Everyday Systems

Hey, y'all. I decided to join in the check-in fun...accountability and all that.

I got through the first 21 days without too much difficulty...a few hungry moments, but mostly just astounded that I don't melt into a puddle if I don't eat every 3 hours. I can't believe I walked around all these years thinking I would just die (or something) if I experienced a hunger pang.

Anyway, I'm a 5'10 1/2 female, and I weighed 205# on August 21. I weighed 199# a couple of days ago.

I'm amazed that I can easily list everything I ate today! In the past, there were so many snacks that I would not have been capable of naming everything I ate from memory on any given day. It's no wonder that I've been steadily gaining weight over the past 15 years.

I think the best thing about No-S is the way my relationship with food and eating is normalizing. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about food or what snack I can grab or what I shouldn't eat.

Today:
Day #23 success

1. frosted mini-wheats with skim milk, a little bagel with cream cheese and strawberry spread, and an orange
2. Lentil soup, a small piece of cheese, carrots and grapes
3. Pasta w/creamy salmon sauce, green beans and grapes

No exercise...haven't added that habit yet.

Welcome and good for you that you made your 21!! Woohoo! and weight loss too. Keep on movin' on.

Benjumanji wrote:Hey, y'all. I decided to join in the check-in fun...accountability and all that.

I got through the first 21 days without too much difficulty...a few hungry moments, but mostly just astounded that I don't melt into a puddle if I don't eat every 3 hours. I can't believe I walked around all these years thinking I would just die (or something) if I experienced a hunger pang.

Anyway, I'm a 5'10 1/2 female, and I weighed 205# on August 21. I weighed 199# a couple of days ago.

I'm amazed that I can easily list everything I ate today! In the past, there were so many snacks that I would not have been capable of naming everything I ate from memory on any given day. It's no wonder that I've been steadily gaining weight over the past 15 years.

I think the best thing about No-S is the way my relationship with food and eating is normalizing. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about food or what snack I can grab or what I shouldn't eat.

Today:
Day #23 success

1. frosted mini-wheats with skim milk, a little bagel with cream cheese and strawberry spread, and an orange
2. Lentil soup, a small piece of cheese, carrots and grapes
3. Pasta w/creamy salmon sauce, green beans and grapes

No exercise...haven't added that habit yet.

Congratulations!!!!!!
keep it up - there is lots and lots of support here! Please start the exercise part - even a little tiny bit will help you a ton. I can't tell you how much it is helping me - I'm a new person.
Steve

Hi Steve and pangelsue...thanks for the support.

Day #24 success

1. oatmeal/flax, 1 1/2 oranges
2. fish, broccoli, corn, and a salad
3. bean nachos w/baked tortilla chips, grapes

I took your advice, Steve--I broke out the ole' mountain bike and went for a 30 minute ride. I had to walk the bike up the first hill, but it's a start. (The dogs were beside themselves with joy--they live to hit the trail.)

Day # 25 success

1. oatmeal/flax/orange
2. chick'n nuggets/fries/apple
3. 2 pizza slices and a couple of beers

No exercise. I wake up every day thinking today is the day I start exercising, but I never "get around to it".

Hi there, congrats on adapting to No-S.

Regarding exercise, I'm becoming more and more convinced that the best exercise to do if you want to lose weight is rangering, urban or otherwise. If you aren't already, once you get used to walking without fatigue for an hour, start adding hills to your routine.

If you like using Internet tools, then Gmaps Pedometer is a super-useful thing to help you measure how far you've walked.

Of course I also enjoy shovelgloving and yoga/bodyweight exercises, but lately I've been really feeling the value of rangering.

26-S day (success, of course)

I didn't snack all day--I seem to be out of the habit. YEAH!!! I bought myself a bag of M&M's at DS's football game, ate 3-4, but they were too sweet so I gave them to my husband (who sadly, doesn't need them either). Amazing.

Had a divine evening meal with a perfectly cooked tenderloin and a slab of banana cake for dessert. Very satisfying and guilt-free!

Amazing thing #2--normally I would have tucked into the banana cake this morning for breakfast. I considered it--it is an S-day, after all. But I decided that I'd rather have something healthier.

Hey, Carol, I was just wondering about the cereal. I read through the plan, and maybe I just skipped over it but is it okay to have cereal like frosted flakes, etc?

Great job, 28 days, how many days are you going to keep checking in?

I am 5 feet 4 and weight about 182, I need to lose 40 pounds!!

Shannon

Day #28-I guess I'll call this not-total-success.

At lunch, I had a hamburger happy meal. DS didn't finish his double cheeseburger, so I chowed down on the remainder so "it wouldn't go to waste". Then, operating under the same concept, I ate the rest of his fries. Totally unnecessary-I was already full. However, this tactical blunder did not cause me to say "what the heck, I blew it" and order dessert. I just moved on.

No guilt/shame/self-punishment for making a bad choice. Now THAT is success.

I've been exercising more--took a 2 mile hike Saturday, a 6-mile mountain bike ride Sunday, and a 2 mile hike Monay.

Day #29 failure

Stressful day at work.
Won't go into details, but no chocolate binges were involved. Had an extra helping at dinner and a banana milkshake before bed (1% milk, banana, Splenda--pretty healthy, but still a snack)

No exercise. Busy evening doing errands w/ DS after work.

Day #30 success

1. oatmeal, orange, milk
2. hummus, tabouleh, tomato, cucumber, bread and an apple
3. 2 pieces of pizza

No exercise.

Hi Carol!

Over on my thread you mentioned that you used to have to make sure you had food around all the time because you hated that "hungry" feeling. I did the same thing! Especially on trips. I would have to pack a little bag of my own food just in case I got hungry and we couldn't stop for something immediately.

I'm loving the freedom from that fear that NoS is providing me.

Have a great end of the week and enjoyable S-days!

Carlyn

Day #31 failure on no-S, success on exercise

1. oatmeal, orange, milk
2. turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, peas

10 chocolate maltballs

3. chicken nuggets, fries, watermelon

4 graham crackers w/cream cheese, glass of milk

Went to the pantry with the idea of mindless gorging, since I "already blew it today", but didn't go down that road. I've been working on the no-shame, no-guilt mindset.

Exercise:
Boot camp tape, trailwalked 2.5 miles

hikermom wrote:Hi Carol!
Especially on trips. I would have to pack a little bag of my own food just in case I got hungry and we couldn't stop for something immediately.

I'm loving the freedom from that fear that NoS is providing me.

Carlyn

Exactly! NoS is freedom from enslavement to my own appetite. Wow.

Day #32 failure --ate 3 bites from my son's snickers bar. Otherwise no funny business.

I'm going to start keeping the success-to-failure ratio to make things easier for myself.

29-3

Day #33 success (S-day)
Ate a lot of junk--my son had a big 14th birthday party. I intend to take it easy tomorrow and eat more like a No-S day.

Edited to add-someone I hadn't seen for a month told me I look like I've dropped a few pounds! Woo-hoo!

30-3

Thanks for the support on my thread. I really appreciate to folks who check in and help keep me on the level. You do so well and seem to take your failure days in stride. I am always ready to through in the towel when that happens. Good for you. We are human and the only way we can get better is to hang in there.

Thanks, p-sue. I have tried several "diets" and have repeatedly succumbed to the all-or-nothing theory of success. I'm working on not reverting to such self-defeating behavior and thoughts.

Day #34 success (S-day)
Despite a large amount of junk food remaining in the house from Saturday's party, I did not have an all-day snackathon.

Walked about 1.5 miles in the pouring rain. Good thing it wasn't cold.

31-3

Day #35 success

Great day eating-wise. No exercise.

32:3

Day #36 success

33:3

No exercise, unless you count running up and down the stairs about 100 times trying to fix the multiple computer problems that have cropped up in this god-forsaken household.

Day #37 success!

Whoopee! I weigh #196 now! That's 9 pounds down from my starting weight! (I couldn't wait until October 1--my clothes are looser, and I just knew I'd lost some adipose tissue.)

Day #38 success, all 3 no's honored.
Went to boot camp class at the gym--great workoutl

ETA: also mountain biked 3 miles.

Day #39 failure...ate a brownie at an all-day seminar. I was trying to make up for the less than delicious box lunch.

34:4

Day #40- success (S-day)

Split and stacked wood all morning, then hiked 3 miles. Perfect fall day.

9 pounds.. thats GREAT! Go pick up a 9 pound bowling ball and see how much that is that you were carrying around. YAY YAY YAY!
I'm rootin fer ya!

Thanks, squarepants person! 9 pounds doesn't seem like very much weight until you put it that way.

#40 success (s-day) no exercise

#41 success (no-s day) no exercise.

I had a real moment of weakness yesterday. I was SO HUNGRY...and a little bored...dinner wasn't due for several hours. I almost broke down and had a Snack (which would have been Sweet--breaking 2 S's at the same time). Then I logged on here and reminded myself that I am 6 weeks into forming a new lifetime habit, and I won't die from hunger in a few hours. I got busy, did some errands, had a diet soda (a treat for me) and made it through the rough spot. Ate a delicious plate of pasta, green beans,and fruit for dinner --a very satisfying meal, and all the more so because I had a good appetite. Can you tell I'm a green bean fanatic?

I am on day #42 today, (I miscounted somewhere) and it's shaping up to be a good day. That makes 2 3-week segments with a pretty good success ratio for the no-S eating plan. I am so proud of myself!
Assuming today will be a success (and it will):
38:4

6-Week Review:
This is such a rational "diet". I went vegan with no white flour/sugar just before I turned 40, and I lost 30 pounds. However, I can not stick to that way of eating for the rest of my life. It was just too hard, especially at restaraunts, social events, or work-related lunches. And I missed treats so much. I consciously decided I would rather be fat than never enjoy another treat. Then I gained back all 30#.

Measuring and weighing food, writing it all down, etc made me obsess about food. As a vegan, there were so many things I "couldn't" have, which made me obsess about food. And I frequently fell into the thinking pattern of "oh well, I screwed up--might as well go crazy now".

The No-S diet is simply a rational structure for eating. It puts food and eating in the proper place in my life-as an enjoyable and necessary PART of my life, but not my life. It does not inspire me to think of one slip-up as a disaster or a deal-breaker. I just note it and go on.

Now I am adding exercise. 14 minutes will count as a successful day, in keeping with R's "schedulistically insignificant" school of thought.

Day #42 failure. Don't ask. A chocolate-covered-peanut fiasco.

Day #43 success, and I went to boot camp class (1 hour).

Whoa...

Day #44 failure..a permasnacking blitz once again associated with unsatisfying meals. I'm seeing a pattern here--if my meal is not tasty and satisfying, I feel an urge to make up for it with multiple snacks. I'm also noticing that it is harder to comply on Thursdays and Fridays. My strategy for dealing with these problems:

1. Cook something good on Wednesday night and Thursday night so there will be yummy leftovers on Thursday and Friday. (We often resort to crap food by later in the week due to busy schedules).

2. Go to my favorite coffee shop on Friday mornings for a latte and a scone. Not as nutritious as oatmeal, but I think it's better to stick with 3 meals a day to firm up that habit and worry less about the content of the meals.

Day #43 (S-day) success; the only "s" I indulged in was a miniature ice cream sandwich. I kept reminding myself I pretty much had my S day the day before.

Day #44(S-day) success. Ditto above (right down to the miniature ice cream sandwich). Went on a 3 mile hike in the Camden hills and split/stacked wood for a couple of hours.

Day #45 failure(6 graham crackers after dinner)-though I did go to boot camp class and hiked 2 miles in the dark with a friend.

Day#46-failure(a midmorning scone and a handful of Mike/Ikes)..and it's only 1pm. Time to get off the pity party wagon and back on the No-S wagon.

40:6

OK - so is this pity party a party for one or can I join too...cus I am ripe for that!