Everyday Systems

I didn't want to fish out my old thread. It spans a few years of failures.
I am now 2-stonetoomany. I got a tough job. It is looong hours and little food prep time. I also have a staff room filled with cake.
I am sure that refined flour and sugar and potato chips/crisps are the problem. They are nearly all I eat.
In the past, nos has bought me weight loss but also eliminated my bloating, made me sleep better and some other things I should only mention to my husband.

I feel sick. My husband has also gained so much weight. I am on the edge of BMI obese now. The thing is I don't see it in the mirror. It's like reverse body dysmorphic. But my family pointed out to me that actually I look kinda fat.

So enough is enough. No watching the scale and getting disheartened this year. I want to just build a habit. I will weigh in June. If there is no change I will start changing what I eat. By then the habit will be there to support anything.

Usually I do this 2 weeks and watch the scale daily and theat's when I get disheartened and think it's all for nothing.

So crazy but I am committing to following no s for the whole of 2016. I have 26lb to lose but more than that I have some discipline to implement in my life to show that I can take care of what God gave me.


I'm doing vanilla no s. But I must include potato chips or any other convenience snack like that as an s.

Eating 3 times a day will be ok except my biggest challenge is going to be eating real food instead of crisps. I am afraid that if I eat whole meals I will get fat. It's a lie that I need to break free from.

I am going to add some vitamins to my diet along with cod liver and primrose oil and a pro biotic. I have PCos and depression. I'll try to take a walk each weekend.

I am good at sticking to pledges. I always last lent. So if I tell myself that there is a finite date I will stick to it.

I'll try to post each weekend. I'm starting on Friday Jan 1st (with 3 s days!)

You have your work cut out for you. Please try to be easy on yourself with regard to meal prep. Are you willing to eat veggies? It is so much easier these days to find reasonably priced prepped ones or frozen ones. Get the big bags and put them in zip log bags for the week. Is there a freezer at work? Or use Reinhard's optimized oatmeal. You've got to buy groceries, no? I many times have used half of a fast food burrito supplemented with half a plate of freggies. Most of my dinners take about ten minutes. About that time to pack my lunch. Just slowly incorporate having the right foods on hand. There are decent frozen meals out there, too, if you look for them. You are right that you can work on the details later.

I humbly suggest that you also concentrate on how much better you'd like to FEEL. It doesn't feel good in the body to overeat, or at least not for long. And you don't have to be thin to start feeling better. Keep the desire for that feeling front and center. A person can be thin but rarely have that good feeling. It took awhile, but I rode that feeling all through slow weight loss with several plateaus. But it felt so much better to live this way that I just kept going!

oolala has given you excellent advice (as she always does)

Concentrate on how good you feel when you go to bed at night (or whenever your sleep schedule allows) - that "I took good care of my body today" feeling other than that "Ugh, why did I eat all of that and why didn't I find even a little bit of time to exercise?"

Take it one step and one meal at a time - just ask yourself, is this doing my body good? Try to make the answer yes more often than no.

Trust me, I (and everybody here) am walking the same journey but it does become easier and more of a habit - sure there will be foods that perhaps aren't the best choices but we KNOW it and that is the difference. Once awareness sets in, enjoying them becomes easier because our brain understands that this is not an everyday occurrence, it is - shall I dare say a Special treat? And exercise can become as routine as brushing one's teeth, something that we do because we are people who exercise.

Enjoy the boards, I am starting my 2016 thread tomorrow, feel free to stop by anytime.

oolala53 wrote: I humbly suggest that you also concentrate on how much better you'd like to FEEL. It doesn't feel good in the body to overeat, or at least not for long. And you don't have to be thin to start feeling better. Keep the desire for that feeling front and center. A person can be thin but rarely have that good feeling. It took awhile, but I rode that feeling all through slow weight loss with several plateaus. But it felt so much better to live this way that I just kept going!

This is great advice, thank you! I'm hoping it will carry me through slow losses and plateaus if/when they come too!

Strawberry Roan wrote:oolala has given you excellent advice (as she always does)

Concentrate on how good you feel when you go to bed at night (or whenever your sleep schedule allows) - that "I took good care of my body today" feeling other than that "Ugh, why did I eat all of that and why didn't I find even a little bit of time to exercise?"

YES!