Adagia's Check In

Adagia · Post by **Adagia** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 2:30 pm

Hello everyone! Here I am, about to embark on what I hope will be a new lifetime habit of eating. I've had success in the past with reducing my food intake by only eating when hungry, but I've also found that I have trouble always knowing when I'm actually hungry or when I'm really thirsty, stressed, or just have an upset stomach from too much soda. It seems that these simple rules will help me a lot to prevent overeating. I sure hope this time I'll not only get back to my ideal weight, but I'll stay there!

Day A1: Success! I had to fight the snack monster off a little in the afternoon, but a big glass of water helped. My biggest victory came in the evening. My daughter and friend had left out a bag of chocolate chips on the counter after making a small batch of cookies on the weekend. I was cleaning up and found the bag torn, so I transferred them to a ziplock. The victory was that I was able to move all those chips and not pop a few into my mouth. A good start

Adagia · Post by **Adagia** » Wed Aug 06, 2008 2:11 pm

Day A2: Success! The second day was a little harder than the first. I so wanted to have a snack and found myself begin to wander toward the kitchen more than once during the day. I work out of the house, so my access to food is a bit too easy. But I'm happy to report that I remembered my goals and fought off the bad habit and had more water instead. Whew!

Adagia · Post by **Adagia** » Thu Aug 07, 2008 1:02 pm

Day A3: Success! Wow! I realy AM addicted to snacking. I look so forward to the day when it isn't a battle for me to say no to food outside of my normal meals. To compensate I have found myself drinking a LOT of water. I didn't drink any soda yesterday (diet or otherwise), but did add some fruit juice to one of my waters yesterday, then had a rather large hot tea (no sugar) last night. For the juice, I was using Oceanspray's cranberry/raspberry blend - which is a very powerful juice. My drink ended up at about 1/4 juice, 3/4 water, which had a very nice flavor. I'd describe it as light, not water downed.

For dinner last night, I had picked up a subway meatball sandwich while stopping by to chat with my teenage son working there. My intention was to save it for my normal dinner time, splitting it with my daughter. The splitting was successful, but saving it till normal dinner time, not so much. I ended up eating almost 2 hours earlier than normal. I fought off the urge to have anything else that evening, but at times it was very difficult. I'll try much harder today to have dinner later.

On the bright side, I don't think it's sweets I'm missing - it's just the act of eating something - anything. I hope my first S days go well this weekend, so that I enjoy it without going overboard. *crosses fingers*

Adagia · Post by **Adagia** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 3:06 pm

Day A4: Success! Hurray! It's getting a little easier to avoid the snacking. I still had my moments, but they were fewer than the day before, which is a great sign to me that I will eventually get used to the idea of snack free days being the absolute norm. I'm still feeling pretty good about the whole NoS concept and hope I'll still be at it a year from now.

Adagia · Post by **Adagia** » Sun Aug 10, 2008 3:47 am

Day A5: Success! One week full of NoS days under my belt. So far so good - I can survive without snacks!

Day A6: Sday My first Sday wasn't much different than the NoS days. I had a single poptart instead of cereal for breakfast and a small handful of almonds as a little pre dinner snack. I have no desire to raid the refrigerator or pantry. It's nice to know that I'm allowed something if I really want it, but so far nothing is worth losing my progress to date. Maybe tomorrow we'll go have some ice cream as a treat.

Adagia · Post by **Adagia** » Tue Aug 12, 2008 4:07 am

Day A7: Sday I enjoyed my Sday without overdoing it. Deserts can taste better with this plan. Hurrah!

Day A8: Success! Busy busy day today. How nice to not worry about food during it all. Hardest part is right now - I'm working very late and getting hungry. If I was in bed like normal I wouldn't even notice. I can do it, I can do it! Tomorrow will be a little more challenging as I'm supposed to meet a friend for lunch. It will be my first time eating out on an Nday.

I checked the scale this morning - down 1.5 1bs!

Adagia · Post by **Adagia** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 7:40 pm

Day A9: Success! Going out for lunch turned out great. I had something yummy but small. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I was hungry again by dinner, so I'm sure I didn't over do anything. One thing I'm starting to notice is that it's taking a little less food for me to get full now. That should make it easier to actually lose a bit.

Adagia · Post by **Adagia** » Fri Aug 15, 2008 7:23 pm

Day A10: Success!
Day A11: Success!

Just over halfway to 21 days! I think I can do it! I don't think I ate quite enough at lunch and dinner yesterday, as I was a bit hungry all evening. I reminded myself that would mean a little weight loss and I didn't give in to having a snack. Today, without overdoing it, I'll try to make sure I'm at least a little full after lunch or dinner. I have memories of long ago on Jenny Craig, in which I lost a good amount of weight, but I never returned as I couldn't face being a little hungry ALL of the time. I love this plan as I do have times of being full, which help overcome the hungry, wait till the next meal, times.

Adagia · Post by **Adagia** » Sat Aug 16, 2008 2:00 pm

Day A12: Success! I've been staying up late working all week and it finally caught up with me. I woke up at my normal time this morning, rolled over with the thought of I should get up and instead fell back asleep. 3 hours later I woke up! (thank goodness I work at home and not in an office). I slept right thru breakfast, so I only ate 2 meals yesterday. Both meals remained reasonable, and they must have been, considering how hungry I was around 10pm.

Now I begin my weekend, so for a couple of days if I get too hungry after dinner - it will be ok to eat a little. whew - I'm happy to know I can get a break now and then without ruining all my progress.

My teen daughter joined me in NoS eating. She's always been a small thin thing, but the last time we went clothes shopping she had gone up 2 sizes in the pants - we finally figured out where she carries extra weight - the legs and butt - much better than the tummy like me. Her natural habits in the past kept her from eating too many sweets or snacking, but over time she started snacking more, and usually sweets at that. It finally caught up with her. After 2 weeks she says she can already tell there is some improvement in her looks around the legs (she doesn't like to weigh herself). How wonderful to find a nice method to correct her new bad habits and get her back to her old good ones.

blueskighs · Post by **blueskighs** » Sun Aug 17, 2008 7:34 pm

Adagia,

sounds like you are doing GREAT!

Blueskighs

Adagia · Post by **Adagia** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 4:22 pm

Thanks Blueskighs - so far so good! This weekend was a little challenge - even though my only rule is "don't be an idiot". I don't feel I was an idiot - but I was tempted to be one. My habits are not even close to firm yet and it would take very little for me to go back to the old bad ways. Just letting myself have less structured eating times/amounts over the weekend showed me how quickly I can make bad decisions. I imagined myself sitting down and watching a movie, snacking the whole time - eek! I did watch the movie, and I did snack, but thank goodness not the whole time. Structure seems to be a good thing for me and I may have to restrict myself a little more over the weekends, like still have the 3 meals, but a sweet is ok or one late evening snack is ok... we'll see.

Day A13: SDay
Day A14: SDay

Weighed myself Monday morning - down another 1.5lbs!

Adagia · Post by **Adagia** » Thu Aug 21, 2008 5:32 pm

Day A15: Success!
Day A16: Success!
Day A17: Success!

I'm behind in checking in here, but I think it's because the NoS way of eating is getting more and more routine, and not something I think about as much as at first. At the very beginning, the whole idea was on my mind a LOT. Now, it's mostly just when I start to get hungry, and the occasional need to fight off the munchy feelings.

An interesting side effect I've observed... I'm cooking more now! Now that each meal has become distinct, and I tend to cherish them more, I have found that I actually want to cook more often. That's a nice bonus for my family, as the poor things had to fend for themselves out of frozen stuff in the freezer more often than not. Now there's a better than 50% chance that I might actually cook something. I hope that's a trend that continues.

Adagia · Post by **Adagia** » Fri Aug 22, 2008 7:23 pm

Day A18: Success!

Not much to report. I do like my in between beverages that are about 1 part juice (real 100% juice) and 4 parts water. Much better for me than soda, and tastes better than just water - though I drink that as well.

Adagia · Post by **Adagia** » Mon Aug 25, 2008 7:31 pm

Day A19: Success!
Day A20: Sday
Day A21: Sday

I managed a pretty idiot free weekend with only tiny variations from normal Ndays - for example I allowed myself a single poptart for breakfast instead of my normal breakfast. Next weekend will be different as we'll be celebrating my husband's birthday.

And look at that - I made it to 21 days on habit! I'm having a little trouble today because I think I ate too little for both breakfast and lunch, and now I'm suffering early hunger pains 3 hours before dinner. I guess I found my low point in how much food is enough at a meal. I won't push it quite so hard tomorrow - I don't want to have excess hunger trigger me into a relapse.

Adagia · Post by **Adagia** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 12:09 pm

Well once I hit 21 days, there went my check ins! But, the habit is still going strong. Days 22-26 were all successful and 27-29 were Sdays that went well, despite a birthday in there.

My husband loves cinammon bread (from a recipe of his mother's that she taught me), so we made several loaves for his birthday. Fresh cinammon bread is very hard to resist, and being an Sday, I didn't.

But what I did do is be sane in eating it. The first day, after it was freshly baked, I had a couple of slices (this was before normal dinner time). Then we all ended up skipping dinner after that, but had a little more in the later evening. The next 2 Sdays (Labor day on Monday) I had the bread for breakfast. So, although I thoroughly enjoyed that yummy bread, I also know I ate it in a controlled reasonable manner and didn't undo all my progress thus far. In the past, I've been known to gain a few pounds after several days of enjoying the stuff. (no wonder I don't make it more often).

Yesterday was a tougher day to stay on habit. Between being the first Nday of the week and us running low on milk (I didn't want to drink it up till we've been to the store), I had some serious snack cravings. I managed to not cave in, except I ate a tomato between lunch and dinner. For me, that's an allowable snack. No tomato is going to ruin my appetite for dinner, and it's no worse than drinking a glass of milk or fruit juice (and probably better). It's also not something I'm going to crave and give in to - but it works to prevent from doing that with some other foods. Today I must find time to get to the store and restock on my milk! I drink it with my meals and find it makes it much easier for me to stick to just 3 meals every day.

I started shovelgloving last Tuesday. I only did 3 days to start and took Friday off to let my muscles rest. I was back to it yesterday and so far so good. Playing music I really like helps a bunch to help the time fly by.