal -- along with bread!!

wosnes wrote:

StaceyH wrote:
I guess that is pretty much what I am doing although I am trying to cut down on potatoes, rice and pasta which had become staples for every dinner.

I think they should be staples of every meal -- along with bread!!

REALLY?! Or are you being silly?

Hi Stacy, I'm a newbie here also, and a 41 yo homeschooling mom of 6. Congratulations on your weight loss!

"REALLY?! Or are you being silly? "

Welcome! Like me, you must be coming off a low carb regimen of some kind! I know, when I first started No-S, I was very, very careful about potatoes, noodles, bread, etc. because those were the foods to avoid if you wanted to lose weight, according to all my past diet wisdom.

I have happily added them back into my diet over the last 6 weeks -- because in the end I couldn't do completely without them and the whole point is to develop an eating style that we can live with long term!

Almost all my meals include a starchy carbohydrate, along with a source protein and fat and fibrous vegetables or fruit. It's how most meals in traditional cuisines are structured. There is nothing wrong with eating rice, potatoes, pasta, bread, oats, legumes etc as long as they are balanced with other foods.
Instead of trying to eliminate starchy carbs from my meals, I focus on increasing the proportion of colourful vegetables so they take up at least as much room on the plate as the starch and protein put together.

StaceyH wrote:

wosnes wrote:

StaceyH wrote:
I guess that is pretty much what I am doing although I am trying to cut down on potatoes, rice and pasta which had become staples for every dinner.

I think they should be staples of every meal -- along with bread!!

REALLY?! Or are you being silly?

Really. I have a starch at nearly every meal. It's a rare meal that doesn't include a starch of some kind. Usually it's bread, but meals usually also include potatoes, corn, or pasta. The starchy vegetables appear more often than other grains, even pasta.

Rice, oats, barley (usually in soup) and quinoa make less frequent appearances. If you include them as starches, beans appear frequently, also in soups.

I definitely don't say "oh, I'm having (name of starch) so I don't need (name of another starch)." In fact, tonight's meal includes bread, corn, and potatoes (and other stuff).

I have a nearly 20 year old article from Prevention magazine called "How in the World to Stay Slim." They looked at the eating habits of people in 9 different countries throughout the world. One of the points in the summary is that "grains star on their plates."

While we tend to make meat or cheese the centerpiece of our meals, healthier cuisines mandate that the largest serving on the plate be a filling, low-fat grain or starch -- for example, it's rice in Asia, potatoes in Sweden, bread in Europe or corn flour in Mexico.

In most of the countries it's two or three starches that form the basis of their meals.

In the conclusion they did state that world obesity was on the rise.

As societies get richer, people become more sedentary. They eat more calories, more meat and more American style fast food. American fast food combined with a sedentary lifestyle is making the citizens of the world fat.

oh there's nothing like GOOD bread!! I like fresh bagels with lunchmeat and cheese for breakfast sometimes.

Wow.

I can totally see the point of having a "diet" I can live with forever. That makes total sense.

So, really truly, in the long haul, not overeating at meals, not eating snacks and staying away from sugar on the N days, will be enough to lose weight. I guess I have been brainwashed by the low carb stuff. I will have to get my head around this more. It will be such a relief because I lost like 70% of my base meals!

You have all made me a happy woman.
Thank you all who gave information! This forum is very cool.

StaceyH wrote:

So, really truly, in the long haul, not overeating at meals, not eating snacks and staying away from sugar on the N days, will be enough to lose weight.

Almost...it's not staying away from sugar, it's staying away from sweets.

Good point! Sweets.

StaceyH wrote: I guess I have been brainwashed by the low carb stuff. I will have to get my head around this more.

I'm in the same boat. The low carb stuff is "eat only this and you can eat as much as you want" which just didn't work out for me.

The French are being encouraged to eat more bread. Currently, they only eat half a baguette daily -- down from a baguette daily just 40 years ago.

Whenever someone talks about how bad carbs are for you (and honestly, I do eat a lot less of them than I did years ago), all I can think of are the Italians and French. The French start the day with bread. I think they don't have meals with no starch, though they don't load up on anything, it seems. The Italians often start the day with what we would call a sweet, and have bread at lunch and dinner, even if there's pasta. Do they have rampant health problems? Or the inflammation problems the Paleo people talk about? I don't know.

I'm pretty sure the French government has been pretty good at clamping down on cigarette smoking because of the health costs. I imagine they'd be aware of anything else costing them inordinately. But I guess it would take a lot to get them to clamp down on bread!

oolala53 wrote:
I'm pretty sure the French government has been pretty good at clamping down on cigarette smoking because of the health costs. I imagine they'd be aware of anything else costing them inordinately. But I guess it would take a lot to get them to clamp down on bread!

Somewhere I just read about a family going to France and some other European countries (they went this summer). They mentioned the high rate of smoking. I think that was their only complaint about traveling in Europe.