Everyday Systems

Hi guys,

Question for all of you No Sers...

I was just curious: how does this plan work for everyone? If everyone has 3 plates a day, and plates are roughly the same size, how can a short small woman and a big tall man eat the same and both lose weight? Clearly they are different heights and they won't need the same amount of calories, but theoretically following this plan could result in that.

What you're saying is true. Hence why Reinhard lost 20 pounds in two months, where others only lose 10 pounds in a year.

But, the point is that when you only eat 3x a day, you can see exactly what you are eating. There's no hiding it. Over time you learn yourself better and you know how much you should be eating. The general rule of thumb around here is that you should eat enough to be hungry about 1hr before your next meal. If you're not hungry, you ate too much. It's a learning process.

So, yes, with some learning (and maybe a little well-educated tweaking) involved, this can work for just about everyone. You may lose slowly, but you have a greater chance of keeping the weight off, since this diet gets easier the longer you do it.

The biggest complaints against NoS are that it is too slow, and requires too much patience. It is for precisely those reasons that I know I can stick to it.

Interesting question...
I think that often the plates are not "roughly the same size", as many of us ladies use smaller plates. My standard plate is 9" with a 1" rim. Also, I think that what goes on those plates probably varies from person to person. I'd love to eat 2 Wendy's pub chicken sandwiches in a sitting, and could probably get both to balance on my plate, but I wouldn't try it on a regular basis (or at all, really) because it is obviously a poorly balanced meal for me. I think it's like water seeking its own level, where we eventually gravitate toward the size of plate and the plate content that works best for each of us.
If not, the scales tells us to make some adjustments...

The thing about No S is that it leaves a lot of discretionary room and asks that you use some common sense. It is truly a diet that treats you like a grown up. Since there is no magic in the formula, you have to exercise judgement. It's obvious to me that I don't need as much as my husband, and if I tried to eat as much, I'd probably feel extremely full. I have enough of a gauge in my stomach to tell me as such. For those with excessive appetites, maybe look at someone about your height, frame, desired weight and gender to get an idea how much they put on a plate.

NoS has given me the first big-picture idea of how much I actually need to eat in a day to be satisfied. It is definitely a learning process that I am really just beginning.

automatedeating wrote:The biggest complaints against NoS are that it is too slow, and requires too much patience. It is for precisely those reasons that I know I can stick to it.

me too! i know it won't be hard to stick to! and it may be slow but it works

I filled my plate once with calorie dense, filling stuff that all fit -- I was afraid I would be hungry, but instead I found I was uncomfortably stuffed. And once or twice, the plate was filled visually, but with lightweight, unsatisfying stuff, and I got hungry too soon afterward. You don't make those mistakes more than once or twice -- they don't make any difference to your success in the grand scheme of things, and you learn quickly because you learn by doing!

It works the same way it does in France and Italy, where it's doubtful men and women use different-sized plates but likely eat differently according to their needs and stay, on the average, pretty slim. They put on their plate what will be delicious and satisfying until the next meal. They are used to it; we have to learn. It does take a bit of attention and honesty. If you can let go of the desire to get quickly to your lowest weight and live there, it's fun!

@jw -- once or twice? I make the first "mistake" still. The second, amazingly, never! You are more evolved than I.

But No S definitely "works" for me -- it has showed me exactly why I am exactly this size. My three plates pretty much match my body. Moderate but pushing the edges of more than I need.

LOL, finallyfull, I really do fill my plates! I hated that feeling of not having had enough, and that was what led me to the overfull incident the next day. I'm not very evolved. Since I am cooking for one, I have a handle now on how much to cook -- just enough! -- but if I had extra food still in the serving dish, who knows what I'd get up to?!

jld141 wrote: how does this plan work for everyone?
If everyone has 3 plates a day, and plates are roughly the same size,
how can a short small woman and a big tall man eat the same and both lose weight?
Clearly they are different heights and they won't need the same amount of calories,
but theoretically following this plan could result in that.

No diet / food plan / way of eating / lifestyle is magic.
No S doesn't suspend biological rules.

Reinhard is a tall, active, young man.
I am a short, sedentary, elderly woman ... who is also "reduced obese".
Maintaining my current body size requires far, far less food than Reinhard's (and many other No S members).
Of course, we cannot eat the same amounts of the same kinds of foods.

I talk a lot about that in my check-out thread,
and also in my personal blog, DietHobby.
www.diethobby.com

To be honest, I don't think it does work the same way for everyone. I use it more as a template for eating, but I still have to be careful about how much I eat. Like many other diets, it "works" by limiting your calorie intake, and I think it's a great way of doing that - but it's not going to magically work unless there's a deficit. If, like me, you're a shorter, older woman, then it's easy to wipe out that deficit while still following the rules - three plates of food, plus drinks (milk? fruit juice?) can add up to too many calories for me. I could easily eat 700 calories just in one meal, on one plate. My maintenance calories at goal are around 1350 a day.

I read about No S quite a lot before I tried it, and looked at blogs, etc., to see how people were doing with it. It seemed quite common for people to end up controlling their portion size in some way (other than just by plate size).

What I do is calorie count some of the time, and control portions and watch what I'm eating all of the time. Calorie counting gives me a little more flexibility when needed. Meanwhile, I like the structure of three meals a day, with some leeway at weekends and on particular occasions. It works for me.

jld141 wrote:Hi guys,

Question for all of you No Sers...

I was just curious: how does this plan work for everyone? If everyone has 3 plates a day, and plates are roughly the same size, how can a short small woman and a big tall man eat the same and both lose weight? Clearly they are different heights and they won't need the same amount of calories, but theoretically following this plan could result in that.

Remember you are not eating plates. You are eating what's in the plate which will vary according to your size and needs. My eating needs would not the the same as a sumo wrestler nor would yours be the same as mine.

jld141 wrote:I was just curious: how does this plan work for everyone? If everyone has 3 plates a day, and plates are roughly the same size, how can a short small woman and a big tall man eat the same and both lose weight? Clearly they are different heights and they won't need the same amount of calories, but theoretically following this plan could result in that.

You don't have to eat one plate's worth. You just don't get to eat more than one plate's worth. I think those of us women who have found No S to work eat less than one plate and yet still feel satisfied. My experience is that the discovery of what's enough happens over the course of time.

You start out at a plate and then drift down from there. That's partly why it's so slow.

jld141 wrote:If everyone has 3 plates a day, and plates are roughly the same size

I realised when I wrote my testimonial that plates really aren't the same size. My dinner plates (the biggest in my house) are 7" (8" if you count the decorative border, however I don't put food on that). This seems to be a fair bit smaller than a lot of dinner plates that other posters have mentioned on the boards. Also, I sometimes make my lunch on one of my salad plates, which is maybe 4".

No-S is not magic, it is a framework for becoming aware of excess and changing the habit of overeating. I think so many other diet and exercise plans and products have been advertised over the years as "the solution" or some kind of magic answer, that we've been fooled into thinking that there is some kind of lever or switch out there we can just flip and then after that everything will be easy. Like there is some "trick" to thinness that is just out there waiting for us to finally discover it. In my experience No-S is simple, but not particularly easy to start out with, however it gets easier with time, which is the opposite of my experience on other diets.

The main thing for me is Reinhard's idea of visibility, as he says on the main page, being able to "eyeball excess" easily. If a poster has a solid No S habit and they've been at it for months without any result (assuming they have weight to lose), then probably people would suggest a look at what is in the three meals each day. From there, they can make the decision to either reduce the amount or change to less energy dense foods. But No-S delegates these "micro-decisions" to each of us.