Rachelocity's Accountability Thread

[Rachelocity]

Good morning! I'm Rachel (as you never would have guessed from my screen name) and I'm a newbie to No S. In fact, I spontaneously started yesterday after breakfast after reading about the plan on another message board.

A bit about me, since there's no Intro Thread: I'm oppositional in nature, which a) makes it hard for me to follow any plan that's too rigid for a long time and b) ensures that I'd gloss over the Intro Thread anyway! I'm 56, divorced, and living in Montreal.

As a career dieter, I have a long list of internalized messages about moral values attached to certain foods. My goal is to decriminalize and disempower those trigger foods. I also want to focus on habits, not results. I'd be treadmilling away at WW, counting every. freaking. point, hating the inherent restrictions of the process, paying thru the wazoo and losing 1-2 pounds a month. No S-ing, I can lose 1-2 pounds a month for free. Wheeeee!! This is about maintaining and sustaining new habits. My weight will level off wherever it wants too. And honestly, that's cool. I'm not even calling this "maintenance". I'm calling it "sustenance". Which works on more than one level.

In essence, I'm tired of pathologizing my status of being overweight. I don't want a diagnostic label. In fact, my history with diets has given me two labels - one for the overweight and another of borderline OCD with all the checking, counting, weighing, measuring, etc. I just want to trust my body again. Is that so bad?????

Thanks for reading through this manifesto.

My score for yesterday:
Green - I slammed thru Day 1 like the Hulk!

[eschano]

Hi Rachel,

Congratulations on your success!

In fact, my history with diets has given me two labels - one for the overweight and another of borderline OCD with all the checking, counting, weighing, measuring, etc. I just want to trust my body again. Is that so bad?????:

I completely get where you're coming from. I feel the same! It's so hard to get that formerly forbidden foods are completely ok again. At the same time it opens up a whole new world of culinary delights - even on N days. I'm definitely getting a cookbook now.

Good luck and keep us posted!

[ZippaDee]

Welcome Rachel!! So happy you found this sane way of eating. Congrats on slamming day one!

[Rachelocity]

Thanks for the warm welcome, guys! I made it thru Day 2 and I'm chillin' like a villain. And just for kicks and giggles, I'm going to journal what I had urges to eat yesterday, but didn't. Yup, it's an anti-food journal! Here goes:

At work: Birthday cake for a co-worker who I really don't like (therefore not qualifying as an "S" - there are people at work who I consider my office sisters and I would make an exception for them)
Cake from the freezer at work to compensate for the b-day cake I didn't have! This cake, BTW, has been sitting around for a month and nobody really wants it. I even considered holding a pre-Bastille Day "Let Them Eat Cake" party just to get rid of it, but then I'd have to organize it and I had a couple of looming deadlines.
A Vitamuffin top when I got home to compensate for Cake #1 and Cake #2 that I didn't have. (Disclaimer: I would have only really had 2/3 of the cake opportunities, but one bite and I lose the fight)
About 1/3 of my portion of tabbouleh at dinner. It was on the wilty side. Meh.
Evening snack, possibly a donut on the way home from the supermarket.
Granola bar at 11:00 p.m. Replaced with a small piece of cheese and a glass of milk. Dairy helps me sleep better, and I didn't want a melatonin hangover.

Lessons learned: For someone who vociferously insists she doesn't like sweets, there are a lot of cake-portunities in my life! Must re-engineer this.... Dairy before bedtime really does enhance the quality of my sleep. I even slept thru the 3:30 a.m. "Feed Me" meows. I have three cats, one of whom has a very loud, heavy-metal-type meow.

But no metal for me. I'm more of a punk type. Green Day, to be precise! And since I don't wanna be a Canadian Idiot, I'll be doing the same today. And tomorrow.

[eschano]

Your post really made me smile and I love the Julia Child quote.

Congratulations! This anti-food journal seems like a brilliant idea to get a feeling of how much more we would usually possibly eat on a day and of how often we have to resist. Personally, it's a bit too much effort but I enjoy reading yours.

Also, it's a good idea not to use S days for people we don't love. I will implement this too.

[Rachelocity]

Do you have the time to listen to me whine???? (Yup, starting off with a Green Day earworm! No need to thank me.)

GAAAHHHHH!!! How do you behaviour-modify cats? I was spooning the Friskies into the bowl at 4:00 this morning! Believe me, nothing is less appetizing than Chicken Pate at that time to a human!

Interesting day at work yesterday - remember the birthday cake for Unliked Co-Worker that I managed to avoid? Well, it came back to haunt me! One of my other co-workers came to me smiling, holding a piece of the freakin' cake, gesturing to me! I firmly believe it's a Zombie Cake and it will eat my brains if I go near it today, so I'll let it go stale in the fridge over the weekend and trash it on Monday if someone else hasn't snagged it. (Do you get Worker's Comp for injuries sustained eating Zombie Cake?)

Aside from that manufactured drama, the day was uneventful. And GREEN! Today's challenge du jour: My boss is treating me to a "special" (note the S-word!) lunch from a fancy-schmancy takeout place, and since I ordered the food, I know there's gonna be a yummy dessert. I have a plan: If I am hungry after lunch, I'll call the day Yellow and enjoy it. If not, I'll just save it for tomorrow, or go Yellow tonight.

My Anti-Food-Journal includes the aforementioned Zombie Cake, as well as a chocolate cupcake at the house of shiva (mourning) for my BFF's father. Grief food counts, I decided. Which is amazing, since I referred to the huge cheese Danish I scarfed daily during my father's final hospitalization as "antidepressants". You've come a long way baby.....

[Rachelocity]

Okay, today's yellow - I took a second portion of artichoke salad at lunch (with feta cheese, olives, EVOO dressing - tasty but much too much dressing for my liking) and ate a plum and some cucumber sticks right now because I was both thirsty and hungry. I've had 2/3 Ss, and amazingly, the world continues to turn!! I like the whole "it's okay to eat" dealio!!

[Rachelocity]

I made it thru my first S weekend, with very little to kvetch about. I even got through two, count 'em, two trips to Dairy Queen for after-dinner dessert. The first night, I was kinda munchie-ish and took a spoonful of my niece's Blizzard. The second time, I really wasn't hungry, but I was thirsty and had a diet 7-Up, which was what I really wanted. This was in the face of a) my entire family snarfing down ice cream and b) really good, satisfying and not extreme dinners out.

Lesson learned: If I listen to my body, it will give me valuable feedback, such as "You aren't hungry at all, Rachel." or "Hey, Rachel, we're in the middle of a heatwave. Wouldn't something cold and bubbly hit the spot?" Which is more useful information than "Everyone is having ice cream. You run the risk of looking like a party-pooper. Don't let that happen to you!"

Note to self: It's not a treat if you have it all the time, it's routine.
Second note to self: Those Fiber One bars are very undelicious. My life is too short to eat undelicious food!

[tobiasmom]

You are doing wonderfully! And you are soooo right: there's so much good food out there. We have no reason to eat stuff that tastes ick!!

[Rachelocity]

Yesterday was as bright green as the tomatoes on my balcony garden! I was actually happy to get back to an N Day. But I'm still gonna Anti-Journal the fabulous-looking Monster Brownie that I didn't eat last night (brownie topped with blobs of cookie dough, nuts, caramel, chunks of chocolate, etc!) when I went out for coffee. Instead, I had an iced London Fog (iced Earl Grey tea with a shot of SF vanilla syrup and milk). Dee-lish! I'm also Anti-Journalling a Fiber One Bar that I grabbed reflexively and then put back untouched, as well as a half a freezer-burned tortilla that was not used as a scoop for margarine. Part of me wants to collect the actual foods, plunk them in a container and see the actual damage! I'd have to Instagram it of course, perhaps on Halloween, because the list looks rather horrific as I review it.

The more I think about it, the more I like No S. I like eating like a person and not feeling like a wastebasket. And the dress that I'm wearing to work is looser than it was last week!

[Rachelocity]

Colour yesterday RED! Here's what happened: I cooked three small chicken thighs, put two on my plate, and left the third one out in case I wanted it afterwards. Then, I mechanically went to the kitchen to grab it, being biologically still hungry, and yelled "WHOA!" when I realized that I was taking a dreaded "S", which was not on the day's plans! I put that sucker back as if it were radioactive (reasonably sure it wasn't ) but after the grabbing and the ensuing finger-licking, I cannot count this as a near-miss.

In the grand scheme of offenses that I could have committed, this is pretty bush-league. It's not like I yielded to the temptation to nuke myself a 12-cup bowl of popcorn. But if I'm gonna be successful at No S, I have to incline No BS as a rule as well. I won't enable myself, peeps!

Now, here's a (near-halachic) question: Let's say I have my lunch planned out and I don't eat a component of it (usually this happens on days that I'm eating at my desk and I get interrupted). Does the uneaten food stay uneaten, or can I finish my food mid-afternoon? I know this sounds weird and probably a bit whiny, but inquiring minds wanna know!

[eschano]

Hi Rachel,

So I'm still new and therefore all about strictness. I remember reading on the No-S page that Snacks are not what but when you eat so I think it's a snack.

However, if it's just not feasible for you to eat at lunchtime then maybe you can decide to make it a mod and stick to it. I guess I'd aim for a daily system that can become unconscious.

[TUK]

I'd say that if you're interrupted while you are eating, you should try to protect your lunchtime and tell the guy to just buzz off come back in 10 minutes or so.

Anyway, if it does happen and you can't do anything against it, I'd say you can finish your lunch mid-afternoon (wow, that was a LONG interruption) because you will not increase your plate size for lunch this way. That's not an extra meal, that's not seconds, that's not snacking. That's, well, finishing your lunch.

As long as you don't use this as a trick to pile up food and eat a double meal, you're fine.

[Rachelocity]

Merci mille fois, TUK! And thanks, eschano. I think that work-thru-lunch days may indeed require a mod, because it's inevitable that as soon as I take a bite of anything, someone either comes to my office needing to talk to me or the phone rings. The phone, BTW, seems to also be trip-wired to ring as soon as my tuchus rises from my chair. Yup, dead silence all morning until it's time to go to the fax machine, or get a coffee, or pee.

[Rachelocity]

Another Green Day, which does not include a Boulevard of Broken Dreams! I was able to take a homemade cookie, wrap it up and stash it away for the weekend. Okay, I may have sniffed the cookie, and there may have been longing, but this is the No S plan, not the Turn Yourself Into An Unfeeling Cyborg Diet. Right?

I'm Anti-Journalling the aforementioned cookie as well as one McDonald's cone that I wanted on the way home from my meditation class. And the two slices of bread and butter that I wanted when I got home. And the chicken thigh that didn't make it to my plate the other night. I think I'll make chicken fried rice tonight and get that sucka out of my line of vision!

Oh yeah - I added a new habit: Walkies! This entails any effort over and above basic transportation, even marching in place during commercials while I watch House Hunters International. It's easy-peasy, because anything is counted, and my goal is 365/365 compliance, barring illness or injury.

[TUK]

I was able to take a homemade cookie, wrap it up and stash it away for the weekend.

Wow. I wish I could do this... and that there be leftovers for me on the weekend.

[Rachelocity]

TBH, it doesn't promise to be the Best! Cookie! Ever! (I have done some research into this throughout the years, and trust my scientific findings. )

I might make "No Mediocre Food" one of my habits to track. Seriously. Life is too short to have mediocre food.

[Nicole in MD]

Hi Rachel! Hopping over here from our HCG board and wanted to say hi! I can't start No S for another 3 weeks until I finish out my Phase 3 of HCG but I am SO looking forward to it!!! Your bio sounds suspiciously like mine (I did my intro in the general forum under a thread about Bios).

Your writing cracks me up and I really enjoy reading your thread! Oh and the last time I tried WW (about a year ago) I actually GAINED my first week even though I followed my points to the T (I get a bit obsessive when I track so I know I didn't cheat!). I never went back again and decided WW could suck it!

[Rachelocity]

Hi Nicole! Thanks for your kind words.

I tried HCG, but didn't like anything that wasn't "loading". That was fun!! But it'll be a looooong time before I try to eat an entire jar of PB in a weekend again. I realize how many diets I've tried, and basically I think I've done almost everything that's out there.

Part of my stand-up routine is about my misadventures at WW! I do think it's a good program, but I need something that's more livable and doesn't make me as reactive to the scale. Seriously, I could have won $1000.00 on a scratch-and-win ticket , stepped on the scale at WW, gained 0.2 pounds and the rest of my day would be a freakin' pity party! I won't live like that.

And the cookie? I trashed it. I just didn't want it.

[Rachelocity]

TGIF!!!. I did okay yesterday, and managed to push away the Fiber One bar that fell out of my pantry when I was looking for pickles. I also had an Unscheduled Grape at the grocery store, but after one puckery bite, I was deciding whether to buy them or not, so this was a research grape and not a snack grape. Yes, there's a difference!

Just to clarify, I am neither stressing nor obsessing about the Unscheduled Grape. It just sounds funny in an anal-retentive way, and it could be a really good band name. Plus, people on diets worry about unscheduled fruit of any kind. An impromptu kiwi could throw their whole week off!

I'm leaving work and going to the UPS Store to pick up my No S book. Can't wait to plow through it!

[Rachelocity]

Me again. Green and eventually lean, c'est moi!

I have a thrilling day ahead of me, so tread cautiously if you think the excitement will be too much: Today's shopping list includes cat litter, dry food, TP, milk and veggies. Okay, the last entry's sexy and I know it. I'm planning to roast a tray of peppers and zucchini tonight, and maybe even make myself Eggplant Parm for dinner with a nice salad. I oven-bake the eggplant, because I don't like frying anything. If you have cats that think walking across the stove while Mommy's cooking is a fun activity, you'll feel the same way!

I also cancelled my WW on-line membership, which won't expire till Aug. 20, but this really represents a quantum leap of faith for me. It's been my security blanket. But I'm ready to take off the training wheels and put my pedal to the metal. And mix as many metaphors as possible en route. Seriously, this scares me. Even when I wasn't On Program at all for WW, I kept up the pretense of maintaining my membership. I also maintained my gym membership. That's >$100 a month for the privilege of maintaining inaction. I can do that for free, or No S and walk for free, which is what I'm opting for. And next year's $1,200.00 can buy me a vacation, or a giant-screen TV and new mattress, or any number of other fun things. So, I'll still stash that cash away, but in savings.

[Rachelocity]

I had a great weekend! Lots of walking, lots of quality family time, and although I ate more than usual, I wasn't out of control. even my "indulgences" weren't so awful. I snacked one day on a pudding cup because I really wanted something cool and chocolaty and the next day had some leftover roasted veggies, and later, some melon with yogurt. I'm happy to get back to N days, and I'm feeling pretty confident ending Week 2.

I'm wearing a bracelet to remind me of my new way of life (gosh, I hate the D-word!) It's made of parachute cord and it's green, to symbolize ... wait for it... The Incredible Hulk. Yup, not the green days I plan to rack up, but the fact that I have this huge power source inside of me that I can tap into at any time.

The whole concept of the Hulk was reframed for me in the Avengers movie, because - this is a huge paradigm shift - morphing into the Hulk was seen as an advantage as opposed to a disability once Bruce Banner learned to control it. His secret, "I'm angry all the time" could be very easily swapped for my "I'm hungry all the time" thoughts and basically, he's learned to accept it and channel it instead of bemoaning it.

Hunger/anger is not an emergency, but a natural state which can be managed successfully. I think learning to relax and accept is the key. In my case, it may have been helped by singing "Born This Way" in front of the fridge at the top of my lungs.

I think that my fear of hunger came from my diabetic father, who was so afraid of having hypoglycemic reactions that he was a pioneer of the Permasnack Movement. My mother, whose own mother died of anorexia nervosa before it was even a recognized eating disorder, also learned weirdness about food and how it should be offered up. So, I was kind of a sitting duck. More of a moving target, nowadays!

[Rachelocity]

Yesterday was green, but not happily. I just wanted food. I didn't plan for enough food at dinner, because I was calculating my portion using Diet Brain and apparently I was afraid to go over some imagined limit on grilled veggies. Which was stoopid, because I was biologically hungry afterwards and had to white-knuckle through the evening. It's character-building, I guess. I had a fruit and a scoop of ricotta cheese before bedtime, which is my perfectly kosher 4th meal for such occasions.

But I almost headed for my usual binge foods, such as popcorn, sliced cheese straight from the package, three-deep stacks of Ry-Vita crackers schmeared with margarine and who knows what else. I'm not even anti-journalling this, because I didn't want to eat Those Specific Foods. I just wanted to eat. But I didn't! Yay me!!! I also realized just now that none of my binge foods are ever served portioned on a plate with proper cutlery, a napkin, etc. Another interesting nuance in the "how it's eaten" being as important as "what you're eating".

[Eileen7316]

Your posts are delightful to read! You have a great sense of humor and your writing style is quite intriguing.

Just wanted to pop in and say good luck!

[Rachelocity]

Thanks, Eileen!

I haven't been around, but that doesn't mean I haven't been No-S-ing. In fact, I have some weirdly good news to report. first of all, I don't know how much weight I've dropped (one of the S things I'm swearing off are scales, until the day before my next doctor's appointment) but I'm back into the capris I thought I'd have to trash and/or replace. I really can't afford a replacement wardrobe in fat clothes till I re-shrink, so this is helpful.

And now, the Really Good News: I had a Red Day yesterday, which means a few learning experiences about a bad habit of mine, nighttime eating. I was semi-awake, or semi-asleep, depending on your POV, and went out of force of habit to the fridge. I ate a bit of Greek yogurt then grabbed the bread and margarine and buttered half a large slice of bread. Then, I went "Whoa!" (I had been watching Melissa and Joey earlier and this may have been a "Blossom" call-back...) and put the other half-slice of bread in the fridge, sealed up the Becel container and placed it back in the fridge.

Interestingly, this was the night I didn't make a pot of tea. So my plan is to make a pot of tea every night I'm home, and enjoy it along with a mini-meal. Since my breakfasts are half the size of what I'd like them to be due to many years of restricting and not really having much of a morning appetite, I'll pre-emptively have the other half of my breakfast on N days! This will not add greatly to my daily caloric count (150 planned cals sure beats 300 unplanned and unconscious cals!) but it will add to my quality of life. I'll pilot this for a while and see what shakes out.[/b]

[Rachelocity]

Still here, still No-S'ing and still loving it! But I've actually been busy at work (how incredibly rude of them to assign me tasks and expect me to do them! )

I'm just coasting along, TBH. No drama, no disasters. One Red evening when I ended up snacking as opposed to sleeping. But weirdly enough it took the edge off and I got right back on track without any difficulty.

One interesting finding: I'm not as obsessed with food during the day. Usually by this time I'd be totally preoccupied with what I was going to have for dinner. I'd know exactly how many Points I'd consumed, how many I had left and how they'd be spent, down to the last sad little Point. My friend, who's on WW, went out for dinner for her mother's b-day and spent a lot of time discussing which menu items were "worth the Points" and which were not. Frankly, I like the fact that if it's my family member's b-day, I don't have to have yet another grilled chicken salad with dressing on the side for dinner in order to "be good". "Goodness" comes from the amount of love and joy that I am able to bring to the birthday person. Holy Shifting Priorities, Batman!

[TGIS]

Rachel, I love reading your posts and was feeling quite abandoned when a week went by with no no posts. I hope your slave driver of a boss lets up on his unreasonable demands.

Pat

[Amy3010]

I experienced the same thing when I started with No-S and it was so nice, one of the best things about this way of eating! Especially compared to how utterly obsessed I was when doing WW, points and food totally consumed me. What a waste of attention and energy!

[Rachelocity]

I'm baaaaaaack!! Thanks for the feedback, everyone. It's really appreciated.

Last night, I had a hair appointment at 6:00 p.m. I didn't have anything to eat beforehand, because how long could it last? Two hours, right? Well, I git out of there at 10:00 p.m.! (This is what happens when you go to a hairdressing school - everything turns into an instructional. But otherwise I couldn't afford master stylists, who are supervising, so it's a good trade-off)

So, I missed dinner! I had some ricotta cheese, a peach, which was not good so I had a banana after disposing of it and a ciabatta with butter, which totally hit the spot. Nota bene: This is probably what I would have had as a "snack" under non-S circumstances. But I was able to close the fridge, go to bed and survive. Today's an S day because I'm having dinner with my niece, and I'm not sure if I'll have my second S day on Saturday or Sunday. It depends on when I can get together with my son for dinner. It would have been tonight, but his band is rehearsing for a gig on Sunday.

I am doing an Open Mic comedy show tonight. My set includes my experiences with Weight Watchers, yoga class and food shopping. Sense a theme? There's also a joke about my buying yoga pants after mistakenly thinking they were all-you-can-eat-buffet pants. Hey, it's training for an extreme sport!

[~reneew]

I slammed thru Day 1 like the Hulk!

I love that! I might borrow it. Keep it up!
It sounds like you don't like to be told what to do. I don't either, and NoS seems to be the only one that I can really internalize to make it seem less rule-sy. It's "normal" eating.

[eschano]

There's also a joke about my buying yoga pants after mistakenly thinking they were all-you-can-eat-buffet pants. Hey, it's training for an extreme sport!

Hilarious

[Rachelocity]

Anti-Journal for yesterday in 5-4-3-2-1: PB & crackers in the afternoon, because they were there. A bunch of veggies and dip before dinner. Also 1/4 of my actual plate at dinner, although I've had this food court meal so often that the guy knew what modifications I'd want as soon as he saw me! (Extra salad, no rice, no potatoes, easy on the dressing!) And fro-yo afterwards, because they have really good toppings like cookie dough and brownies. And the alternative snack I wanted, a few Pirouline cookies because they looked good in the store.

Man, that's a lot of food I didn't eat, eh? TBH, in a previous life, I could have eaten it all! But last night I had the unfamiliar sensation that I'd eaten to the point of discomfort and couldn't eat another bite.

Coincidentally (or not!), this came in my inbox:

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov taught...

“Whenever possible, avoid eating in a hurry. Even at home, don’t gobble up your food. Eating is an act of holiness. It requires full presence of mind."
(The Empty Chair p. 25*)

What does this mean to me?

In this cultural moment in time, we are deluged by conflicting images, data, promises and perspectives about food. Food obsession has gained widespread cultural cachet (Food Network, anyone?), as has body image, health, sustainable food production, ethics, and everything else. With all of these themes clashing together, the innermost point of the meaning of eating can be lost. Over our plates, we come face to face with our essential dependence on G-d’s generosity. Rebbe Nachman taught that this is a great moment of spiritual potential—the “illumination of the will,†when we can feel our body’s need and desire for nourishment, and how it is a living parable for our soul’s hunger for G-d. Taking a moment to just allow ourselves to feel both physical and spiritual “wanting†is a first step.

A prayer: Dear G-d, teach me to eat right, and to eat for the right reasons. Keep me from eating the wrong foods, and from eating more than I should. Let all that I eat nourish me, never weaken or harm me. Let the food I ingest create a perfect balance within me in body, mind and soul. (The Gentle Weapon**, p. 13)