Second go

No BS · Post by **No BS** » Wed Feb 20, 2013 12:51 am

Brilliant idea purchasing fresh flowers !! They are such a wonderful reward.

I find the more beautiful, orderly, special I make my surroundings, including my kitchen & table, the more careful & organized I am about my food & meals & planning.

oolala53 · Post by **oolala53** » Wed Feb 20, 2013 1:00 am

I've always thought that flowers are rather expensive, but now reading this, when I think of how much I spent over a week's time on binge food in the old days, I could well afford a small bouquet on S days. Glad I read this.

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Wed Feb 20, 2013 9:41 am

Glad you all like the flower idea! I also like to buy these little pots with bulbs that have already started to flush (? I hate this, I mean angetriebene Zwiebeln but I just can't say it in English)

Yesterday: Success

I know that I have not lost very much during the past weeks and I hope that I have not gained but I don't think so. I know my flab and how it's distributed when I have lost/gained and it says: About the same, maybe the tiniest bit less.

I have done this for about eight weeks now and I was beginning to worry but then I thought: Eight weeks means at least 40 candy bars, 4 kg of gummy bears/licorice/wine gum, 4 packets of biscuits etc. which I have not eaten. And these are only the sweets, not to mention other snacks & seconds.

I think I will wait until 1 January 2014 before I start to worry about the results.

Strawberry Roan · Post by **Strawberry Roan** » Wed Feb 20, 2013 11:58 am

If of thy mortal goods, thou art bereft,
And from thy slender store two loaves
alone to thee are left,

Sell one & from the dole,
Buy Hyacinths to feed the soul"

- Muslihuddin Sadi,
13th Century Persian Poet

Isn't that so true? I love the flowers idea. My boss sent me a potted container of white hyacinths for Valentine's Day - they are in full bloom (about eight big strong stalks) and the aroma is intoxicating.

No BS · Post by **No BS** » Thu Feb 21, 2013 2:18 am

Strawberry Roan wrote: Buy Hyacinths to feed the soul"

What a brilliant poem. Thanks for posting it! And it sounds like you have a super boss!

No BS · Post by **No BS** » Thu Feb 21, 2013 2:21 am

Jonas Jonasson wrote:
I think I will wait until 1 January 2014 before I start to worry about the results.

Totally agree, Jonas! I honestly believe the No "S" journey is more important than the destination.

Amy3010 · Post by **Amy3010** » Thu Feb 21, 2013 8:23 am

"Forced bulbs"???

Love your long term perspective and also looking back on the past few weeks on No-S. The idea that doing it, even imperfectly, still meant moderate improvements that will add up over time, is a great way to look at it. Gives one hope!

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Fri Feb 22, 2013 9:47 am

Haha, so much for hope.

Yesterday: Red. Fail. Failure.

Breakfast at 7am
First opportunity to have lunch at a table: 4.15pm. So I had packed a banana and a pear and wanted to get something at this really nice Italian place (a panini, tramezzini whatever) because I was feeling reeling hungry and this way I could have lunch around 2pm, albeit in the car. But when I arrived at the restaurant there was this really long queue and I simply did not have the time to wait. So I drove on wondering what to do: a)Wait until after four? - Impossible. Starving. b)Eat the fruit and leave it at that - No, I am entitled to one full plate!, c)Eat the fruit and have something else later - gradual virtual plating? - no way that would be cheating.
So I ended up at an fast food drive through and had two cheeseburgers and something which wasn't even food, I think, and the fruit = too much.
And I was mad because I had wanted to get something extra good and ended up there. Wallowing in self-pity: I want to eat better and now I have again been at this place although I didn't really eat fast food prior to NoS.
I wanted to mark it and go on but then:
When I was preparing the potato salad for dinner I tasted a tiny piece of potato - telling myself: there you go.
Dinner was okay but after I had finished it I had the tiniest bit of tomato left in the salad bowl. And a crumb of bread. Rather pathetic. Like a small child testing what I would get away with. When I wasn't struck by lightning I had a piece of wine gum. And a piece of chocolate. And another one. And one more wine gum. And a piece of really nice chocolate. And a piece of marzipan. Stupid.
I think I have to plan ahead even more for these days and have a really nice default with me.

I was wondering whether tonight would be an S-event because we were planning to go to a restaurant. Child2 got sick.

Edit:
I have to add this as well: I had been feeling uncomfortable in my own skin the whole day. My trousers (one of the two pairs left - Hi there, Amy, No BS, Spiritsong...) were pinching and I had to constantly pull them up because the crotch seemed to slide down (not because they are too big but as if I have gained some kgs). Very unnerving. I felt awkward and not exactly poised. Maybe this contributed to the above situation.

OMG, I am so glad that most of the possible readers live on another continent. But, hopefully, in some years we all look at posts like these and say: Look, how cute, we struggled so much in the beginning

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Tue Feb 26, 2013 7:59 am

The fail wasn't too bad, it was rather reassuring to see that the world still goes on after a real fail. The three meals structure seems to be the default at the moment, even at the weekend. I had some sweets and sometimes seconds but only insignificant snacks. On Saturday I was at a party where they had this super yum antipasti buffet. I had two plates but there was pretty much space left on them and I did not have any of the cake/tirami su etc. because I was full&satisfied. Okay, I had some of the crispy stuff in the small bowls on the tables but it was an S-day after all.
Yesterday there were two office birthdays, at the first one I took some nuts & raisins with me which I had later with my lunch and I went to the second colleague shortly before my lunch so that the pretzel sticks I had there were part of my lunch. I had a brown bag with me but did not eat all I had brought because of the nuts, raisins & pretzels. Felt very grown-up.

Friday: Success
Saturday: S-day
Sunday: S-day
Monday: Success

Amy3010 · Post by **Amy3010** » Tue Feb 26, 2013 9:02 am

Haha - I do like the thought of looking back on this later and thinking how cute we were! It's not a word I usually associate with myself, but the frame of mind that goes with it is definitely kinder than my usual way of thinking of myself. I do empathise with the awkward uncomfortable feeling that sometimes can overtake us, and I agree that it can definitely contribute to those kinds of failures.

But I have to say, you recovered well! I think the crucial thing about failures is not preventing them completely, but when they do happen (as they will) being able to keep them from expanding into the days that follow, and not allowing ourselves to start sliding down that slippery slope.

So - good job!

Have a nice week!

SpiritSong · Post by **SpiritSong** » Tue Feb 26, 2013 3:32 pm

Jonas, as someone who just had a "hungry fail" that then led to a "chocolate fail" later on, I know where you're coming from!

At least we can laugh at ourselves. It seems some of the people who have trouble with No S take everything very seriously and a fail is the end of the world. Now I know every person has his/her own issues, so I don't judge anyone, but No S is much more fun when we can write a big "Red. Fail. Failure." and not beat ourselves up about it.

No BS · Post by **No BS** » Thu Feb 28, 2013 1:45 am

The world doesn't end when we fail.

And the world doesn't end when we succeed.

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Fri Mar 01, 2013 9:54 am

At least we can laugh at ourselves

Exactly.

Tuesday, Wednesday: Success
Thursday: I don't know, either success with a verrrry big plate (Greek restaurant) or S-event

Eight weeks on NoS, according to my average weight of the last three days I have lost about 4 pounds since then. I am more than content.

Plans for March:
Exercise: Four times a week
NoS: Try to find out why & when I have BPDs (big plate days) or rather VBPDs, also known as GPDs. I have developed a tendency to eat more junk/fast food at lunch time. I will try to find better & more delicious alternatives.

Do more planning.

Amy3010 · Post by **Amy3010** » Sat Mar 02, 2013 10:24 am

Very happy to hear you are content with your progress!

Sounds like you have some good plans for March, too - it's Spring Fever here on the No-S board!

Good luck!

No BS · Post by **No BS** » Sat Mar 02, 2013 4:00 pm

Congratulations on your progress, Jonas!

Good job.

It is astounding to me how fast the time is flying by. It seems like I will just have to *blink* and it will fast be Apr 1.

Knowing that the weight is coming off the whole time is so empowering!

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Sun Mar 03, 2013 7:38 am

I'm reading through all the threads I have subscribed to. Everyone seems to have a handle on this, more or less - no need for people to drink from my fountain of knowledge

My motto for the weekend was A la recherche du biscuit de chocolat parfait (? French!)
I've tried a couple of different recipes they were all quite nice but not perfect (okay, I know there are more urgent problems in the world). Maybe I should just cut out biscuits directly from a bar of chocolate.

Amy3010 · Post by **Amy3010** » Sun Mar 03, 2013 8:22 am

Mmmmm...chocolate! With Easter around the corner, the little eggs are everywhere...

No BS · Post by **No BS** » Tue Mar 05, 2013 3:53 am

Jonas Jonasson wrote: no need for people to drink from my fountain of knowledge

Out of my way - I need a drink!!

All this damn exercise is making my thirsty!!

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Wed Mar 06, 2013 8:12 pm

@BS:

No reds so far. I absolutely do not mind not eating for up to seven/eight hours although I get hungry, I don't seem to need sweets (or rather I'm only insulted if I can't have any but not desperate) but my plates are big & it is difficult to stop eating. One = done doesn't work for me, maybe I should try to find a good German translation.
For example, my dinner was: a bowl of Greek salad with feta cheese, two pieces of crisp bread with butter, a pear, some French cheese, a yoghurt with muesli. A little bit cheese-heavy. I was wondering how much cheese I could actually place on a plate and was tempted to take the silly greens/fruit off my plate.

I've just watched a report about food design: The acoustics of a perfect biscuit, a sound designer developed a crispy and crunchy sound and the manufacturer developed a biscuit on the basis of the sound. Weird. Or maybe I'm pretty naive.
And when they talked to this food designer she kept repeating that - contrary to Americans - German wouldn't like to eat food which looks or tastes artificial.
Food for thought.

SpiritSong · Post by **SpiritSong** » Wed Mar 06, 2013 8:23 pm

Jonas Jonasson wrote: I was wondering how much cheese I could actually place on a plate and was tempted to take the silly greens/fruit off my plate.

Maybe someday you'll have a "only one kind of cheese per meal" mod. In the meantime, enjoy!

No BS · Post by **No BS** » Thu Mar 07, 2013 3:30 am

Jonas, I eat off big plates, too, and find it is the only way I don't get into a defeatist dieting mentality. I accept it is just the way I am living for now. I assume my platefuls will get smaller over time.

If you are worrying about not knowing when to be done, maybe try bulking up the plate with roughage & fiber, including raw veggies/fruit. If your body doesn't yet recognize one=done, eat most of your normal dinner plate & then on the other portion of your plate pile up & chomp away for half an hour on raw, roughage that keeps you chewing, salivating, chomping, munching, crunching & noshing until you get tired. Add things like: baby carrots, snap peas, 20 almonds, raw peppers, apple slices, celery w/organic nut butter, button mushrooms, pineapple wedges, etc. etc. - anything with crunch & texture & that takes time to chew.

By the time you plow your way through that, your body will be so happily stuffed (without monster calories) it will be screaming "ONE=DONE, STOP!!! ONE=DONE!!)

I hear your desire not to load up on high volume (high calorie) meals & if I understand correctly you are struggling to be satiated on one plate. I think sometimes I used to miss out on not having enough crunch (or work!!) to eat my meals and to cue me that I might possibly, oddly enough, be actually (could it be true???) full!!

And when all else fails I have proven my latent talent for structural engineering in piling a plate that would rival the Eiffel Tower in height, breadth, and awe inspiring beauty!! The trick is to make damn sure that everything on the plate isn't highly caloric & that it all is real food.

I love your honesty, your commitment & your no-quit efforts to make this work the best way possible for you, Jonas. Good job!

(Sorry I ran off at the mouth so much, Jonas

)

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Fri Mar 15, 2013 11:25 am

Protracted stomach bug. Yuk.

germanherman · Post by **germanherman** » Fri Mar 15, 2013 2:03 pm

Great! Now i'm the german with the poorest english on this board...

And by the way: Weiterhin viel GlÃ¼ck und gute Besserung.

Amy3010 · Post by **Amy3010** » Fri Mar 15, 2013 3:12 pm

Sorry to hear you're sick - get well soon!

childoftheking · Post by **childoftheking** » Fri Mar 15, 2013 9:33 pm

Jonas I hope you are feeling better soon. I have enjoyed reading your posts and everyone's responses. I too am learning what 1 plate means. Keep up the good work.

No BS · Post by **No BS** » Sat Mar 16, 2013 12:43 am

Good to see you again, Jonas.

Bugger about the bug.....

Hope you have a good weekend & get feeling better.

When my stomach is upset I make ginger root tea (just some shredded ginger root with boiling water and some honey in a big old huggable mug).

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Tue Mar 19, 2013 9:08 am

Thank you for the get well soon messages! Danke, germanherman.

Okay, back again on this.

Today is my first real N day since, I don't know, I think more than ten days. When I felt like eating it was mainly bananas, yoghurt, zwieback etc. so I was pretty NoS compliant with regard to sweets and seconds but, of course, I snacked. Breakfast today was mainly plums, grapes and brown bread and I honestly do not know if this will comfortably last me through lunch time.

I suppose I have lost a lot of water & muscles but probably not even a single slice of my bacon, fair enough, I am happy that everyday life has returned.

And the last weekend was my first NoS-weekend without any sweets, very, very, very strange. I can remember that my last real S-days were pretty wild, there was no special reason, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and did not even feel guilty. In return I (and my whole family) was cursed with this bug

What did people do in former times when this happened in winter and they did not have washing machines, tumble dryers etc? Did they have these bugs then? Hm, they probably just kicked out the soiled straw and tied new rags around them.

I also seemed to remember that feeling satisfied after one plate became easier again, also thanks to your post, No BS.
I am really looking forward to finding out what doing NoS will be like now. Of course, I hope that it will be much easier but that is what we all hope all the time, isn't it?
Tonight I am invited to a restaurant but they have okayish one-plate meals there. Tomorrow night will be a long planned S-event where we meet at a friend's and everybody brings homemade tapas. I feel a bit stupid about having an S-event so soon after living this wild, free sick-day life (haha).

Have to check what the others did in the meantime.

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Tue Mar 19, 2013 7:14 pm

So the first day went alright.
Lunch seems to be my linchpin, it is the meal of day with really big plates which sometimes don't seem to be enough.
I have to remember that it is much easier if I have want I want for lunch and not what seems sensible (like leftovers or fast food because I'd better have something calorie-dense because the day is long etc.). When I have, for example, nice fruit, yummy yoghurt, some bread etc. I usually feel much more satisfied although it is lighter fare... Weird but true.

No BS · Post by **No BS** » Thu Mar 21, 2013 2:01 am

Glad to see you are on the mend!

I find nutritionally dense food usually a better choice for me than calorie dense food.

Have a great week. The weekend is already right around the corner!

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Fri Mar 22, 2013 12:12 pm

No BS, you are such a wise person (no irony here), all of your comments hit the nail on the head, nutritionally dense food vs. calorie dense food, that's just it.

Wednesday and Thursday were successes, today is also going well. I cannot say that following NoS is always the easiest thing in the world but at the moment the habit seems quite strong.

Yesterday I had breakfast at 7.00am, lunch at 12.00 (chicken curry with rice, and a mandarine) and dinner (spaghetti aglio y olio with baguette) at 8.30pm. It's kind of funny that I can survive such a long period without food (most of the time also without feeling too hungry) although less than 3 months ago I had to go to the sweets cabinet every 20 minutes. No longer feeling like a victim/plane on autopilot/sugar-addict/externally-controlled person/weak wimp all the time when it comes to food/sweets, neither after red days/extensive s-events/s-days is also great.

I think I have really lost some weight due to this stomach thingy. Well, let's wait until the first of April to see if this is really true, but my clothes are fitting a bit more loosely. Yesterday night I tried on my jeans of Waterloo and what happened: They fit more loosely but still were really uncomfortable. Maybe I suffered & failed in vain only because it's not the right cut (? style?)

Mother-in-law is taking the children and me to an ice-cream parlour this afternoon. I won't have any ice-cream. I will have to defend/explain it. It will get commented upon. Elaborately. Who cares.

No BS · Post by **No BS** » Fri Mar 22, 2013 11:03 pm

Jonas, love love love your post, and your attitude!!

Keep up the fabulous work honouring yourself & your commitments!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend with your family & friends (with or without ice cream

).

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Tue Mar 26, 2013 8:24 am

Thanks, No BS.

Friday: Success (did not have any ice-cream & mother-in-law only had a diet coke after the children had shouted through the crowded ice-cream parlour that "Mum only eats sweets at the weekend and now she is again able to close the button of her trousers"... It's good to be famous for something, haha).

Weekend: A quite tame Saturday & a quite wild Sunday but nothing really irresponsible, mainly too many sweets after dinner. Stomach ache.

Monday: Success. Did not overcrowd my plates. My brain seems to be in the process of learning not to panic & that there will be food at the next meal.

Tried to run 5km at the weekend, it was very slow but my quack physician approach to healing my incurable heel spur seems to be successful. I hope that it is not only wishful thinking but I think I will try to take part in a 5km run at the end of May.

No S has not only helped me with regard to eating/food but also exercise. After I could not run anymore I could not be bothered with doing anything else but the 14 minutes minimum compliance routine has helped me to get back on track again and to get rid of the all or nothing thinking. When I was training for half-marathons I never did any strength training although I knew that I should have - which might have contributed to my heel spur just as much as my constant weight gain due to constant eating. When I started the 14 minutes I thought I might as well do some strength training sometimes if it is 14 minutes of just anything. The circle comes to a close.

So far I have completed about 1/4 of a full year of NoS and I already consider it a huge success.

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 8:29 am

So much for not overcrowding my plates... Yesterday I could have eaten the dinner plate on top of the tons of pasta on it

But I didn't. Therefore: success.

Good Friday is a public holiday, then there is the weekend followed by Easter Monday. I think Friday will not be an S-day for me, I don't know if I should declare Saturday to be a N-day because of Easter Monday or if I should just take three S-days in a row. I really don't know if my NoS-habit is strong enough to convince my gourmand brain that three S-days in a row is just an exception and that it's back to business as usual on the next day.

Maybe I will just have an S-event on Saturday or Monday. Maybe I will stop brooding over this and just see what happens.

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 7:47 pm

I had too many eggs for lunch, the children needed blown-out eggs so I made this mountain of scrambled eggs and had about one cubic metre for lunch. Still did not feel very hungry 7 hours later but had dinner anyway, a plate full of fruit & some pretzel sticks. It was too much & too early but since I am not even an advanced NoS beginner I just could not waive dinner. Next time.

Oh boy, when I read through the other threads I feel very silly with my insignificant complaints etc. compared to what other have gone/are going through. A lot of strong personalities around here.

No BS · Post by **No BS** » Wed Mar 27, 2013 11:50 pm

Jonas Jonasson wrote:Maybe I will stop brooding over this and just see what happens.

OMG, you are so hilarious sometimes & I am unsure whether or not it is entirely intentional!! Consequently, I always have a blast reading your thread.

I exactly, totally, entirely agree with your sentence above! Beautifully sums up the No "S" philosophy, along with three-plates.

Amy3010 · Post by **Amy3010** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 8:55 am

Hearing how your kids outed you at the ice cream parlor made me smile - isn't it nice that they're proud?

Have a very happy long Easter weekend - no matter what you decide with the S-days!

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 3:00 pm

Eh, No BS, it is not nice to make fun of languageally challenged persons trying to provide sober accounts of their struggles!

Maybe I should remove my disclaimer so that everybody thinks that I am this really funny person imitating a weird written German accent...

Good to hear from you, Amy!

I can already mark this day as red because I had to eat a chocolate out of politeness.

We had a guest from Asia at work and she brought chocolates from her home country for us to try and it would not have been good to refuse them, I think.
There's also a second hurdle today, tonight we'll be going to this restaurant with yummy entrÃ©es they put in front of you as soon you sit down. I feel that I won't have any, just my big plate... but ask me again tomorrow.

No BS · Post by **No BS** » Fri Mar 29, 2013 12:40 am

Well, Jonas, I absolutely love your disclaimer, your thread, and your ability to speak/write TWO languages (being uni-lingual myself).

And the ability to be funny in both!!

Your English skills easily trump my non-existent German skills!!

Have a great weekend, Jonas!!

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Fri Mar 29, 2013 4:35 pm

Well, No BS, you haven't heard me SPEAKING English.

Since I am stark raving mad I have decided to take four S-days in a row. I have thought about it and I think it is the right thing to do. After all it is a legitimate weekend embraced by two legitimate religious/public holidays, i.e. this is life and not a dress rehearsal so it must be lived (? I suspect the stomach thingy ate my brains. This accounts probably for the weight I have lost). I have also decided to be an idiot on only two of these days at the most. So far so good. It's only a little bit inconvenient that my monthly weigh-in is on the last of those four s-days.

KL · Post by KL » Fri Mar 29, 2013 5:54 pm

Hi Jonas,

I've been reading through your postings and admire your perserverance and humor! I've laughed out loud several times - with you, not at you

You're doing awesome - keep it up and enjoy Easter weekend

No BS · Post by **No BS** » Sat Mar 30, 2013 2:49 am

Jonas Jonasson wrote: Since I am stark raving mad I have decided to take four S-days in a row.

You aren't stark raving mad, you are seriously BRAVE!!

Have fun!

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Sat Mar 30, 2013 6:24 am

Hi there, KL.

As No BS suspected it's only funny because I am not a native English speaker

But seriously I love English because the language seems to be carrying an intrinsic sense of humour (as does Danish for that reason). When I am speaking German I am always dead serious.

I also think that there is a significantly high percentage of funny&wise persons on this board. I think it is not a coincidence that NoS appeals to all of us. I would have also liked the system if it had been created by a boring old commanding character if you know what I mean but the humour, warmth & down-to-earthness of the website and the book really made me suck out all the marrow of it and - ups, sorry I got carried away. To sum it up: NoS is great & the people on this board a great.

No BS, I am actually nurturing the idea of starting another habitcal for braveness. Doing one brave thing per day/five per week but being not a naturally brave person I'd rather wait until I have mastered the NoS and exercise challenges

My first S-day yesterday was ok. I basically stuck to the three meals structure, dinner would have required a platter-size plate if I had wanted to put everything on one plate and I had a handful of salty popcorn after dinner but no sweets and nothing asinine. It still felt like an S-day.
Jogged another five kilometres. Slowly.

Amy3010 · Post by **Amy3010** » Sat Mar 30, 2013 9:06 am

Well, enjoy your four S days in a row - you are right, this is real life!

Happy Easter!

No BS · Post by **No BS** » Tue Apr 02, 2013 1:38 am

Jonas Jonasson wrote:I am actually nurturing the idea of starting another habitcal for braveness. Doing one brave thing per day/five per week but being not a naturally brave person I'd rather wait until I have mastered the NoS and exercise challenges

It is very brave working on mastering the NoS and exercise challenges. Very brave.

Please remember, it takes courage to address that which others often just idly sit back & complain about.

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Tue Apr 02, 2013 6:42 am

I feel kind of relieved that my S-day orgy is over now. It went like: very tame-tame-complete-idiot-ordinary S-day. I don't like it that I feel sort of legally obligated to have S's on S-days. But I had a great Easter Sunday at a friend's house where everybody brings something nice & home cooked like exotic salads, home made bread, Easter dishes, cheese cake (European version), carrot cake, spicy meatballs, au gratin potatoes... Yum

Had my monthly weigh-ins (the average of three weighing days in a row). Thanks to my stomach bug I seem to have lost about 2.5kg in March. This adds up to about 4.5kg since the beginning of January. Not too bad at all but I feel that this month is the big exception.

In my wildest dreams I have lost about the same amount by the end of this year. This would be 0.5kg per month from now on which should be feasible but then again you never know what will happen.

Plans for April: Running (jogging) three times a week, monitoring my plates at lunch time.

Well, let's see what this new month brings.

KL · Post by KL » Tue Apr 02, 2013 11:18 pm

Your goals for April seem very sound

Sometimes my plates/platters/bowls require two hands to hold them.

But they get me through to the next meal - which is my goal sometimes.

No BS · Post by **No BS** » Wed Apr 03, 2013 1:00 am

Jonas, what is a European version of cheesecake?

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Wed Apr 03, 2013 7:08 am

KL, I know where you are coming from, getting through to the next meal, mainly emotionally, because I know that I can easily not eat for say seven to eight hours - but knowing does not help somehow. Maybe I should buy a stronger detergent to wash my brains with.

No BS, I probably should have written European style. The main difference is that you use quark instead of cream cheese, the texture is completely different and it is usually higher. One of my favourites is without base (?) or one with a base and streusel/crumble. One day when I am grown-up & rich I will run my own cheese cake restaurant. Or a biscuit shop. Hm, maybe this sounds a bit counterproductive on this board...

Had a bigger breakfast today in order to see whether this affects my lunch.

KL · Post by KL » Thu Apr 04, 2013 12:10 am

Jonas Jonasson wrote: Maybe I should buy a stronger detergent to wash my brains with.

Ha, Ha!

How did the bigger breakfast work out for you

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Fri Apr 05, 2013 7:34 am

Hi KL, ahem, the bigger breakfast lead to an even bigger lunch and a huge dinner.

Yesterday I had a really late & big breakfast (coincidence, office breakfast) at around 10am, lunch at about 4pm consisting of a big bowl of fruit salad and some small slices of bread which had to be eaten before they went completely stale (is this English?) and dinner at 9pm half a plate of pasta with meat sauce and some fruit. With a schedule like that it is much easier to eat less for lunch and dinner (and to stick to the three meal structure on S-days) but in everyday life I want to have breakfast with my family (7am) and dinner with DH (around 8.30pm) and lunch when I can fit it in... Well worse things have been known to happen.

Nice: there are literally tons of Easter sweets & candies scattered over the whole house and me alone among all this and I really don't care - the same person who consumed about half a kilo of sweets on every single day. I will probably wolf them down tomorrow being forced by the S-dayness.

I hope that I can squeeze in some running today.

KL · Post by KL » Fri Apr 05, 2013 2:18 pm

Jonas Jonasson wrote:
Nice: there are literally tons of Easter sweets & candies scattered over the whole house and me alone among all this and I really don't care - the same person who consumed about half a kilo of sweets on every single day. I will probably wolf them down tomorrow being forced by the S-dayness.

I hope that I can squeeze in some running today.

Yes, stale is an English word...and good job on not inhaling all the Easter sweets

Isn't it wonderful how the habits start to penetrate into our daily lives

Hope you get your run in - I ran this morning and it felt wonderful

Anoulie · Post by **Anoulie** » Fri Apr 05, 2013 6:53 pm

Jonas, hi! Fellow German here... I'm in MÃ¼nster, how about you? No S really does work in all kinds of cultures

Congrats on the Easter candy success. Maybe we'll be able to understand each other's check-in threads better -- I always end up having to describe exactly WHAT a Nussecke (for example) is, and I usually attach a picture, too. No-one in the US will ever really understand the awesomeness of a Streuselschnecke

No BS · Post by **No BS** » Sat Apr 06, 2013 7:56 pm

You "runners" are a constant inspiration to me! And congratulations, Jonas, on your self-control around the excesses of Easter.

Today I saw an Arctic fox when I was driving in the truck with my dogs. It was trotting through our little village, along the shoulder of the road in front of the store, and paid no mind at all to me or my truck. I suspect the fox was rabid.

His snow white face & muzzle was covered in fresh blood. I suspect the fox attacked a tied up dog, or a small, loose dog, in town - ergo the blood stained face.

When I think of mindlessly shoveling food/sweets/treats down my face - because I can and because it is there - it makes me think of mindless rabid foxes, biting onto whatever comes within reach because they can and it is there.

Weird, eh. It is such an "unpretty" picture it helps curb my mindless eating.

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Sun Apr 07, 2013 8:17 am

Hi KL, unfortunately no running on Friday, sick child, but thanks to No S I did not think tough luck but did 14 minutes of something else.

Hi Anoulie, near Hamburg. And KÃ¤sekuchen

Due to sick child (trying to get a doctor's appointment on a Friday with a whole country full of sick people because of the constant cold/snow - entry No BS, sneering) weird schedule & food. Lunch at 3.30pm a cheeseburger, 6 Chicken McNuggets and a big bowl of fruit salad. But we had homemade pesto & pasta for dinner, yum.

Not interested at all in the Easter goodies at the moment - N-days are carrying over? I was at an opening of a art exhibition yesterday and the Japanese artist had prepared sushi, I was really glad that it was an S-day. I had some sweets after dinner but mainly they had been brought by a friend from Denmark.

Wow, No BS, gory picture and probably quite effective. When I see a fox here it's usually in the roadside ditch run over by a car and I always think oh, the poor cute creature... but in other surroundings most animals probably do not behave like members of children's book crews.

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Mon Apr 08, 2013 4:42 pm

I had too little for breakfast and lunch which both were very fruit heavy and felt verrrrry hungry at 6pm. Knowing that lunch would first be at around 9pm I had an extra mini meal. Strangely enough I completely forgot that I could have had some fruit juice (I hate milk). Well I'd better take care to eat more dense/nutritious stuff next time.
Red for today.
The good thing is that I have seem to switched over to negative tracking because green days are the rule.
Glad to be a diehard optimist

KL · Post by KL » Mon Apr 08, 2013 7:09 pm

Jonas Jonasson wrote:I had too little for breakfast and lunch which both were very fruit heavy and felt verrrrry hungry at 6pm.

I love fruit and could (and have when I was a raw. vegan) eat it all day long. But now I need to include some type of protein (seeds or nuts) in order to have some sustainability.

Yes, the color GREEN is very becoming, isn't it

No BS · Post by **No BS** » Tue Apr 09, 2013 1:08 am

Jonas Jonasson wrote: The good thing is that I have seem to switched over to negative tracking because green days are the rule.
Glad to be a diehard optimist

Even more signs of terrific progress!

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Tue Apr 09, 2013 7:24 am

Hi KL, you're right. I also had a slice of whole meal bread for breakfast and a handful of nuts and a small yoghurt for lunch but that wasn't enough to get me through the seven hours until the next meal.

Thanks, No BS. When I was running through a forest on Sunday and was irritated about the grounds which constantly changed from muddy into icy I thought about you in your snowscape and felt like a real wimp. Funny how virtual reality affects real life IYKWIM.

We had home made hummus with pita bread yesterday. What a revelation. I have seriously underestimated chickpeas. I will have the left-overs for lunch and try to make falafel soon.

Another moment of revelation: I was at a party the other day and the last time I had met the host was around Christmas when she seemed to have lost a lot of weight. I asked her about it at that time and she told me of her diet which was "hard to do and expensive but very effective." She had lost about 10 kg I assume. Well the other day she seemed to have gained most of the weight again and told me that she would soon start the Dukan diet again to lose the weight again and showed me some books trying to convince me to join her. I don't think so - especially when I reread the paragraph above this one, for example.

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Wed Apr 10, 2013 8:57 am

Yesterday I had three big meals, for lunch I had leftover hummus with pita and with tortilla crisps and chili sauce and some alibi grapes. Very bad & very satisfying. For dinner we had leftover turkey breast with roasted rosemary potatoes and a salad. Nice meals, very little cooking, very satisfying results.

Today I decided to again take the 14 minutes literally, ie to try to run as fast as I can for 14 minutes (after a little warm up). It probably looked like a slow-motion sporting report: a crazy heavily panting lady with a bright red face jogging very slowly in the heavy rain.

Lessons learned:

Big meals are filling

I can't run fast

No BS · Post by **No BS** » Fri Apr 12, 2013 1:34 am

Jonas Jonasson wrote: We had home made hummus with pita bread yesterday. What a revelation. I have seriously underestimated chickpeas. I will have the left-overs for lunch and try to make falafel soon.

Chick peas are so awesome! I ordered a 10 kg bag of them (dried) on my annual sealift order. I use them in so many dishes and as an alternative to meat, since our store stocks such crappy meat I don't often buy any.

I make my own tahini paste, too, from scratch, after I toast my sesame seeds, & then make my own hummus. I also ordered a 10 kg bag of sesame seeds on the sealift. I only make my own because our store doesn't stock any of the above food, either raw or commercially prepared, so you pretty much have to do everything yourself with ingredients you order once a year on the annual sealift and inventory in your storeroom. Or else you do without. Sometimes I add roasted red peppers to my hummus for a change.

But I wrecked my old blender grinding my last batch of sesame seeds. So now I ordered a Vita-Mix (thanks to sophiasapentia's recommendation!!) and am waiting for it to come in the mail.

I seriously live off peas/beans/lentils, etc. I highly recommend them as nutritionally dense, totally filling and totally healthy food. It is because of that type of food, IMHO, that I don't get hungry between meals and why breakfast often isn't that important to me.

Sorry, Jonas, I didn't mean to run off at the mouth so much

but I am absolutely thrilled when someone even mentions the type of food that is the foundation of most of what I eat.

No BS · Post by **No BS** » Fri Apr 12, 2013 1:37 am

Jonas Jonasson wrote: I can't run fast

You may not be able to run fast, Jonas, but you can RUN!

Thanks for painting such a hilarious picture - but I suspect you're exaggerating a wee bit!!

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Fri Apr 12, 2013 7:27 am

Hi, No BS thank you for your enthusiastic comment.
Making things from scratch is cool (I'm thinking of roasting fresh coffee beans, I already bought some but I heard that the smell while roasting them is quite unpleasant) but probably mostly only if you don't really have to. From what I have gathered from your postings it requires quite a lot of energy just to live where you live, doesn't it? Well, you seem to have a lot of that anyway

I have to admit that I bought my tahini paste but maybe I will try to make it from scratch, I have a pound of sesame seeds left from a bread recipe for which I only needed about 1 table spoon.
The chickpeas for tonight's falafel are soaking, I wonder if I can get harissa here in our culinarily rather, say, underexposed village.

Yesterday I was kind of subliminally nervous the whole day and I was really glad to have my NoS routine although my choices (actually, I did not have the choice, maybe this was part of the problem) weren't that good. I was full all day (I had something hardly edible & digestible at our office cafeteria at 12.30pm and still wasn't really hungry at 9pm when we had a very nice but also very dense traditional dish called BauernfrÃ¼hstÃ¼ck (= farmer's breakfast - basically a bacon and potato omelette with gherkins & pickled beetroots). Pre NoS I would have automatically resorted to sweets/any kind of food to calm down/distract myself but now I knew that this wouldn't help. Actually this knowledge didn't help either and I was probably a very convincing Oscar the Grouch impersonator but hey, I resisted.

Lesson learned:

Lunch/dinner without fruit/fresh vegetables is dull

KL · Post by KL » Fri Apr 12, 2013 6:04 pm

Jonas Jonasson wrote:Lesson learned:
Lunch/dinner without fruit/fresh vegetables is dull

Oh, I soooo agree

Good job in perservering

sleepygirlzzzz · Post by **sleepygirlzzzz** » Fri Apr 12, 2013 9:25 pm

Jonas Jonasson wrote: I can't run fast

This really made me giggle - thanks for putting a smile on my face

I second what No BS said, at least you're running. That's all that counts.

I also love what you said about only negative tracking now. What a huge step in the right direction!

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Sat Apr 13, 2013 12:54 pm

Hi KL, I was actually thinking of you and Strawberry Roan the other day when I decided to make this huge delicious salad. Thanks for the inspiration.

Hi Sleepy... You are probably right, but in spite of my plans I usually only run two times a week instead of three but otherwise my heel spur would complain too much. And well yes, negative tracking, ahem:

Yesterday: Reddish.

I have observed that now my fails are mostly due to social pressure/obligations. I was at this birthday party yesterday and the host actually stayed up after her long night shift with over time in order to bake a cake and I just did not have the heart to refuse it. I had a small slice and it wasn't even too bad, chocolate cake with cherries (We all get really picky, don't we? I like that) and I also absentmindedly nibbled on my bread on a stick (We also tried to roast marshmallows but all agreed that we did not see the point but delighted in the cultural manifoldness with regard to the kinds of food you put on a stick in order to roast them on sticks at open fires).

Yesterday night we had falafel and it took me ages to prepare them because the food processor we have was a real underachiever. Maybe I misunderstood the word and used the wrong type of machine, anyway it could not really cope with soaked chickpeas so I took off the lid while it worked away and used a hand-blender to assist from the above. According to the reaction of entering near relatives this probably wasn't such a good idea. I can't remember the last time I was told off like this since my early childhood. Oh well. Second problem (why didn't I look for a recipe in good old German?): We are not too familiar with cups as measuring unit and we are greedy. So two cups sounded very miserly and I added some more. In spite of No BS's comment I didn't realize chickpeas are that filling, now we have enough of them for the coming weeks I think. But they are delicious.

Wow, this was long. Today is an S-day. Cool but not as Christmassy exciting as it used to be.

No BS · Post by **No BS** » Sat Apr 13, 2013 1:22 pm

Jonas Jonasson wrote: Yesterday I was kind of subliminally nervous the whole day

What an intriguing statement.

Your farmer's breakfast sounds delicious. I absolutely adore beets.

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Sat Apr 13, 2013 1:40 pm

Jonas Jonasson wrote:

Yesterday I was kind of subliminally nervous the whole day
No BS wrote:

What an intriguing statement.

Probably owing to the language barrier

No BS · Post by **No BS** » Sat Apr 13, 2013 1:51 pm

Jonas Jonasson wrote:So two cups sounded very miserly and I added some more.

Good one! Reminds me about when I didn't know about rice and thought cooking 1 c of raw rice per person would be about right for a dinner party for 5!! One cup of raw rice doesn't look like much, either!!

You've inspired me to make falafel - which I have never done before.

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Tue Apr 16, 2013 8:56 am

D'oh.
I hope that I don't go astray. Yesterday I did not have the time to sit down properly for lunch and I had bought something nice to have it in the car on the way from one appointment to the next. Just when I wanted to bite into this thingy I saw/smelled that somehow some kind shampoo/liquid detergent/poison? stuck to the bottom of the paperback which was completely soaked. I decided not to eat it, luckily I usually throw my groceries into the foot room of my car and I had just bought some bananas. So my lunch after seven hours consisted of three medium size bananas devoured in the car. Great.
Since life had already treated me SOOO unfair I got back at it by piling up an extra big helping at dinner (chicken with satay sauce and rice).

Today is an S-day (very good friend's birthday and a concert in town afterwards - provided that the babysitter shows up and we and/or the children don't get sick as it is the rule) and I already had two small chocolates with my coffee instead of virtuously waiting for the afternoon to have cake at my friend's.

Since this already is the end of the world I may as well have some more of these chocolates. Or cancel my pity party and look forward to a nice afternoon & evening, I just have to make up my mind.

SpiritSong · Post by **SpiritSong** » Tue Apr 16, 2013 12:20 pm

Sorry about your lunch.

Sounds like you could use an S-Day! Now stop eating chocolates and save room so you can enjoy the cake.

MJ7910 · Post by **MJ7910** » Wed Apr 17, 2013 1:29 am

aww i'm sorry about your recent misfortunes. i have hard time once i start into doing something i didn't plan on so that WTH syndrome doesn't take over. i hope your next day goes a little better!

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Wed Apr 17, 2013 8:48 am

Spiritsong wrote:

Now stop eating chocolates and save room so you can enjoy the cake.

Yes'm.

and thank you for your consoling words, MJ.

Actually I completed ignored the cake and concentrated on emptying a container of assorted liquorice (violet flavour liquorice, for example). Maybe not the best choice since this was in the early afternoon and at 2am the next day, when we got home, I still wasn't hungry. Maybe it was also because I had my usual big plates for breakfast and for lunch and did not want to adjust the amounts although I knew I was going to have S's in the afternoon. Not very mature. But oh well, I will try to concentrate on earning greens again and hope that the calm and persistent No S normalcy takes me with it.

sleepygirlzzzz · Post by **sleepygirlzzzz** » Wed Apr 17, 2013 1:10 pm

I actually think it was very mature of you to skip the cake. If it was me, I think I'd struggle to pass up on cake even if I had stuffed myself with other sweets beforehand. So perhaps your No S habits did kick in afterall.

Wishing you 3 more green days to finish off the week - you can do it!

No BS · Post by **No BS** » Sat Apr 20, 2013 5:35 pm

Violet flavoured licorice????

Wouldn't that be like coconut flavoured strawberries?

Or banana flavoured vanilla?

Jonas, are you just having fun with me again & seeing if I'm paying attention???

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Tue Apr 23, 2013 9:20 am

No BS, rest assured that everything I write is dead serious. I am an expert in liquoricy. There are two kinds of violet liquorice, very small hat-shaped black ones and violas, purple sugar coated ones. Most people say they taste like soap. I say that this is just the point.

Phew, three S-days in a row, a cake and sweets heavy weekend with no exercises but the triathlon of entertaining, calming down, and feeding a gang of five to six year olds and the next day entertaining, calming down, and feeding a gang of forty to fifty year olds. And yesterday we had our office Christmas party.

This month my habitcals for NoS and for exercises look mostly yellow and red with some odd sprinkles of green

Amy3010 · Post by **Amy3010** » Wed Apr 24, 2013 6:32 am

Phew! Sounds hectic! And you are celebrating Christmas very early by my calendar

And you're not alone - my Habitcal for NoS looks very similar, I am afraid!

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Fri Apr 26, 2013 9:59 am

Hi Amy, or very late... A couple of years ago we couldn't agree on a date for our Christmas party because we all were very busy and agreed to have the party in spring when the weather is (supposed to be) better and the restaurants are not overcrowded etc. This has worked out fine except for the others refusing to wear Christmas party hats in April.

And good to know that I am not alone

Nothing very exciting to report. Back in the groove with NoS, thinking about a mod for days on which there are more than 8 hours between my meals,
very good at finding excuses for not exercising.

There will be at least three public holidays on N-days in May as well as a good friend's birthday on a Monday, I do not know yet how to handle this. I'd love to learn to only have S-events on NWS-days but somehow I can't. Maybe this is only for advanced No-S-ers.

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Tue Apr 30, 2013 7:14 am

My weekend was quite active, Saturday was village cleaning day (tidy town day?) so I was basically doing squats for two hours and on Sunday I worked in the garden and went for a run.

Had to prepone (?) my monthly weigh-in because I don't know whether I will find scales where I will be tomorrow. Based on my average weight of today and yesterday I have lost another kilo. This means a bit more than 5 kilos since the beginning of January. Cool. And I did not exactly suffer:
My habitcal says three NWS-days and three fails for NoS and two NWS-days and two fails for exercises. On most days my plates were loaded but I did not always finish my meals.

I am still not satisfied with my lunches on the days I have difficulties fitting in a meal sometime between 12pm and 3.30pm, on these days I tend to make bad choices which do not even leave me satisfied. It would just require some planning...

Lesson learned

No S is working

No BS · Post by **No BS** » Wed May 01, 2013 1:54 am

Jonas, congrats on dropping another kilo!! Great news, eh!

Slow & steady seems to be the No "S" way.

Delighted to hear your village has a spring clean-up day. We do the same here once the snow is all melted & the whole community turns out.

It's a super (and productive) workout - and for such a good cause!

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Mon May 13, 2013 2:38 pm

Negative tracking is not very fruitful sometimes, it's been a couple of days since my last check-in. But at last a fail, today, just yet. Less than one hour after a big lunch I just had to have a tiny bit of cheese which had been left on the breakfast table and some grapes. And since a red day because of about 20g of food seemed silly I also had some strawberries and some more grapes. I was definitely not hungry

Well the rest of May went well so far, the first of May was a public holiday but for me it was an N-day. I only had two meals, not because I was being Ã¼ber virtuous but when there was an opportunity to have lunch it was only one more hour until dinner time so I bore up, which wasn't such a good idea because I then wolfed down my extremely big dinner plate which wasn't even good. I also had very big plates, sometimes even with junk food on them but I managed to stick to the basics I think. Ascension day last week was a NWS-day and then there is Whit Monday this month. And my S-days were not too tame either but I still feel okay, common sense rules mostly.
I tried to run 10km on Thursday and on Sunday, my heel spur kept its mouth shut.

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Fri May 17, 2013 5:59 pm

Aargh, another fail yesterday. In the afternoon I had some biscuits (gorgeous - brought from the baker where I grew up). They were a real treat but the fun sized chocolates which followed clearly weren't.

This always always always happens on Mondays and Thursdays when my schedule is always absolutely mad. I have to think of a way to circumnavigate this. My plates are still very big. I just hope that I will not drift off completely. Annoying. My lame excuse is that it is probably due to the weird things that happen all the time at the moment (people being ill/breaking up etc.)

Sometimes I really miss eating as a distraction/calming down strategy and it's harder to face things without being able to smother my emotions with food (also for the people around me, I suspect).

Three S-days in a row. Whoa. I think I will be very happy if I manage to maintain this month.

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Wed May 22, 2013 7:33 am

I had three extravagant S-days but they were probably far better than my normal pre No-S days. I sometimes feel awfully full after my big (dinner) plates, maybe it's about time to change something. I take it as a good sign (still secretely hoping that one of womankind's biggest wishes - eating less without any effort at all - will come true

)
I have signed up for a 5km run on the weekend and just hope that they haven't stopped the time measurement before I return. I'm seriously thinking about wearing a t-shirt saying "I could probably run faster but for my heel spur" because all the about the 20 spectators will definitely be interested in this information.

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Wed May 22, 2013 12:21 pm

May is not a good NoS month for me. I have just had a fail. Seconds. Thirds & fourths. And a serious WTH attack, if I have some sweets now I will have scored a clean hattrick. I somehow knew that this would happen. I preponed lunch to fit it in my schedule and because I was uncertain (insecure?) about sth. I could take this to a higher level by stepping on the scales tomorrow morning in order to check how this red-yellow may has affected my weight.

oolala53 · Post by **oolala53** » Wed May 22, 2013 3:08 pm

JJ, I highly recommend against doing that. Wait until you have 5-day stretch of N days, if you must weigh. Or pretend you're on a long overseas trip with no access to a scale. What would you do? You'd get by without it. And keep working toward consistent moderate eating.

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Wed May 22, 2013 5:21 pm

Thank you for your feedback, oolala. Don't worry, I won't, I'll stick to weighing once a month for a couple of days, it was meant to be self-ironic - but the language barrier

I think I rather have a nice new fence put in, including some chicken wire.
But all in all I am still very happy with NoS. So far I have had a very luxurious month food-wise & I have extra S-days and fails and big plates but the packs on my hips haven't grown too much. These incidents are the exception (at least this is what I hope). The big plates leave me uncomfortably full & the fails are due to crazy schedules (which mainly require some self-organisation, I think) and certain stupid situations, in which I feel out of control & for which I need to find a strategy.
Of course, all of the above does not apply if the number on the scales has not gone down on 1 June

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Mon May 27, 2013 7:13 am

Pretty wild S-weekend. My excuse of the month for mindless grazing on sweets: The constant rain. It has been continuously raining since at least ten days (okay, it sometimes stops for about half an hour). It also was pouring down when I did my 5k run. It wasn't my fastest run ever but it was okay, I signed up for another on in three weeks and maybe maybe maybe I will be able to run a half marathon in October.

And I will take oolala's advice to heart:

keep working toward consistent moderate eating

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Wed May 29, 2013 2:04 pm

I feel it's time to do something about my NoS complaince.

Currently, I am straining the rules like I will be straining the seams of my jeans before long ...

I will join Renee in her new challenge and think about things.

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Fri May 31, 2013 6:21 pm

Increasing stress level since Monday. Until today I have been able to fight off my poor coping strategies (=grab sth. edible), I had seconds at lunch and some sweets in the afternoon. Of course, it didn't actually help.

This is my fourth red day this month in addition to two NWS-days. I can't wait to see the number on the scales tomorrow (monthly weigh in)

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Sat Jun 01, 2013 4:37 pm

Monthly weigh in: About the same as last month, thank you NoS

It has been a rough, extravagant month but the damage is not worth mentioning. At least with regard to my weight; I'm not too sure about the habit.

I've mainly been wearing trousers which were a bit too loose because of the +/- 5kg less, today I am wearing an old pair of jeans which feels as tight as the old ones used to do, I suddenly feel as if I have gained quite a lot of weight. Maybe I should keep wearing trousers of that size as a motivator (and in order to display my muffin top).

Lesson learned:

S-days aren't as fun if you fail on a Friday.

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Mon Jun 03, 2013 1:44 pm

While doing the June challenge I will list all my meals in order to see how/if things will change while doing strict vanilla NoS.

I usually eat very big plates because of my weird schedule with up to 9 hours between my meals and I thought that this was very unfair (whine, whine) because obviously it is much easier to eat smaller meals if there is less time inbetween - but then I read wosnes' advice in another thread basically suggesting to so else have normal meals in spite of everyhing

I will try that.

Breakfast: 3 small slices of cornbread with butter, 1 grapefruit
Lunch:1.5 small slices of cornbread (did not finish the second slice, yeah), smallish bowl of pineapple, peaches, and blueberries, 1 joghurt with muesli

I made cornbread for our barbecue yesterday. Child1: 'Why are we having cake for dinner, mum?' Child2: 'I'm not going to eat that. Where's the baguette bread?' DH (while piling up corn & pepper salad on his plate):' I am allergic to corn.' So thanks to my culinaric philistines I will have cornbread for the next 20 meals.

Later:
Unbelievable, I survived on three reasonable meals, although there were more than 7 hours between lunch an dinner.

Dinner: medium-size bowl of leftover corn and pepper salad pimped up with a diced hard-boiled egg, 1.5. slices of cornbread with butter, 1 carrot

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Tue Jun 04, 2013 12:02 pm

Breakfast: small roll, two small slices of black bread with jam, a big slice of pineapple
Lunch: stuffed zucchini (with tomatoes, onions, red pepper and some grated cheese) with, guess what, two small buttered slices of cornbread
Dinner: white aspargus fried in a pan with sesame seeds, potatoes with butter, smoked ham

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Wed Jun 05, 2013 7:41 am

Breakfast: big slice of cornbread with butter (I hate throwing out food but in this case...), slice of fresh pineapple, joghurt with muesli
Lunch: homemade chicken curry with fresh pineapple, rice

My plates seem to be slightly smaller and I do not starve, weird. Yesterday, I had yummy tea made from fresh peppermint leaves. It is really nice to fit into almost all of the summer clothes in my wardrobe now that the temperatures are finally climbing to the 20s.

Funny stuff:
For the last decades I haven't weighed less than I do now and last month I seemed to do my very best to sabotage any weight loss. I wonder whether I might have reached my set-point weight? I am doing the June challenge because I want to get back on track with vanilla NoS but I am not sure that this will affect my weight at all. I would love to lose another 3 to 4 kg until the end of the year. Or until the end of next year, I can wait.

This lifestyle is so much better than anything I have done since I was 16, I am hungry for my meals, I do not feel completely out of control anymore etc. Cool

And I hope that this stupid cold is going away soon I would love to go riunning again.

sleepygirlzzzz · Post by **sleepygirlzzzz** » Wed Jun 05, 2013 6:08 pm

Thanks for visiting my thread Jonas. I've actually been following your thread with particular interest over the past few weeks because we seem to have hit a similar rocky path with No S. Although you are leaps and bounds further than me with your amazing weight loss - congrats! (I haven't lost anything to date - just seem to be losing/gaining the same 2/3lbs every week)

What is your June challenge?

That's great news that you're finding your smaller meals to be satisfying enough. Good luck on your path to vanilla No S. You've already proven you can succeed with No S so I'm sure you'll be on your way again soon

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Thu Jun 06, 2013 2:35 pm

I have answered your question on your thread, sleepy. Thank you for your friendly comments.

Breakfast: two wholemeal rolls with cold cuts/cheese, strawberries, cucumber, radishes (office breakfast, I think I did okay)
Lunch: red pepper, kohlrabi (??? do people eat this outside Germany?), cucumber & carrots cut into sticks and a minibowl of pretzels with a quark dip , strawberries
Dinner: Turkish take out food (doner kebab)

Yesterday NoS almost ruined my reputation as a decent cook/baker. I had made wafles for the kids and their playdates including mums and, all woman of virtue, did not have any. The kids loved them, the mums didn't. When I wanted to reheat sth in the evening I discovered half a pound of butter in the microwave, which I had wanted to melt and which should have gone into the wafle dough (and I thought that it had been a quite stiff dough...). So they were completely fat free and probably really dry & rockhard. Well good for the WW ladies who heavily commented on my sacrifice "On Weight Watchers you would be allowed such small treats."

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Fri Jun 07, 2013 11:07 am

Breakfast: two bread rolls with cheese, 1 hardboiled egg, oj
Lunch: bread roll with cheese, bowl of fruit (strawberries, apricot, kiwi, pineapple), tiny bit of yesterday night's leftovers (borek)
Dinner: salad with ham and an egg, garlic bread

Went running yesterday, I was already running very slowly but it was somehow unpleasant, probably because of my longlasting cold, so I transformed into a (sub)urban ranger and walked the rest. Better than nothing.
Today I had breakfast together with friends, the host's breakfast plates were bigger than mine, hehehe.

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Sat Jun 08, 2013 5:36 am

S-day at last. The first week of my June challenge has been successful, hooray. Maybe I should do a 2014 challenge.

My plates are still quite big but not loaded anymore, I have watered down fruit juice when I want to give in and I am doing some sort of exercise although I cannot run for the time being. This is mainly due to the squat challenge, because after say 100 squats I usually think that I can as well go on with my 14 minutes of anything.

I hope that I will stay on track.

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Tue Jun 11, 2013 7:34 am

My weekend was okay, I had normal meals, some sweets, some homemade wafers etc but no real idiocy

Monday
Breakfast: banana, joghurt with muesli, slice of bread
Lunch: 2 wieners, wholemeal bun with butter, melon
Dinner: meat sauce (family recipe) with potatoes. I licked my plate

but I think that was NoS compliant

Today:
Breakfast: 2 peaches, 2 slices of bread with cheese
I was tempted to eat some left over melon but I put it in the fridge for my lunch. Ha.

I would like to exercise more. Maybe I should just do it

MJ7910 · Post by **MJ7910** » Wed Jun 12, 2013 2:01 am

you should just do it, because you want to. not because someone says. that is the key for me. it is so much more enjoyable to run/lift weights because i want to!

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Wed Jun 12, 2013 8:23 am

Hi MJ, I did, 5.5 km - not too much but better than nothing.

Yesterday I had breakfast at about seven and was already really hungry by twelve but lunchtime was at 2pm. I had for
Lunch: a very thick slice of wholemeal bread (the bakery's bread cutter does not seem to be state of the art anymore) with cream cheese and fresh basil, two index finger sized sticks of cheese, melon, grapes, a small bowl of pretzels, joghurt.
Dinner: spaghetti aglio al olio, baguette
I was really hungry all day yesterday although I had plenty to eat. So after dinner I kept thinking whatcanIhavenow whatcanIhavenow until I finally ate a slice of watermelon directly out of the fridge

for whatever reason. Fail.
Maybe I was just still thirsty after my run before dinner when it was still quite hot outside? Maybe I am a greedy person completely lacking in self-control? Maybe just because.

Breakfast: Melon, two slice of wholemeal bread with cheese & jam

Later:
lunch: wholemeal bread with tomatoe and cheese, another slice with cold cuts, sesame pretzel sticks (many), melon
dinner: some fried potatoes and scrambled eggs, 1 slice of serrano ham, two tomatoes

On second thought: Cool that I only had the melon & did not raid the sweets cupboard afterwards. I often feel the urge to have something and think who cares if I have a biscuit now but usually it goes away. I keep thinking: You do not have to be perfect but try your best to build the habit. And the June challenge accountability really helps.

Jonas Jonasson · Post by **Jonas Jonasson** » Fri Jun 14, 2013 7:40 am

Yesterday:
breakfast: bread roll with cheese, slice of bread with cold cuts, 2 peaches, some cherries
lunch: two spring rolls with sweet and sour sauce, rice, and peas fresh from the jar (office cafeteria. My lunch was gross just as the other dishes my colleagues had chosen. None of us finished it although the others are not really picky, and the mood gradually changed from frustrated to hysterical giggling. So it was somehow worth the money just not from a nutrional point of view)
dinner: left over pasta baked with mozzarella, some tomatoes

The only thing I exercised was my frustration tolerance. Ill child = no weekend away.

breakfast today:
bread roll with butter & jam, melon, kiwi, peach

I feel a bit silly writing down all the things I have eaten but looking at them I have already noticed something: I do not eat very many greens. Maybe I should try to include more of them in my meals. After almost six months of NoS it could be about time to start to think about what I eat. On the other hand: the results have been convincing so far.

Later:
Late lunch (3pm) but still not too hungry; I think I was hungry earlier but had too much to do
Baguette bread roll with cheese, tomato, cucumber, carrot, grapes
No too big a lunch (I think. Sick child: You're going too eat all this, mum? Me: It's not that much. Child: It is too! Me: It's not! etc) but very satisfiying, good bread & good cheese, yum.