Everyday Systems

Monday: a success, techinically.

Glass of wine at dinner

I have a habit now of having a glass of milk between lunch and dinner to tide me over. I'd like to cut that out.

Tuesday-- Day 5

A success! Feels easy today.

Wed. Day 6 Success

Still having a drink yogurt or glass of milk between lunch and dinner. I'm going to cut this out after 21 days: next point of attack!

Sweets is, amazingly, no problem. Snacking is a constant urge. Especially at night. The good thing about the NoS plan is that it forces me not to eat emotionally, at least 5 out of 7 days.

Thursday: Day 7 SUCCESS

a bigger dinner than normal, but I'm down from 144.8 to 143.2

S days were a BIT better this week. the first S day felt pretty good. My body wanted it to be an N day, but I ate treats, snacks anyway, just because I could. The second S day was much more out of control. I ate every 2 hours, compulsively, had lots of St. Maartens chocolate.

Today, the first N day of the week (Day 10) feels HARD. I want to nibble and snack. Doesn't help that I weighed myself and seemed to have GAINED the two pounds plus one over the weekend. Let's hope that's random fluctuations. I don't mind slow weight loss, but I do mind no weight loss.

I'm new here too. I would say, don't worry too much about what you're seeing on the scale. The short term numbers don't mean much, it's the long term numbers you need to focus on. Do you weigh every day? One thing I plan on NOT doing is weighing in at the end of two S days...although next Monday will be my monthly weigh in at my fitness place.

This was my first S weekend and I know I ate more than I would have on a normal weekend, because we had houseguests for 2 days. I don't think it will be as tough to keep from going overboard on "normal" weekends.

Stick with it, you can do it!

Thanks for the support, Rollo. Maybe we should start a newbie support group of people who started NoSing this fall. It really helps me to post and hear from people like you!

I like your idea of starting a thread for us newbies. I've been thinking the same thing. Maybe a newbie thread each month? I think it would be good support for all of us, and you are so right, it helps to post and know that there will be others in the same boat replying back to your posts.

I think I will go ahead and start such a thread when I get on the board tomorrow, I'm cashing it in for tonight.

Rollo

Day 11: No-S: Success (no mid day milk!)

Exercise A: Sucess

Day 12 FAILURE

no excuses, no regrets. Ok, a little regret.

Today's day one, again.

Just to be absolutely sure about my no-s rules (a bit different from Reinhard's) so that I can fence around them.

1[b]) No snack foods on N days[/b].
This includes anything that would, eaten alone, make my blood sugar wacky: Sugar, salty snacks (except for nuts, which I put in the "food" catagory), etc. but not including fruit)

2) 4 meals.
Blood sugar again, and I'd rather 4 small meals rather than 3 big ones.

3) No alcohol on N days

4) Let my stomach and appitite be my guide, no need for virtual plating but no idiocy [/b]

Day 1: success

Good job on the success! Are you still weighing yourself every day? I'm waiting to weigh until Monday, that will be after 2 weeks of No S.

Day 2 SUCCESS

Rollo,

I wish I didn't weigh myself so often. It's like a nervous tic, that I want to SEE that I'm making progress. Hopefully after a while I'll just be content with my successes. Hopefully after a while the clothes will feel looser and that will be my success.

Day 2+3. Success, Success
Day 4 Failure (Ate some sausage (2 bites) between meals. I know this isn't a biggie, but I still want to "fence around the law" so I acknowledge that this is against the rules I set myself. Tomorrow is another day. and this time I'm going to make it to twenty one!


But I have to say, choosing Sunday as an N day is hard. I wanted it to be because I need to learn to be normal around food even when I have free time, but it is hard.

I think the fence around the law aspect of no-s is really important in the beginning both in making the habit a helpful one (no sneaking anything) and making that helpful habit stick. so good for you for being strict about it, it is difficult. Good luck!! especially with Sundays. (Sorry you don't get to celebrate Thanksgiving today, do you ever miss that?) I was talking to my boyfriend today and trying to explain the significance of Thanksgiving to him and that it can be a delicious but difficult day b/c this day more than any other is all about eating. He said Americans were the only ones that would make a holiday like that I tried to explain that family was also important, and he said he didn't believe me Oh well. I can't deny we're a ridiculously gluttinous country. Anyway, have a good day today.

This Path,

Oh, I imagine every culture has their eating holidays. God knows my husband's family are sooooo gluttonous. (But then only on every possible S day). It's when gluttony becomes a way of life...

You should see my Japanese students when we have a party in class. Six kids can put away 4 boxes of cookies, 3 bags of chips, and 3 liters of soda. Literally. But if you look in their lunch boxes all you'll see is two balls of rice and maybe some meat or vegetable on the side. These kids take S days Seriously.

Day 4 Success, but you should have seen how high my plate was piled at dinner.

Days 5+6 are/will be S days.
Last weekend I was inclined to be fairly moderate but then lost the plot, ate too much, but not so bad. THIS weekend I just woke up wanting to snack, snack, snack. Don't know if I've quite reached "idiot" status yet, but I'm close!

Day 7? Day 1? Success?? Failure??
We got home from a walk and I was cold and tired and thought: "I'll make a cup of hot cocao-- that's a drink, and I'll only put about a teaspoon of sugar in, so that's not an S. But then I started drinking and I realized that I was kidding myself. A glass of milk may not be an S but a cup of chocolatey goodness certainly is.

So even though I didn't mean to lose the plot, I have. Grrrr.

I'm finding it harder and harder to do No-S as time goes on. This past two S days I woke up thinking: hurahh, now I can indulge. And I did. I guess this is the point in diets where it always breaks down too. I MUST PERSEVERE. Discipline, strength, will, desire and a heck of a lot less chocolatey goodness is in order.

Somehow my last few check ins didn't stick. Here's the scoop:

SUCCESS
SUCCESS
FAILURE
NASTY BURN AND DIVE FAILURE
MODERATELY S S DAY
NORMAL S DAY

Next week I WILL be strong, disciplined, on habit. Extra S day for Sinterklaas on Tuesday, but N days WILL be No S.

Day 3: Success, barely

I'm finding it sooooo hard to stick to the agreements I've made with myself about this diet/lifestyle. Every day is a struggle to do what I want to do. It feels like there's an imp in my head that's controlling what I do, and though I know that imp is myself and that I do have power to make choices and to abide by decisions I make, it just feels so impossible sometimes.

I don't know where I got this compulsive eating thing. Food doesn't make me feel good but somehow the pleasure of eating while I'm eating is "worth it" Otherwise why would I do it??

Day 4--SUCESS! yay!

Day 5-- Extra S day for Sinterklaas (but I'm going to eat normally till the party starts!)

Day 6 FAILURE, BIG TIME

Came home frustrated and angry and just binged and binged. Feel awful.

Ok, rereading Reinhard's podcast about strictness and it's time to get real. I know that's easy to say after a binge, but this is it: I'm going to be super strict for the next 21 days. Not all of the weekdays are N days, which makes it harder. But I really want to be comitted to this. So: From now to new year's: four meals/ no snack foods or alcohol except (sometimes) on S days.

Tomorrow is day 1.

Hi Zoolina,

Sorry to hear that you were stressed and had a binge. I know how easy it can be (almost automatic?) to do. One thing that I read once suggested that if you feel a binge is somehow inevitable (say you're going to eat 2 huge pieces of cake) that you can initially try to say "I CHOOSE to eat these pieces of cake." Supposedly it should take away the feeling of helplessness and help one to have a sense of control, rather than being hopelessly swept away. I guess once you make yourself conscious of having that control, you supposedly should feel empowered enough (eventually) to say no. I've never tried it but assuming that at some point I'll slip and do some emotional eating, I'm going to try it and see what happens.

I feel like we've got a lot of common. We're physically active, know what we need to do to take care of ourselves, sometimes have blood sugar issues...and sometimes eat emotionally. I too don't entirely know why I started doing it; I only know that it correlated with a time of extreme stress (but I'd been stressed out before and hadn't done that....).

I support your plan and I am doing something quite similar. The one year I very clearly did not gain weight around Christmas, I limited myself to celebratory eating solely for 3 meals (NOT days): Christmas Eve dinner, Christmas Day dinner, and New Year's Eve. (I've got a pitiful tolerance so I MUST eat if I drink alcohol.) I plan to do this again. As for any Saturdays or Sundays...well, if I do eat sweets or whatever on those days in addition to the special meals, I think I'm going to have to plan what they are carefully. After all, I'm a short woman who is ~20 pounds overweight (and I'd really like to lose more like 25 or 30 just so that I'm not at the top end of the healthy BMI range) and thus don't have a lot of wiggle room.

I don't know how the weather is right now in Amsterdam, but as I recall when I was in Holland around Christmas and New Year's, the weather was awfully wet and cold. It rained and all that moisture made for a real bone-chilling cold. It was the type of weather that would make one want to crawl under the covers or run for comfort food. I don't know what you like to binge on, but have you thought of having something more like a soup or stew or sweet (but not over-sweetened!) porridge on hand when you need emotional comfort (or shelter from the yucky weather)? Where I am it has gotten cold, and normally I would be tempted to binge on nice warm toast, so I brought my bread to work (I can have it there so I'm not deprived, but can't binge on it) and have been making soups and oatmeal. I find these comforting, they warm me up, and, well, it's hard to pack down a LOT of that stuff. Hmm, I don't remember eating oatmeal in Holland...Is it common there?

Good luck with everything. I'm with you on this holiday strategy...Let's see if we can do it together (well, y'know, in spirit and electronically)! I'm thinking of starting a new subject on this, because I'm sure other people are working on this too.

--H

Zoolina,

Relax! Remember the "no self revenge" part of that podcast.

Rebounding from a significant failure is a very vulnerable time. You get the mad fit of perfectionist energy, but then if you run into trouble again, and don't do so well, it can be deeply disappointing and knock you completely off course. It's hard to make grand resolutions AGAIN, and the temptation then is to just quietly get off stage and slink away... So I know it's hard, but try to deescalate emotionally. Laugh at yourself. That does wonders for me.

Habit is like an animal, and animals are best taught by calm, even tempered trainers. Don't feel calm and even tempered? I'm sure lion tamers don't feel calm and even tempered when a new lion is threatening to bite their heads off. But they know they have to seem that way. And by seeming, by focusing on external, visible behaviors, they'll also start to feel that way (especially as their behavior has its effect and the lion settles down).

By all means, do abide by the rules. But brush off that anger and disappointment. If you catch yourself slipping again, try to nip it in the bud, right away. Laugh out loud, and stop. There's nothing tragic about it. It's sort of comic. This isn't just a mental trick, it's objectively true. Then you might still have to report it in red (nice traffic lighting, by the way), but at least not in ALL CAPS. You'll get this, even if it take a few more slip ups. Be confident.

Reinhard

Day 1 of 21 SUCCESS

Tomorrow and Saturday are S days, and I will only have 2 Ss. That's the plan and I'm sticking to it.

Z

day 2 +3 Successful S days. Wasn't too much of an idiot. Kept the Ss down to two a day.

Day 4, today, is proving hard. I'm hungry but even worse, I want to eat for the heck of it. Emotional eating sucks.

Emotional eating does suck. Stay strong!

Thanks for the support Mrs. Cummings!

Day 4: Success, though the plates were piled a bit high!

I've decided to give up drinking (so much) coffee after reading Hexagon's post on hunger. My blood sugar is wacky enough and it really doesn't help. Though I love, love, love coffee.

What kind of every day system could work for this? Tea during the week and coffee on S days, sometimes? (I know that tea is also caffinated, but I don't really like it, so this would keep me from going crazy). I'm going to do it!!

Z.

Day 5-- Successhad the nibbles at night, but resisted.

You have a nice string of successes going! The nighttime cravings are the worst, I think. That stretch between supper and bedtime when I know I have to wait for morning are the hardest hours for me. Drinking water does help, and a chamomile tea would probably work even better (plus helping to relax you).

Congrats on resisting the nighttime nibbles.

Day 6 Success

Day 7 (today) had my lunch waaaay early "so I can grade those papers without losing concentration" we'll see if I can make it to dinner without snacking.

Congratulations and hang in there. I agree with Reinhard. Being too hard on yourself leads to more failures. Then we make more promises and when we don't keep those it becomes hard to post. Admit each failure and move on. I am going to have to practice laughing at failures though. It will be laughing through clenched teeth for a while. Haha.

Day 7 sucess...

with the help of some virtual plating. I crashed, almost literally, on my bike ride home and stopped for a sandwich. what makes it a sucess is that I thought about what would be on my plate an hour later in addition to the sandwich and stuck to it, even though the seconds beckoned.

One more day to an S day. Can't quite just relax into habit--getting through a week takes pure willpower right now.

Panglesue and Reinhard, and me,

I don't know why it's hard to hear that I'm being "hard on myself" I've been thinking about it for a couple of days, as stress has taken over my life and I can hardly sleep and things just feel crazy. I AM being hard on myself, but somehow it seems like I should be.

It's hard to make myself look at that. Some soupy neo-psychoanalysis seems right: my parents didn't listen to me, didn't allow me to show emotions so: every time I get angry, especially when I'm dissapointed with myself I feel like I have to hide it. Then the self punishments seem "right" when I can't. Oh, I don't know. I need to think about this more.

Z.

Day 7 Failure

Came home staaarving and ended up overeating, had seconds. Then had some chocolate. But I am determined to stop now, eat normally the rest of the day.

Hi Zoolina,

Sounds like you're staying on the right track, even if you did overeat once, so good for you! If I come home starving I can have trouble with overeating too; I'll eat the first thing available. I really find that pre-cooking or chopping vegetables really helps--when I come home ravenous they're immediately available, so I'll just heap them up on a plate or in a bowl and inhale them. I don't know how single-plating applies to fluffy things like salad, but I figure that as long as I don't dump on tons of dressing, calorically it isn't a big deal. Yogurt really seems to help too. If I'm desperate, I'll chug a LOT of water (just to take the initial edge off of the hunger) but this can suck because I'll need 2 L if I'm really, really hungry, and then I have to pee a lot for hours afterwards.

Sorry about your stress. I'd imagine that getting close to the holidays that your work as a teacher must be crazy right now (exams, etc.?). When I used to teach it could be dreadful right before the holidays.

I understand about how you feel that you *should* be hard on yourself, or that you *deserve* criticism or punishment if you don't feel that you are performing well in your life (or in your eating habits). I've often felt it too. I've realized that some self-criticism can be good but too much can be detrimental. Over the years I've managed to remove a lot of my unreasonable perfectionism about my life (well, excepting food, and I think I'm doing better on that front too, overall) by thinking about how I would motivate a child to correct a mistake. If I screamed "you idiot, you moron, you'll never do well, you're a failure, you screwed up and you're horrible" at the child, she would probably feel unhappy, and even discouraged and less likely to try. If I said to the child "yep, you made a mistake, but you can change things" and gave them strategic advice in a positive way, they'd probably do a better job.

I guess my point is that I try to stand back and look at the situation in a clinical fashion--which motivational strategy is more likely in the long run to get me what I want? If I'm unhappy, maybe I'll temporarily perform better due to being discontent with myself, but ultimately this unhappiness will boil over into unwanted behaviors (i.e. sleep problems, overeating, a short temper). A more balanced approach, while initially seeming to be slower, may work better for the long term.

--H

P.S. If you can, try to keep goodies (e.g. chocolate) out of the house during times of stress. I have had to temporarily keep bread out of the house, even though I'm normally fine with it, since in the past months adjusting to my new job and environment hasn't always been easy. Ever since I've kept out the bread, things have gone a whole lot better.

Then again, I know that Dutch chocolate is fantastic...

Please don't despair, Zoolina. It sounds like you're going through a really rough time. I agree with Hex; being too hard on yourself can have a detrimental effect.

Have you considered doing this one S at a time? I know it can seem like it would stretch out getting into the 'meat' of No S, but right now when things are so stressful maybe it would be easier to focus on your least difficult S first, and gradually work your way through them. It's just a thought, and I don't know if that would feel like a giant step back to you or not, but you can do this! You just have to find the best path for yourself.

Day 1- S day

Day 2 S- Day

I find that eating sugar and alcohol really wacks out my blood sugar-- um--DUH!

Day 3 Success

Up 5 lbs from when I began? Is it possible? All that Channukah oil and a few slip ups enough to take me back to the very beginning?

See, this is why I think people should banish the scales--there are a myriad of reasons why that reading on the scale could be up--water retention, a gain in your muscle mass due to riding your bike, the alignment of the planets.

If you THINK you weigh five pounds more than when you began and that affects you negatively and makes you feel bad about yourself or this sane and sensible way of eating/exercising, then the scales are not your friend! How would you feel about yourself and life in general if you just held onto the belief that this is working, and it's taking exactly the right amount of time?

Kwang, I KNOW! But you know what's funny, and one of the things I like about no-sing? Even though the scale was up I had a "sucessful" day. Sucess is not how my pants fit, but about how disciplined I was able to be in honoring my committments!

Day 4 Sucess

Day 5 Sucess, but with some funny stuff: a cup of broth at night.


Not losing weight anymore. Maybe it's time to attack the portions on the plate.

You have lots of company on the being strict thing. If you read my threads lately, I have really been struggling too. The tighter I made the grip the more I binged. I did the original 21 just zip, zip, done. I couldn't believe how easy it was. Then I started slipping and it has been a major struggle ever since. I think it was sort of like when you lose a lot of weight on any diet and then suddenly something in your head says, "hey, we did it. When are we done and when can we go back to what we know?" Rebellion sets in and depending on how tough the adult in us is, we either win or lose. My adult hasn't won many struggles with the spoiled brat in me and establishing dominance has not been easy. I talked the kid into 21 days but now that kid is definitely throwing a fit and saying "it's not fair". So I am back to taking it one S at a time and fighting for adult alpha dominance one step at a time. No seconds is the first major goal. That one has been easiest all along. I want to make it through the holidays without gaining so I am also watching the content of the snacks I eat. That is a second goal. I am doing those 2 things until I am sure I have control over those. By control I mean I want to have it be a "not open for discussion" decision in my head. Then I will move on to sugar and snacks. There is a show on TV called Nanny 911. People who have children who are out of control, call her in to work with their children. The children are usually horrid. They scream, fight, destroy things and run the house. The parents are tired, crying, giving up and generally miserable when the nanny gets there. They think the nanny will discipline the children and it is really the parents she works on changing. When the parents take control, the children rebel like crazy at first, but then they fall into step with the plan and accept the rules established by the parents. The point of the show is, screaming and fighting with the children doesn't work. They scream and fight back. It takes establishing rules and sticking by them. The adult needs to remain calm and firm. I am establishing my adult. I feel I can't do it with all the steps at once so I am working at each step until I am sure it is internalized. Until that happens, I won't be doing strict No S but heck, I wasn't doing it before either and I was extremely frustrated. Everyone here says it is a process so I am relaxing and making it a process. Baby steps but I hope when control is finally established, the parent will be in control. The nanny in this situation is Reinhard (sorry, Reinhard), our appetites are the kids and the one who needs the rules and discipline is the adult in us. I am working on the adult.
Sorry for going on forever on your check in but I felt you, like me are trying so hard and are feeling a little helpless. Don't call yourself names and feel helpless. That only reinforces our opinion we can't do it. Set goals you know you can accomplish and take firm baby steps to attack the rest.
Just ramblings that I hope might help. Ignore if I missed the mark.

Weight loss doesn't always seem to proceed smoothly. I pretty much never trust a single daily value on the scale--I just try to see if the general trend is downwards over time, or at least steady. I think for females especially water weight can really fluctuate.

You might be building muscle, too, depending on what exercise you're doing.

Stick with it. I'm behind you all the way.

I'm a daily weigher as I like to monitor my weight daly in a spreadsheet.

My daily variation is + or -2 pounds over 6 weeks and there does not seem to much reason the variations. The gains and loses do not seem to bear much relation to the food consumption the previous day or the amount of exercise.

Panglesue, Hexagon, Deryk,

Thanks for the words of encouragement. I'm at the in-laws now and will write more when I have time for more than an update:

Day 6: Success
Day 7 S Day
Day 8 (Today) S day

It's still super tough to be moderate on s days. I tend to look forward to them (too much, I think) and then just relax completely. One positive note: my urge to nibble at night has almost disapeared, even on S days. Hurrah for habit: now for the other 8 hours of the day.....

Just keep at it. Nothing in life ever goes on a straight line, everything has its ups and downs. The important thing is to keep going forward, even if the line you are moving in is a bit of a zig-zag.

Damn those scales. Is yours old? I was having wildly different readings until we bought a new scale. Now it is much more accurate. Also I agree with the gang here. Either throw the scale out or if you are going to weigh yourself, do a composite weight over a number of days. I used to weigh every day and on Friday add up the week and divide by 7. It gives you an average for the week and not some possibly inflated total for one day. Just a thought.

Day 9 Failure

Had a tiff with hubby over dinner and didn't eat more than a few spoonfuls of soup. Then later, I got hungry and had far more than I would have had for dinner. Grrrr.

Sorry to hear about the argument with your dh That's no fun.

Here's to more successful N days (((hugs)))

Time of year for tiffs, I think. Why do make ourselves so nuts at Christmas. Every year I swear Christmas will be sane and then it's off to the races. Breathe and relax. Quieter and more peaceful days ahead.

Day 1 S-pecial day
Day 2 S-pecial dayDay 3 -Failure

Ah, no wonder jan. 1 is resolution day. I feel like a stuffed goose. Back on trak feels great.

No Snack foods!
No alcohol!
4 small meals
Except on S days, sometimes!

PS-- It's Olympics Time!

Bronze: 17 successful days (My best, so far!)
Silver: 19 sucessful days
Gold: 21 Sucessful days

Day 1: Success

Felt great and in -control. (got my period, too, which makes it so much easier to eat lightly) I wonder if guys have an easier time developing habits in week-chunks, and if women need to have a more monthly cycle? That's a long time to pay attention to, though. Weeks are overviewable. Still pms seems to be pmS around here.

Day 1: Success

Felt great and in -control. (got my period, too, which makes it so much easier to eat lightly) I wonder if guys have an easier time developing habits in week-chunks, and if women need to have a more monthly cycle? That's a long time to pay attention to, though. Weeks are overviewable. Still pms seems to be pmS around here.

Good Job Zoolina, you're doing great

Day 2 Success

My plan for vacation is to take Saturdays and Sundays as S days (These are travel days when everything gets goofy), to be a little less strict about alcohol and allow myself an extra snack while skiing, if needed.

Just back from vacation. After 2 weeks of holiday I got the bronze medal--didn't lose, didn't gain.

All my vacation days were S days, as far as snacking went, but I ate sugar and had alcohol only on real S days.

So In my quest to finally make it into the 21 day club, I'm going to skip the vacation and start up again on day 4-- Success.

Zoolina - Reading your back posts, I think you and I have something in common. I tend to be an emotional eater too and really have to guard against binging when something makes me feel low. I'm trying to find some other ways to deal with those feelings. Sometimes a nice bubble bath will soothe me and sometimes relaxing with a good movie will do it too. I have even tried playing a computer game to take my mind off my troubles and that works at times as well. Recognizing that emotional eating is a problem is a big part of solving the problem. Now all you have to do is fill the void with something besides food. (hugs)

Day 5 Success
Coffee: Day 8 Success

Annie, Yes, emotional eating is my downfall. I am wholly conscious of what I'm doing the whole time, and yet it's sooooooo hard not to cave.

Future possible monthly resolutions:

• coffee only on s days
  weights twice a week
  think positively
  be strict about knee and foot exercises
  watch tv only after 8:30 in the evenings
  take work less seriously
  meditate before bed
  stretch on N days

Still going strong Zoolina! YAY!

Thanks for the encouragement, Gettinbusy!

Day 5 Sucess
Coffee day 9: sucess

Day 6 Success
Coffee day 10 Sucess

Day 7 Sucess
Coffee day 11 Sucess

Though yesterday was a big plate day--and I was still hungry at night (go figure!)

Today is an S day and though I couldn't wait for it yesterday, today I don't really feel like any crap, though the urge for daaaark chocolate is strong, as is my coffee urge.

Z

Days 7+8 S-Days

Gorged on chips in front of the tube. Bleh.

Coffee days 12+13 S days

Had two coffees/day. Not too bad.

I jsut feel like posting-- right in the middle of the first N day of the week. I'm really having a hard time. My meals have been huuuge and too close together. Now I'll be hungry/crashing at dinner time.

Sigh. With my S day excesses, the scale hasn't budged in weeks. Not that that's not satisfying, in a way. I mean, usually I go crazy for a couple of months, gain, and then spend a few months dieting to lose it all back, so this way it feels like there are mini-cycles. Diet in the week, gain back over the weekends.

But then again, I've made this easy on myself, doing 4 meals instead of three, and not really worrying about how high the plate is stacked, so at the most I'm skimming say 100-300 calories per day off of what I used to eat. That's easy to put back on/in during S days.

So I guess if I want to lose weight I need to make an adjustment. Smaller plates, less S on S days. Sigh.

I really like your post even though I feel bad for the results of all your efforts. You aren't ranting and whining and crying even though you might be feeling like it (believe me, I know because I've been there so many times). You are accepting (with a sigh) the truth of the matter. The plan must once again be adjusted to be successful. For emotional eaters like some of us are, it is not straight on to dawn. We have to work through our stuff first to get to the weight loss. Because you are not giving up, I think you are on the way. Please hang in there, continue to be kind to yourself and place no blame. You will come up with a plan that will work for you (maybe just for you). Not giving up and not hating yourself for every slip up is the beginning. Keeping track of successes and how they worked is the next step. Catch yourself doing something right as often as possible and work on that. Let the rest go. Praise works better than criticism. We know you can do it. Just find "Zoolina's way" there.

Day 9 Failure
Day 14 Coffee Sucess

Oh, Panglesue, thanks for the vote of encouragement. I just hate this constant level of control and/or dissapointment about what I put in my mouth. And, not just that, but the emotional element, having food connected to feelings, is just so weird.

Querry: is the S in PMS an S? It seems like two or three days a month I just feel so foul and hopeless, and hungry (the body temperature goes up a degree and it does make a difference). But also "hungry" in the emotional way that happens when I feel foul and hopeless. Double whammy, and doubly hard to be strict.

As far as adjustments go, I think I'll just have to attack portions during N days. I agree with what Reinhard says about working on the N days and making sure they're in control before trying to tweek the S days. I'm going to go back to calorie-counting for a bit, until I can get the portions right. Each meal about 400 calories, 500-600 at dinner (which is not really all that much effort as I can count calroies in my sleep!).

And, because I'm feeling all "i have to get back on tracky," here are the things that, at some future date when my N days are beautifully under control I could work on for S day monthly resolutions:

No eating after dinner.
Eat only truly delicious things.
If I don't want it, don't eat it.
500 calories of S, max.

Day 1 sucess
Day 15 Coffee Sucess

As for my last post, no, I don't want to count calories again. Did it for a day and it drove me crazy. Smaller portions, please.

Hi,

I don't have much time to post here but it sounds like you're doing a good job and I know how you feel with the S-Days. Portion control is unfortunately really important for a lot of us; at least you're aware of this.

--H

Day 2 Sucess
Day 16 Coffee Sucess

Day 3 Sucess
Day 17 Coffee Sucess

Day 4 Sucess
Day 18 coffee Failure

Day 5 S day
Day 6 S day

Day 1 Coffee S Day

One of my less idiotic set of s days, but coming back after a weekend of freedom feels hard. I'm not hungry, but I just want to nibble. Am drinking tea and dreaming about lunch: Sweet potato, some Tibetan barley bread, and, um... something tasty on top.

Did shovelglove for the first time. I went into the hardware store and the shopkeeper gave me a look and asked me what [a little girl like me] wanted with a sledge hammer. I told him it was to curl my eyelashes but he didn't get the humor...

Tibetan barley bread, that sounds very interesting. Glad that your last s-days were less idiotic, it took a lot longer for me to get to that point originally and you're already there, so nice job. Yes I'm back to the board, though I never left no-s I did leave posting for awhile. So I wanted to ask you (totally unrelated to no-s) how your dutch is and how long it took you to learn. I was amazed at how inept I am at Dutch, although I can understand a fair amount, I can't speak it at all, in fact I can't even pronounce some of the sounds needed to make the words. How as an American did you fare with that? Enjoy your day.

So how was the shovelglove? Havent done it myself. I've been just walking and doing pilates in my living room. Scared of big muscles What do you think of it?

Any bored eating for you this week?

Day 7 Sucess
Day 3 Coffee Sucess

This Path: I found Dutch rather easy to learn because of the easy verbs and closeness to English, but I have to say I live in a litte English speaking bubble, so my Dutch could be a lot more polished than it actually is. I don't know if it's really possible to learn a language if you don't speak it regularly, so don't give up. Find a conversation partner? Read a newspaper on line (Het Parool is fairly easy, NRC Handelsblad is hard)... success ermee!

Panglesue: I really liked shovelgloving. The only think I'm worried about is how my knee will take it, but it seems ok so far. As far as muscles go, I think I could get quite buff even from my 6kg hammer. But then again, I'd look a lot less buff if I could lose the fatty layers on top of my muscles.

Oops, Panglesue: that's a 6 POUND hammer. Whew!

Day 8 Sucess
(minor violation with some green beans)

Day 4 Coffee Sucess

Shovelgloved: love it.

PS: It was me that asked about the Shovelglove, not Sue BUt thanks for sharing. I suppose I could pick one up this weekend. So, you think a 6# is a good weight for a girl then?

Christi,

So sorry, I don't know why I wrote the wrong name there! Jeeze!

Anyway, I think 6# is great. At first I thought it was too light but on the third day it was suddenly a lot harder (I guess I'm tired!) I like it so much because it works all the upper body muscles at once. I think that, in terms of getting too buff, that may be better for us gals. Anyway, give it a try (sez the newly converted)!


Day 9 Sucess
Day 5 Coffee sucess
Shovelgloved.

Day 9 Blood sugar issues, technically a failure, but I'm going to call it a forced pause.

Coffee Day 6 Success

Shovelgloved.

Day 10 Sucess (biiiig plates)
Day 7+8 Coffee failure

Shovelgloved.

Days 11+12 S-Days

Again, not as idiodic as they could be.

I'm giving up on drinking tea instead of coffee-- it's not reducing my caffiene intake any, and I'm putting something I just don't like three times a day.

Possible monthly resolutions for February:
stop worrying so much
shovelglove on workdays
do my knee and foot exercises on work days
reduce portions
don't take work so seriously, but be more focused about it
stop complaining, say positive things
no tv till 8:30 pm

Color coding: yellow is what I want to do, red is what I think would be really good for me, dark red is what would be good for me but which I don't want to do, and non colors are things I want to do but can't think of any way to hold myself accountable for.

Day 13 [colSucess

Trying to drink tea instead of coffee: abolished. Gave it a month, didn't like it and it didn't help.

Shovelgloved, knee and foot
Basis condition: 15 push-ups.

(Monthly resolution: knee and foot exercises on week days.)

Day 14 Success

shovelgloved, knee and foot exercises

Forced pause? LMAO
Thats a good one! Tee hee hee
OK I will go buy a sledgehammer this weekend and try it out. The pilates is kicking my arse so far. Man, I never realized how little rythm I have. I can not get the steps to save my life.... Oh well! at least its fun and excercise. I just look like a loon; thankfully the blinds are closed while I do it.

Christi,

I can't believe how strong I'm getting on a dinky 6 lb weight. Shovelgloving is the best! Just wish it were more leg oriented, though I feel the shoveling most in my hamstrings and butt...

Day 15 Sucess
Shovelgloved-- tweek in the shoulder, will take tomorrow off.

Day 18 Success
Day 19 Failure (damn!) Aaaalmost made it to the 21 day club.

Day 1 S day, not too idiotic.

Shovelgloved.

You can make it to 21!

--david

Zoolina,

Keep it at, you'll get there. I like your monthly resolutions too. Which one did you decide on for Feb?

Thanks for the votes of confidence David and Jenn!

As far as monthly resolutions go, I opted to do the physical therapy exercises without fail, and to shovelglove on most weekdays without makeing it a resolution, exactly.

Day 2 S day
Day 3 Mini-S day (I"m going to have a peice of cake at my best friends birthday)

shovelgloved, kneed and footed.

What's gotten easier about no-S:
1) No sweets (no problem!)
2) Not craving food after dinner

But I still have this tendency to want to snack. Lately I've been fragmenting my meals: half a sandwich and an apple at lunch, half before I get on my bike to ride (40 minutes) home. In the end it's the same amount of food, or even less because I avoid the blood sugar crash (and frantic calorie fest) that happens when I go too long without eating.

But I don't really like this kind of virtual plating (actual snacking).

Day 4 Success

Shovelgloved, kneed and footed.

I'm glad to hear the after dinner snacking desire has become less of a problem! That's when I want to snack too. I find the sweets aren't that hard to give up either, but I do feel very hungry in the mid to late afternoon.

I have enjoyed reading your progress-sounds like you're doing very well! Maybe I should try the shovelglove too...it can't be more boring than jogging and maybe I could actually stick to it at 14 minutes a day. Maybe!

This is my first post-I have so far not succeeded in making it to 21 days. I am starting again today. I need to start a daily check-in too. Does it seem to help keep you on track do you think?


Hilary

Day 5 Failure
Day 6 Failure

Shovelgloved, did PT exercises

Day 1 Failure
Day 2 S day

Whoops. A handful of stress-producing seems-like-extenuating circumstances (hubby away, kids are sick, work is a mad house, damaged leg acting up) but really what's going on here is a crisis of will.

This is what I'm going to do: enjoy my s days and then get back on track, get back to being strict. No monthly resolutions, just plain No sweets, no snacks, no seconds.

6 more weeks till vacation. I will be strict until then and I hope to lose 2 lbs. If I can manage that, I'll treat myself to a special day: massage, movie and an Sful dinner with friends.

I actually think you are doing GREAT.
Perfection and total compliance is not the goal.
Better health is the goal.