Everyday Systems

I've tried to start NoS a few times but always fail during the afternoon so maybe starting a thread here in the morning will help get me through without snacking.

I developed hypothyroidism after having my oldest daughter almost 3 years ago and am still trying to get off the 30lbs that packed on before my medicine got figured out. Now I'm 8 months postpartum with my second daughter and have a good 40lbs to lose to get back to my happy weight of 160.

I've lost weight in the past but looking back it was not in a healthy way. I'm afraid to pass on my wonky relationship with food to my girls. NoS seems like a good way to lose weight without my girls seeing me "diet."

It would be a gift to your girls not to see you on "diets" and talking a lot about them. I wish I can have a do-over. My daughters now know I only do the No S diet, a normal way to eat. Unfortunately, they also saw me lose and gain back the weight twice on the No S diet!

They are now in their 30's and at a normal weight, but they do obsess about a few pounds gained.

I'm back again with No S. Each failure has taught me a little more for the next attempt (hopefully, the last attempt!).

noni Yes. I grew up yoyo dieting with my mom and just ended up fatter and even more crazy about food. I know my mom did her best but I definitely don't want to repeat that cycle with my girls!

hey, regina, welcome and congrats on your first day of success!

it is great to model healthy and sane eating habits for your daughters... but dont worry about it too much... because eating and image issues are a social thing, too... credit for good and bad lies there,too...

i had a mum who was dieting smtms and talking often bad about her body, even jokingly... and it didnt get to me... until my late thirties... i cant blame her for that at all... actually i can thank her for modelling something i early on realised was weird, thank her for being a bad model in that respect... not extremely bad but not good either...
and for my good, healthy and pretty sane record until my late 30s, besides genetics (but then, my mum had the same), i can credit the people i have had and chosen as friends... in my social circles dieting is looked down on and active lifestyles are encouraged... except through work, i dont think i know any dieting nor obese person,too... maybe overweight but not obese...

being a good model to our children is a great motivator... but, imho, other internal motivations are just as important if not even more important... health, sanity, peace... noS is a great direction towards that... i feel so lucky to have stumbled upon it!
great to have you here!

Congrats on your day 1 success!

kaalii Oh yes I definitely am personally motivated, by both health and vanity. I also have bins of clothes I really want to be wear again.

Merry Thank you!

DAY 2 - S DAY

I am going to try to stick to 3 meals plus 1 sweet.

ETA I snacked a lot. Whoops.

Great job, regina! And hello from a newbie!

Like kaalii said, try not to be too hard on yourself about modeling the correct behavior for your daughters. Over the years, I've found that silence concerning diet (unless specifically asked about recommendations, etc.) is the best approach. It avoids unnecessary conflict, and promotes a more relaxed atmosphere around food.

LifeisaBlessing Thank you!

DAY 4 - FAILURE Had 3 bites of eclair with afternoon tea.

DAY 5 - SUCCESS

DAY 8 - S DAY

We are going to a pool party today so I'm doing S days Fri/Sat this week.

you are doing great!

Hi. Okay. I am going to restart this thread.

I keep looking to find a "fast" way to deal with my weight but they don't last long, and I've finally come to terms with the fact that I need to deal with my underlying issue and kind of ignore the weight. I've been heavy all my life and my mom started putting me on all sorts of diets when I was in elementary school. This didn't make me lose weight but did make me hate myself and triggered binge eating in secret for the rest of my life. I've lost significant weight a couple of times but I haven't ever really confronted the binging behavior. It really sucks because I'll reward myself with a binge if I lose weight, or I'll punish myself with a binge if I fail a diet.

I'm not in a financial position to go to therapy to deal with my disordered eating, but lots of internet research suggests that something like no S is a solid place to start to reshape my behaviors. Maybe why I keep circling back time and time again? I have three small children and the older they get the more terrified I become of fucking up their relationship with their bodies and food. I don't want them to see me yoyo, binge, or talk badly about my body.

I am going to do my best to stick to no S, even when I mess up and binge, or even if I don't like what the scale says. I'm going to set my expectations really, really low so even little steps forward will feel like big successes.

1. Vanilla no S, but an afternoon cup of coffee isn't a failure.
2. Try to have the scale trend downward an average of 1-2 lbs a month. Trying to lose weight fast sets off my disordered eating and I have to accept that I am only going to get worse if I continue down that path.
3. At this point, I'm only focusing on food and will deal with exercise later.

I don't think I will be updating this post daily, just as I feel a need to work through my thoughts and feelings and behaviors.

Wb. I definitely relate on every level. Been dieting since I was 10 which set my on a destructive path of diet/binge for many years. I got SO sick of restricting that about 15 years ago I just decided to stop dieting completely. The only problem was I didn’t know any other way of eating that didn’t involve extremes so I ate and ate. I think I was making up for all those years of going without which led to a 75 lb weight gain.

I eventually found NoS and even though I only lost a few pounds the first year, it gave me the structure that we probably should have all learned when we were young and that was very freeing. I eventually lost 40 of those 75 lbs with NoS. I’m still trying to lose the rest and have had to relearn the hard lessons of trying to lose weight too fast (tried intermittent fasting for a bit) but back to NoS now and realizing just what a beautiful way of eating it is.

Sorry for the novel but wanted to let you know you are not alone in your struggles and I hope you find some peace with your eating and weight struggles. We all deserve that.

Welcome back! We are all here to support you and we all love hearing people work through their thoughts and emotions on their threads! We offer free therapy, hahaha!

lpearlmom wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 17, 2020 10:21 pm

Wb. I definitely relate on every level. Been dieting since I was 10 which set my on a destructive path of diet/binge for many years. I got SO sick of restricting that about 15 years ago I just decided to stop dieting completely. The only problem was I didn’t know any other way of eating that didn’t involve extremes so I ate and ate. I think I was making up for all those years of going without which led to a 75 lb weight gain.

I eventually found NoS and even though I only lost a few pounds the first year, it gave me the structure that we probably should have all learned when we were young and that was very freeing. I eventually lost 40 of those 75 lbs with NoS. I’m still trying to lose the rest and have had to relearn the hard lessons of trying to lose weight too fast (tried intermittent fasting for a bit) but back to NoS now and realizing just what a beautiful way of eating it is.

Sorry for the novel but wanted to let you know you are not alone in your struggles and I hope you find some peace with your eating and weight struggles. We all deserve that.

It was actually intermittent fasting for a week and then going on a binge day 7 that brought me back here. I could not stop thinking about food, even when I wasn't even hungry. The last two days have gone well and my obsessing about the next meal is fading away. I spent the time to make a simple meal plan for the week with appealing dinners (I love to cook and bake) and now I'm a bit on autopilot. Still feel the urge to really FILL my plate up with food because I feel compelled to eat everything I put on it. Hopefully with time I can either have less overfull plates or walk away when I feel satisfied.

It's reaffirming to see others who have similar stories to mine finding success; thank you for sharing. Being gentle with myself and just trying to take it one day at a time is hard sometimes!

automatedeating wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 18, 2020 6:09 pm

Welcome back! We are all here to support you and we all love hearing people work through their thoughts and emotions on their threads! We offer free therapy, hahaha!

Thank you!

automatedeating wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 18, 2020 6:09 pm

Welcome back! We are all here to support you and we all love hearing people work through their thoughts and emotions on their threads! We offer free therapy, hahaha!

Welcome back! The above is so true! I have worked through a lot with the help of my check in thread and fellow posters. It's so helpful to know that we are not alone on this journey.

Well it's been a good few months. I'm on day 75 of sticking to my No S habit. Sometimes I have messed up, like eating birthday cake for a couple days after my son's birthday, or eating an orange while I'm making dinner because I'm hungry and don't want to go wild once dinner is done, but I'm not blowing up my habits if I fall short of perfection and that is a big win for me!!

I've gone from 196 to 177 in the last 75 days which is very encouraging as well. My first goal is to hit 168 (normal BMI for my height). I've been there before (8 years ago before I got pregnant with my first child) and to see it within spittin' distance feels good. My ultimate goal is around 150 and this time I know I'll get there.

It sort of surprised me at first that I could lose weight without crazy strict dieting or counting calories. I've been keeping a notebook and writing down my meals and exercise. I decided to keep it simple and just add in as much vegetable and fruit as I could and that takes a lot of the stress off eating perfect away. I'm about 80% vegetarian at this point because I actually enjoy eating vegetables, haha.

What's really hit home for me is that I have no interest in becoming my "best" self that we see pushed so much around us. More muscles, get a six pack, optimize your diet with xyz, look 10 years younger, etc. I just want to be average. Not the strongest, but not weak. Not the smallest, but not heavy. I want to be able to eat without stressing about the way my body will look, and I want to enjoy doing moderate exercise that keeps my body moving and healthy even if I'm never bikini-ready. I've deleted all the social media apps and it's a bit shocking at first because suddenly I was really looking at the people around me and not the curated, edited version of people online. Like oh yeah, that is what people actually look like. A comforting realization.

Anyway, I know this thread is way sporadic but it felt like a good time to check in and I'm hopeful I can keep up my good habits and keep developing a healthy perspective.

regina wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 01, 2021 3:05 pm

What's really hit home for me is that I have no interest in becoming my "best" self that we see pushed so much around us.

It's a strange aim in life, self perfection, and probably doesn't do wonder for one's mental health. Congrats anyway on your 75 days of moderation and the ensuing weight loss.

I think the data shows that the emphasis on ever more self-development can definitely backfire in terms of happiness. But it sure sells.

Your results are fantastic! Kudos.

If you get to your normal BMI range, you do understand you will be "better" than average as things stand now, and if you get to 150, well..But it's probably about where you'd be if we lived in a moderate-eating culture. We just have to make our own,

I'm on day 160-something, don't have my log in front of me for the exact day but it seemed like a good time to update this thread.

I weighed in this morning at 161, so I'm now 35 lbs down and solidly in a "normal" BMI range! Evaluating how I feel and how clothes fit, I'm still going to slowly work down to 150 and see if that is a good maintenance point. I carry most of my weight around my middle so it feels like the weight loss is just now showing up there.

It doesn't feel like a Herculean task to continue as my No S eating habits are less a chore and more what I do now. I can't pinpoint when that change happened. One day I realized that it's not hard at all to eat my "usual" meals or turn down treats. S days are usually no different than No S days, but if there's a special occasion I enjoy a treat but don't spiral the whole day. My girls' birthdays were easy to have one cupcake and walk away, or (finally) getting to see a friend and have a glass of wine and split dessert on our friend date. And I'm still binge-free!

Losing weight hasn't made life perfect by any stretch, but it's sure seems a lot easier in so many little ways.

Well done, Regina! It sounds like you have really got the No-S habits down solid and this has had a wonderful impact on your life!

Great to hear of your success Regina.