The Blessings of Simplicity: August 4, 2012
The No S Diet:
Many different modifications over almost four years, especially one which allowed everything in front of me at one meal instead of one plateful at one meal.
(Month 1) Day 1 - Monday, September 8, 2008:
215.0
The Blessings of Simplicity:
One plateful of food at each of three meals per day.
No sweets.
Liquids allowed anytime.
S Days (no restrictions) every weekend.
A rolling average of two Exceptional Days (no restrictions just like on S Days) every month.
A commitment to develop and follow an exercise program.
(Month 1) Day 1 - Saturday, August 4, 2012:
220.6
Weight (Exceptional Days in Red and Weight Change from Prior Week in Red):
Day 1 – Saturday, August 4, 2012:
220.6 (2 Exceptional Days accumulated)
Day 2 – Sunday, August 5, 2012:
221.2
Day 3 – Monday, August 6, 2012:
221.6
Day 4 – Tuesday, August 7, 2012:
221.0
Day 5 – Wednesday, August 8, 2012:
220.4
Day 6 – Thursday, August 9, 2012:
219.6 First time below 220
Day 7 – Friday, August 10, 2012:
220.8
Day 8 – Saturday, August 11, 2012:
220.0 -.6 from prior Saturday
Day 9 – Sunday, August 12, 2012:
221.0 -.2 from prior Sunday
Day 10 – Monday, August 13, 2012:
221.0 -.6 from prior Monday
Day 11 – Tuesday, August 14, 2012:
220.4 -.6 from prior Tuesday
Day 12 – Wednesday, August 15, 2012:
219.6 -.8 from prior Wednesday
Day 13 – Thursday, August 16, 2012:
218.4 -1.2 from prior Thursday First time below 219 - one more pound in 7 days
Day 14 – Friday, August 17, 2012:
217.4 -3.4 from prior Friday First time below 218 - one more pound in 1 day
Day 15 – Saturday, August 18, 2012:
218.0 -2.0
Day 16 – Sunday, August 19, 2012:
219.8 -1.2
Day 17 – Monday, August 20, 2012:
219.8 -1.2
Day 18 – Tuesday, August 21, 2012:
219.0 -1.4
Day 19 – Wednesday, August 22, 2012:
218.4 -1.2
Day 20 – Thursday, August 23, 2012:
219.4
Day 21 – Friday, August 24, 2012:
218.4 -2.2 since Day 1
Day 22 – Saturday, August 25, 2012:
218.0 -2.6 since Day 1
Day 23 – Sunday, August 26, 2012:
219.2 -1.4 since Day 1
Day 24 – Monday, August 27, 2012:
Day 25 – Tuesday, August 28, 2012:
Day 26 – Wednesday, August 29, 2012:
Day 27 – Thursday, August 30, 2012:
Day 28 – Friday, August 31, 2012:
Journal:
Day 1 – Saturday, August 4, 2012:
220.6 I can't take it anymore. My sanity has to be worth something. There is so much up and down on every diet I have tried except No S. It's time to return to it. Being 195 is not optimal but it sure is better than where I am today. I can add exercise and limit myself to one plateful at meals.
This is a message to myself in case I am so foolish as to tweak this diet: READ MY LIPS! You have to live! You have a life! This is the only diet you have followed which could just fade into the background and you could focus on other things: your husband, your children, your dog, your job,... Spend the time you would have spent tweaking on exercise. You just spent a decade getting to this diet. How much better would a diet be if you spent another decade tweaking it?
10:30 AM: This post from nosnos on July 13th has been bothering me ever since I read it:
"There is a distinct pattern to your dieting and writing you start something, enthuse about it, find studys to back it up, convince yourself this is it, follow it for anything from one hour to a few days, start to modify, tweak a little more, binge and then with determination to change and disgust at yourself you start again.
Most of the plans you try are un-sustainable eg novena diet/ any variations on it, or fasting, or require unsustainable complex analytical systems and ratings that require you to think all the time about, what you eat, how much, when you eat and how you feel... I hate to break it to you but all these ideas will probably never work even if you stick to them, and you don't seem to be able to stick to them (I doubt anyone could longterm)
When you stopped no s when you where 25lbs lighter then you are you were actually still slowly losing weight- if you read back to the start (I really recommend you do) you tended to lose by gradual drops a plateau then a slightly bigger drop- I believe you quit no s because you didn't let the cycle finnish and you became un patient with your weight.
Kathleen what shines through your writing is that you are a really great woman, who is bravely trying to solve a big problem- I recommend you show yourself some kindness, re commit to no s, give yourself a year, if you reach a plateau then maybe (after a long time on plan) tweak to one plate only or 5 s-events per weekend day (which seems like a lot but it is far less than binging) . Do a little bit of exercise most days and stick with it. You will be eating less then you are now, you will be eating like a normal person, you will be able to stop looking for the answer and enjoy your life and eventually (it will take a long time but there is no short cut to this problem) YOU WILL BE A NORMAL HEALTHY WEIGHT- IT IS IMPOSSIBLE NOT TO IF YOU CAN STICK WITH NO S.
I am saying this as reading your story has helped me keep on track- PLEASE READ YOUR OWN JOURNAL FROM THE START AND LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES- GOD DOES NOT WANT YOU TO SUFFER AND SPEND YOUR LIFE LIKE THIS. "
I did not reread my journal. It would be too painful to do so. Yesterday I was downright rude to my 13 year old who just wanted to spend time with me but I had taken a bowl of ice cream into my bedroom to eat without anyone else seeing it, and she had asked to come in even though I had locked the door. Was the ice cream more important than my daughter?
One big mistake I think I made was in going down to 1 S Day per week from 2 S Days. That put a lot of pressure on me to make sure that the one S Day carried me through six days of N Day eating. I never lost any more weight.
Maybe I did just plateau and, had I stuck with No S with my rolling average of 2 Exception Days per month, I would be an even lower weight than today. Maybe. I'll never know. What I do know is that that Novena Diet and fasting both make eating front and center of my life, and that is not fair to others in my family.
Tom and Tommy are on a Boy Scout High Adventure trip to the Boundary Waters until the 12th (their last one), and this week the girls and I are buying new IKEA furniture for Katie and Ellie's room. The hardwood floors in Katie and Ellie's room were redone on Thursday. All their stuff is in the living room until we can move furniture in on Friday. Can't I focus on them and show appreciation to Anne who is being such a terrific help in planning, designing, buying, and building? A diet is best that requires minimal maintenance, and No S qualifies. I'm accepting the weight that results from it.
7 PM: There's a great description in Frederick Douglass' autobiography about how slave owners encouraged slaves to get drunk and generally descend into debauchery during their holiday between Christmas and New Years, such as by encouraging drinking contests to see which slave could drink the most without getting drunk. The purpose of this, Douglass thought, was so that the slave would prefer working in the fields to how lousy he felt getting so drunk. I am reminded of that story now that my stomach is stuffed from my S Day. I'll be happy to return to an N Day.
Day 2 – Sunday, August 5, 2012:
221.2 I can weigh myself. I just needed to figure out how to have one set of dates, and what I can do is mark Exceptional Days in red. My weight went up yesterday, of course. It was an S Day, and I made use of it. This next week is going to be really difficult for me because I am going to follow the one plateful rule which I have not followed previously. This one plateful rule may well be the reason why I never got below 195 following the No S Diet because I didn't really follow it previously. I followed part of it: no snacks and no sweets.[/u]
9:40 PM: I am stuffed, totally stuffed, and that's just fine because I need to suffer through five days of limiting myself to one plateful at each of three meals and that's it. This limitation will be an incredible shock to my system, and I am bracing for it. Over time, I'll get used to it and come to prefer it to free for all stuffing myself like I did this weekend. If a slave can prefer working in the fields to drinking himself sick, then I can surely end up preferring plate-sized meals.
Day 3 – Monday, August 6, 2012:
221.6 I woke up with my hand all tingly. Lovely.... Is this nerve damage from excess glucose from the weekend, or did I sleep on my hand for some reason? At any rate, it's yet another indication I need to proceed, not look back, proceed....
8:30 PM: I thought it would be really hard, and it wasn't. It certainly wasn't anywhere near as difficult as those first few weeks on No S four years ago. We found new bedding for Katie and Ellie, and we got a rather large dog to dogsit for the next nine days. I want to keep busy.
8:50 PM: I think I'm done for the night. My only goal is to get to bed without eating. We just took the two dogs for a walk. Anne is at the gym but will be home soon. She has been a real trooper in helping to get the girls' room done. Here she is going off to college in a couple of weeks and out with me to buy bedding for her sisters.
Day 4 – Tuesday, August 7, 2012:
221.0 Last night, I read a column in our paper by author Harvey Mackay about XQ (execution quality) as a trait. He quoted Stephen Covey as saying: "Organizations that execute with excellence focus on very few clear objectives and align the focus of every worker and work group to those few goals. Can an organization execute its goals when its people are unclear on the goals, uncommitted to them, unempowered to achieve them and unaccountable for them? Got smart people? Got a vision? Good for you. Now, what about your XQ?"
Reading that reminded me of the comment I read years ago that people who lost weight successfully and maintained that weight tended to focus on something other than a number on a scale. They tended to focus on health as a goal. I think I need to set some specific goals with regard to exercise. My goal regarding eating and eating habits is set now. I remember my daughter saying once that she wanted a diet where she did not have to obsess over it all the time. That's why she chose to follow No S, and it's an awfully good reason.
Yesterday was a success. I'm not thinking of it that way, however. I'm thinking of it more along the lines of returning to a habit that should have been kept.
9:30 PM: Today was the fourth and last trip to IKEA in a week. We also bought swivel chairs at OfficeMax and now have all the furniture for Katie and Ellie's room. It's nice to be so busy and to have a goal of the room all set up by the time Tom and Tommy get home on Saturday night. Sometimes I think I think too much. All this tweaking was counterproductive, but maybe now I can settle down and just do. We've been talking back and forth for three years about redoing the girls room, and two weeks ago I asked Tom if we could go ahead before the school year. He said yes, and that was that. I simply dived into doing. Now it's time to do the same thing with the diet -- just do.
Day 5 – Wednesday, August 8, 2012:
220.4 Last night, as I was loading up my plate, I was reminded of how Reinhard said you can still eat like an idiot limiting yourself to one plateful but it is more difficult to fool yourself and others if you eat like an idiot. When I brought my masterpiece to the table, my 12 year old's jaw dropped and my 18 year old suggested a height limit. The 13 year old said something about food being buried in there.
Last night, I was worried and so worried I was up half the night and just got up now at 8:30 AM. My weight partially reflects the late hour, since I'm normally up before 7 and often before 6. Still, I am happy this morning because I realized I've already been through this. I've already been through months and months of getting up at midnight on Saturday to have a Haagen Dazs. I learned, and just have to remember what I learned, which is that I will not starve on this diet. I can calm down and eat what makes me feel good. There is no need to stuff myself.
5:30 PM: We are still working hard to have Katie and Ellie's room done by Saturday night, and I'm also caulking the shower. Meanwhile, I have thought very little about food. It occurred to me that the simple secret to a normal weight is to eat what is appropriate, neither too much nor too little, and the way to determine what is appropriate is to eat as much as makes me feel best. I had to overcome the fear of starvation from all those years of dieting, including my most recent attempt at the Novena Diet. My body will take care of itself, thank you. It doesn't interference from my mind telling me what I "should" weigh or how fast I "should" lose weight.
8:30 PM: I think I may just relax into following this approach and record my weight/ journal once per week. The best diet is the one that can fade into the background because it is as easy as and takes as much effort as flossing my teeth every morning: a habit that, once formed, requires little effort to follow.
Day 6 – Thursday, August 9, 2012:
219.6 It's possible I will be taking an Exceptional Day tomorrow. It depends on the circumstances of the evening. Meanwhile, last night, I had a conversation with my soon to be college student when I was taking her to the gym. She said her main concern about a diet was that it would not make her obsessed with food. She didn't say it, but I sure thought that she saw the problems in that by observing me! She likes only thinking about food three times per day. She also learned from her health class about the importance of exercise. Yes, she's right. I did not do any sort of vigorous exercise until I started using the exercise bike in April, and now a sinus problem I've had for five years just plain cleared up. It's great not to be taking kleenex everywhere!
9:30 PM: This evening, I attended a presentation on performance measurements, and my mind wandered to my conversation with the Mayo internist last month. It took a few weeks to crystalize, but I think that conversation with him was the final turning point for me. Here I am, just a couple of pounds until my all time high in weight, and I think the hard work in losing weight is all done. That sounds crazy, but the real work is not in following a diet. The real work is in finding one that works! How did this happen?
I go back to what that doctor said, and I am doing the exact opposite. There is no medical institution in the world better than the Mayo Clinic. Who am I to not follow his advice? Well, there's great saying that half of solving a problem is defining it, and he sure helped me define it.
First of all, he said I need a goal. He meant a weight goal because my response was that was easy: 132 pounds. He actually went on to say I weighed about 220, and he would recommend getting down to 170 or 50 pounds lower in one year.
Then he described how. He said to get rid of all the junk completely -- the pasta, the pastries, the ice cream, etc. He then recommended Weight Watchers.
I had an immediate negative reaction to Weight Watchers, having tried it and found it a miserable experience. My immediate reaction was it was not the way to go because, if there is one thing I have learned, it is that a diet needs to be intermittent, and I used that exact word intermittent.
Wow. I don't remember much else from the conversation, but I was surprised by the certainty of how I told him no that will not do -- I, someone who is not at all medically trained but who has tried every diet on earth.
A typical Mayo doctor, he had superb interpersonal skills. He didn't argue with me. He listened.
I'm done. I'm just plain done. I don't need a weight goal. What I need is a process.
Will I tweak again? Oh probably. Tweaking needs to be within the constraints of an intermittent diet. I will be back at Many Point next July. Between now and then, I need to focus on exercise.
It is such a relief I just cannot describe it. When I was single, I enjoyed backpacking, and there was a certain lightness from taking off the backpack after hiking with it all day. That's somewhat how I feel. The monkey is off my back.
The work is done. It's not that I have done most of the work in getting to this point. It's that I've done all of the work!
Day 8 – Saturday, August 11, 2012:
220.0 One half pound in a week: not bad. What is even better, however, is that fact that I'm not particularly interested in eating outside the No S rules. I have looked at the "sometimes" in the guide "except (sometimes) on days that start with an S" and thought "How could that ever be?" Four years ago, when I started No S, Normal Days were torture and S Days were a necessary and welcome release. Now, Normal Days seem normal. What was promised has happened: Normal Day behavior has finally carried over to the weekend.
8:30 AM: I am going to have coffee with a friend today, so maybe I'll splurge on a latte or mocha since it's Saturday. Life is sweet. I feel under control with this diet. It may be that I'll fluctuate in my emotions as I watch my weight up and down but slowly trending down. Patience is needed for this diet, but sanity is also provided. What would I want for my children? From my perspective now, it is to avoid the false promises of most diets that produce quick short term results only but instead have the long term perspective of wanting a life with health and sanity that is provided by orderliness in eating.
“Order is Heaven's first law; and this confessed, some are, and must be, greater than the rest, more rich, more wise; but who infers from hence that such are happier, shocks all common sense. Condition, circumstance, is not the thing; bliss is the same in subject or in king.†- Alexander Pope
9 PM: It must be that in eating to satisfaction and eating only periodically you learn to accept hunger as a natural part of the human experience and not view it as bad at all. "Don't spoil your appetite" is something I heard when I was growing up. We've lost the concept of wanting to be hungry when we eat.
Day 9 – Sunday, August 12, 2012:
221.0 It's 8:30 PM and, for some reason, today was a stomach-as-bottomless-pit day. My all time high in weight is 222.0, and it's not a stretch of the imagination to think that I'll be above that weight tomorrow. Would I be able to handle seeing that weight without deciding to change the diet? I'm not sure, but I don't want to take any chances. I am thinking, perhaps, of staying off the scale and off this board until September 1 when I can weight myself again. I know the trend is down, but that doesn't mean tomorrow's weight -- especially after an idiotic S Day -- will be down. There were weeks and weeks when I'd gain four pounds in one weekend.
Why? Why is it that sometimes I can handle the freedom of S Days and at other times I cannot? I don't know, frankly. All I know is that I can place some hope in the fact that I did at least not eat a lot one day last week. I did not eat a lot yesterday morning even though it was an S Day. My body needs time to adjust to this way of eating now that I've committed to it.
Day 10 – Monday, August 13, 2012:
221.0 Go figure. I'm the same weight as I was yesterday morning, even though I ate like an idiot.
I knew it was somewhere on the boards, and I finally found an article on how changing the focus of attention helps with what is called "willpower". It is here:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009 ... ntPage=all
An excerpt is here:
"At the time, psychologists assumed that children’s ability to wait depended on how badly they wanted the marshmallow. But it soon became obvious that every child craved the extra treat. What, then, determined self-control? Mischel’s conclusion, based on hundreds of hours of observation, was that the crucial skill was the “strategic allocation of attention.†Instead of getting obsessed with the marshmallow—the “hot stimulusâ€â€”the patient children distracted themselves by covering their eyes, pretending to play hide-and-seek underneath the desk, or singing songs from “Sesame Street.†Their desire wasn’t defeated—it was merely forgotten. “If you’re thinking about the marshmallow and how delicious it is, then you’re going to eat it,†Mischel says. “The key is to avoid thinking about it in the first place.â€
In adults, this skill is often referred to as metacognition, or thinking about thinking, and it’s what allows people to outsmart their shortcomings. (When Odysseus had himself tied to the ship’s mast, he was using some of the skills of metacognition: knowing he wouldn’t be able to resist the Sirens’ song, he made it impossible to give in.) Mischel’s large data set from various studies allowed him to see that children with a more accurate understanding of the workings of self-control were better able to delay gratification. “What’s interesting about four-year-olds is that they’re just figuring out the rules of thinking,†Mischel says. “The kids who couldn’t delay would often have the rules backwards. They would think that the best way to resist the marshmallow is to stare right at it, to keep a close eye on the goal. But that’s a terrible idea. If you do that, you’re going to ring the bell before I leave the room.â€
What I get from this is that a focus on weight loss actually increases the likelihood of failure. With most diets, the idea of "portion control" guarantees that you will always feel hungry and it's hard to ignore hunger that is constant.
I think my diet now could benefit from some benign neglect. I can eat three meals per day, loosen up on the weekend, and record weight and thoughts on Sunday night. My focus can shift to improving my inadequate exercise program, getting a job, getting a rug for the girls room.... lot of stuff!
What a nice thought... for my eating habits, eating, choice of foods to eat, etc. to simply slip into the background of habits that don't require much thought, habits like flossing my teeth every morning and making my bed every morning.
Day 11 – Tuesday, August 14, 2012:
220.4 -.6 It's hard to look at a weight loss of .2 pound in ten days (from Day 1 to Day 11), so I'm going to record my weight one week prior to today. For example, my weight last Tuesday is .6 pound lower than my weight this Tuesday.
This diet is really boring. There is nothing to it. I eat to satisfaction three times per day, and I wait for results.
Day 12 – Wednesday, August 15, 2012:
219.6 This morning, I took Anne to buy an iPad as a graduation gift. We had promised her 10% of scholarship money, so she had earned $500 because she was awarded a $5,000/year scholarship from the U. She wore a new pair of shorts this morning because she had lost enough weight to wear them. As I was walking with her into the mall, we were discussing her 10 pound + weight loss, and I told her I wish I knew at age 18 what I know now about weight loss. Then it occurred to me that my whole goal was to pass on to her the knowledge I had gained from weight loss experiments. I have, in fact, succeeded in my goal. I have in fact passed on to this gifted, hard-working daughter of mine the knowledge that I have gained from years of frustrating failure. There are memories that are like snapshots in my mind, and this morning's memory of my saying that to my Annie will be one of them. My love for that child is what has motivated me ever since January when she was in 3rd grade and rushed into the house to raid the refrigerator and I knew then and there she would have a weight problem. She is overweight now, but she won't be. She's learned what I have learned, which is that you need intermittent eating to satisfaction.
Day 13 – Thursday, August 16, 2012:
218.4 I want to elaborate on my view that a "portion control" approach to dieting is not just wrong or counterproductive but is downright evil, and I am going to use the writings of Frederick Douglass to do it. Frederick Douglass was a slave who escaped to freedom when in his early 20s. He wrote a short autobiography when he was in his late 20s and a longer autobiography when he was in his late 30s. I have read his shorter autobiography twice in the last month and last night picked up his longer autobiography.
Having moved when I was in middle school, I missed out on learning about the Civil War and have never read about slavery. What I read in the autobiography shocked me. Sure, slaves were treated inhumanely, but Douglass provided details like these:
1. He never knew his birthday. He never knew a slave who knew his birthday. Part of the reason for this is that parents didn't know how to use a calendar.
2. Children were separated from their mother when they were young because women of child-bearing age could recover and go work in the fields. Slave children were brought up by people too old to work in the fields, and Frederick was lucky enough to be cared for by his own grandmother.
3. When his grandmother got too old to care for children, her owner built her a hut and let her care for herself. She died alone.
4. A slave who went into water to avoid a whipping was simply shot to death, and there was no consequence for the action because only slaves witnessed it.
5. When his owner died and he was off serving another family as a personal attendant to a boy, he was shipped back home to be assessed for value, just like the farm animals.
Throughout his writings, Frederick Douglass wrote about the particular cruelty of slaves not getting enough to eat. I will quote from this book as I read it, but right now I'm simply going to comment that we obese have bought the idea of "portion control" hook, line, and sinker, attributing to weak willpower the drive to eat to satisfaction. I think binge behavior may come from the body's drive to get enough to eat and the need to overeat to make up for not having gotten enough to eat.
The book is just too riveting for my main impression to be that of the cruelty of slaves not getting enough to eat. In fact, what stands out for me is that grandmother dying alone. Still, it is instructive to me that Douglass focused so much on times when he went hungry or when he witnessed other slaves go hungry.
5 PM: I don't think people who recommend "portion control" are evil. I think they could be very good people who are misguided. The idea of "portion control" is evil.
Here are some examples of hunger from
My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederic Douglass:
1. Chapter III: The last day he saw his mother (at no more than age 8 or 9) was the day that the cook (who went by the name of Aunt Katy) "adopted, that day, her favorite mode of punishing me, namely, making me go with food all day -- that is, from after breakfast.....I was too hungry to sleep.... My mother threatened her (the cook) with complaining to old master in my behalf; for the latter, though harsh and cruel himself, at times, did not sanction the meanness, injustice, partiality, and oppressions enacted by Aunt Katy in the kitchen."
2. Chapter IV: "Want of food was my chief trouble the first summer at my old master's... I have often been so pinched with hunger, that I have fought with the dog ... for the smallest crumbs that fell from the kitchen table...Nevertheless, I sometimes got full meals and kind words from sympathizing old slaves."
3. Chapter XIV: "Not to give a slave enough to eat, is meanness intensified, and it is so recognized among slaveholders generally, in Maryland. The rule is, no matter how coarse the food, only let there be enough of it."
4. Chapter XIV:"I was sure of getting enough to eat at Covey's, even if I suffered in other respects. This, to a hungry man, is not a prospect to be regarded with indifference."
Day 14 – Friday, August 17, 2012:
217.4 I am going to finish up writing about Douglass' book above as I read it and not intermingle the information with my journal. This morning, I had to bring Tom to work because his car was in the shop. I had had Anne drive me to Costco to get tires rotated on the van, and while I was dropping of the keys Anne was playing with the speedometer, pounding on the plastic to get the speedometer higher. She succeeded in having the needle spin all the way around and now the speedometer is broken. I had to laugh. I just had to laugh. What a dumb trick!
So -- I had no time to floss my teeth this morning or eat breakfast, and on the way back I stopped at Menards. By the time, I got home to have breakfast, it was 9 AM.
Was I famished? Not at all. I liked getting a little hungry before eating a meal. Also, I did not like having the feeling of not having flossed my teeth. Still, I had fallen out of a habit due to circumstances, and I had to make an effort to floss my teeth when I returned home.
Why am I writing about this triviality? Because there is no effort involved in flossing my teeth when I normally do it, which is while my bath is running, but there was effort when I did it just now. I was taken out of my routine.
That's right where I am with No S. It is now a habit as effortless as flossing my teeth, and it takes no effort just like flossing my teeth takes no effort.
While I am on the exercise bike, I am listening to CDs that were produced by David Allen on his book
Getting Things Done. He talks about project work and the question, "When do you know it is done?" The example was development of a compensation system. When do you know it is done? Some of the specific tasks for the project are setting grade levels and setting salary ranges by grade level. For this particular example, there is an implementation period, and then there is ongoing maintenance. Of course, over time, there will be changes, as salary levels need to change with inflation.
It occurred to me as I was listening to his talk that I am now in maintenance with No S. While I was happy to have gone down 1 pound in 1 day, it was not anywhere near as thrilling that I am enjoying the feeling of building up an appetite or to feel happy that I am eating to satisfaction at every meal. Getting hungry is not difficult. Enduring constant hunger is torture.
Day 15 – Saturday, August 18, 2012:
218.0 At midnight, I had a Haagen Dazs bar, several Milano cookies, and a PayDay candy bar. Does that fact distress me? Not in the least. As long as I follow the letter of this diet, I will succeed because the spirit follow the letter: eventually your body's craving for sweets declines. I've already been through this four years ago, but this time around is just much less severe. If I want to indulge once it is Saturday, I will. The mistake was in trying to restrict my S Days.
I am confident of this, but it is understandable if others are not. After all, I now weigh 3 pounds
more than when I started the No S Diet nearly four years ago.
9:30 AM: Since I got up, I have had two Haagen Dazs bars, about 5 Milano cookies, a plum, and a bowl of Cheerios with craisins. I am stuffed, and it feels good. Is it possible that human nature craves occasional "feasts"? The religious calendar for any religion of which I am familiar (which, frankly, isn't saying much) includes both times of feasting and times of fasting. We Catholics have Christmas and Easter for feasting and Lent for fasting. I think there is wisdom in this.
9:30 PM: There was over the top eating all day, and I had no forewarning at all that I would desire this type of eating. It wasn't until last night that I decided to buy all these goodies at the store -- the PayDay, the Haagen Dazs ice cream, the Milano cookies. I was actually out at OfficeMax and Target, special time with Katie, to buy her school supplies. The goodies were bought at Target, not a grocery store. I do not look at this day as one that I judge as a personal failure. Instead, I think "huh." My emotion is one of curiosity rather than disgust. I believe in this diet. I believe I will lose weight over time but, for some reason, my body just wanted an overwhelming amount of food today. Last night, I waited until midnight to eat, and I know that it was those hours of being willing to wait to eat that make the difference between being of normal weight and being obese. It seems to make no logical sense. Why does it matter if you consumer 5,000 calories between midnight Saturday and 9 PM Saturday vs. between 9 PM Friday and 9 PM Saturday? I know why, but I cannot clearly articulate it. The delay actually has a long term impact on the amount eaten, maybe not on this particular day but over weeks and months of following this diet. I'm happy and confident that I'm on the path of liberty, liberty from food obsession and obesity!
Day 16 – Sunday, August 19, 2012:
219.8 That was a performance not to be repeated for a time. I am not at all interested in indulging in sweets at the moment and will even delay having breakfast. It's not that I feel sick. It's more that my body is repulsed by the thought of food. I'll have my coffee, go to church, and then perhaps have some breakfast. Having just read this in Douglass' autobiography, I am reminded of the slaveholder practice of punishing stealing food by force feeding. The example given was of what would happen to a slave who stole some molasses. The punishment would be for the slaveholder to buy a large quantity of the poorest quality of molasses and force the slave to eat and eat and eat! I wasn't forced to eat yesterday, but excessive indulgence certainly turned me against continuing. I'm still down over a pound from last Sunday, and I'm ready to continue to lose! My expectation is that I will never again, in my entire life, see 220 or above on the scale.
6 PM: I ate more than on a normal weekday and less -- far less -- than yesterday. Does it really matter what I do on any particular day? No. I am tracking trivialities. It really doesn't matter how I feel or how much I eat on any given day. What matters is the trend over the long term.
I am thinking it may be best for me just to track my weight and record my thoughts once per month at the start of the month. I'm not going to lose a lot of weight quickly by following this diet. It will be slow going. It's like watching water come to a boil -- boring, boring, boring. It is better for me to turn my attention elsewhere. I'm not going anywhere. I'm sticking with this diet. I got my umpteenth copy of
The No S Diet yesterday and covered it in contact paper. It will stay on my nightstand. I think I'll read a chapter per week, every week.
Day 17 – Monday, August 20, 2012:
219.8 I'm not yet ready to turn my attention to other matters, so I won't force it. Anne gets dropped off at college in a mere nine days, and I'm extracting every last bit of labor from her instead of focusing on her. She is being a good sport about it. Now that we've finished Katie and Ellie's room, I'm taking her over to the site of Tommy's Eagle project so she can draw up a diagram for placement of plants. She has an artist's flair, and I certainly do not. I will be taking her to Mall of America with a friend, and she'll be shopping for clothes with her cousin, and she's tutoring and babysitting. All of a sudden, she'll be gone. She's only about 20 minutes' drive away, but I won't see her again until Thanksgiving once we drop her off. We have set her on a course, and now she must choose her path. I am very pleased that she has worked her way up to quite a good exercise program (40 minutes 4 times per week on the treadmill at 4 mph) and has lost more than 10 pounds. She has become my inspiration, just as I was inspired to find a way out of the obesity trap because I saw her headed into it when she was in elementary school. I so hope she continues to exercise and lose weight when she is in college. When I was a freshman, sadly, I gained 30 pounds, going from 117 to 150.
9:45 PM: Sadly, there is something of a struggle tonight. My secret weapon is 2% fat milk which is satisfying but does not break the no snack rule. I ran around with the kids a lot today -- to the beach, to the gym, to the doctor... Still, there is a gnawing sense that I want to eat more. I can live with that gnawing sense knowing that I can eat as much as I want in just a few days. All I need to do today is put up with the feeling that I haven't eaten enough. I am definitely less patient with the kids as a result. Actually, I'm just more irritated. If Tom is sick, why was he not in bed but instead was parked in front of the TV? Why didn't anyone put the dog out? Can't Ellie just accept that sometimes water stays in your ear even after you are out of the lake? This sort of stuff usually doesn't irritate me but it did tonight, and I think the reason for my irritation is I would like to eat more and can't.
Day 18 – Tuesday, August 21, 2012:
219.0 This diet seems so painfully slow in part because there is a great deal of fluctuation across a week due to S Days. It helps me to track my weight loss from one weekday to the next. Here I am, today, at 1.4 pounds less than I was one week ago today. I can focus on that fact and not on the fact that I weigh more than on Friday when I weighed 217.4 pounds. I needed to be able to stuff myself over the weekend to be able to endure the difficulties -- actually, they aren't so great -- of not snacking or eating sweets during the week. I can know the first time I get below a specific weight, but I cannot know the last time I am at or above a certain weight. At any rate, I suspect this may be my last time at 219 or above. If I continue at this pace, I may get below 200 pounds by the end of the year. Wouldn't that be sweet!
Last night was just a memorably beautiful evening, and the girls and I were at the beach until closing at 7:45 PM. I wore capris. I was going to wear shorts, but Tommy said they looked really bad. As I lay on the beach not going in the water because my capris would have gotten wet, I thought with regret of all the things I have missed because of my weight. Even there, last night, I would have been in the water had I been able to look presentable in a swimsuit. With some degree of optimism, I also thought, "Next year... Next year will be different, and I can hardly wait." At least I will have passed on to my children the lessons I have learned about how to manage your weight.
6 PM: I just had a huge meal (yes, on one plate) and would like to eat a whole lot more. The way I feel right now reminds me of how I would come to feel on diets: I felt as though no amount of eating would satisfy my hunger. In fact, I kept with me a quote from a book called The Obesity Epidemic in which it says that the formerly obese are in a psychological state of starvation. Why? Why, when I limit myself to one meal, do I feel like I am starving? No idea. I do think the answer is physical, however. It's not food addiction or emotional hunger or any of a myriad of non-physical explanations. For me, on a Tuesday night, to calculate that I have three days and six hours before I once again can stay up to midnight to eat Haagen Dazs bars is sufficient for me to be able to stand this feeling of starving. The sense of starvation will end. All I have to do is be patient. The best way to be patient is to turn my attention elsewhere. Let's see: oh, there are lots and lots of things that can take my attention from feeling hungry now, especially since I know I get to be completely satisfied in three days and six hours.
Day 19 – Wednesday, August 22, 2012:
218.4 I woke up last night because I felt hungry. It's not as if I didn't eat a lot last night because I did. In fact, I brought out the No S book to read to Tommy and Anne about how the one plate rule helps you to see that you are being a pig. It helps me to see the weight loss from one weekday to the next. I see slow progress, but really it isn't all that slow. I'm losing about one pound per week.
8:30 AM: There is just a ton of energy involved in trying to come up with a perfect diet/exercise plan/etc. I need "good enough." Now that I've settled on No S, I've turned my attention to exercise. This morning, I am returning to strengthening exercises from Strong Women Stay Slim. It's a start. I've already returned to 30 minutes on the exercise bike three times per week. What I need is one more 30 minute aerobic activity three times per week, and I'm going to try the Wii Fit which we have.
11 AM: It's a gorgeous late summer day, Anne is leaving for college a week from today, and I feel incredibly grumpy, not because of Anne leaving but because I feel hungry. This is ridiculous. I had a big bowl of cereal this morning. There is no reason why I should feel hungry. I know it. I also know I've been through this countless times. This is the feeling that results in my breaking my diet. I see two paths ahead of me. In one, I get temporary relief from the feeling of hunger by stuffing myself, but then I keep gaining weight, keep limiting my activities due to my weight, get more and more disgusted with myself, and end up reclusive due to embarrassment. I've been down this path for years. The other path is one of sticking with the diet and getting thinner over time, gradually losing the feeling of hunger or at least learning to tolerate periodic feelings of hunger. Over time, I stick to an exercise program, become more active, become more social, and enjoy my life more and more. Which do I choose? Immediate relief or long-term relief? I am not wrestling with this question at all. Going from 200 pounds to 220 pounds was a sea change in how I feel. I feel much, much worse at 220. I can hardly wait for the weight to drop, and if periods of feeling grumpy or not being able to sleep are part of the deal, so be it.
8:45 PM: I should call this "the bottomless pit syndrome." Right now, I feel hungry, so hungry as to feel distracted. I have had two glasses of 2% milk and a glass of wine in the last 30 minutes, and it has helped very little . What is likely to help most is sleep, and that is where I am headed. Why? Why? Why? I guarantee this is a physical reaction to less food, but why? The amount I've been eating has certainly been sufficient. Who knows why? That's a matter for scientists. What I need is to know how to deal with this feeling that I want to eat and eat and eat.
Day 20 – Thursday, August 23, 2012:
219.4 I survived without snacks, sweets, or seconds, and this morning there is no "bottomless pit syndrome." My weight is up, not surprisingly given the milk and the wine and the very large platefuls of food at meals, but I did survive without breaking the diet. I believe in this diet and am sticking with it.
8:30 AM: This morning I had some French bread and a nectarine for breakfast. I at about 2/3 of the nectarine when I realized I was no longer enjoying it and threw it away. What a change from 12 hours ago!!! What happened? No idea. I love fruit, especially summer fruit like peaches, plums, nectarines, strawberries, and blueberries. To not finish a nectarine is almost inconceivable.
8:30 PM: I did not feel hungry today. I even got home at 7:30 with no dinner and took the dog for a walk around the block before having dinner. Last night, I was complaining about "bottomless pit syndrome". Tonight I am amazed about how little food satisfied me.
Day 21 – Friday, August 24, 2012:
218.4 Last night, I remembered that I had not yet eaten dinner as I was walking out the door with the dog on her leash. It was surprising to me that I felt so little hunger. This morning, at about 4 AM, I was awake because I felt hungry except maybe it wasn't really hungry. Maybe I'm just not used to having my stomach anything less than stuffed. Of course, I could have been awake because my son lost the paperwork for his Eagle project which is now scheduled for September 8 and he has to figure out what to do. At any rate, I have been plagued by insomnia whenever I have tried to diet. The nice thing about this diet is there are breaks on the weekend. I really, really, really do not want to see 219.0 or above ever again, and that desire may affect how much I eat this weekend. It's not yet the weekend, so I don't know if it will or not. Going forward, I'm going to record how much weight I have lost since Day 1.
10 PM: I look at myself in the mirror and am just aghast at the rolls of fat. I have not worn a wedding ring in months because my finger is too fat. Do I want an S Day tomorrow? No. It may be that I'll just continue following the N Day rules tomorrow. We'll see. I'll be open to doing what is necessary to keep N Days as N Days, but right now I have no driving need or even desire to eat more than I do on an N Day.
Day 22 – Saturday, August 25, 2012:
218.0 Three weeks and only down 2.6 pounds. I want to change the diet to add fasting, but I made an agreement with BrightAngel that I first must read my journal starting in January of this year. What a pain. That's what I'll do.
7 AM: I got to January 9 before I stopped.
Day 23 – Sunday, August 26, 2012:
219.2 Yesterday, after giving up on changing the diet, I still had a "last supper" effect from even considering changing the diet, and I ate, ate, ate - coffee ice cream, banana bread, just lots of food... This morning, Cheerios. I didn't even add craisins, my good-for-you sweetener. My body is exhausted from having digested all that food. I know this diet is slow, painfully slow, but what it does is allow the body to get a good taste of excess so that it can see that excess is not the most pleasurable state. I hope today is my last day at 219.0 or above. Maybe not. It's still an S Day today, and I'll treat it as such, but I'm revolved by the idea of eating at the moment after just one bowl of Cheerios.
Anne leaves for college on Wednesday. I know it hasn't yet hit me that she'll actually be gone. She's close. She's just across the river. She told me yesterday that she doesn't want me driving by the college the way I drive by the golf course, and I had to chuckle at that. Helicopter parent is in my nature. I talked with a Mom last week who drove her daughter, a classmate of Anne's from elementary school, to college in Florida and cried all the way home from Illinois. It will be OK. She needs to go. It is time. She's observed me all these years, and this summer she exercised four times per week, followed the No S Diet, and lost 15 pounds. On Friday, she went out with her cousin, a new college graduate, and got new clothes. You teach your children sometimes by the mistakes you make.
9 PM: Stuffed. I do not want to face my weight tomorrow morning. Maybe I'll just follow the diet this week and not weigh myself or write until Friday. We'll see... I'm a coward at heart. Tom got far enough in taking care of his Eagle paperwork that maybe we can go camping over Labor Day weekend. I'm happy about that.
SEE: 
My middle (13) has NO desire to "do school" as he says so he's still home with me but I feel like I've lost two limbs of my body this week