Everyday Systems

Hi, all. ^_^ I just found out about Reinhard's diet and was charmed by its simplicity. I'm not sure if I'm going to check in here daily or just periodically, but I want to log at least the highlights of this journey.

Baseline info for me: female, 45 years old, 5'4", 211 pounds. I work in a very sedentary job and have very sedentary hobbies; that plus a downward spiral of sweets and snacking has been doing me in. I'm planning to do vanilla no S with the exception that I'm allowing honey, which the book technically forbids. I use it instead of sugar in my tea; since sugar is allowed for coffee, I figure this is probably a reasonable substitution. (I don't drink coffee as such, but Starbucks bottled frappuccinos are totally my downfall.)

I need to work on exercising too. Right now my goal is just to walk 15-20 minutes on my lunch hour. It's a low bar, but I'm having a flare up of plantar fasciitis, so I have to be careful about being on my feet too much. I'm hopeful that losing some weight will help with that problem.

I started on Wednesday with a green day (well, technically I started halfway through Tuesday, but i'm not counting the half day ), and today so far has been green. Interestingly, I was going to sort-of cheat at lunchtime--I had a pear that didn't technically fit on the plate but I was holding it balanced on the rim, but by the time I ate all the rest of the food that was on the plate (baked salmon, wild rice pilaf, and asparagus), I couldn't manage to eat the pear too. I've put it away for another day.

Dinner is going to be spaghetti with homemade tomato sauce. I have a gaming night tonight, and I'm a little worried about making through the late night without snacking. I'll be drinking lots of water!

--V

Welcome! We are about the same age/weight and it seems like a good age for self-reflection/lifestyle changes so I wish you luck in ypur endeavor!

Don't worry at all about the honey in your coffee. In fact I allowed nf mochas, sweetened iced tea (lightly) and wine for quite awhile. I just put a cap of three drinks total for the day to keep it reasonable. I've only just begun to switch to cappuccinos, unsweetened iced tea and zero vitamin water but it took me awhile before I was ready so just do what's realistic and you can always take stuff away later. Set yourself up for success!

Best of luck!

Linda

Hello and welcome. Good luck with your journey.

I have a problem with lower body pain as well, and am not much of a fan of the upright exercises.

If you enjoy swimming and have access to water on a regular basis, I will say it's a very pleasant alternative.

The book does not forbid sweetening coffee or tea, ya know. It's no SWEETS, not no SUGAR. I don't think honey is against the rules.

Thanks all for the lovely support. ^_^

So I've made it through my first slightly-over-a-week: 8 days green. Success! And I seem to have lost 4 pounds, but that could just be regular bodily fluctuations, so I'm not getting too excited yet.

I lucked out last week: I was worrying about making it through game night on Thursday, but the host canceled at the very last minute, so I was saved! At the moment game is on for tonight; I'll have to make sure to have a really good dinner.

The biggest challenge for me so far was yesterday morning, as I was making my sandwich for lunch. I looked at the loaf of bread and realized that I was probably going to end up wasting a lot of it--previously I would go through about half the loaf for sandwiches and eat the rest of it for snacks. (Can you tell that I love bread?) And of course, it was pre-breakfast, so I was a little hungry, and I was sooo tempted to just have a couple of the smallest slices. But I held out! Go me! And I figured out a possible solution to the lack of bread snacks, which is to buy my bread on Saturday, so the end bits can be S-day treats while they're still fresh.

(I just can't get behind the concept of keeping bread in the fridge or freezer. Doesn't it get damp when you bring it back to room temp? Soggy bread is one of my gross-outs.)

Other lesser challenges: eating out at a diner where I know the water tastes awful (solution: orange juice) and finding a bowl of fruit on the free food table at work just after I'd eaten lunch (solution: put away a few pieces of melon to have as part of my breakfast the next day).

My S-days last weekend weren't too crazy, either. I had 3 small bottled frappuccinos spread across the two days (interestingly, I found that I couldn't finish any of those bottles in a single sitting, whereas before I could easily suck down a large one), maybe a total of one small soda over both days (two separate sodas that I couldn't finish), six mini Peppermint Patties, one small packet of Raisinets, and a small slice of peanut butter and chocolate pie on Pi Day. And I kept to the no seconds rule throughout--not deliberately withholding them; I just didn't feel a need to eat that much.

I haven't been walking as much as I wanted to--the foot is still not doing too well. I've been considering seeing the doctor, but I keep telling myself, "Just give it another few days!"

Overall I feel pretty good. The hunger's not terrible--in fact, it's kind of nice to be a little bit hungry before meals (and all the practice made fasting for my blood test this morning much easier, lol!)

Here's to having an equally successful next week!

-V

Sounds like you're doing great, Velvet! Your thoughts about the bread reminded me of something that always seems to trip me up: eating something because I don't want to waste it. The freezer has been my friend, though, in this regard. Please do try freezing the bread----it works GREAT! I always freeze bread, whether the gourmet variety I sometimes treat myself to from Whole Foods or even bread I made myself. It all freezes just great---no sogginess at all, and once it thaws, it tastes as good as when I first bought/made it. If I didn't freeze bread, I would end up throwing most of it away because after a few days, bread seems stale to me (this happens after one day with homemade bread). I'm a stickler for freshness, which is why I use the freezer.

As for the icky tap water from restaurants, I solve that problem by asking for bottled water. Most places have it. I don't feel guilty paying for it because I figure it costs the same (or even less) than if I ordered a soda.

Lin47, somehow I never even thought that the place might have bottled water! I'll have to ask next time. (Still working on the bread-freezing concept, lol! There's this scarcity-focused voice in my head that goes WHAT IF YOU RUIN THE BREAD AND THEN YOU WILL HAVE NO BREAD!!! As if I couldn't go out and get another loaf. )

Ten days in, and I'm still green. I'm honestly rather amazed at myself, considering that before starting No S I couldn't say no to anything sweet or snacky. I really think the key for me is that there is absolutely no wiggle room (except for S days, which are all about the wiggling). If it's a sweet, I can't have it. If it's a snack, I can't have it. There's no, "well, if I have this, I can make up for it by not having that other thing later on." And then ending up with days where I'm like, "I was really good today! I just had that frappuccino...and then there were the cookies...and the six pieces of chocolate...oh yeah, and the croissant from the free food table." And that would happen pretty much every day.

So, okay, okay, here's a challenge I faced and conquered! Yesterday at work, I look up and one of our production coordinators is putting a little stack of chocolate chip cookies on my desk (they came from one of our vendors as a gift, and she was sharing them out). And they're sitting right there next to me, and it's just before lunchtime, and I can smell them, oh God....

And I packed them away to take home for Saturday. And then went and ate my lunch immediately just so I wouldn't be further tempted because I was hungry.

Victory! (I can hardy even believe I did that.)

Oh, and I made it through game night, too! I made myself a big travel mug of tea with honey, and that kept me going all the way through. I was only briefly envious of another player's Kitkat bar.

So that's where I am right now: doing astonishingly well and trying not to let it make me overconfident, because I still have a long way to go. But I feel like I'm on a good track to make 21 days. Just 11 more left--I'm about halfway there!

-V