Everyday Systems

Yep....another new check-in thread. 😛. It doesn’t allow me to edit the title of my thread, and my other thread says 2017. I know this journey is going to take a lot longer than a year because, truthfully, this really IS for life. So just a general check-in thread seems to be the best option.

You all know me. I’m Amy. I have been around here for years and years. I have been on some sort of diet since Jenny Craig at age 10. I have some very deep-rooted addictions to dieting in general and some painful stuff from the past that I continue to push out of my mind. This journey isn’t going to be as easy as I had hoped...but I know it will be worth it!!!

I get very enticed by all the crazy diets out there. I know the best solution for me is to eat regular food without focusing on the points or the carb content or the calories or any of that. I am giving an honest effort to put guards up to stop looking at other diets and just focus on my three plates each day.

This morning I woke up after a week of “bad†holiday eating and considered trying some crazy plan of torture as penance...but then reality hit. If I can’t picture myself eating that way for life....why even start? So I ate a delicious plate of food without checking what the point count was or if I had the right carb to protein ratio....and the mental space that’s freed up is amazing!!! No more thinking til lunch time!

This is me, Folks....for better or for worse! No more torture. No more searching. No more lying to Amy!! Will I be perfect at this? Not even close! Will I have numerous fails? Of course. Will I keep putting one foot in front of the other? That’s the plan!!!!

Nice to hear it, Amy. Not being "on a diet" doesn't mean you won't decide at times to be selective about what's on your plate. The more often we eat, the more that matters, if moderation is what we're after. But since you say you keep getting pulled away, it sounds like you've never had an extended time of just sticking to the plan. Put food on a plate. Eat it. Do something else until the next meal.

It doesn't mean you have to load up with non-diet food, either. You don't have to be on a diet to eat freggies, or some light foods, or non-manufactured foods, or simple meals. There's room of it all, and room to change over time.

I'm with you, this really IS for life . I do love how freeing No-S is!

tobiasmom wrote: This morning I woke up after a week of “bad†holiday eating

I prefer to think of it as celebrating. It's okay to celebrate. It's not how I usually eat--it's special and it's okay to enjoy it. (More than okay--it's a joyful time!)

Whether I may want to moderate how much I eat or what as I celebrate--sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. But, if it's a special time with family or friends, I'm going to enjoy it. That too is part of living life. And I can relax, knowing I have a plan to come back to afterwards that is doable and sane (not punishing as you said!) And if I do have a few crazy days--well, so be it. I still have a sane, doable plan to come back to.

I hope you enjoyed your Christmas, and look forward to the freedom of No-S in the coming year!

Hi Amy, good to see you again and glad you're doing well. Here's to 2018!! 🎉

Merry wrote:I'm with you, this really IS for life . I do love how freeing No-S is!

tobiasmom wrote: This morning I woke up after a week of “bad†holiday eating

I prefer to think of it as celebrating. It's okay to celebrate. It's not how I usually eat--it's special and it's okay to enjoy it. (More than okay--it's a joyful time!)

Whether I may want to moderate how much I eat or what as I celebrate--sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. But, if it's a special time with family or friends, I'm going to enjoy it. That too is part of living life. And I can relax, knowing I have a plan to come back to afterwards that is doable and sane (not punishing as you said!) And if I do have a few crazy days--well, so be it. I still have a sane, doable plan to come back to.

I hope you enjoyed your Christmas, and look forward to the freedom of No-S in the coming year!

What beautiful thoughts, Merry--I totally agree with you!

Welcome back, Amy, and best wishes for a successful 2018!

Yesterday was technically a fail on No-S....but I took it more as step 1. I had a soda during bowling (just one) and I had an ice cream with my dinner meal. BUT I had three plates of food yesterday with NO snacking! This past month has been filled with all day permasnacking. So I honestly feel awesome about step 1 yesterday. Today I am shooting for three plates without any sweets. I will try for some walking soon too....but yesterday I had this freak reaction to canned enchilada sauce. I’m still recovering today. Benadryl is rough stuff. I feel so fuzzy still. My skin and eyes burned everywhere!! So weird. It was like I was sweating jalapeños! Usually I make my enchilada sauce from scratch. Well....that will definitely have to continue! Haha.

I also wanted to say that when I said a week of “bad†eating...I was alluding to my lifetime of mental issues with BAD/GOOD food. I am done with all of that. I can really convince myself that the day is good or bad based on my food choices. How miserable is that life??? Each day I just want to shoot for moderation. I will be honest and say that I don’t quite know what that looks like. But for now that’s going to look like three plates of food a day! 😛😛

What's moderate when you haven't had much compliance can be very different from what's moderate after several months, or years. But permasnacking is very likely not moderation!

Out of curiosity, what were your longest solid runs with No S?

Yesterday I didn’t make it just three plates. I had some nachos my mom
Made in the afternoon and then stopped eating them when I realized what I was doing. I also had one cookie yesterday. BUT I still feel like I am making progress! We have been using paper plates with my mom here, which are definitely smaller than the regular plates I own. At the end of each day before I go to sleep I have been mentally taking a survey of what I did well and what I could improve on.


Oolala: My longest record of compliance is about two to three months. During that time I even lost a good 12-15 pounds....but I had a car accident during that period, and any little thing seems to send me running back to food as comfort. The truth is...No-S is so un-diet-y that it works through all periods of life like vacation, illness, and hardships. What really needs to happen is me doing the real work mentally to change food’s influence on my daily life. After 30 years of dieting and a completely unhealthy relationship with food, that’s just going to take a lot of work that I haven’t been ready to face in the past. I have even thought that I might need to consider anxiety medication....or find a way to control that anxiety somehow. Yoga really does help....which I need to get back into!

I agree that your slips yesterday still fit within making progress, especially stopping on the nachos when you remembered. Stopping in the middle is only slightly less important than just not starting, since the odds are kind of high that people do slip.

Zen meditation didn't take away my anxiety very much, but it did groom me to be willing to just tolerate it without eating. It's okay to be uncomfortable without eating. NOt fun, but by now, it's preferable. I don't like it, but I dislike the discomfort later more-MOST of the time. (Meds didn't take it away, either, but it felt like too much of a risk not to use them while I was working. I'm going to talk with doc about tapering off over the next few months. However, I wouldn't recommend them if they don't make a noticeable difference and your life doesn't feel like a crisis a lot of the day.)

Recently, I've also been practicing with the strategy of telling myself that for the time being, an hour or so, I can regard my thoughts of criticism of myself or others or doom as just not true, and try to get into something else in that moment. My spiritual teacher said to me recently that if I'm waiting for the world to be just before I'm happy that... he trailed off and let me draw the conclusion. I often feel like my inaction is the same as not being willing to stop the Holocaust. Of course, I don't want to lull myself, but let's be real. Has any of my worrying actually changed my behavior or the situation? Almost never, and certainly not in proportion to the anguish. I don't have to do anything to solve big problems every time I'm having those thoughts. I just think that for now, things are okay, and do anything besides eating (or gambling or selling the children) at least for then. And I'm not "allowed" to let myself dwell too much on anything I'm not willing to take action on soon. If I''m going to end up procrastinating anyway, it's better to suffer less doing it.

Sorry to highjack your thread:
A few years ago I was having trouble waking in the night with anxiety. I learned to tell myself, "You can't solve this at 1:00 am. You can worry about it in the morning at 8:00." It seemed to help to know that I had a specific time to worry. At least it made it possible to get back to sleep, which in turn lead to better days.

Best of luck to you.

Welcome back, Amy! I always enjoy when you are posting. We both have two boys. Mine are 12 and 8 right now; I seem to remember yours are similar, but a little younger. Is that right?
Take care and keep on posting!! We are all on this journey together. Don't ever let a "bad" eating day, as you put it, hold you back from sharing. As I had to tell my crying and scared 8 year old at bed last night when he didn't want to tell me why he felt so bad -- bad things are much worse when we hide them. Once we share them, they lose some of their power.

Automated: Yes...my boys have the exact same birthday, and they just turned 10 and 5!!



I’ve put together a couple Green Days so far this week. I also joined a walking challenge for 2018 to do 2018 miles. Am I crazy??? Haha. So far so good. But my feet are feeling it since I have been pretty inactive for quite
Some time. I need to average about 5.5 miles a day.

So I like that plan. Three plates a day this year and walking. That is IT!! Nothing fancy!! Ha.

Hello! You and I started around the same time so I always like to see how you are doing. The 2018 miles challenge is intriguing. Maybe I will join you in that. I have 3 miles so far. It is so bitterly cold here that I will not get a lot of mileage right now. I walked inside yesterday, but my exercise today was volleyball.

It is so hard to concentrate on your own self care (including eating habits) while also concentrating on raising a family. The child rearing years were when I gained a lot of weight. I was in my fifties when I found No S. Just hang in there and concentrate on your moderation theme and take one day at a time! Or maybe one meal at a time!

That amount of walking would take me a little over an hour and a half! Does it count walking around the house or shopping, etc.? The gauge I just looked at said it was over 10,000 steps. I don't think I could pull it off every day. Hmm, how can I mess with the year 2018's numbers to get it in range? But it would be good to have some goal to shoot for.

A fitness consultant to NASA once wrote a book recommending being on your feet three hours a day. Everything counted. That's a little harder to track, but it might be my best bet, along with X minutes of anything intense.

Hi - just wanted to stop by and wish you well on your journey to a happy, healthy 2018 !

Oolala: I use the Fitbit to track all my steps for the day. I did well during the week but have definitely gotten way less steps in on the weekend while sitting on my butt watching ice skating! Haha! Gonna have to do more steps during weekdays to account for that. I have got 28.16 miles for the first six days of the year. I have got some catching up to do!!!

Just stopping by to say Hello and let you know that I am here rootin' for you! I really enjoy walking!! I feel so much better when I am doing it, both mentally and physically! The 2018 miles for the year sounds interesting! We are back to work and school tomorrow and I am ready to do this! Let's Go Girl!

I'm glad I live in the UK as my '2018 in 2018' challenge uses kilometers not miles! It means an average of about 8000 steps per day for me which is doable with a reasonable effort to be active, especially on days that I don't walk to work.

Okay, I have my metric. I am a woman of the world!

Hi! It’s nice to see you again! I’m back again myself, and at this point, my goal is to eat 3-4 meals (depending on the day) with no snacking. I also have 2 boys, who are 10 and 6.

Are you still homeschooling? How are things on the education front?

No homeschooling for me. My older son has special needs, so he needs the school setting, and my younger son is doing really well in kindergarten. How about you and your boys?

I have strung some green days together this week....and I feel awesome!!! Doc told me to cut out as much processed food as I can and eat real food because of my blood pressure. I know that is definitely helping. But I am not getting totally crazy with it. I’m trying to stick with my three plates and eat!! More cooking. More walking. That’s all.

Automated: Yes, I am still homeschooling. Tobias is in 4th grade this year, and Linc is kindergarten!

Pretty good week! I had four greens and one red this week. Feeling good. Down 1.4 this week (total of about 4.6 for the year so far).

My favorite meal I ate this week was a sweet potato black bean quinoa bowl. Something I learned this week about myself is that my feelings play a huge part in my compliance. I definitely want to work on NOT eating because I’m unhappy or worried if it’s not time to eat. My choices at that time always involve processed snacky or sugary foods. What I want to work on for next week is more activity for sure.

YAY!! We are both still here! You are doing great! Keep on keepin' on!

Do your best to cut those ties between down feelings and manufactured (and eventually sugar/fat/salt of your own making) foods. No one can promise you anything on any eating plan, but it was my experience that I felt a profound sense of gratitude and pride the more I did that, about equal with close-to-mastering N days. Lowering blood pressure (and the ensuing better health so that you're up for all the joys of progeny) is worth any exacerbating foods you skip. Do you have a device for measuring blood pressure? That seems more logical and even desirable than a weight scale.

You're having a fantastic year! I'm so glad for you. You deserve all the best payoffs.

I’ve been actually doing this, guys!! Two reds in the past two weeks. I am calling that progress! I am down 7 pounds for January!

If that's not great progress, I don't know what is!

That is great! Good job!

That’s fantastic!!! ✨ðŸ‘ðŸ¼ðŸ‘ðŸ½ðŸŒŸðŸŒŸðŸŒŸðŸŒŸðŸŒŸ

Hi Tobiasmom!! Just wondering how you are doing!