Everyday Systems

The "21 day club" is a nice way to motivate to build some habit fast, but it has the disadvantage that one little failure can seem inordinately discouraging and derail your efforts entirely -- you might feel that since you messed up your winning streak and are back to 0, well, what's the point of continuing. Not everyone will react like this, but a lot of people will, I think.

So here's an experimental alternative/supplement. It combines personal olympics, monthly resolution and the habit traffic light (and in a way, negative tracking). It works like this: every month, if you get through the entire month without a single slip up, post here and claim a virtual "gold medal." If you slipped up just once, silver; twice, bronze; more than that, well, better luck next month. You get up to 2 non-weekend special days "free," any more than that and they count as slip-ups for the medal tally.

Here are some examples of how this might work:

0 slip ups + 0 non weekend "special" days = gold
0 slip ups + 2 non weekend "special" days = gold
1 slip up + 0 non weekend "special" days = silver
1 slip up + 1 non weekend "special" days = silver
1 slip up + 3 non weekend "special" days = bronze
4 slip ups + 0 non weekend "special" days = no medal
0 slip ups + 6 non weekend "special" days = no medal

If this seems intriguing to you but a tad too confusing, just wait around a bit and watch how I do it. I'll post my first results for the No S Diet and the other systems that I'm tracking here at the end of January, and I'll continue posting monthly if it seems useful. Feel free to jump in at any point.

Reinhard

This is such a great program. I understand that different people have different needs to fulfill when tracking their performance (ie: weight loss, inches lost, laps around the track or across the pool, success/failure day loggin).

My concern (since you are talking about putting a book together especially) is that you have always made this plan very simple to follow. There is virtually no "tracking" to be done. Perhaps this brings another element to the plan for people who want to use it...but maybe it is making it too cumbersome.

I am a very simple person and I enjoy the simplicity you have offered here. I do understand that not everyone likes simple and my opinion is WAY off for their style.

I did want you to know from me to you that you have changed my life; and you did it simply. Thank you from the bottom of my heart & soul. It's only 20 pounds so far, but the other things you've given to me are much more important than the weight. You've helped me to go from a 308 cholesterol down to a 226 in just 4 months. You've helped me pay attention to my eating habits again (something I haven't done in 18 years). You've given me H O P E that I will live longer & healthier for the rest of my life WITHOUT another D I E T plan.

Thank you, Reinhard.

I think I agree with keeping it simple.
I do have a suggestion for a chapter of your book though. There are quite a number of us with 50+ pounds to lose who have gone through some personal hell getting where we need to be to do this with any sustained success. There are so many reasons for failure. Breaking habits of a life time and repeated failure on hundreds of other diets, losing only to regain, fighting with a spouse, low self esteem, lonliness, non supportive people in our lives, lousy childhood, perfectionism and the self loathing that goes along with that, fighting with things like bulemia and depression, fighting illnesses, money problems, jobs we hate etc, etc, etc. My daughter has a friend who was sexually abused as a child and when she lost about 150 pounds she started to regain it. She got help and found out that when men started looking at her again, she felt overwhelming fear so she started gaining weight again to feel safe.
I know you're not a psychiatrist or anything but I have never read a diet book that addressed these issues other than to say, if you need emotional help, get it. Maybe there isn't any other answer than that for some people but for most of us, recognizing the extra patience we need to have with ourselves and putting up with temporary setbacks until we work through some of life's issues might keep some people from chucking it all in and giving up. They might need to know they can only be a failure if they give up totally and they can come back as many times as necessary until they start to succeed. They need to be gentle with themselves and their seeming lack of progress. If someone has 20-30 pounds to lose, it might be a love of good food. Let's face it, food is really, really good. But if someone has more than 50 pounds to lose or their health is at stake, there is something else going on too and dealing with that might be priority one or at least a priority up there with the No S's part of the plan. I think those people need to start slow, praise themselves and every success no matter how small. They need to know how important it is to start over because they have given up so many times before and already suffer from low self esteem and feelings of failure. Lots of people leave this site and come back over and over again. I think it is because the diet is simple. It isn't really asking them to give up that much. So when they fail, they know they can't do better than this diet because there isn't anything better (believe me on that one). So they start questioning why they can't do it, if it is so simple. That has led many of us to start questioning other aspects of our lives. We stop looking for the better diet and start looking for a better life. That's huge Reinhard. That is the spot most obese people need to be. We need to stop thinking we are fat because of beets or carrots or fat or whatever. We need to realize eating normally is not that hard but cleaning up our lives might be. No other diet out there does that. You tell us, we don't have to give up anything forever. Follow 3 simple rules and you will succeed. That ends the excuses about willpower. In our hearts we know that if we can't do that, there might be something else wrong. Thanks for that. I've come a long way since being here and I haven't yet lost weight but I have sorted out so much about why. There is a nation of obese people out there who need to find something simple like this diet and use it in conjunction with other things to start to really succeed.

I am sending kudos to Sue

Christi, Sue,

Thank you for your thoughtful responses! I'm so much happier to hear that plain old simple vanilla no-s has made a difference to you than that you dig my latest untested brain child. It's interesting what you say about how simplifying the problem of overeating makes people realize that in many cases it isn't the core problem...

So, yeah, maybe I'll pull the plug on this experiment... I'm certainly no friend of keeping track of stuff or complexity.

I thought there was a demand for a way to kick start a new habit with some tolerance for failure, and this seemed reasonably cheap in terms of complexity and attention... but maybe it's not cheap enough.

I'll give it another few months and see. Maybe some people will go for it and find it helpful. If not, I'll made it "unsticky" and have it float down the thread to relative obscurity .

Reinhard

Thanks as usual for listening. I think there is a demand for tolerance for failure. But maybe most people who are having issues just need to know they can start slow or accept failure as part of the process until they work through the infant stages of the program. My fear is that many who could benefit shoot for the 21 and when they don't make it, feel they have failed yet again and move on. 21 might be something to work toward eventually. Like you said, give it some time to shake out and see who salutes it.
How about a thread asking people who have been successful (say, lost 10 or more pounds and maintained that loss), if they have tweaked the diet or not. If they have, then how and possibly include it under "options to consider"?
Just some thoughts to confuse you. I'll be quiet and go to work now. Have a great day, Reinhard.

Reinhard - I've got to echo what the others of said about "simple" being best. Your system has done something for me that no other diet has done, it has made me feel like a "normal" person again. Every other diet I have ever been on has ended in an unhealthy obsession about every type of food that goes into my mouth. They made me afraid to go into restaurants because I might eat off program. They made me think I was a failure because I ate over points or ate a banned food or didn't eat enough carrots. They were WAY too much work and WAY too restrictive.

Your plan has made me feel so successful, so in control, and so NORMAL. I have no fear of restaurants or of going to a friend's for a meal. All foods are available to me, I just have to eat them in the proper amounts and at the proper times. I don't obsess about food at all any more. Your system makes me feel good about myself again. I really don't know how you can improve on that.

Reinhard!
You get a heart of gold medal from me!
Respect and lot's of love,
Debs

ps.. Richie loves your personal olympics ideas!
hee

The personal mount Olympus seems like an advanced technique. Right now I like the simple traffic lighting: Sucess/Failure. Oh, I certainly hope to make it to the 21 day club at some point... but that binary simplicity, I did it or I did not, has helped me the most so far.

I do have my own personal "Mount Olympus" going on, but I wouldn't recommend it as a system. My longest string of sucess days was 17, os if I can make that again, I get a bronze, 19 is a sliver, 21 is a gold...

Reinhard, I adore this idea. It's highly motivating for me and I am definitely going to give it a try. But, since I haven't been perfect since Feb.1, should I make my "month" from February 7 - March 7 instead? Or practice the rest of the month and start in March...

In any case, I feel much better, that I can actually do this. I had an "aha" moment after reading one of your posts in the main forum where you said "Do not risk habit for calories." That was enlightening for me because I have been so focused on losing weight that I didn't care about building a firm base from which to lean on when times get tough. I know better know. This morning I had ate more and included variety in breakfast so I don't get nippy before lunch. That constantly caused me to cave.

So, onto this monthly personal olympics. I believe I can do it.

I'm glad you like it Sinnie! As for when you should start... I'd try to stick with calendar months just because it's clearer. So it depends on how imperfect you were so far this month, I guess. Maybe just keep track as a trial month and realize you aren't going to be winning any medals... just try to get close.

Here are my January 2007 Personal Olympics Standings

No S Diet: Gold (0 failures, 2 exemptions)
Shovelglove: Gold (0 failures, 2 exemptions)
Weekend Luddite: Bronze (2 failures)
Glass Ceiling: Silver (1 failure)

Some notes: failures and exemptions on No S and shovelglove are very clear, just N-days on which I haven't done what I'm supposed to do/ non-weekend S-days. For glass ceiling I'll count failure in glasses over the limit rather than days and no exemptions are possible. I'm not quite sure how best to count weekend luddite, because there are so few weekend days. I'd have to really, really screw up not to at least get a bronze if all I track is days... I'm not tracking urban ranger as an event yet because I'm not sure how to count failures (or in the least worried about it, at this point).

Reinhard

Hey Reinhard, I agree about the clarity of calendar months. I'm going to act this month as though I haven't screwed up, but not get any medals. Then come March I should be really ready to go!

As a side note, I finally didn't screw up today! I didn't think about food at all. This is almost unheard of when I'm home all day doing boring work. I just needed to eat a little more at meals, I guess...I'm not sure but I'm sticking with the mentality of "habit over calories."

My February 2007 Personal Olympics standings:

No S Diet: Gold (0 failures, 2 exemptions)
Shovelglove: Bronze (0 failures, 4 exemptions)
Weekend Luddite: Gold
Glass Ceiling: Gold

My March 2007 Personal Olympics standings:

No S Diet: Gold (0 failures, 0 exemptions)
Shovelglove: Gold (0 failures, 0 exemptions)
Weekend Luddite: Gold
Glass Ceiling: Gold

A perfect month! Time to start adding more events, maybe

Reinhard

I love this idea! Especially since I just realized that it's May 1st and I'm on day one of No-Sing. I really have no excuse not to start my personal Olympics this month! Here's to Gold!!!

Caveats: I'm not doing the shovelglove as I'm currently really enjoying my fledgling yoga practice. Plus I'm trying to run 3x per week & lift weights at home too. Also I'm not doing the glass ceiling thing as I don't overdo the drinks all that much anymore but usually have one per night. So I think I'm already pretty much following it! And being a weekend luddite? Can't really do that as a writer! Maybe I'll vow not to waste time on the internet and stick to my word processor only. Hopefully my score will look like this come June 1:

No S Diet: Gold!
Exercise: Gold!
Semi-luddite: Gold!

Welcome to Personal mount olympus, Linsay (was getting lonely here!).

Among the many, many things I'm planning to do in may is get an interactive online habit calendar/traffic light out that could automatically (among other tings) do medal assignments.

I'll post my april standings shortly.

Reinhard

You know what would be really cool? A board-wide traffic light. I don't know how technically possible it would be, but I imagine a big gold star. As each person checks in for the day, entering "success"or "failure" the star discolors slightly in the appropriate direction. On days when we are all successful, we could have a huge collective success. After, say, 5 straight collective successes we could all agree to do something special for ourselves. Buy more post-it notes or something

I think I could be more assiduous about the times I let myself fail if I knew someone else's post-it notes were riding on my behavior...

Hi zoolina,

That's not a bad idea -- and it would be pretty straight forward assuming I get the rest of it working. Maybe we could even subdivide into mini-teams, so the people you aren't "letting down" aren't anonymous.

Reinhard

My April 2007 Personal Olympics standings:

No S Diet: Bronze (1 failure, 3 exemptions)
Shovelglove: Silver (0 failures, 3 exemptions)
Weekend Luddite: No Medal (4 failures)
Glass Ceiling: Gold

Reinhard

My May 2007 Personal Olympics

So close, so sad, but no medal for me.

No-S: 3 failures, 1 exemption.

Still I think that's better than last month. Next month I'm going to do it! I'm also going to track daily exercise -- weights and cardio with the same medal rules as No-S.

Julie

Julie,

You know, I think an "almost made it" when it's quantified like this can be very motivating for next month. Just one more day... I'm confident you can do it.

My May 2007 Personal Olympics standings:

Nosdiet: gold (0 failures, 1 NWS day)
Glass ceiling: gold (0 failures)
Weekend Luddite: gold (0 failures)
Shovelglove: silver (1 failure, 1 NWS day)

I finally got around to building that online habit calendar. Here's my view for these habits for May 2007:

http://everydaysystems.com/habitcal/vie ... endluddite

I'm using the full "habit traffic light" for nosdiet and shovelglove, "negative tracking" for glass ceiling (only recording failures) and "binary tracking" for weekendluddite (only recording successes and failures).

I'll have to build in an optional "personal olympics" scoring mechanism to automatically calculate medals....

Reinhard

I'm claiming my first gold medal - one full month of No S tracking with 0 slip ups or non-weekend s days! No S is changing my life!

Congratulations!

Back again! I'm claiming a bronze medal for the month of June. I had no failures and 3 non-weekend S days! I weighed on July 1 and am down 4 more pounds! That makes a total of 9.5 since I began on April 16. Needless to say, I'm thrilled! No, ecstatic is more like it! We love you Reinhard!

That's wonderful, mimi!

Here are my standings for June:

Nosdiet: gold (0 failures, 2 NWS days)
Glass ceiling: gold (0 failures)
Weekend Luddite: silver (1 failure)
Shovelglove: silver (3 NWS days)

Reinhard

A bronze for me for June -- 1 slip, 3 NWS days while on vacation.

I didn't track for anything but food.

July's already blown in terms of medals because of my NWS on vacation. I might do a mini-month and scale the medals appropriately because I think it helps me to tally it this way.

Julie

Congratulations on your Bronze, Julie.

Think of July as a "half marathon."

Reinhard

Hrm. Since there's only weekend days left this month and I'm claiming them as S days, I guess I can claim a gold medal, based on http://everydaysystems.com/habitcal/vie ... SimonsDiet

Yaay me

-simon

Wow, contratulations! That's platinum -- not even a single NWS day (non- weekend S-day)

Sorry I've neglected to post my standings here for the last few months. I'll get them up this week.

Reinhard

reinhard wrote:Wow, contratulations! That's platinum -- not even a single NWS day (non- weekend S-day)

Platinum it is then! The habit cal's really helped actually. This month won't be quite so perfect though - I'm calling today an S day because it's my birthday, so I had a small piece of treacle tart with dinner

This diet has really mobilised me to get back into life. I've started to train Shotokan Karate again - after a break of 15 years - and I've not felt this good for years

-simon

Excellent! It certainly is an option (though I haven't quite gotten around to making it an automatic part of the habitcal yet).

Reinhard

I wonder...would it be possible to add an icon or something to the Habitcalc so it could automatically give you a gold, silver or bronze? That is - it count's the green, yellows and reds and gives you a little medal at the top of the chart at the end of the month?

(technically I suppose you could cheat it buy going back and turning your reds into greens...but you'd know you were cheating....)

After all, as Napoleon said 'Men will die for colored pieces of ribbon"...and I think folks would find the cute little 'medal' an extra motivator.

Heck - you could even have a friendly, voluntary competition / leaderboard, like they have over at SETI@home or the old WingCommander PC games? Might encourage the spirit of 'competere' (striving together, not against each other)

Eg
Joe Bloggs - 9 kudos (3 gold medals; 1 gold = 3 kudos)
Joe Smith - 8 kudos (2 gold, 1 silver)
Jane Doe - 7 kudos (1 gold, 2 silver)

Calculation wise, a 'gold' being 90-93 points (each green day worth 3 points, thus 90 points=gold for 30 day month, 93 for a 31 day month), silver being 60-89 points and bronze 30-59 points? (exceptions of course are not counted?).

(BTW, perhaps there might need to be seperate divisions - 1 habit leaderboard, 2 habits leader board ... etc? After all, getting 2 gold standards in one month - say No S and shovelglove, is harder than just one? On the flip side, you don't want to discourage people who are just starting out, either)

Maybe my maths is out - I'm sure someone can simplify. Heck, seeing we love simplicity, how about a '3 strikes (per habit) and you're out' system?

No red days = gold
1 red day = silver
2 red days = bronze
3 red days = nothing

Simpler but much less forgiving? Maybe that could be the "Ironman/woman" league?

Would you be able to automate something like this for us Reinhard, even if it's without the 'leaderboard' idea?

EDIT: Oh I see - already thought of that. Well, here's another call for 'please add it to habitcalc' Pretty please? (but of course, no sugar on top

kbits: yes, I'm certainly going to add something like this at some point. Relatively soon, I think. Can't argue with Napoleon

In fact, I may have to use that quote...

I like the social aspect of it too... though phase one will probably be pretty bare bones.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Reinhard

Regarding the paperclips, I hadn't realized anyone was building non-metaphorical chains of habit. Great idea!

Thanks Reinhard - I'd really love to see those features.

I dunno what it is about putting ticks into boxes....or getting gold stars...that works so darn well.

Actually, come to think, maybe because it's so titchy and special at the same time that makes us crave it. According to Cialdini, it's the fact that the reward was so trivial that makes your subconscious go "Huh. I did all this for this hunk of junk? You know, that can't be it. I must *REALLY* want this. Ok, I really want it. What do I need to do to get that damn star?"

The used a similar trick with POWs in Korea during the 1950. Convince them to renounce America for the princely sum of one potato. After all, if you can turn your back on Uncle Sam over one potato , surely that must mean you really meant it? (The "No Prize" from marvel comics during the 1970's come to mind as another example to increase reader letters to the editor)

http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychol ... 0688128165

I finally "got" what this personal mount olympus ... ok so call me slow

can I post my medals belated?

April: gold (0 failures, 1 NWS day)
May: gold (0 failures, 2 NWS days)

Okay, that felt kind of nice

Blueskighs

June:

GOLD NO S Diet (0 yellow/0red)

SILVER PROJECT (1yellow/1red)

BRONZE Oxycise (2 reds)

I was doing my Oxycise everyday, so I cans see that is unreasonable in the long haul, I am going to change to Sunday's off for oxycise.

oh well, good progress so far. I suspect my July Habit Cals will be a wreck since we are doing vacation and now my kitty is very sick,

Blueskighs

NOS: Silver
Walking: Gold
Yay!!!

Congratulations, Mag and Blueskighs! Inspiring to have the actual Olympics taking place right now.

wow,
just got on and updated my habitcals, have been keeping them manual while on hiatus,

for July get a Gold for No S Diet,
but my Project and Oxycise HabitCals were pretty much trainwrecks with lots of red
oh well - no medals there, there was kitty trauma and vacation,

it has been nice to get back on track with my project and Oxycize in August .....
i love how No S and habitcal is helping to accept the fluidity and reality of life

Blueskighs

Congratulations on your No-s gold!

Don't worry about the trainwrecks -- they were useful experiments.

I've had some systems-trainwrecks as well -- I tend to save habitcal for the tried and true or at least very promising stuff.

Reinhard

Don't worry about the trainwrecks -- they were useful experiments.

Reinhard, thank you for the input. I think that is true ... they are useful experiments. It is kind of interesting to have the data to provide information about when and how "life" in all its demanding glory interrupts!

This month I got

NO S Diet GOLD with 1 NWS Days
PROJECT GOLD with 0 yellow or red days
and once again OXYCISE was NO MEDAL ... because I had about 4 reds and two yellows, it is interesting to see how that is kind of the first thing that goes when I get overwhelmed and stressed. But I think it is still useful for me to track it.


This month, September I have planned 4 NWS days for NO S diet, we shall see how the rest of my calendars go,

Blueksighs

Bumping thread in order to remind Reinhard to program those medal to auto-show up on HabitCalc

Congratulations blueskights! Maybe we need a personal olympics team...

Thanks for the bumpup, kbits! Will happen a little sooner

Reinhard

Hi Folks,

I just wanted to post a little note to let you know that I shared my copy of the No S Diet book with three of my dieting friends, and all three of them just loved it! They are all going to start implementing the behaviours into their lives. I still can't say how much I appreciate this plan as a way of life and a final cure for the weight problem that has caused me so much grief most of my adult life! I have lost 10 pounds now on the No S Diet in about 8 weeks!

Hope Everyone has a Great Day!!
Sunny

Congratulations, Sunny! Thanks for letting us know. Hope your friends have as much success as you've had.

Best,

Reinhard

The new version of the habitcal I pushed out Friday now has built in personal olympics medals, assigned using approximately the same logic described here.

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4116

Reinhard

September No S Diet BRONZE
September PROJECT No medal
September Oxycise/Stretch No Medal


LOVE LOVE LOVE the new stats function on Habit Cal, no need for me to "figure out" my medals, habitcal call does it for me.

With a 2 1/2 week staycation in September and 4 NWS days this is the results I pretty much expected for the month.

I changed my Oxycise calendar to "Stretch" but it didn't help much, at this point i have pretty much given up on giving myself REDS for stretch and am just interested in keeping up with how many times I actually do it, lately NOT MANY

Hoping when things resettle, I am on a crunch deadline for work, I can get back into my stretching/breathing thing on a more regular basis, it is amazing how much i resist ... AH WELL,

Blueskighs

I'm very happy to hear you like it!

The scoring mechanism is a little crude right now (doesn't accommodate habits with regular non-weekend exempt days) but I'll add more options soon (keeping the current behavior as the default).

Reinhard

November "medals"

Gold NO S Diet with 1 N day
Gold Moving Meditation ....

this is so funny, my goal is to do my blend of deep breathing/stretch/yoga/oxycize series that I do for about 20 minutes a minimum of 5 times a week, I had to play with what I called it until I got to what it meant/was for me ... "moving meditation" once I got the right "name" I started racking up the greens ...

Project habitcal ... no medals, but no reds, lots of yellows ... which means I worked but did not reach my "target" length of time for many days ... I am committing to get a "medal" for my Project habitcal in December ...

all in all, pleased with the month,

Blueskighs

Congratulations, blue!

once I got the right "name" I started racking up the greens .

..

Funny how motivationally important properly "branding" a habit can be...

Reinhard

NoS - (gold) for February
ShovelGlove - (gold) for February
walk30Min - (silver) for February
dailyCheckIn - (gold) for February

Way to go 15n@50!!!
Debs

Thanks Debs! March sure looks like a long month when you fill out the first day of your habitcal.

Congratulations! You're on track to beat Micheal Phelps

I'm going to try to make the background for those medals transparent instead of white. I think that's easy...

Reinhard

As of Sunday 20 December I have been 30 days No S'ing. I haven't had any reds. So:

No S Diet: Gold!
Urban Rangeing! Gold! We don't have a car, so if we want to go anywhere it's by foot. We live in an apartment, so we have to range with our dog.
Home Rangeing: Gold! There's a lot of excersize keeping house at a fast pace. I just love the concept of movement with purpose.

Congratulations, mrsj!

I am here to collect my SILVER medal for the month of April. I had one slip-up, which was very minor - I took seconds on a clear soup - and there was one time I had not eaten enough and was very hungry and ate a very tiny snack. This was not a slip-up because I did it on purpose but it was a deviation from No S. It happened during the first week while I was still taking Sensa. I stopped the Sensa when I realized it was filling me too fast to eat enough to carry me to the next meal. Other than that, I have followed vanilla No S for the past 30 days. I made one small modification - if the fruit I put on my plate turns out to be no good, I substitute another piece. I call this the Substitution Rule, and would apply it to any food on the plate that is inedible or only marginally edible.

I wasn't trying to lose weight, but I was desperate because I had been uncontrollably hungry for 7 months since starting a medication for a chronic illness that is notorious for causing major weight gain. The No S has worked unbelievably well. I still have a hearty appetite, but it's very manageable and the best thing is that I do not get hungry at night. Before starting No S, I would wake up ravenous in the middle of the night and be unable to sleep well. After a few days of non-stop hunger, especially night after night, I would break down and overeat to the point of misery, which would then relieve the hunger for a few days, but leave me feeling terribly shameful and guilty and terrified of gaining 50 pounds, which is not uncommon with this drug.

The day I started NoS, April 1, was the day after such an episode and I weighed 123 pounds, which is not a lot for my height, but too much for me. I now weigh 115 pounds and look fine. More importantly, I have had no binge eating episodes over the past month, and my weight has been stabilizing and maybe slightly drifting downward.

In other ways, the month of April was a disaster. I have been quite ill and although I have had some days of feeling better, I have been more ill than well and currently am feeling terrible. I also fell behind in law school, which is not surprising because I can do only a fraction of the work I need to do when I don't feel well. I'm still hoping to be able to catch up when this thing finally passes. I blame the relapses on the unseasonably cold and damp weather we've had, and once I get anything I seem to have to cycle through a whole series of relapses before I finally recover. But the sun is shining and I am hopeful I will be better soon.

I was exercising over an hour a day before I got so sick, but have had to cut way back. This is not abnormal when I get these relapses, and I am an old hand at the process of slowly increasing my exercise back up once the active viral stage of the illness passes. It isn't fun, but it's worth it, and since I usually enjoy my exercise, especially long walks and long, slow runs, I am sure I will be able to do it again.

I mention this because what is so amazing is that I have maintained this weight loss without much exercise. Ordinarily, without No S, I think being too sick to exercise would have been a major disaster in terms of appetite and weight control.

So thank you very much, Reinhard, for the No S plan and the book and above all, this website. Posting daily and marking off the Habitcal have been extremely helpful. I promised myself a large NoS mug if I made it through the first 30 days and I am about to order it now. I expect to keep marking off the Habitcal, maybe post less frequently over the next 30 days, but sure hope to post here again on June 1.

Sherry

Reinhard,

What's with the "Personal Mount Olympus" name? I don't get the metaphor. (although the idea looks good)

Funny, I wrote "personal mount olympus" but I meant "personal olympics."

At least I think I did (it's been while ago since I started this thread).

In any case, the central metaphor is olympic games, olympic medals. Not the Greek gods.

I think maybe I called this thread "Personal Mount Olympus" because the games are somewhat connected with that geographic place, and I wanted to emphasize that this particular discussion was a place to discuss the idea.

Reinhard

Actually, Olympic Games were organized in the city of Olympia, and save the name resemblance, they have nothing to do with Mount Olympus, that's why I found the metaphor puzzling. Sorry for this... In France, we have a saying: "Culture is like jam. The less you have, the more you spread it."

But never mind, I find the "medal" metaphor extremely motivating. Friday, I lost a gold medal to a bronze one on NoS. Gotta get back on track ASAP.

In France, we have a saying: "Culture is like jam. The less you have, the more you spread it."

Hey, I'm an American. Cut me some slack.

Thanks to Wikipedia, I think I now have it straight, though:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Olympic_Games

The Olympic Games... were a series of athletic competitions held for representatives of various city-states of Ancient Greece held in honor of Zeus.... According to the story, the dactyl Herakles (not to be confused with the son of Zeus) and two of his brothers raced at Olympia.... The other Olympian gods (so named because they lived permanently on Mount Olympus), would also engage in wrestling, jumping and running contests.

So Herakles "not to be confused with the son of Zeus" inaugurates the first games in honor of Olympian Zeus at Olympia, "not to be confused with Mount Olympus."

Jeeze, was this a sporting event or the western world's first trivia contest?

In any case, glad the medal metaphor is working for you!

Reinhard

reinhard wrote:Hey, I'm an American. Cut me some slack.

Sorry, did not mean to be aggressive, I was talking about myself. I was taught when I was a kid that they were organised in Olympia, so I just felt like spreading my jam...

And I didn't mean to be touchy!

(hence the profusion of smiley faces)

Frankly, I'm a bit of a history buff and very much appreciate the jam (and have no doubt I'll be spreading it myself shortly).

Reinhard

I've gone ahead and changed the title of this discussion to "Personal Olympics" both for greater historical accuracy and proper emphasis on the central metaphor

Thanks for bringing it to my attention!

I like this - I find I'm quite motivated by the idea of awarding myself a medal!

I had three red days in July (albeit very minor red events) - so no medal for me this month. I didn't have any extra S days other than the weekends. Ah, just discovered the 'stats' option - 86.4% for NoS in July. I'll take that for my first whole month

I achieved a Gold Medal for the month of August - with No Red Days AT All!

I awarded myself a BRONZE medal for the month of September - I had two RED days (very minor, but red all the same)

Congratulations!

Thanks

How am I just now seeing this idea?? So brilliant, just like everything else about this program!

I like this. Although, I already know I am the Jamaican bobsled team of the No S Olympics.