The Blessings of Simplicity

[BrightAngel]

My modification is one indulgence on Sundays
and other indulgences that are recorded and justified.

Vanilla No S has NO indulgences on "N" days.
Such indulgences cannot be justified by any means...including recording.
Such an "indulgence" will always be an "N" day "Failure".
Your Commitment was that the month of December will be Vanilla No S
...with no changes to that basic plan during that month.
I do not accept your stated Modification,
and am holding you to your original Commitment.

Below is an acceptable re-statement of your potential optional
plan of behavior which would be within the Vanilla No S boundries.

My Plan for "S" days is one indulgence on Sundays
and all other indulgences on "S" days will be recorded and justified.

[Kathleen]

BrightAngel,

I don't want to classify dessert at my husband's holiday dinner for work as a failure. I want a plan in which I can achieve 100% success. You said that you have recorded everything no matter what. I intend to record indulgences no matter what and count that act of recording as my 100% success.

No indulgences today. Chocolate fudge was bought on Tuesday and is still unopened as is being saved for my Sunday indulgence.

Kathleen

[BrightAngel]

I don't want to classify dessert at my husband's holiday dinner for work as a failure.
I want a plan in which I can achieve 100% success.

Yeah, well, too bad. ...like that old saying...
"if wishes were horses that beggers could ride"
Whether or not you WANT to classify eating dessert on an "N" day as a Failure,
Under your Vanilla No S December Commitment, IT IS ONE.
You cannot change that N day into a Success by re-wording the plan to suit you.

You will never find, or create, a food plan for weight-loss, or even maintenance,
in which you can achieve 100% success.
It does not exist.
No matter what modifications you make in any food plan, your behavior will never be perfect.

AFTER you have Honored your Commitment to December's Vanilla No S Plan, without change,
you will be free to make modifications, but not before.
Go back in this Thread and read all of the November Posts entirely and completely.
Look at the mess you got into by continually doing that.

Reality Check here.
You cannot make a Failure into a Success through semantic games.
Honor your December Commitment.
The next two days it will be easy to do that,
because they are "S" days,
and whatever behavior choices you make during the next 2 days...you will be a success.

[Kathleen]

BrightAngel,

"This does NOT mean that I never overate or never binged during the past 6 years,
It merely means that I ALWAYS entered ALL of my food into the journal.
It became, and is, a HABIT.

This is the principal of ACCOUNTABILITY.
I am accountable for every bite I eat....
even on vacation days, sick days, stress days.
NO MATTER HOW HIGH MY FOOD-INTAKE, I LOG IT.
This has provided me with long-term success."

Your commitment to logging ALL food intake, BrightAngel, is what inspired me to consider recording ALL indulgences as a way to avoid labeling the dessert at a holiday dinner as a failure. It can be a success if I'm willing to record it. I don't think I need to record all food intake because I'm relying on the N Day food rules to keep me from overeating except for those indulgences which are outside the no snacks and no sweets rules.

As you said yourself, your logging of your food intake is what provided you with "long-term success."

I think 100% success in something related to dieting is helpful in creating and maintaining a strong habit. That's why I came up with the idea of exceptions in the first place, but that idea didn't work. When I looked around for something else that could result in 100% success, I remembered your post from October.

Why do you think this isn't a good idea for me? I don't want to be recording that I ate taste tests at the grocery store. Do I really want to remain obese because of taste tests at the grocery store? Seriously, it's not the calories in those taste tests that are the problem. It's that taste tests in grocery stores open the door to more and more snacks. Recording any food I eat outside N Day rules, I think, could keep them to a minimum, to ones that are very reasonable like dessert at a dinner holiday for Tom's work.

It's Friday night. On Monday, I came up with the idea of just recording all S events. I haven't had a single "failure" or "indulgence" since then. Whether I call it a "failure" or an "indulgence" doesn't matter in what I do. It does matter in how I feel about what I do. Allowing an "indulgence" I think will strengthen the habit I choose to follow perfectly. It's not practical to follow N Day rules with perfection. It is practical to record all eating outside N Day rules with perfection.

I will agree with you on this, however. I don't want to review the mess that was November.


Kathleen

[oolala53]

Great strategy today, Kathleen. Real lunches are okay!

[Kathleen]

oolala53,
There is an awful lot of snow outside, so the food in the house is what we'll eat. Tom bought some caramel-covered popcorn last night when he went to the grocery store to make sure we had food today, Tommy put it right under my nose last night, and I had zero temptation. There were weeks and weeks when I had way too much of that stuff. One a 15 minute drive home, I had most of a bucket -- as I recall, about 1,100 calories. I really don't think giving up S Days is going to be such a problem for me.
Kathleen

[BrightAngel]

I don't want to review the mess that was November.

I suggested that you review it to avoid repeating it.

This does NOT mean that I never overate or never binged during the past 6 years,
It merely means that I ALWAYS entered ALL of my food into the journal.
It became, and is, a HABIT.

This is the principal of ACCOUNTABILITY.
I am accountable for every bite I eat....
even on vacation days, sick days, stress days.
NO MATTER HOW HIGH MY FOOD-INTAKE, I LOG IT.
This has provided me with long-term success.

Your commitment to logging ALL food intake, BrightAngel,
is what inspired me to consider
recording ALL indulgences
as a way to avoid labeling the dessert at a holiday dinner as a failure.
It can be a success if I'm willing to record it.

I don't think I need to record all food intake
because I'm relying on the N Day food rules to keep me from overeating
except for those indulgences which are outside the no snacks and no sweets rules.
It's not practical to follow N Day rules with perfection.
It is practical to record all eating outside N Day rules with perfection.

As you said yourself, your logging of your food intake
is what provided you with "long-term success."
I think 100% success in something related to dieting
is helpful in creating and maintaining a strong habit.
Recording any food I eat outside N Day rules, I think,
could keep them to a minimum, to ones that are very reasonable.

My modification is one indulgence on Sundays
and other indulgences that are recorded and justified.

Why do you think this isn't a good idea for me?

There are several different issues here.
I will try to address some of them one at a time.


The Value of Recording Food Intake

Recording food can help one to be Accountable for it.
Accountable = Responsible.
"This is what I did, and I am responsible for it."

The act involves Awareness
because you must become aware of what and how much food you ate
in order to record it.


Making Recording Food Intake into a Habit

I record everything that goes into my mouth.
No conscious decision about what to record is needed.

Your plan to record only some of what goes into your mouth.
will require a conscious decision, and a choice, about every item recorded.

The more that consciousness is involved,
the less likely that a behavior can become a Habit.


Using Recording as an Excuse to Break Rules

Recording ALL deviations from N day rules, despite any reason for that deviation,
would keep you Aware of each choice you make to break those rules,.
but it would not Excuse them
This is behavior that involves the principle of ACCOUNTABILITY.

Your plan is to use recording all “indulgences†as an excuse for breaking N day rules.

Your plan doesn’t require recording ALL deviations from N day rules,
only “indulgencesâ€â€¦which will need to be decided on an individual basis.
To do this you have look for a “good†reason to “excuse†the behavior,
and make the following conscious choice about each deviation.

"Is this simply breaking the rule?"
or
"Do I have a good reason for breaking the rule?"

THEN… If I have a “good reasonâ€, I will record this food,
which will excuse me from following N day rules.

This is not behavior that is based on the principal of ACCOUNTABILITY
This is merely a re-labeling of your “Exception†principle.
Just another method of staying in DENIAL, which means:
“refusing to admit the truth or reality of something unpleasantâ€.


December Vanilla No S Commitment

You have commited yourself to Vanilla No S for the month of December with no changes.
Therefore, any "tweaking" must be INSIDE the basic Vanilla No S rules.

My Plan for "S" days is one indulgence on Sundays
and all other indulgences on "S" days will be recorded and justified.

I suggested this OPTIONAL plan as an alternative to yours…
Because you said you no longer want to give yourself permission to binge on “S†days,
and
Because it makes clear that your “S†day intention is to..:
Confine yourself to N day behavior, except for one “indulgence†on Sundays.
Other “N†day deviations on “S†days will also be called “indulgences†and will be recorded.

If you want to include “N†days in your OPTIONAL recording plan,
I suggest the following language.

My Plan for "S" days is one indulgence on Sundays
and all other indulgences on "S" days will be recorded and justified.
I wil also record all deviations from “N†day rules.

[Kathleen]

BrightAngel,
I think we are on the same page.

You wrote:
Your plan is to use recording all “indulgences†as an excuse for breaking N day rules.

Your plan doesn’t require recording ALL deviations from N day rules,
only “indulgencesâ€â€¦which will need to be decided on an individual basis.

Actually, I am calling ALL deviations from N day rules as "indulgences". Since I don't like to record what I eat, I'll let my one Sunday indulgence be recorded or not -- I haven't decided.

All other deviations from N Day rules would be recorded. I see this not as an excuse but rather as a deterrent. That's why I brought up the example of grocery store taste tests. Do I really want to excuse myself for that? Thanks.

Kathleen

[TexArk]

I am trying to reword your plan to see if I am understanding you correctly.

You are following Vanilla NoS for the month of December.
On N Days you are controlling yourself mentally and preventing binge behavior by not marking as a failure any deviation. But to keep yourself honest and out of denial you will write down what the indugence (deviation) was. So far you feel this has kept you compliant. (And you are no longer worried about breath mints or gum since you know these items did not cause your weight gain).

You still follow the structure of N Days on S days, but plan an S Event which you are calling an indulgence for Sunday only which you may or may not record. On your S Days any deviation from N Days you will record. I am assuming this is your way of stopping and thinking, "Is it worth it?" instead of the "unconditional permission to eat" which was your old plan. You are not considering any deviation on S Days as failure but you are holding yourself accountable to record the events so they will be meaningful and mindful.

I am not as wise or experienced as Bright Angel so I will not try to assess the wisdom of the plan. You are fortunate to have such a coach who cares enough to explain the rationale behind her suggestions. I am cheering you on, but I get confused as to exactly what your plan is and wanted to clarify it in my words.

Best wishes for the weekend.

[BrightAngel]

BrightAngel,
I think we are on the same page.

You wrote:
Your plan is to use recording all “indulgences†as an excuse for breaking N day rules.

Your plan doesn’t require recording ALL deviations from N day rules,
only “indulgencesâ€â€¦which will need to be decided on an individual basis.

Actually, I am calling ALL deviations from N day rules as "indulgences". Since I don't like to record what I eat, I'll let my one Sunday indulgence be recorded or not -- I haven't decided.

All other deviations from N Day rules would be recorded. I see this not as an excuse but rather as a deterrent. That's why I brought up the example of grocery store taste tests. Do I really want to excuse myself for that? Thanks.

Kathleen

Your above post is unclear.
I don't know if you are actually agreeing to what I've suggested,
or if you are agreeing with only a part of what I've suggested,
and ignoring my objections to that part of your proposed plan to which I object.
Let me...one more time...attempt to make MYSELF clear.

We are not "on the same page" unless your plan consists of ALL of the following:

• You are keeping all of your "tweaks" inside the basic framework of Vanilla No S.
  
  You are going to work to follow N day rules on all N days.
  
  As a function of the freedom of S days, your choice is to follow N day rules on S days,
  ...except for 1 specific deviation....an "S event" or "indulgence".
  
  ALL eating outside N day rules, whether or N days or S days...
  ....except for that 1 specific S day event or indulgence...
  will be recorded.
  
  This recording will be for the purpose of :
  Awareness, Accountability, and Determent,
  but...no matter what the reason is for any N day deviation...
  Recording a deviation will not Excuse that deviation.

[Kathleen]

BrigthAngel,

TexArk describes my plan. I want a plan where a failure is not a reasonable choice. I want to have dessert at a holiday dinner for my husband's work on a Thursday night and not have to label it as a failure. I don't want to label this a failure but am willing to record it. I am trying to avoid all deviations from N Day rules on N Days, although I recognize that there can be times like dessert at a holiday dinner.

"Unconditional persmission to eat" is no longer in my plan -- ever. The issue is what to call a deviation from N Day eating, which I don't want to call a failure. I am committed to recording all deviations, but I prefer the name indulgence. Somehow grocery store taste tests don't quite live up to the label of "indulgence". If I have a grocery store taste test, I will record it but I'll be ashamed that I broke my diet for it!

"Indulgence" has just the right ring for me because it will eliminate what I can only call stupid eating -- grocery store taste tests lead the list in this category because I have broken countless diets due to them. Other example don't come to mind right now because within the N Day/S Day dichotomy, I have refrained from this sort of eating on N Days and have allowed but not really paid any attention to this sort of eating on S Days. The result has been significant weight gain on S Days without my even remembering what I ate. I haven't had a lot of pleasure in simply inhaling the food around me, which is a leftover habit from the end-of-the-diet binge.

Now I am being more discriminating in my choices when it comes to breaking N Day rules, and I need a reason. If a grocery store taste test looks that good, guess what -- I will buy the food to eat at a meal!

We each have our own strengths and weaknesses. I'm trying to eat within the strengths I have -- a tendency to form strong habits when there is perfection -- and weaknesses -- an aversion to recording what I eat.

Is this within the parameters of vanilla No S? It is if it is not essential to label an N Day deviation as a failure but it is acceptable to call it an indulgence.

Words are powerful. I never got over being an English major in college... It matters to me what things are called, and it affects my behavior what things are called. I honestly think I would fail if I called an N Day deviation a failure and may succeed if I call it an indulgence.

Kathleen

[BrightAngel]

The issue is what to call a deviation from N Day eating,
which I don't want to call a failure.

Failure is defined as:
an omission of occurrence or performance; a lack of success; a falling short.

You have commited to follow Vanilla No S, without changes, for the month of December.
Within Vanilla No S, there are a few simple N day rules.

You have "N" days, in which you eat only 1 plate of food
at each of your meals..(normally 3),
No seconds, No snacks, and No sweets.

Within those N day peremeters you can choose to ......
eat whatever foods you like,
schedule your 3 meals when you like,
skip meals or eat nothing if you like (fasting is okay),
write any or all of your food down or not,

Exercise is not an issue of Vanilla No S.
Things like allowing an occasional breath mint or piece of gum for bad breath
is like brushing your teeth with toothpaste...i.e. shouldn't even be an issue...
certainly not during one's first month of committing to vanilla no s.

During an N day, any time you do not follow those simple rules,
it is an omission of performance, a lack of success, and a falling short...
It is a Failure.
Somehow you seem to think that if you have a good "Excuse" to fail,
that it isn't Failure.
But it still IS.
The Simple Truth is:
You have commited yourself to follow a specific Standard of Behavior. (Vanilla No S)
When you follow that Standard of Behavior,
you have succeeded in your commitment
it is a Success.
Any time you deviate from that specific Standard of Behavior, (Vanilla No S)
you have failed in your commitment.
It is a "Failure".
Whether or not, your behavior deviated because
...you were tired, sad, stressed, busy, pressured, sick etc....
you still FAILED to comply with the plan.
Excusing yourself..for your behavior... doesn't make that behavior a Success.
If it is not a Success, then it is a Failure.

You do not like the word "Failure",
and of course no one likes to "Fail" in anything,
however, all of us have frequent failures in many of the things we do.
An attempt to rename "Failure" by using some softer, gentler word is unproductive nonsense.

There is no "get out of jail free" card in Vanilla No S.
You are simply looking for another label for your “Exception†principle.
Which is just another method of staying in DENIAL, which means:
“refusing to admit the truth or reality of something unpleasantâ€.

During N days...minute by minute...you will succeed or you will fail.
You get to choose which.
Hopefully, your successes will far outweight your failures,
but no stacking the deck with Excuses is allowed.

[BrightAngel]

Words are powerful. I never got over being an English major in college...
It matters to me what things are called, and it affects my behavior what things are called.
I honestly think I would fail if I called an N Day deviation a failure and may succeed if I call it an indulgence.

If you expect to fail, you will.
As an undergraduate, I did not major in English,
but as a former Trial Attorney, I know that words are powerful.
Words are Labels.
No matter what you label Failures...it doesn't change what they are.
Failure is a label for a Concept meaning the Opposite of SUCCESS.

You spent about two years calling failures "exceptions".
Now you plan to call failures "indulgences".

Lets look at the definitions of some of these words.
Failure: to be unsucessful.
Deviation: a noticeable departure from a rule.
Exception: a case in which a rule does not apply.
Indulge: to give free rein to, to yield to the desire of.

The words Exceptions or Indulgences don't convey the meaning of:
"to be unsuccessful" nor do these words simply indicate "a departure from a rule".
Therefore, neither of these words is an effective "replacement" label
for the word "Failure" or for the word "Deviation".

Both terms, "Exceptions" and "Indulgences",
by definition actually give permission to noticably depart from the rules.
Giving oneself the ability to excuse oneself from following the rules at-will,
renders the entire Plan ineffective.

A rule that doesn't need to be followed, is merely a suggestion.
There's an old quote: "call a spade a spade".
I suggest you do that.
Every minute, every hour, every day, you can choose to Succeed or to Fail.

[Kathleen]

BrightAngel,

Was I unsuccessful in deciding to have dessert along with my husband, his colleagues, and their spouses at a holiday dinner that was held at on a Thursday night? That's really the question. Believe me: I have failed spectacularly when the rules did not allow for social events. One spectacular one occurred just a few months before I started the No S Diet. We attended a nephew's college graduation, and a meal was served afterwards. At that point, I was following the rule that you only eat after your stomach growls. There I was, it was lunchtime, and there was a buffet lunch being served. Should I have sipped some water?

I am trying to craft a diet in which there are times when it is totally appropriate to eat outside N Day rules, and you don't have to label it a failure.

Exception has a connotation that indulgence does not. Exception can mean grocery store taste tests. Indulgence means something is really special. It would include food at a nephew's college graduation or dessert at a holiday dinner.

I think I need a diet which I can follow 100% of the time successfully without fearing I could get into a socially awkward situation.

This is the best approach I have right now that allows for 100% success. If you have another idea, I'd love to hear it. I don't think vanilla No S allows for 100% success and still having that dessert at a holiday dinner.

Kathleen

[BrightAngel]

Was I unsuccessful in deciding to have dessert along with my husband,
his colleagues, and their spouses at a holiday dinner that was held at on a Thursday night?
That's really the question.

Yes, Kathleen, you decided to have dessert on an "N" day,
and that qualifies as a Failure.
If you choose to eat Fruit that doesn't fit on your plate,
that's a failure also.
However, if you followed the rules all the rest of that N day,
you had a pretty good "N" day.
You weren't perfect...none of us are...and that's okay.
Small deviations happen all the time...of course the smaller the deviation, the better.
You don't have to be perfect to lose-weight and maintain that loss.

I am trying to craft a diet
in which there are times when it is totally appropriate to eat outside N Day rules,
and you don't have to label it a failure.

After December is over, and you are released from your committment to Vanilla No S, without changes,
please feel free to craft any kind of diet you want.
Perhaps this potential diet could be successful,...although I strongly doubt it.
However, FOR TODAY, and for the rest of December,
you are stuck with your commitment to do your best to follow Vanilla No S rules.

I think I need a diet which I can follow 100% of the time successfully.

And that is the exactly the kind of Perfectionistic Thinking that has kept you weighing around 200 lbs.
Somehow, to succeed at weight-loss, you must force yourself OUT of that mind-set.
You need to accept that you will never be able to follow any weight-loss diet perfectly,
whether it is created by you or by another,
and fight against your ALL-OR-NOTHING thinking.

Personal change of any kind requires a great deal of conscious effort.
From what I've seen I believe the biggest hinderances to your weight-loss
are

• (1) your Perfectionistic and ALL-OR-NOTHING thinking,
  (2) your unfounded belief that someday your body will behave like a naturally thin person's body, and
  (3)...until recently... your refusal to incorporate any type of portion control.

When you've made those changes, I believe you will be able to change your body size too.

But for Today...and for 20 more days,
you need to Honor your Commitment,
and work as hard as you can to follow the rules of Vanilla No S.

[Kathleen]

BrightAngel,

I'm not going to put fruit next to meat. Ugh! Tonight, I had a bowl of wild rice & sausage casserole, and I also had an orange that did not go in that bowl. I had an apple at breakfast along with a large cup of oatmeal.

Did I eat outside of mealtime? No.

Did I have sweets? No, but I did make chocolate almond biscotti for tomorrow's indulgence!

Kathleen

[BrightAngel]

I'm not going to put fruit next to meat. Ugh!

It only as to FIT on the plate, it doesn't actually have to BE on the plate.

Tonight, I had a bowl of wild rice & sausage casserole, and I also had an orange that did not go in that bowl.
I had an apple at breakfast along with a large cup of oatmeal.
Did I eat outside of mealtime? No.
Did I have sweets? No
but I did make chocolate almond biscotti for tomorrow's indulgence!

You are free to do whatever you like on an "S" day...
both today and tomorrow.
And It sounds like you've had a very successful "S" day.
I remember you bought fudge for tomorrow's indulgence, also,
so now you have two indulgences ready for tomorrow.

[Kathleen]

BrightAngel,
I don't monitor portion size. My portion sizes have gone down, but I attribute that to the fact that I got sick of stomach aches. I have stopped thinking of Saturdays as S Days. Anyway, everyone is stuck at home this weekend. We had quite a snowfall... Tomorrow I'll enjoy some Haagen Dazs coffee ice cream, chocolate fudge, and chocolate almond biscotti! It's well worth refraining from sweets for most of the week to enjoy a planned indlugence!
Kathleen

[oolala53]

Remember that you also get two NWS days a month, so you could have planned ahead for the Thursday dessert. Then it is not a failure.

You seem to discount the fact that you have smaller portions now because you were sick of stomachaches. Learning to respond to your body's uncomfortable reactions to too much food is part of No S's value, just as learning not to give in to false hunger, which is what inspires most snacking, and learning to tolerate real hunger for what are actually short periods of time are, too. We do these things not because they are morally correct or some kind of torture but because we actually feel better physically when we do them. But you have to do them to experience that! And for more than a day or two at a time. The body is meant to get hungry! It is natural to be hungry for meals, sometimes for 2-3 hours, even, before eating. However, with No S and the timing of most people's days, it is unlikely that a person would be legitimately hungry for more than a hour most days before having a legitimate meal.

I found before No S that the most likely time for me to want to snack or even binge was about 2-3 hours after I ate a meal. I would not be really hungry, but would just have an urge to eat. I found even before No S, but not consistently until it, that if I could get past that 3-hour mark, and get to 4 hours, that I was usually okay to wait one more hour before a meal. I would be feeling hungry by then and the food was delicious. I got and get full from my one plate. If you are thinking that portion control means eating less than you could, if you are willing to be stuffed, then I guess that is portion control. If you realize you just feel like eating less, that is not portion control, or if it is, it is a very good kind!

After developing the 3-meal a day habit, that desire to eat prematurely is almost never there for me on N days, but that is helped because I am working (as a teacher) and am too busy to want much food. I do allow myself coffee with milk and stevia. Still, I follow N days on vacations, too, though it takes a bit more effort to structure my time. And I mean that about no desserts until weekends even on vacation. It's just not worth it to dicker with it. Before No S, I used to say every morning that I wasn't going to binge later in the day, but I'd leave work and go to stores I knew had cheap sweets or such and peruse the offerings to see what was "worth" breaking my promise for. It was almost always possible to find something because it's the habit that's doing the talking. But the truth was nothing was worth it. The habit of not giving in becomes more and more valuable, more and more precious, until nothing is worth breaking it, but it's also easier to maintain the habit. But you can't get there by thinking about it or wishing it to take hold right away. You've got to walk across the tightrope to experience the exhiliration of being on the other side.

No S fits the best of any plan I've ever used for working around social situations. Keep at it this month. Do it out of curiosity, if nothing else. What's it like to skip dessert at a social event on a Tuesday? Is it really so bad? Wasn't I actually full after my meal and not really hungry for dessert? Do I have to think about it for hours afterwards, as if I've been punished? It's just food, after all. And there'll be more later. If that thought sounds shocking, so much more the reason to do the experiment.

I realize I've drifted from the issue of recording your food, but I think some of these ideas may be related to the idea of somehow needing to have indulgences. If you're getting to choose what you eat for meals, then the idea that there is a need for indulgences is an illusion. Eat delicious food at meals. And hang on.

[Kathleen]

oolala53,

You wrote: "That desire to eat prematurely is almost never there for me on N days." This is true for me as well. I'm just expanding N Days to all days. I still have that leftover eat-whatever-is-allowed-on-a-diet attitude, so having a three meal structure on all days is very helpful. There still needs to be a pressure release, which is the predictable Sunday indulgence but there also needs to be an allowance for social or other exceptions. I don't want to call them exceptions, however, because that is such a broad term that it got me into a lot of trouble.

Even though I'm still above 200 pounds, I have a certain calmness about my eating. It's in my control now. What a wonderful feeling!

Kathleen

[oolala53]

That sounds completely reasonable. Many people here have evolved to eat 3 meals most days, with occasional S day desserts, snacks, or seconds, and usually not all of them on an S day. It's a perfectly reasonable way to live, and one can definitely choose to record those eating experiences as well.

[BrightAngel]

That sounds completely reasonable.
Many people here have evolved to eat 3 meals most days,
with occasional S day desserts, snacks, or seconds, and usually not all of them on an S day.
It's a perfectly reasonable way to live,
and one can definitely choose to record those eating experiences as well.

Yes, I agree completely.
I doubt if anyone here believes in personal modifications as much as I do.
Anyone who questions that should read the pages of my Check-In Thread.

HOWEVER, Kathleen has been a No S member for the past 2 years,
and in order to help herself out of a ditch she's dug herself into,
...for more details, read her posts during the month of November...

Kathleen has made a limited-time Commitment.
Her Commitment is: Vanilla No S with no changes during the month of December.

I have also made a limited-time Commitment.
My Commitment is: Do my best to help Kathleen stick to her December Commitment.
This is what I'm now doing.

[Kathleen]

It's 6 PM, and I've had a quick sandwich, an apple, and milk so far today. I haven't had time for my indulgence! If I want to indulge during the week, I'll have to justify that choice to BrightAngel -- and that's a big hurdle!
Kathleen

[BrightAngel]

November 30, 2010: 6:30 AM:
Oh, am I stubborn, but I think I've finally answered the question,
"Is it possible to lose weight without portion control?"
The answer is "No".
Sometime reality isn't what you want it to be,
but it's best to look at it square in the eye and accept it.

December 12, 2010
6 PM: I think it is possible to lose weight without any portion control.
The necessary lever is restriction of when to eat rather than what to eat or how much to eat

Step 5: On September 12, 2010, I started fasting on Sunday mornings.
Step 6: On December 12, 2010, I started fasting on Sunday mornings and having one indulgence after that.

Have I really come to the end of my weight loss struggle?

I think I can now find safe harbor in a few easy eating rules
that I can follow 100% of the time and
that will protect me from a very unhealthy eating culture.

I put on a ruby ring.
That ring has been a reminder to me that this diet would be hard.
Tonight I took off the ruby ring and put on a sapphire ring.
The blue in sapphire seems very calm and peaceful.
Putting that ring indicates to me that this diet is easy.

I find it hard know how to respond to your comments above.
If it were not for my own limited-time commitment
to help you stick with your limited time Vanilla No S, with no changes, December commitment,
I'd just quietly go away, shaking my head while saying...
"There are none so blind as those who will not see."

I don't have a clue how to address your slide back into Denial about portion control.
However, I'll do my best to respond to other comments.

You are missing an obvious Step between numbers 5 and 6 which should be:
"Step 5.5: On December 1, 2010, I started following Vanilla No S...including the 1 plate rule,
and committed to do this, without changes, through the month of December."

The success you have had during the past 12 days
are directly due to working toward your Vanilla No S, December commitment,
and yet... you didn't even find it worth mentioning.

My answer to your rhetorical question is...

• "No, Kathleen, you have NOT come to the end of your weight loss struggle,
  and I suggest you put your ruby ring back on."

Sunday indulgence:

• 3 pieces of a package of chocolate fudge,
  1/2 of a cupcake,
  chocolate-almond biscotti,
  1/2 pint of Haagen-Daz Coffee ice-cream
  Baily's Irish Creme.

During an S day, in Vanilla No S,
you have the freedom to choose your own eating behavior.
All issues of what, how and when and amount
are totally your call,
and no matter what choice you make, you cannot be unsuccessful.

This Sunday, you chose to follow the normal "N" day pattern,
except for one "indulgence",
which is what you labeled your behavior of sitting down before these foods,
and eating them.

When I heard the words "One Indulgence",
eating ONE of those 5 foods came to my mind.
Looking at eating all these foods together- at the same time,
the word "Binge", is what came to my mind.

This behavior was a success under Vanilla No S standards,
although it's weight-loss value is questionable.
Reality:

• 1 (1 in) square of chocolate fudge =100 calories... 3 = 300;
  1/2 of a small cupcake = 90 calories;
  1 small piece of chocolate-almond biscotti =110 calories;
  1/2 pint (1 cup) of Haagen-Daz Coffee ice-cream = 540 calories;
  1 (1.5 oz) Baily's Irish Creme = 150 calories.
  
  Total calories: 1190 (unless your servings were larger.)

If I want to indulge during the week,
I'll have to justify that choice to BrightAngel -- and that's a big hurdle!

Today begins the first of five "N" days
in your Vanilla No S, without changes, December commitment.
Reminder:

You have "N" days, in which you eat only 1 plate of food
at each of your meals..(normally 3),
No seconds, No snacks, and No sweets.

Within those N day perimeters you can choose to ......
eat whatever foods you like,
schedule your 3 meals when you like,
skip meals or eat nothing if you like (fasting is okay),
write any or all of your food down or not,

Exercise is not an issue of Vanilla No S.
Things like allowing an occasional breath mint or piece of gum for bad breath
is like brushing your teeth with toothpaste...i.e. shouldn't even be an issue...
certainly not during one's first month of committing to vanilla no s.

If you eat outside the basic N day rules, DURING N DAYS, it is a Failure.
End of story.
No rationalizing, no justifying, no excuses.
No matter what you find your mind telling you, the rules didn't change and it's not okay.
IMMEDIATELY...that day, that hour, that minute, that second,
resume compliance with your N day rules.

[BrightAngel]

Kathleen, I'm posting a copy of this song here,
in case you miss it on the General Thread or on My Thread.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygWO30gdpK4

[Kathleen]

BrightAngel,
I have 20 minutes at home to eat dinner before taking my daughter to a band concert, but I did return to thinking portion control was bad. The proof of whether this works will be with my weight.

The renumbering and restart is as of December 1, not December 12. That means it is very significant but just not explained.

Kathleen

[oolala53]

I think the first "proof" will be that you feel that you can trust yourself more to keep your word to yourself. The second would be to realize that portion control isn't going to seem so bad when you find that you can be satisfied with less than you thought. But I agree that if you don't lose at some point after keeping all the rules religiously, it will be time to change something. I'm excited for you, though December can be a tough month. If you can get through this month, it's likely January will be even easier.

[Teemuh]

Okay, this thread is officially cracking me up:) Bright Angel, thanks for that hilarious video. And for everybody trying to lose or at least maintain during this month, best of luck. It ain't easy, that's for sure.

[BrightAngel]

BrightAngel,
I did return to thinking portion control was bad.

I find it sad that you are back in Denial about portion control.

The proof of whether this works will be with my weight.

I have absolutely no idea what you mean.

It looks to me like your current weight facts are:
Since 12/1 when you started Vanilla No S, and begun following the 1 plate rule,
.......which is your FIRST attempt at portion control since you started here in 2008.....
you've lost about 3 lbs of the salt/water/waste weight that you gained during your prior binge eating.

Whether or not the 1 plate rule causes you to lose fat weight
will depend on the amount and caloric density of the food you put on your 1 plate,
and on the amount of calories that are contained in your "indulgences" on S days.

[Kathleen]

BrightAngel,

I think of "no seconds" as I can eat everything that is before me, whether it fits on a plate or not. Tonight I had a chicken pot pie, a bowl of Cheerios, and an apple. I got to work late because of the snow and so I made up for getting into work late by having a very short lunch: in fact, Ihad about 3/4 cup of assorted nuts at my desk. By 6, I was very hungry, and a pot pie is not exactly my favorite meal. I bought pot pies because Tom is out of town, and I had Tommy to bring home from swim team before I brought Anne to a band concert. That left no time for a prepared meal. My dinner would not have qualified as an N Day success by the one plate rule, but I consider it a success. That's why I think portion control is too restrictive: there are times when it is appropriate to eat more.

Fasting is the way for me to learn about hunger. Portion control, to me, is torture. It means I may leave the table not satisfied.

The proof of whether this approach of having one planned indulgence per week willwork is in how much I lose. I'm encouraged by my weight from this morning. I weighed 205 two Saturdays ago and was up to 208.8 on Monday. This past weekend, I weighed 205 on Saturday and was at 204.4 this morning.

My family is quite skeptical as well. I seem to be confident with each twist and turn in my journey. Whether this is a detour or not remains to be seen, but I like not eating so much and the S Day label turned out to not be a good thing for me.

You have helped me, there is no doubt. You pulled me out of my free fall at the end of November. Following vanilla No S made me face the inevitability of failures, and I didn't like it. I like this approach more.

Kathleen

[BrightAngel]

I think of "no seconds" as I can eat everything that is before me,
whether it fits on a plate or not.
My dinner would not have qualified as an N Day success by the one plate rule,
but I consider it a success.

The proof of whether this approach of having one planned indulgence per week will work
is in how much I lose.
My family is quite skeptical as well.
I seem to be confident with each twist and turn in my journey.

You have helped me, there is no doubt.
You pulled me out of my free fall at the end of November.
Following vanilla No S made me face the inevitability of failures,
and I didn't like it. I like this approach more.

Following Vanilla No S is a good way
to get out, and to stay out, of Denial about one's eating practices.
The word Failure simply means unsuccessful, and no one is successful all of the time.

Being in Denial means:
“refusing to admit the truth or reality of something unpleasantâ€.

To succeed at weight-loss and maintenance of weight-loss
one must face and accept some essential unpleasant Truths.
One of these unpleasant Truths is that without some form of portion control,
an obese person cannot become normal size.
Another of these unpleasant Truths is that facing failures is necessary to achieve success.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus advised his followers not to "cast pearls before swine".
The saying: "Casting pearls before swine" means:
sharing something of value with those who will not appreciate it.
I wanted very much to help you keep your December commitment.
During the past two weeks I've devoted a great deal of time and effort to that task.
However, it is impossible to help anyone who closes their eyes to Reality,
and chooses to remain in Denial.
Although you commited to Vanilla No S, without changes, for the month of December,
again and again you have Failed to Honor your Commitment.
Your above-quoted statement makes it clear that you have no intention of even trying to do so.
This relieves me of my own limited-time commitment to help you through December.
I suggest you to read a recent post on my Check-In Thread regarding "Seconds" and "S days".
I will continue to watch your posts, just as I do the posts of the other No S members,
and I wish you well.

[Kathleen]

BrightAngel,
I woke up this morning thinking it's as if I have lived under a curse since I was a teenager and that curse has been lifted. You have helped me. In fact, I know that I would still be back on the hamster wheel of despair that was November if you hadn't prodded me to return to vanilla No S. Please do watch my posts. I'll continue to post my weight. If I am right, my weight is going to come off effortlessly. If you are right, then this was yet another detour. Whichever way it turns out, I'm glad you prodded me to get off that hamster wheel!
Kathleen

[reinhard]

Wow. I came here meaning to respond to a post on Aristotle I dimly remembered from a couple of weeks ago and it seems much has been doing since then!

I'm going to have to devote some time to catching up before I can insert myself into the discussion again (have to run off to a meeting in 4 minutes) -- in the meantime I leave you to the tender ministrations of your guardian bright angel.

Looking forward to what looks like some very lively reading!

Reinhard

[BrightAngel]

...my old diets, including the habit I developed
of modifying The No S Diet every other day
which was no way to cultivate a habit of moderation.

Although, in general, I strongly support No S personal modifications,
it is impossible to modify the need for consistency and patience.

[Kathleen]

BrightAngel,
I totally agree! I don't even want to go back and count how many times I modified the diet in November! So far, so good with this approach.
Kathleen

[BrightAngel]

Kathleen, just a note to let you know that I noticed
the editing of your journal on 12/22--12/23,
in which you made even more changes to your current eating plan.

One of these new changes was to specifically
eliminate the duty you previously imposed on yourself,
which was: to write down any of the food you eat
that is outside your own self-imposed eating boundaries.

Editing the previous entries of your journal, rather than simply continuing on with it,
can help you forget your previous attitudes and conclusions,
as well as previous committments that you've made to yourself,
and is a great way to bury yourself in Self-Deception.

[TexArk]

Kathleen, I am still trying to follow your journey and again I am thoroughly confused as to what your plan is. Here are your words:

Instead of two S Days per week, I cut down to one day per week and then to one afternoon and evening per week and then to one indulgence on Sunday. By indulgence, I mean that I can eat whatever I want and as much as I want in one sitting. During the rest of the week, I have no snacks and no sweets but I can have as much as I want at every meal (no "portion control"). If I eat any sweets or have any snacks other than that one indulgence on Sunday, then I do nothing different: I simply recognize that I am outside the guidelines of this diet, such as when my husband offered me a taste of a new type of cheese prior to a dinner. I also fast on Sunday morning until after church as a way to teach myself to tolerate hunger which can occur in the normal course of events if a meal is delayed or there is a meal which is unsatisfying.

Here is my attempt to reword your plan as I understand it:

I will eat 3 meals a day 6 days a week.
On these 6 days I will not eat sweets, have snacks, or have seconds except when I decide I want to.
Each of these 3 meals can be as large or as many plates as I want. The restriction is no sweets and this eating must be at mealtime. This plan fits my definition of temperance.
I will skip breakfast on Sunday (fast?).
On Sunday I will sit down to one indulgence which means I can eat as much as I want of any food (usually sweets) in one sitting – no limit. This fits my definition of “temperance.â€

I think what I am hearing between the lines of all your posts over the last 2 years is that you were made or shamed into strict dieting by your family and that caused an unnatural relationship with food. You were drawn to intuitive eating because it promised unconditional permission to eat and a normal weight. I think I hear sometimes that even now you feel that you are being monitored by your family as you share your various plans to lose weight. You seem upset with the culture's obsession with narcissism (thinness? perfect bodies?) But I am hearing a confliction between your desire to develop temperance and teach that virtue to your children and this narcissism concern. Temperance is not narcissism. Overindulgence is. It is my understanding that gluttony is the opposite of temperance. I hear over and over your resistance to portion control, but for the life of me I cannot figure out your definition of portion control. It seems you are attempting portion control by controlling the opportunities to eat and assuming that you will eat less because the opportunities are less and perhaps some of those intuitive eating principles will kick in.

My bottom line: I don't believe there is anything inherently dangerous with portion control. After all, diabetics and those with other chronic diseases have to control their food intake. Yes, extreme diets, body obsession, and extreme fasts are not healthy, but I believe putting up boundaries is just part of life. NoS makes habits out of boundaries which in turn makes it much easier for me to develop my will power muscle. I think our society is very weak when it comes to developing and appreciating the value of delayed gratification. This article has been referenced before on this site, but I think it is spot on. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009 ... act_lehrer

I hope you take all of my concerns in the way I have meant them…the danger of writing versus face to face communication. I wish you well and am concerned because of all you have shared with us over the past two years. If what you are doing is working for you and continues to work and you are at peace with it, go for it. If not, I hope that you will find your way soon.

[Kathleen]

BrightAngel,
I think that I can rely on the guidelines as a sufficient deterrent. After all, there is a big difference between eating something you feel allowed to eat and eating something you don't feel allowed to eat. I have been able to follow the guidelines except for accepting a small piece of cheese from my husband.

TexArk,
I tried the marshmallow test with my kids years ago. My "challenge" popped a marshmallow into her mouth right away! Anyway, I do think you are reading my thought process correctly. I think that fasting might have been the way people used to learn temperance. When the time of fasting is over, you are free to eat what you want. With conventional diets with constant portion control, you never feel satisfied. I am starting to think that fasting is a really critical component for me to lose weight.

Kathleen

[oolala53]

Whether we are on a diet or not, if we don't get to the point at which we are satisfied with less food than we expend in energy, we won't lose fat. Even if we fast, if we don't then eat slowly, savor our food, and pay attention to the cues that tell us we've had enough, it won't make much difference. Brad Pilon, a huge proponent of one or two 24-hour fasts a week, says the fasts need to be followed by "normal" meals. I may have said here before, as I know I've said on other threads, when I get very hungry between meals, I find that less food fills me up, even though I may have a desire to keep eating because I felt so hungry when I started.

Maybe at some point you'd be open to portion "experiments," if you don't want to think about portion control. Vary the portions of food, and see if you find you might be satisfied, at least for 2-3 hours with a smaller amount. Be very careful to distinguish between the urge to eat and true hunger. I imagine from your fasting you have a sense for the difference, although in terms of fasting on Sunday mornings, I have found sometimes after a Saturday of overeating, I have not gotten stomach-hungry until the middle of the Sunday afternoon. So hours without food isn't even always the way to measure how hungry we are.

It's an adventure in self-discovery!

[Kathleen]

oolala53,
I think fasting is the way to get accustomed to eating less. When I loaded up my plate for my first S-event ("indulgence"), it disgusted me. Last week's indulgence was much more moderate, not by any conscious choice to limit portion. My husband thinks you need to make a conscious choice to limit portions. I think that fasting can help you to make those choices because that is what appeals to you.
Kathleen

[BrightAngel]

My modifications are fasting on Sunday and Friday mornings
and one indulgence on Sunday afternoon or evening.

When you made it clear you had no intention of following your commitment
to follow Vanilla No S, without changes during the month of December,
my committment to help you do that ended as well.
So my comment today is not an attempt to keep you from making changes,
but merely an attempt to call your attention to the issue inside December.
I see that you have made yet another change to your personalized December diet,
by adding Friday as another fast day.

I wonder if you are even aware that your current plan
is now almost identical to the plan you had (and didn't follow) in November,
and during previous months... i.e. the one that hasn't worked for you.

Your current plan...as of this morning...is stated below.

You skip breakfast twice a week, Friday and Sunday..(calling it a fast)

You have 6 "normal" days, in which you eat 3 meals a day,
which, instead of being limited to 1 plate, consists of as much food
as it takes to make you feel "satisfied"
as long as you put it all in front of you before you start eating.
In addition, on "normal" days, you won't eat sweets, snacks, or seconds..
...except when you want to.
And if you want to...and can think up a good reason for it...
.....even though it's outside your guidelines, it's okay.

On Sundays or special days, you will eat the same as "normal" days, except...
on Sunday afternoon or evening you put as much "special food" like sweets, etc
on the table in front of you and sit there eating until you feel like you're done,
or as long as you still have room in your stomach.
You call that a planned "Indulgence", I call it a planned "Binge".

In November, you had "S" days, where you would fast on Sunday morning,
and then pick at whatever sweets you wanted all day.
Now, you have "Indulgences" where you fast on Sunday morning,
and choose one time to sit down and binge on whtever sweets etc. you want.
Plus, if you can think of a good reason to do so,
you can snack on whatever during the rest of the day as well...
on Sundays just as you can on all other days...
...if there is room inside your body.
I think you are probably the only one who can see your current December plan
as an improvement on your November plan.
In fact...there is very little difference.
It might help you to re-read my recent above-posts to you about self-deception.
Your comment in the post just above makes it clear
that you are still holding onto the unfounded Hope
.....a Hope that has zero basis in fact or experience....
that fasting will somehow cause a magic intervention
and change your body into that of a "normal" eater.

[Kathleen]

BrightAngel,

I recognize that I am giving more towards what I was trying in November. That fact doesn't much concern me, since I made many attempts before I went from two to one S Days and sometimes have made many attempts before I got something down to a routine in areas of my life other than dieting.

You challenge my thinking, which is helpful. I may well be wrong in holding on to an unfounded hope. There certainly is a lot of evidence to support that contention. The bottom line is this: I'd rather be obese than go back to portion control. This leaves me with accepting obesity or trying to figure out how to lose weight without portion control.

When I started the No S Diet two years ago, I had gained 10 pounds every year for the prior six years. Today, I weigh 10 pounds less than when I started.

When I look at my daughter, who is 16 and has all her life before her, I am very saddened by how she looks. Still, my experience of controlling portions was so bad and so all-consuming that I'd rather she be fat.

She gets to make her own decisions, but my motivation is largely so that I can find a way to be of normal weight and healthy without feeling on the edge of starvation all the time.

Kathleen

[oolala53]

I think if you are having the experience of having loaded plates look disgusting, that is part of portion control. It doesn't have to be conscious, except that we must be conscious of what is truly motivating us.

With all due respect, do not assume that your daughter's experience of attempts to be conscious of how much food she really needs will be as painful as yours. It is your prerogative to remain obese, and your daughter's, too, if controlling food is so horrible, but her experience may be different, esp. if she uses No S or something like it. I, too, would not recommend traditional diets. Another book that recommends a non-diet approach is Good-bye Fatty, Hello Skinny! An unfortunate title, IMHO, but it has heart, and shows how the author was able to lose weight without cutting out any foods. The author does, however, recommend being aware of how big of portions of favorite foods one eats. If your daughter is open to reading it, it might be available at your local library.

[Kathleen]

Thanks, oolala53. I look into it.
Kathleen

[Kathleen]

December 25, 2010: Cultivating the Virtue of Temperance


The No S Diet::
I made modifications right from the start of following The No S Diet. I lasted only about two weeks following the one plate rule because I think that "portion control" is a major cause of the obesity epidemic. By summer of 2009, I had gotten down to a low of 196.6 pounds. After that, I started experimenting with the S Day concept. Instead of two S Days per week, I cut down to one day per week and then to one afternoon and evening per week and then to one indulgence on Sunday.
(Month 1) Day 1 - Monday, September 8, 2008: 215.0 (goal to lose one pound per month)


Intermittent Fasting:
On Christmas Day, 2010, I switched from The No S Diet philosophy of N Days and S Days to a philosophy of intermittent fasting which means there are times of fasting and times when I do not fast. I am trying to benefit from the wisdom of the Catholic Church by following what I understand to have been the practice of fasting before church and also until about 3 PM on Wednesdays and Fridays. This means that I have nothing that has calories in it. I'm also going to track my exercise and try to build more exercise into my life.
(Month 1) Day 1 - Saturday, December 25, 2010: 205.0 (Goal of 188 pounds: behind schedule by 17.0 pounds)





Weight and Exercise:
Day 1 – Saturday, December 25, 2010: 205.0
Day 2 – Sunday, December 26, 2010: 206.8
Day 3 – Monday, December 27, 2010:
Day 4 – Tuesday, December 28, 2010:
Day 5 – Wednesday, December 29, 2010:
Day 6 – Thursday, December 30, 2010:
Day 7 – Friday, December 31, 2010:


Day 1 – Saturday, December 25, 2010: 205.0 Tom took Tommy to the airport, and so we will open gifts at about 7. It's now 5:30. I think I'm just going to try fasting. It's too difficult to sort out mealtime vs. not mealtime vs. fast time. Now I'll just have fast time and not fast time. Last night turned into an S Day with the consequence of my not feeling well and my weight going up more than a pound although I didn't eat until 2 PM. It was also Christmas dinner for our family because Tommy is gone today. We have a quiet Christmas this year with just our family.

I think I'm going to try the old Catholic tradition of fasting on Wednesday and Friday until 3 PM and see what happens. The Greek Orthodox women added a Monday fast, but I'll stick with Monday and Wednesday.

12 PM: Anne did wonderfully on her oboe at Mass, and the Mass was memorable because the fire alarm went off. When I got home, Tom was in bed, since he was up at 4:30 to get Tommy to the airport. When I was at church, I realized that I had eaten this morning because what triggered not eating before Mass was the day of the week and today is Saturday. Instead, I think I'll try to fast before Mass whenever I attend Mass.

This moves the whole concept of fasting into more of a spiritual exercise. No S taught me the importance of routines and habits. How much of the No S have will be kept if I don't consciously follow it? I'm not sure, but I think I'll focus on fasting for a time.

I also want to tracks steps, so the dog is getting a walk today.

5 PM: It is a very quiet Christmas this year. Tom has been up on the roof shoveling snow, and I and the girls are just lounging around. I took the dog for a walk and need to go again before it gets too dark outside. I've been thinking about the dividing line between S Days and N Days vs. the dividing line between times of fasting and times of not fasting. I think the focus shifts from one of when-can-I-get-to-eat-as-much-as-I-want (my interpretation of S Days) to one of I-can-manage-without-food (fast times). Fasting teaches resilience and leads to a sense of calm and self-control. I think there's a very big shift here.

Day 2 – Sunday, December 26, 2010: 206.8 I don't feel very well this morning. Yesterday was another full-blown S Day, a day when there was no check whatsoever on gluttony. Now I am thinking in terms of moral right and wrong. My thinking has shifted. I think fasting teaches you to recognize what you need whereas conventional diets put fences around what you can have. The No S Diet has helped me to put even more fences around what I can have, which is why I was successful in stopping weight gain and in losing some weight. It did not, however, succeed in teaching me to not be a glutton.

The holidays are over for me now. I will work this week. On Thursday, Tom takes the girls to his mother's house for the annual family gathering, but I will stay in town to pick up Tommy from the airport on New Year's Day.

I have a different perspective today, a kind of regretful recognition that I have approached this problem of my weight in a way that was not going to put food in its place. I simply limited the problem instead of eliminating it. I changed my eating habits but not my heart.

4 PM: Someone in our church anonymously donated copies of the book Rediscover Catholicism by Matthew Kelly, and I picked up a copy last Sunday. This afternoon, I was browsing through it looking for anything on fasting, and I found an entire chapter on fasting. Here is the first sentence I found on fasting: "As I have observed it, people want a diet hat will allow them to eat whatever they want, whenever they want, yet still allow them to look great, feel great, and lose that undesired weight. Basically what we are looking for is a miracle product that will remove the need for any discipline in our eating and exercise habits so that we can continue to indulge in the hedonistic ways that violate the-best-version-of-ourselves at every turn." (p. 251).

Those two sentences made me squirm. Have I not been looking for a plan that allows me, at least some of the time, to eat whatever I want. Did not my son tell me I was looking for a "magic diet"? Have I not just started calling S-events indulgences?

I think I've been on the wrong track even with The No S Diet. My goal has been to maximize food intake, not learn a habit of moderation. By lifting all eating rules, I come face to face with a habit of overindulgence, which is my polite term for something quite revolting.

Later in the chapter on fasting, the author writes: "Our lives change when our habits change. Our habits change when we make resolutions, remind ourselves of those resolutions, hold ourselves accountable for them, and perform them. Sometimes we fail, but there is no success that isn't checkered with failure. Don't give up. Press on, little by little."

It's a shock to recognize my overeating as a spiritual problem. Later this week, I'll be home alone for about a day. That will be a time to think. It's New Year's Eve, and I will have a time to pause and consider. My whole approach to dieting has been way off. It's not the fault of The No S Diet. It's more my approach to it, and it is sad that it took me so long to figure this out.

6:45 PM: I realized at dinner that there is no more "unconditional permission to eat." This is very different. I had to look at the dinner and ask myself if I ate more than was appropriate. Yes, I did.

[Kathleen]

December 27, 2010: Cultivating Habits that Result in Being Thin

August 11, 2010, revised August 30, 2010, and restarted December 27, 2010: Earlier this year, my teenage son told me that I viewed The No S Diet as some sort of “magic dietâ€. He was right: I did. For almost two years, this diet has been my “magic dietâ€. I lost twenty pounds in nine months, and then I lost no more weight. I began experimenting with changes to the diet. It wasn’t until this summer that I realized that the brilliance of The No S Diet is not in the specific rules of the diet. Instead, the brilliance of the diet is in the philosophy of cultivating habits that are sustainable for life and that result in weight loss.

Aristotle, in his Ethics, argues that the practice of virtue is what leads to the establishment of habits of virtue which is what forms the character of a virtuous person. It was in listening over and over again to The Teaching Company lectures on Aristotle’s Ethics by Fr. Joseph Koterski of Fordham University that I recognized the paramount importance of establishing habits.

It is so obvious that it almost seems like a tautology, but it is not: the way to be thin is to cultivate habits that result in being thin. People often think dieting is a matter of willpower, but willpower when discussed in the context of dieting often means the superhuman effort to constantly restrict portions (eg. Weight Watchers) or types of food (eg. Atkins). Successfully following these types of diets means overcoming the body’s instinct to avoid starvation. There was just too much of a survival instinct in me because I managed to diet my way up to 215 pounds by the time I started The No S Diet on September 8, 2008!

For me, willpower is used to establish habits that are sustainable for life. Once willpower is used to establish the habits, I find it easy to follow the habits. In fact, it seems strange not to follow the habits. Now, two years after having first started to follow The No S Diet, I am cultivating seven habits that I think will lead to my being thin. If they do not, I will adjust by cultivating different habits. Here are the habits I am currently cultivating:

1. Practice “unconditional permission to eat†on all Sundays: The concept of “unconditional permission to eat†is from the book Intuitive Eating. The idea behind intuitive eating is that restrictive eating leads to “diet backlash†and weight gain. For me, Sundays are a release from the pressure of dieting. It’s a dieter’s dream to eat as much as I want of whatever I want, even if I am gorging on chocolate nut fudge. I do fast from midnight on Saturday until after church or after noon, so the "unconditional permission to eat" is only for part of one day per week. This time of "unconditional permission to eat" gives me motivation throughout the week when I do not have "unconditional permission to eat."

2. Allow a rolling average of two Exception Days per month: There will always be times when diets cannot be followed. I allow myself two Exception Days per month so that I can follow my diet with “perfect complianceâ€. I don’t remember where I read about the idea of “perfect complianceâ€, but my conviction that “perfect compliance†is essential was reinforced by listening to Koterski’s lectures on Aristotle’s Ethics. Koterski explains that Aristotle distinguishes between habits that require thought and effort and habits which are so ingrained that they are followed automatically. I wanted a diet that was easy to follow, so I decided that I needed to follow my diet perfectly. Following my diet is like brushing my teeth: I do it automatically and without much thought or effort.

3. Eliminate snacks and sweets on all days except Sundays and Exception Days: This idea is from The No S Diet. When I was following conventional diets, I felt hungry all the time. Now I rarely think about food between meals because I only eat between meals on Sundays and Exception Days. I “tune out†hunger signals outside of mealtime. At each meal, I can eat as much as I want, but I don’t have sweets and everything must be in front of me before I take one bite. The elimination of sweets on all but six days per month seems to have reduced the amount of sweets I can tolerate eating when I do have sweets.

4. Do strengthening exercises: I am following the basic program in the book Strong Women Stay Slim by Dr. Miriam E. Nelson. I have also added three exercises (upward row, pelvic tilt, and push-up) from her book Strong Women Stay Young and may add more exercises from these two books as I improve. Right now, I can manage one push up (a cause for merriment when my children observe me!), so I have a long way to go in building muscle strength! I've modified the exercises with weights in that I use one weight at a time and stand on the one leg at a time (stand on left leg when right arm has weight and stand on right leg when left arm has weight). This was an idea suggested to me by a personal trainer years ago when I brought him this book. Somehow, weight training fell off my priority list, and I regret it!

Dr. Nelson made the argument that “the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn. This important change comes partly from a revved-up metabolism and partly from increased physical activity – an automatic consequence of greater strength†(p. 35). When I added strengthening exercises earlier this month, I immediately appreciated the importance of the exercises, especially since it was after only one week of strengthening exercises that I walked on rocks to cross the creek at the headwaters of the Mississippi River. I didn’t have the balance or agility of my 9 year old daughter who was scampering back and forth across the rocks. I didn’t have the balance of my husband who could walk from rock to rock. Instead, I used both hands and feet to cross the rocks in what my husband teased me was a “spider crawlâ€. I told him that I’ll be scampering over those rocks next year!

5. Walk an average of 12,000 steps per day six days per week (not on Sundays): I invested $30 in an Omron GoSmart pedometer with a watch and a record of steps for the prior seven days. My inspiration for this habit was from the book Move a Little, Lose a Lot by Dr. James Levine of the Mayo Clinic. He argued that it is important to build exercise into your daily routine rather than to attempt to go to a gym regularly. I set my goal at 12,000 steps as a “stretch goalâ€, and I follow Dr. Nelson’s recommendation to limit aerobic exercise to six days per week. When I fall short of my daily goal, I walk more on other days. There is effort involved in making this goal, but my life also seems calmer. I walk around while waiting for children and park in the first available spot when I am going to stores. The dog also loves her daily walks!

6. Skip breakfast, when possible, on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays: I think there is a benefit to periodic fasting in that I learn to experience hunger, and I learn how much I need to eat in order to feel satisfied. I fast from dinner through lunch the next day for my Wednesday and Friday fasts and from midnight through lunch for my Sunday fast. For these short fasts, I experience mild hunger but no side effects from ketosis, which is when the "brain is no longer getting enough glucose for fuel" (From Strong Women Eat Well by Dr. Miriam E. Nelson, p. 110). My fast does involve the elimination of all calories, including milk in my coffee. This idea came from Good Calories, Bad Calories in which the Atkins diet is compared to fasting in creating an effect of only mild hunger because of the severe restriction of carbohydrates. I am starting to enjoy the feeling of mild hunger, and I no longer feel desperate if a meal is delayed for some reason because I know I can handle mnay hours without food. A bill was just passed in Congress that had the word "hunger-free" in it. I think "hunger-free" may mean "obese-prone", and I would prefer to experience mild hunger so that I have a good sense of how much I need to eat in order to be satisfied. Knowing I can tolerate hunger is also very calming.

7. For breakfasts on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, try to have oatmeal: Steel cut oatmeal is filling and inexpensive. I bought a small Cuisinart crock pot which can be set to 1 ½ hours for cooking oatmeal. It switches to warm after the cooking time ends. This makes cooking oatmeal easy for me, and I have a satisfying start to the day!

December 27, 2010
Starting Number of Exception Days = 0 (Carryover)
+ 2 (This Month’s Allocation)
= 2.

The No S Diet:
(Month 1) Day 1 - Monday, September 8, 2008: 215.0
Orderly Eating:
(Month 1) Day 1 - Monday, December 27, 2010: 207.0


Weight and Exercise:
Day 3 – Monday, December 27, 2010: 207.0
Day 4 – Tuesday, December 28, 2010: 207.6
Day 5 – Wednesday, December 29, 2010: 206.6
Day 6 – Thursday, December 30, 2010: 206.0
Day 7 – Friday, December 31, 2010: 206.2

The following my journal from the current month:
Day 1 – Monday, December 27, 2010: I think I was happiest with my program from August, and I decided to go back to it. It's not yet 7, but Katie is already up, so I cannot write much. I feel foolish that I used The No S Diet as an excuse for gluttony instead of a means to learn moderation. I'm not sure I can work and walk 12,000 steps per day, but I can do it this week because I only have work 3 days. There may be modifications by the end of the week, but I think this is the basic substance of where I want to go with my diet: enough structure to keep me out of trouble but enough flexibility that I don't feel like I'm starving.

8 PM: I did fine until about 6, and then I did not do well -- it was more or less vacuum up all food in my vicinity. Why is this so hard? I think I need to make sure that I can move towards what is in the plan above. For example, I'm no longer used to 12,000 steps. I got to 6,600 today. Maybe I can start with 6,000 per day or 36,000 per week from Monday through Saturday. Maybe I can start with fasting until noon and then extend it to 3 PM.

I'm irritated. All this time, all this effort, all this thought, and here I am OBESE! I could scream!

8:30 PM: I need to face facts: my problem is lack of self-discipline. I used to be a very disciplined person, and now I am not. Maybe it was the years of being home and having to be responsive to children's needs at a moment's notice, making planning a joke. Who knows? Whatever the reason, there is no excuse.

I put on my ruby ring. The future is going to take a lot of effort, determination, and self-discipline.

Day 2 – Tuesday, December 28, 2010: 207.6 It was really hard to weigh myself this morning. I was awake several times in the night trying to figure out what to do. I concluded that I need something like this plan but need to start where I am, which is not at the point of being able to take on all this at once. As a result, I'm starting with the basic No S plan I've had for two years and an average of 6,000 steps per day Monday through Saturday. I hate binge eating. At least with No S, it is somewhat controlled in that it is confined to certain times.

7 AM: I have to get to work, but I am reminded this morning of why I took the path of no "portion control" in the first place. Here it is, morning, and I could barely eat anything. I chose to force myself to have a small bowl of Cheerios with raisins. I feel nauseous. Am I going to perform optimally at work today? No. I ache. Why? It was that uncontrolled binge last night. The big benefit for me of The No S Diet was that I could control the timing of binges -- and the binges were decreasing in amount of food intake. Now I've reverted. I tried to combine fasting with No S, and it didn't work.

I've lost so much time, but here is what I think I need to do: take the month of January at least to re-establish the rhythm of No S, and add only 6,000 steps per day, which should be fairly easy to do even in a Minnesota winter. The building I'm in is connected to two others, so I can just take a walk from building to building as a break.

Habits are so key, and the habits of no snacks and no sweets brought such calm to my life. I see the goal as being what I wrote as my plan, but I cannot start there. It's too much. I'm not ready for fasting yet, but it's where I think I'll lose weight -- with a combination of the No S habits, fasting, and an exercise program.

There is a beautiful hymn written by a cardinal who is now beautified, John Newman. "One step enough for me" is part of the hymn. That's what I need to do: not look back and not look forward but focus on today. Today, I'll get to 6,000 steps and have only breakfast, lunch and dinner with no sweets. I can do that.

Day 3 – Wednesday, December 29, 2010: 206.6 I feel so much better following the no snacks and no sweets habits. Yesterday, I was just shy of 6,000 steps, but I'm learning how to get in some exercise while I work.

8 PM: I made it above 6,000 steps with just some planning: instead of a lunch break, I ate at my desk and took a few breaks and walked between the buildings. When I got home, I was very tempted to eat some of the leftover candy canes. Instead, I took a nap -- at 6:30 PM! It is now 8 PM, and I'm returning to bed for the night. It may seem ridiculous, but I feel as though I am fighting something overwhelmingly powerful. My old habit of uncontrolled bingeing has returned, and I allowed it to return. Now, like stopping a snowball that has gained in size and momentum as it goes down a hill, I need to fight this habit with all I've got: and the best weapon I think I have is sleep! Tomorrow, Tom takes the girls to his mother's house, and I'll be at work and then home alone on Friday and Saturday until I pick up Tommy from the airport Saturday afternoon. That's good. I'll have one goal and one goal only, and that goal is to recover the habit of no snacks and no sweets. It's foundational. Yes, I believe fasting is essential, but fasting starts with fasting between meals! It's a great joke to think of fasting as not eating between meals, but that's exactly where I am: even fasting between meals is hard!

Day 4 – Thursday, December 30, 2010: 206.0 I feel much better now. I think part of my problem might have been complete lack of exercise. Even 6,000 steps is a vast improvement over about 2,000.

7 PM: Tom just called from his mother's house, and I told him I'm happy to have some quiet time for a few days. It's a big adjustment for me to work full-time even though my assignment should end at the end of January.

I think I'm going to buy the Brad Pilon book tonight, since it comes so highly recommended and I'm convinced fasting is in my future -- and not just fasting between meals!

I also read something very touching last night in the book Rediscovering Catholicism: "We have subscribed to the adolescent notion that freedom is the ability to do whatever you want, wherever you want, whenever you want, without interference from any authority. Could the insanity of our modern approach to life be any more apparent? Freedom is not the ability to do whatever you want. Freedom is the strength of character and the self-possession to do what is good, true, noble, and right. Therefore, freedom without discipline is impossible. Strength of character is not stumbled upon in life's moments of need and temptation. Character is built little by little, over days, weeks, months, and years, with thousands of small and seemingly insignificant acts of discipline." (p. 44).

I won't comment except to say that I feel very uncomfortable seeing the words "whatever you want" used in this manner, since my goal was to eat whatever I wanted and as much as I wanted.

Day 5 – Friday, December 31, 2010: 206.2 I did end up buying the Brad Pilon online book and skimmed through it last night and this morning. There was sufficient information in there to convince me that a 24 hour fast is not a health risk. I have toyed with the idea of fasting and found it didn't work very well with No S, but maybe what I can do if put it into a category like I have with other days of the week. The recommendation is to fast one or two days per week. I think I'll use the traditional Catholic fast days of Wednesday and Friday just because there may be some wisdom in the relative placement of feast days (which were Sundays) with fast days. By making these 24 hour fasts, I have a better shot at categorizing an entire day as a fast day. Last Friday, I was thinking in terms of eating at 3 PM and that would have affected my mealtime schedule. Today, what I'll do is fast until dinner. I think I can manage this. Brad Pilon does suggest starting off with just one fast day per week, so I'll plan on having that fast day be Fridays for the month of January.

12 PM: I had coffee with a friend for 2 1/2 hours, a luxury that only would have been possible with Tom and the kids out of town. I had black coffee instead of a latte. Did it matter? No. Absolutely not. Now it is noon, and I have some cleaning and errands to run. The dog also would like a walk. This is a perfect day to experiment with a fast until dinnertime. There is something downright relaxed and pleasant about feeling your stomach empty. I used to panic at the first little sensation of hunger, but I guess I had trained myself that the first little sensation of hunger was the beginning of the end of my diet.

I also realize why I came to have such an aversion to any sort of "portion control." It's because of binge eating. I correlate binge eating with portion control. My body is simply not willing to endure any potion control anymore, so fasting is a possible approach because I find fasting a very different experience. Pepper is now looking at me, still wearing my coat, still wearing sneakers rather than work shoes, and is expecting a walk. Time to go!

5 PM: I lasted with the fast until about 4 PM and have been munching ever since. I am thinking back to when I was first out of college, single, and in a new city. I used to spend one afternoon per month planning my goals for the month. I had a list, and I'd write down those goals. It was really a nice way to live. Maybe I can do that in the new year. I'm trying to create a plan which I can follow for life and which will result in my being thin, but what I really need is a plan I can follow in the next month that will lead to a lower weight.

BrightAngel made me feel guilty -- not a bad thing -- for not sticking to a commitment for one month. It's true that the plan of the day is no plan at all.

[TexArk]

http://www.examiner.com/ny-in-new-york/ ... eals-photo

Kathleen,
Here is one of my favorite cartoons. Start with fasting between meals.

At one time I printed it out and posted it on my refrigerator as a reminder.

Baby steps. One habit at a time.

[Kathleen]

TexArk,
That's funny -- it really got a chuckle out of me! I managed to fast between meals today, and I think I can make it to 6,000 steps if I walk around the house tonight. I am so poured in my jeans that I don't want to take off the work sweater I still have on in case Tom notices just how much I am poured into my jeans!
Kathleen

[Kathleen]

January 1, 2011: Cultivating the Virtue of Temperance

Aristotle, in his Ethics, argues that the practice of virtue is what leads to the establishment of habits of virtue which is what forms the character of a virtuous person. It is so obvious that it almost seems like a tautology, but it is not: the way to be thin is to cultivate habits that result in being thin. People often think dieting is a matter of willpower, but willpower when discussed in the context of dieting often means the superhuman effort to constantly restrict portions (eg. Weight Watchers) or types of food (eg. Atkins). Successfully following these types of diets means overcoming the body’s instinct to avoid starvation. There was just too much of a survival instinct in me because I managed to diet my way up to 215.0 pounds by the time I started The No S Diet on September 8, 2008!

For me, the focus is on establishing habits that are sustainable for life. The big question is this: "What habits should I culitivate?" Here is what I am trying as of January 5, 2011:

1. Eliminate snacks and sweets on all days except Sundays: This idea is a modification of the plan from The No S Diet. When I was following conventional diets, I felt hungry all the time. Now I rarely think about food between meals because I only eat between meals. I “tune out†hunger signals outside of mealtime. At each meal, I can eat as much as I want, but I don’t have sweets and everything must be in front of me before I take one bite. The elimination of sweets on all but four days per month seems to have reduced the amount of sweets I can tolerate eating when I do have sweets. If I do have snacks or sweets on days other than Sundays, I record what I ate and the circumstances. If I can't even do that, then I label the day as a failure.

2. Fast, when possible, on Fridays until 6 PM and on days I attend Mass until after church: I think there is a benefit to periodic fasting in that I learn to experience hunger, and I learn how much I need to eat in order to feel satisfied. My fast does involve the elimination of all calories, including milk in my coffee. This idea came from a book by Gary Taubes called Good Calories, Bad Calories. Taubes explains how both the Atkins diet and fasting create an effect of only mild hunger because of the severe restriction of carbohydrates. I also was impressed by the arguments in Brad Pilon's book Eat Stop Eat about the health benefits of intermittent fasting.

By fasting, I am reaching back to Catholic wisdom that was practiced for hundreds of years. Fasting was the norm, especially on Fridays, and it was the custom to fast until after communion on church days. I have modified this custom to fit my own needs in that I do allow myself to have liquids but nothing caloric.

3. Wear a pedometer, if possible, from Monday through Saturday, and try to walk at least 6,000 steps per day: I invested $30 in an Omron GoSmart pedometer with a watch and a record of steps for the prior seven days. My inspiration for this habit was from the book Move a Little, Lose a Lot by Dr. James Levine of the Mayo Clinic. He argued that it is important to build exercise into your daily routine rather than to attempt to go to a gym regularly.





The No S Diet:
(Month 1) Day 1 - Monday, September 8, 2008: 215.0 (goal to lose one pound per month)

Cultivating Temperance:
(Month 1) Day 1 - Saturday, January 1, 2011: 207.0 (Goal of 187.0 pounds: behind schedule by 20.0 pounds)

Status and Exception Events for the Month:
Day 1 – Saturday, January 1, 2011: 207.0
Exception Event: one caramel handed to me by a friend when we were picking up our sons from a week-long Boy Scout trip
Day 2 – Sunday, January 2, 2011: 205.8
Day 3 – Monday, January 3, 2011: FAILURE
Day 4 – Tuesday, January 4, 2011: FAILURE
Day 5 – Wednesday, January 5, 2011:FAILURE
Day 6 – Thursday, January 6, 2011: SUCCESS!
Day 7 – Friday, January 7, 2011: SUCCESS!
Day 8 – Saturday, January 8, 2011: 205.6
Day 9 – Sunday, January 9, 2011: 203.8
Day 10 – Monday, January 10, 2011:
Day 11 – Tuesday, January 11, 2011: 204.8
Day 12 – Wednesday, January 12, 2011: 203.8
Binge
Day 13 – Thursday, January 13, 2011: Fail
Day 14 – Friday, January 14, 2011:
Day 15 – Saturday, January 15, 2011: 203.8
Day 16 – Sunday, January 16, 2011:
Day 17 – Monday, January 17, 2011: 203.4
2 cuties, a small square of chocolate, and several pieces of bread made by Tommy
Day 18 – Tuesday, January 18, 2011: 203.4
Day 19 – Wednesday, January 19, 2011: 203.4
Failure
Day 20 – Thursday, January 20, 2011: 204.0
Day 21 – Friday, January 21, 2011: 203.0
Failure
Day 22 – Saturday, January 22, 2011: 202.8
Failure: time to return to two Exception Days per month
Day 23 – Sunday, January 23, 2011:
Day 24 – Monday, January 24, 2011:
Day 25 – Tuesday, January 25, 2011:
Day 26 – Wednesday, January 26, 2011: 203.0
Day 27 – Thursday, January 27, 2011: 201.4
Day 28 – Friday, January 28, 2011: 200.8
Day 29 – Saturday, January 29, 2011: 199.8
Day 30 – Sunday, January 30, 2011: 200.8
Day 31 – Monday, January 31, 2011: 202.2

Day 1 – Saturday, January 1, 2011: 207.0 I cannot believe it, but this is what happened: I went to the airport to pick up my son from his Boy Scout High Adventure trip to the Florida Keys, I met up with another mother and father of a Scout, and we sat down at a Caribou Coffee because the other mother wanted coffee. She came back with a caramel for her husband and me. I looked at that caramel and thought that I either ate it and thanked her and broke my diet or tried to hide that I hadn't eaten it. I opted for eating it. This results in a change in my diet. I think I'm just going to record Exception Events and not have Exception Days at all. This was what I thought of doing last month but then didn't because I didn't want to record a piece of cheese that my husband had handed to me. Well, maybe, just maybe, it's better to feel a little silly recording something like this than it is being obese! Besides, if I call this an Exception Day, I'll be eating for the rest of the night, and I don't want that.

8:15 PM: Tommy had no screen time for an entire week, and now all he wants to do is watch the Netflix movie he ordered. That's OK. I feel bad that this diet, which I wanted to follow for one month, went up in flames by late afternoon. Exceptions are necessary. It would have been asocial to refuse a caramel, but it is those little things that have pushed me over the edge into a binge. I think that Sundays can be all-day relaxation of the rules, but those Exception Days should just be events. There is no need for an all-day event.

It's incredible to me how little need there is for a change in diet due to social events, including holidays and birthdays. People simply aren't spending time evaluating your eating habits. There seems to me to be nothing worse than being fat and obviously on a diet. Really, it's plain silly. I do have a need for a let up on the pressure of keeping to a diet plan, but that's the purpose of S Days. That's why I only need one S Day. The Exception Events are strictly to deal with social events or unusual circumstances. I didn't want to record them, but that's how I can keep myself honest.

Day 2 – Sunday, January 2, 2011: 205.8 I did not wake up until 8:15 this morning. I was awake several times last night, thinking about my diet. I had tried having only one S-event on Sundays, but that didn't seem to accomplish the goal of an S-day, which is to feel fully satisfied. I also dreamt about the agony of those days of portion control: of literally carving out nine days per month when my entire focus was on limiting my caloric consumption to 1000/day. That's why I think of a "portion control" approach as narcissistic. At least for me, when I was counting calories, my diet was my priority number one.

A "portion control" approach almost seems diabolical, at least to me now, although I never thought of it that way when I was thin and decided that it was important enough to put up with the discomfort in order to be thin. Now I ask myself: what is in my future if I continue at this weight? Diabetes? Arthritis? Cancer? I had presumed I would live to 100, since grandparents lived to 76 (he was a smoker, though), to 83, to 89, and to 97. My parents, in the mid-80s, are in excellent health. Still, I don't think I will live that long because of the punishing effects of both portion control when I was thin and obesity now.

Have I given up? No. I think there is a world of difference between "portion control" and intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting teaches resiliency. Also, the fast itself seems both relaxing and pleasant. Outside of the fast, I can eat to full satisfaction at every meal. I also can feast on Sundays.

Will I lose weight this way? Time will tell. I need to be patient and follow this diet at least one month to see.

Years ago, I was friends with a woman from our parish who moved to a nearby town. I haven't kept up with her much, but we exchange Christmas cards. This year, she had a picture of each person in her family on her card. Apparently, the family had taken up running. There was a picture of her, and I had not recognized her. She looked terrific. You could see big arm muscles and a very slim physique.

She has made choices, as have I. I can change my choices, and the diet started yesterday is, I hope, a course change for my life.

Day 3 – Monday, January 3, 2011: A local Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist, Katherine Kersten, had this to say in the paper on Sunday: "Honesty, generosity and self-restraint don't come naturally to human beings. These traits are difficult to acquire, and require suppression or rechannelling of base human instincts. Only a society with a moral system based on claims of transcendent truth can help its citizens overcome their selfish tendencies and successfully cultivate virtue."

I have been pursuing a method of eating that would allow me to eat as much as I wanted. I have wanted to lose weight on a diet without portion control. It was a noble venture to find a way to avoid the misery I certainly experienced with coventional diets, but now I realize that it was all a dream: the key to successful weight loss is moderation, and moderation means portion control.

Sometimes long-cherished beliefs are hard to let go, and sometimes they are a relief when you let them go. Years ago, I fell in love at first sight, and I dated the guy for about 8 months. He was as convinced of his superiority as I was. When I finally broke up with him, I was devastated. Two years later, he returned to propose, and the easy answer was: No.
I've had a long break-up with this notion that portion control isn't necessary, either, but I think the recovery is going to be much easier.

Today I'll have black coffee instead of a latte. Today I'll begin the realistic journey of deliberately reducing how much I eat.

Day 5 – Wednesday, January 5, 2011: FAILURE Pathetic. It's pathetic that I have had three straight days of doing fine until dinner and then gorging. There is no way I'm weighing myself. I think I misjudged the impact on me of even thinking about fasting. I decided now that I need to set aside the strengthening exercises and focus on just getting through one day of fasting per week. My job is ending at the end of the month. It was supposed to be a 4 - 6 week assignment that stretched to 8 weeks. I've been thrilled by the work and think I've done well, but there just isn't a fit for me outside of this one task that I got. That's OK. I got enough money in those two months of working that we can pay the Catholic school tuition which we usually pay at the start of the year. We'll be fine financially. I think the uncertainty and the hope that maybe I would be extended hurt me in sticking with the diet plan. Going forward, I'm going to rely on the recruiting firm who placed me this time to get me another position. I hated jobhunting. When I'm home, I can focus on exercise and building needed skills in business analysis. Still, I sigh because it was fun to work. I hope I can get another short term assignment before summer when I really don't think I should work because the kids are home.

I want to focus on following my diet perfectly rather than having overblown expectations. The pedometer walking is going well with just daily monitoring. I'm at 7,700 today, for example. That means all I need to do is go back to what I was doing for almost two years with no snacks and no sweets and just add one day of fasting. I should be able to manage that.

Meanwhile, my jeans are really tight. It's discouraging.

Day 6 – Thursday, January 6, 2011: SUCCESS! It occurred to me that, if my goal is to cultivate habits, then maybe I should be tracking how I do in cultivating those habits and set aside the daily weigh in so that the focus is on the habits. I got through today. Tomorrow is a Fast Day. I want to have only black coffee and water until 6 PM. I'll see how I do.

Day 7 – Friday, January 7, 2011: SUCCESS! I fasted until 6 PM, having only water and coffee. To my surprise, it did not affect me much at all. I was busy. In fact, Tom and I went out to dinner while the kids were skiing, and I think I didn't eat until 6:30 PM. We ate at Eddington's, the soup place. I am reading Taubes' new book, and one thing that it talks about is that you need to look at what you eat as causing overweight. Well, fasting makes you not want to eat heavy foods.

Day 8 – Saturday, January 8, 2011: 205.6 I decided perhaps to try a weekly weigh-in so that I don't feel too worried about my weight. Yesterday was very easy, and then I didn't want to have a heavy meal. I think fasting may be the way to change dietary habits for the rest of the week. In fact, fasting is really an extension of The No S Diet concept, since you fast between meals on most days. It's highly likely I'll have an employment gap starting in February, so I don't think I'll do much thinking about dieting until then. I'll just read the Taubes book, make notes while I read, and prepare for my discussion with BrightAngel!

7 PM: Today, I made Toll House cookies. I did not eat any. Tomorrow is my Feast Day, so I know that all I need to do is wait and enjoy what I want tomorrow. Is my willingness to wait today all that I need to do in order to lose weight?

Day 9 – Sunday, January 9, 2011: 203.8 I feel good about my weight today and also about how I feel. After several failed attempts at fasting, I finally fasted until 6 PM on Friday and the effect did carry over to Saturday. Part of my success on Saturday was telling myself I could have whatever I wanted and as much as I wanted after church today. I think there may be church wisdom in having a feast day two days after a fast day, and I think it may be that the day in between would naturally become a day when you don't eat much, either. I do attribute part of my success on Friday to the Eat Stop Eat book as well, since I was afraid that there would be problems with my ability to work and even to drive if I fasted. Well, I was so busy I didn't have much time to think about an effect. At 1 on Friday, I was preparing for an interview and considered that perhaps I should eat before it, but then I just plain ran out of time and I look back now and think there was zero impact. The interview went fine. Then I left work early to run home to pick up my teens for skiing, and it was rush rush rush. I didn't feel hungry at all because I was too busy to belly gaze. Now I'm back to thinking that you don't need to control portions if you fast: fasting is a natural alternate. A cautionary note to me, however: do I need to believe that fasting has this effect in order for it to have this effect, or does it actually and necessarily have this effect? I don't know. Since I am not skeptical, I'll never know.

10 PM: Today was a Feast Day. Let's see: I had two personal size Haagen Dazs ice cream cups, 2 Toll House cookies, several M&Ms with pretzel, and almost an entire Ritter Sports milk chocolate bar. That's my total indulgence in sweets. I didn't finish the chocolate bar and don't want to finish it. I did eat a lot of food as well, but I ended the night with Cheerios with milk. While this list of sweets may seem very excessive, to me it is very moderate for a Feast Day (I rather like that name and may continue to use it). I can compare this amount to eating almost an entire jar of caramel macademian clusters, which I will never ever do again unless threatened with the life of a child! All I can remember is how terrible I felt after that binge! With this approach, there is a built-in contrast between how I felt with my fast and how I feel now. Surprisingly, the word that best describes my fast day is relaxing. I think the book Why We Get Fat explains why a fast could be relaxing: there's no expenditure of energy for digestion.

I have a very deep love of and appreciation for my faith, and I think that there is much wisdom in Catholic teaching. It's not so much that I understand and appreciate the value of fasting as it is that I have a limited knowledge of the extensiveness of past Church laws regarding fasting. There just may be something to this which is reflective of human nature: after all, humans used to endure feast and famine cycles all the time. In fact, I remember reading once that Lent coincided with the time of least food, when winter stores of food were dwindling to nothing and the spring plantings had not yet yielded any food. It may well be that our human body was designed for periods of feasting and fasting, but we have lost an appreciation of the value of fasting.

The Sunday Feast sets to zero the craving for food. I have absolutely no craving for food right now. In fact, if anything, I feel a tad too stuffed. I can easily go through the week just having my three meals per day eaten to satisfaction and no sweets. After all, I can have an entire jar of caramel macademian clusters in six days if I want. That's not long to wait. I only have to wait to the next meal to eat to satisfaction.

Friday is one day of fasting, and that one day is a day that is set aside for giving my body a rest from food.

Could it be that a diet that is this easy will lead to permanent weight loss? Well, we'll see. I've got one successful Fast Day behind me. We'll see if I continue like this or if there is some reversion as there have been countless times previously. Last week, when I had my three failures in a row, it reminded me of the beginning of The No S Diet when I couldn't even get through a day without snacks. I'd really love it is this is the end of the journey: if all I need to do is keep this up, and I'll be thin.

One step enough for me... I'll work on being consistent with Sunday Feasts, Friday Fasts, and no snacks or sweets on other days.

Day 10 – Monday, January 10, 2011: I'm still uncomfortably full. When I was following conventional diets, when did I ever feel uncomfortably full? I felt relief that I finally ate. Over time, will I eat less and less on Feast Days? That's what I think. I still am eating a gluttonous amount, but it is less than I used to eat.

8 PM: Today, I had cereal for breakfast, 1/2 cup of a combination of nuts and raisins for lunch, and a helping of a potato and ham dish for dinner along with milk and chips. It was a very moderate day for eating. When I drove into the garage tonight from work, I realized that I had an somewhat empty stomach, and I was fine with that. It didn't feel painful at all. Is fasting helping me to adjust to less food? Time will tell.

Day 11 – Tuesday, January 11, 2011: 204.8 Up only a pound from Sunday morning is not bad. I feel really good about this approach to dieting because it is so easy. Fasting is a time of rest, not a time of endurance. If this continues, I should be able to lose weight quickly and easily.

8 PM: It may be that I have at last figured out how to lose weight without a constant feeling of deprivation. On Sunday night, facing six days without sweets, I didn't want to finish off a chocolate bar. It's been a long six years of trying to figure this out. I started in January of 200 when I saw my then nine year old daughter come in from school and race to the kitchen to eat, as if she was half-starved. I wanted to find a way to control weight without constant deprivation. She may not choose to follow what I am doing, but I can show her a way. That's my motivation. I never would have stuck with it for six years, always above 190 and almost always above 200 pounds, if I had not had a daughter whom I love with all my heart.

Day 12 – Wednesday, January 12, 2011: 203.8 I now am at the weight I had on Sunday morning, the day of my Feast. If this trend keeps up, I can expect to spend the first part of the week losing the weight gained on the Feast Day and the second part of the week losing weight for keeps. If I can trend to more than one pound per month, then I can expect to make up for lost ground in all my failed experiments since the summer before last. I still want to average a weight loss of one pound per month, but I'm behind schedule now by more than 15 months!

8 PM: Tom brought home some sushi and coffee ice cream as a peace offering because he'd gotten upset with me this morning. I ate and then I ate more and then I kept eating. This is a clear case of emotional eating -- or is it? Am I simply adjusting slowly to fasting? Today I realized several times that my stomach was empty and close to growling, but that recognition didn't send me into a panic. I think that what might be going on is I am adjusting to a normal state of not being stuffed. It's silly, but all those years of dieting turned my sense of hunger into one of either stuffed or not stuffed. No wonder I became obese!

9 PM: A change of Dad's address came out for a Dad who has a child in our sixth grader's class, a child in our fourth grader's class, and a younger child. It's sad. Life is so full of hardship. I keep on thinking of the prayer that includes the line "One step enough for me." I can do nothing about tonight's binge. I can just go on.

Day 13 – Thursday, January 13, 2011: Tom was upset yesterday when he realized that the money I'm earning is gong for school tuition, band trips, $60/hour bassoon lessons, and ski club. He had assumed we could save all of it. He brought home sushi last night as a way to apologize, and I just kept eating after having some. In retrospect, I really don't think it was emotional eating. We all have ups and downs. I think it's more that my body needs to adjust to the feeling of hunger. When I started The No S Diet, I was literally gripping the edge of my chair to get from one meal to the next without snacking. It took me several attempts over several months to get through one 24 hour period without eating. Now I am not trying to make any changes to my diet but am simply trying to adjust to it. That may well take months. That's OK. I think this approach has real potential for long-term weight loss because I am finding that I can adjust to having a stomach that isn't stuffed and actually am finding it preferable to being stuffed. There's no doubt this will be tough sledding, but I think I may already be through the worst of it. Adjusting to a 24 hour fast was easier than adjusting to no snacks, and now all I need to do is plug along until I am in the rhythm of Sunday Feasts, Friday Fasts, and all other days of no snacks and no sweets.

10 PM: I'm not too upset about tonight's overeating. I was at a holiday party put on by the consulting firm that hired me, and I was as nervous as could be. I had appetizers and then had a small meal of scallops and rice. When I got home, I ate several Toll House cookies, pistachio nuts, and a bowl of cereal with craisins. Tomorrow is a Fast Day. I want to focus on doing well on the fast and then have the fast be a restart. I made it fine until mid-week this week. My goal will be to make it find until later in the week next week.

One step at a time.

Day 15 – Saturday, January 15, 2011: 203.8 Yesterday was another easy day for me with fasting. I ended up not having dinner until 7:30 PM due to traffic to get to the skiing hill where our kids were skiing. Tom and I went to Denny's and I had what I wanted -- a cheeseburger with fries.

I look at my weight today and see it is the same as last Sunday, and I'm oh so impatient. When, I ask myself, did I get above 200 pounds? Why am I still so fat after all this time? I toyed with the idea of going to a two time per week fast, but I think I need to get this habit of one fast per week down. Then, after I'm done with work, I'll turn my attention to an exercise program.

1 PM: It's risky, but I think I'm going to try fasts on Wednesdays and Fridays. My nephew is getting married in mid-May, and I want to have at least 20 pounds off by then. There is no reason to think I'll make that weight of 180 by sticking with a no portion control approach, but I think I'll give it a shot by fasting twice per week instead of once. Will I be able to stand it? We'll see. My work will be busy for the next two weeks as I finish up, but I can stand anything for a two week period. Curses. I hate hate hate being fat. I hope my impatience doesn't ruin my success for last Friday and this Friday. It's particularly stupid that I am doing this because I had failures this week, but I have to weigh the potential risk of failure by my being too aggressive against the known date of May 14 for a wedding when I get to see my family and don't want to look like the porker I am today. Choices. Choices. Choices. I'm wiling to face that this choice is a risk and am willing to take the risk.

8 PM: Well, the thought of fasting first made me grumpy and then I binged. Yes, I can say I think it may be necessary in the future. Still, I think I have enough work just to take the one day per week approach. I think it would be better to get this down. It took many attempts before I went from two S Days to one. I think I should give it until the summer before I try a second fast day.

Day 16 – Sunday, January 16, 2011: I've hit my physical limit, and today I'm staying in bed. This reminds me of 1998 when I went months with undiagnosed walking pneumonia. At one point, I had jury duty, and I cancelled out. My husband stayed home with the kids, and they called back and asked that I come to the phone. I had to walk about 6 feet to the phone and was so exhausted that I lay there for a couple of hours before I returned to bed. I don't feel anywhere near that bad right now, but I want to go back to bed and give my body a chance to recover. I've been doing too much. After this work ends, I really need to set up what the kids can do. It's just too much. I'm not sure I would have lasted through this little 8 week job had I not had several days off over Christmas.

3 PM: I just got up. I have been in bed resting, and Tom took the kids to the Science Museum so I could have some quiet. Surprisingly, I have not had a caffeine withdrawal headache. I got The Diet Alternate and have read parts of it. The terminology in the book is Protestant, with references to being born again and strongholds. Still, I am trying to see past the terminology and appreciate what actually is being said and trying to see if this applies to my life. There seem to be something very relevant to me, but I am not yet grasping it. The author makes an analogy of overeating to drug or alcohol addiction. While I've heard it before, I've always discounted it. Maybe not. Maybe there is something to this. The author promotes fasting as both a physical and spiritual way to attack the sin of gluttony. I'm too tired to really be able to read and evaluate. The book is planting seeds of thought for me to consider. Now, though, I need to go back to sleep.

Day 17 – Monday, January 17, 2011: 203.4 I've been drinking tons of coffee, and yesterday I didn't have any. I woke up about 1 with a terrible headache but got back to sleep. Maybe I can just not have coffee going forward, although I still have a mild headache right now. It's frightening to me that I was so tired. It makes me wonder if there isn't something more serious wrong with me than being overextended. The job will end in 10 days, and then I can rest again. I think the kids need to help more. As it is, they do very little. Between work and shuttling them to activities, I have little time to do housework and even less time just to relax. This journal and reading have been the times for me to unwind. I can't continue like this.

8 PM: It was not a problem to skip lunch. It was a little bit of a problem, but I survived, for me to not have coffee. Between breakfast at 7 and dinner at quarter to 7, I only had water.

Day 18 – Tuesday, January 18, 2011: 203.4 The fat in my tummy seemed distinctly less today, and I was happy about that. Usually, I lose fat first from my arms, so I'm not sure why there is a change -- unless fat distribution is altered by frequency of eating. Last night, Tommy made some bread for a cooking class, I tried a small piece, and then I had more and more and a chocolate square I was saving for Sunday and two cuties. I'm not very good at restraining myself once I break my guidelines.

6:30 PM: Easy. It was easy to skip lunch, although I did have black coffee. It never occurred to me to skip meals: I had to get that idea from The Diet Alternative. There is a world of difference between constant portion control and fasting. With constant portion control, you are hungry now, and you are resolved to be hungry for the rest of your life. Isn't that incredibly stressful? With fasting, you're hungry, but the hunger will end with the next meal. My stomach growled today. It was not painful. I could still work. I am hungry now. Tom is on the exercise bike, so we'll eat late. That's OK. I can tolerate hunger.

Fasting is the alternate to portion control. It took six years for me to figure this out. Here I am, above 200 six years after going on a fool's quest to figure out how to maintain a lower weight without portion control, and I think I finally figured it out! Rather, I learned from reading. What a relief.

Day 19 – Wednesday, January 19, 2011: 203.4 I was disappointed to be at this same weight for three days in a row, but I remember how devastated I would feel when I destroyed three days of my life to lose weight and didn't! This diet is easy. The problem is: will I lose weight? Am I just shifting food intake to a different time, or is my appetite being affected by infrequency of eating? This is an experiment, and I'll only know the answer if I make myself the test patient. Even then, I'll only know the answer for me. I've already found out the answer to calorie restriction for me, which is that it no longer works. This path is a possible path out of obesity, so I want to take it.

Day 20 – Thursday, January 20, 2011: 204.0 Yesterday was another valuable lesson. Tom had to cook something for a class, so we ended up not having dinner until 7:30 or so. By then, I had the familiar feeling that I had had on my many failed diets of the past: I had already eaten dinner before dinner. What I learned is the importance of the 24 hour fast because it strengthens me for a situation like last night. When I went to bed last night, I sensed that my search for a diet had ended, that I really had a solution which is workable and can be followed, but I need the strength to actually follow it.

Yes, there may be many failures in the next several weeks, but I think I have my diet selected.

8:30 PM: I managed to get through the day and the evening while following the guideline of no food or caloric drinks from breakfast through dinner. What I need now is self-discipline.

Day 21 – Friday, January 21, 2011: 203.0 Today is my Fast Day. I won't eat until dinner. Yesterday, I noted my stomach growling at 11:53 AM and making another noise, maybe not a growl, after 2 PM. That was it. It was much easier to give up lunch than I had imagined. Giving up breakfast and lunch is slightly harder, but it is easy to do knowing I can have as much as I want at dinner. I think that the time of fasting reduces the amount of food that is needed when the fast is broken. I am viewing my daily fast as a time when I have no calories, but I can have calories before breakfast or after dinner. Last night, for example, I had milk and some wine.

I look upon this diet as being something I can follow because it fits within my constraints:
1. No portion control: I can eat as much as I want every time I eat.
2. No blanket restriction on any food: I can eat whatever I want at least some of the time.
3. A weekly time of unconditional permission to eat: I can have as much as I want of whatever I want at least some of the time.
4. The ability to follow the diet with perfection: I can develop a habit that I follow 100% of the time.

Day 21 – Friday, January 21, 2011: 203.0 I lasted until 4 when I ate my dinner, and then I munched at 8 and then I ate again just now. I have to face that I don't have the strength yet to do what I am doing, and I need to take baby steps. I'll go back to having lunch and just focus on adjusting to a Friday fast.

Day 22 – Saturday, January 22, 2011: 202.8 I am more and more convinced that 90%+ of the obesity epidemic is due to an understanding of hunger that is not reality-based and <10% is due to lack of self-discipline. I need to figure out truth before I can be thin. Still, it's frustrating that my progress is through failure. Yesterday, I recorded when my stomach growled: at 12:44 PM, at 2:51 PM, at 2:53 PM, and at 2:58 PM. It was the coldest day of winter so far this year, starting out at - 16 degrees, and I got a text message from my daughter at 3 PM that she didn't get a ride home. I didn't pick it up until 3:20 or so, and I tried texting her and calling her to no avail. Finally, I left work to come home, only to find that she got a ride from someone else from the bus stop and the phone was continuing to have problems. Since I was home, I ate. Then I returned to work, leaving before 7 to continue south to get our two younger daughters at ski club. There was leftover food, and I ate, first a cooking, then three, then a peanut butter sandwich... When I brought them home at 9:30, I ate some more.

What did I learn? First, the experience of the gradual development of hunger which is then satisfied by a meal is completely foreign to me. The type of hunger I experienced yesterday is not the type of hunger I experienced when counting calories. It's more superficial. It's like the difference between the Appaliachian Mountains and the Rocky Mountains. It's much milder, and it's not urgent. It's like our dog growling when we pick her up to put her out before the end of the night, which my 11 year old interprets as "Five more minutes, please..." My stomach yesterday was just in the process of indicating a desire for food, and this is in sharp contrast to the insistent, panicky, almost survival-mode hunger of a diet when there never is complete satisfaction.

What I need to do in order to be thin, I think, is reaquant myself with that gradual development of mild hunger. My mistake this week was trying to do it every day by skipping lunch. No, I'll start just with a Friday fast.

Sad to say, I am thinking of a big Congressional bill that had something about "hunger-free" or "hungry-free" in it. Kids are being taught that hunger is awful and to be avoided so much that there is a Congressional bill about preventing it. Instead, it needs to be taught as natural. I know I had a book which had this saying in it, and it's true: "Hunger is the best spice."

3:30 PM: I ate after lunch, and I just ate about 5 cuties. It may be that I'm sick that I would want so much, but I also am convinced that I have an on/off switch: I tend to binge if I break the rules at all. Sadly, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions", and it seems to me to be much easier to break rules when all I have to do is record what I've eaten.

I'm going back to the two Exception Day per month idea.

Day 23 – Sunday, January 23, 2011: This morning, I didn't just feel the desire to fast. I actually felt the need to fast. I was debating about giving up the Sunday morning fast because we were considering going to 6 PM Mass and I didn't want to fast that long, but what I found was the desire to give my body a break from digesting food. That was a bizarre and totally unexpected reaction.

My well-meaning father sent me the Mayo Clinic diet book which is a very well done book on the portion control approach to dieting. In it, hunger is described as what you try to avoid. I find it quite strange that I actually want to get to a certain level of hunger.

I'm thinking I'll stay away from the scale until the beginning of February and just focus on habits. The Sunday habit, of course, is easiest to follow -- no food until noon and no limitations after that.

I'm not sure what I'm doing about lunches this week. Maybe I'll fast and maybe I won't. It seems to me that it's like business analysis in that you have a reference architecture (where you are today) and a target architecture (where you want to be tomorrow). How do you get there? I think it may be best to move gradually, and a Friday fast may be a good step but just not the final step to habits of thinness.

Day 24 – Monday, January 24, 2011: I woke up not feeling too great, with a feeling of way too much in my stomach. This is the intuitive eating way to lose weight: experience what it feels like to eat too much. That way didn't work for me because I learned to adjust to eating too much, just not way too much. I think the trend was clearly upward. With this diet, I am learning to appreciate how I feel when I fast, when I eat within rules that are no snacks and no sweets, and when I eat whatever I want. I think that the fasting will having an impact on the bingeing, but we'll see. Yesterday, we went to a buffet lunch with some other couples, and I stopped after one plate. My body was telling me "Enough!" It would have been perfectly acceptable to have a second plate, especially since those around me were having second plates. Still, I simply didn't want more. After I got home, however, I did end up eating cereal and other food. The buffet food hadn't appealed to me because it was so rich, and I think that fact has to to with fasting, too. We'll see, but I think my food preferences are shifting as a result of fasting.

8 PM: I debated about skipping lunch and then forgot about making a decision until I took a break at 2:15 and realized I hadn't yet had lunch. It was easy to skip lunch. I think that my problem is more Saturday than weekday lunch, so maybe I'll try skipping weekday lunches but not Saturday lunch.

I also wrote down when my stomach growled. It growled at 3:44 PM, 4:46 PM, and 4:48 PM. After work, we went to Costco to pick up pot pies, and I didn't eat until 6:30 PM. Still, my stomach didn't growl again.

What's strange is that I rather like the feeling of my stomach emptying. I almost feel as though that sense of emptying has been what I've been missing in my attempts at weight loss. Can I remember back to when my mother didn't want me to eat before dinner because I would spoil my appetite? The idea was to have an appetite before dinner. Now, there's something terribly wrong if there is any sense of hunger.

I once thought that the defining characteristic of an obese person is a naive acceptance of what authority says is true.

Day 25 – Tuesday, January 25, 2011: I'm reading in Taube's book Why We Get Fat and totally agree with him that the real question is why people get hungry and overeat. I don't think it's just a matter of self-discipline. I've read to the point where he distinguishes between fat cells floating around in the blood stream and fat in fat cells. It's very interesting. It will take a second read other than what I've read while blow drying my hair. My job is done in three days, and I can hardly wait. Tom is so stressed about the house that he got upset with me about how I loaded the dishwasher. I can understand, though: there is laundry piled on top of the dryer, and I stocked up this week on pot pies and other microwave meals so that I could focus on work. Tomorrow afternoon I make a presentation, and then I clean up documentation and am done on Thursday. It was a terrific first consulting assignment, and I hope to continue getting more. I just need a break.

My thought on what I had read in Taubes is that what he might argue as the reason why people get hungry could be applied to fasting. I'm reading the book to try to understand if fasting is a good approach, so my read isn't exactly unbiased. It's too bad because the timing is bad, but Taubes is actually here at the University of Minnesota to promote his book. I'd love to go but can't. If he'd been here next week, I most certainly would have gone.

The conventional wisdom today is to lose weight by having six mini meals per day with very small portions. I'm doing the exact opposite: striving to eat only 12 times from Monday through Saturday but allowing myself to eat as much as I want each of those 12 times.

8 PM: It was another easy day for skipping lunch. I am doing my best to finish up at work. I have a 50 page summary of my interviews of about 40 people, and I'll be presenting it tomorrow to six people. Tomorrow morning, all I'll need to do is correct any typos and print off copies. I'll also make notes in my copy of points I want to make. My manager should be arranging a time for me to hand in my laptop and turn over my badge, but he hasn't yet. This was actually a good week to be testing giving up lunch because I'm too busy and focused on work to think much about food.

9 PM: I am feeling grumpy, and that was one of the side effects of dieting. I think, however, that I'm on edge about tomorrow's presentation. Also, I'm starting to think ahead to how I can handle home better once I'm not working. Tonight, I asked Tom to put out the trash and the recycle. I wanted him to put the recycle in bags, and I told him that I need more help if I'm working. He said, "You're not working anymore so you can do it." Well, I am working two more days, and he needs to get in the habit of doing it so that I can work without ending a 9 week assignment with the house in a disaster zone.

Day 26 – Wednesday, January 26, 2011: 203.0 I go back and forth on whether to weigh myself, and today I did. I was happy that today's weight is just .2 pounds above Saturday's weight. Plus, I didn't have a failure either Monday or yesterday. I hope I'm on track now. The difference between my version of The No S Diet which I followed for more than a year and got to a low of 196.6 and this diet is that I skip six meals on this diet: M - F lunch and Friday breakfast. Will my overall calorie consumption decrease because of my restrictions in when I eat, or will my calorie consumption remain the same and I just shift calories from one time to another? That is the question. So far, it is looking like I eat less. Last night, I had a pot pie and a bowl of cereal. Of course, last night was a rushed affair: I was home with the kids 1/2 hour before I left for a volunteer meeting at the school. The bigger test will be when I'm home and have more time on my hands. Will it still be easy to skip lunch? Will I still eat less at dinner?

7 PM: The presentation at work went well, and I'm happy with how the contract position is ending. I did not have lunch and barely noticed until my stomach growled at about 4. When I picked up Tom from swim team and then Katie and Ellie from After School Care, we went to Jimmy Johns to get sandwiches. I got home and then took the dry cleaning in before I came home to eat. It occurred to me that my choice to take in the dry cleaning first meant I was by no means ravenous. In fact, I didn't even feel hungry! Is it possible that people become hungry on a schedule, the schedule of prior meals? This is absolutely great!! I've gone from feeling hungry all the time to having occasional and very fleeting feelings of hunger. Now if I just lose weight doing this...

Day 27 – Thursday, January 27, 2011: 201.4 I'm thrilled by today's weight! I was reading last night in Why We Get Fat, and an interesting fact that came up was that you secrete insulin before you eat. It made me chuckle to read that because all I could do was think that this was the reason why the intuitive eating approach failed for me: food was always available, so my body was probably busy pumping out insulin. In contrast, when I know I won't eat, maybe my body don't pump out insulin. Maybe that's why fasting feels almost relaxing.


4 PM: I am done, and I am relieved. Now I need to become a Chinese mother to my 11 year old and clean up this house. I'm starting with the refrigerator. A couple of days ago, I asked Tom to put recycle in bags an bring the recycle to the garage. He objected because I'm a stay at home Mom now and can do it. I told him I'm working for two more days and cannot go back until we are more organized at home.

I think this diet approach is 99%+ knowledge and <1% willpower. It's easy. I was in Costo with all the taste tests around, and I knew I wouldn't have any and felt good. I had a bowl of cereal with craisins at 6:30 this morning, my stomach first growled at about 11:30 AM, and I managed just fine. The next hurdle will be avoiding snacking as a way to avoid cleaning.

7:30 PM: This afternoon, my stomach started growling around 5. I did not die. Surprise. Surprise. I am learning to tolerate hunger. I also thought back to the day, in January of 2004, when I saw my then nine year old daughter race in the door after school to go to the refrigerator. I knew then she would have a weight problem, and it was then that I started trying to figure out a way to maintain a normal weight without a constant feeling of deprivation. On Sunday, when I realized that I had not finished eating my chocolate bar, I thought that maybe I had finally found the answer. Maybe. Time will tell. My father sent me a note saying he was sending me The Mayo Clinic Diet. I already got that diet from the library and it was the same old same old "portion control" approach. My daughter is overweight, and I hope that she can see a way to be thin and not have to restrict her portions. She will have a great summer this year since she will be a camp counselor. I'm happy for her. She's the typical teenage daughter who thinks her mother is awful, but I love her more than she can imagine. Never would I have continued on trying to find a way to be thin without portion control had I not wanted to find a path that she could choose to follow. My motivation is for her.

Day 28 – Friday, January 28, 2011: 199.8 Today is my Fast Day. It is by no means a day of deprivation and agony. Rather, it is almost a day of reflection, a day of grace. I don't go into work today. Instead, I go back to volunteering as a reader in first grade, and I clean. I told the kids last night I think I finally figured out how to lose weight, and Anne said, "That's what you said about the Novena Diet and the Peanut Cluster Diet and the No S Diet..." Yes, it's true. Time will tell. I like the trend today, but only time will tell if the weight loss continues and if following the diet continues to be easy.

10 PM: I didn't eat until 7:30 PM but then had a delicious pasta and chicken dish from Ruby Tuesday. After that, I had some root beer. Can losing weight really be this indulgent and easy?

Day 29 – Saturday, January 29, 2011: 200.6 Last night's meal at Ruby Tuesday was Parmesan Chicken Pasta at 1,1418 calories with 77 grams of fat, 7 grams for fiber, 8 grams of protein, and 104 grams of net carbs. Other than that, I had a 12 ounce cup of root beer (I don't restrict pop as a sweet because I rarely have it) and about an 8 ounce cup of lemonade. I did not eat from Thursday night until Friday night at 7:30, and it didn't bother me a bit. Taubes, in his book Why We Get Fat, argues that insulin is what determines whether the food you eat gets stored as fat or still circulates in your bloodstream. If it gets stored as fat, then you feel hungry. If it is still circulating in your bloodstream, then you don't feel hungry. Whether it circulates in your bloodstream depends on how much you eat of carbohydrates or even if you think of eating carbohydrates. It turns out to be true that insulin is released in anticipating of eating, so people who say "I get fat when I think of eating a doughnut" are actually correct. What happens when you think of eatng a doughnut is insulin in your body moves fat in your bloodstream into your fat cells for storage in preparation for being able to handle the fat in the doughnut. With a habit of fasting, there is no anticipation of any food, including carbs. My body yesterday was using up fat in storage. Now, this morning, about 11 hours after my dinner, I'm still full. My body had plenty and is still moving it to fat storage. I'm not that hungry. Intermittent fasting results in my body keeping fat in the bloodstream rather than moving it to storage. I think I've got this right, but I will read the book more thoroughly a second time. The experience of fasting has been surprisingly easy, especially since my giving up snacks at the start of my No S Diet was so traumatic.

9:30 AM: After getting up at 6 and weighing myself at 200.6, I went back to bed, slept for another three hours, and just got up and weighed myself at 199.8. It was very gratifying. I think I'm on the right path with this diet, and it was nice to see a weight below 200 for the first time since October 2. I have so much on my plate now as I turn from work to home. My hands shake from the excessive amount of caffeine I've been having, so much so that Tommy commented on it last night. The house is improved from yesterday's cleaning, but there is still a long way to go. I was contacted about a three month contract position downtown and said I didn't want to pursue it, and Tom was upset with me about that decision. He doesn't understand that I'm just plain worn out. He was in Philadelphia from Monday morning until 9 PM last night and has to work this weekend. He's taken our son to a swim meet. Care of the home is almost completely on my shoulders; he does some repairs and snow shoveling and that's it. He works hard and cannot be expected to contribute much. I need to delegate to the kids more who have been so spoiled that they leave their socks all over the house. Being a stay at home Mom does have it's advantages, but at some point the kids can look to you as only the chauffeur and maid, and that's bad. There needs to be a sense of responsibility and gratitude rather than entitlement. I need to focus on my family for a time. If the perfect job - short term and within a short commute -- lands in my lap, I'll take it. Other than that, I'll focus on the family. As for my diet, I think I just need to wait and see the outcome of this approach and record my observations about how I feel as I learn to fast. As I type, I observe my daughter eating breakfast. She is very big. She may now weigh as much as I do. I feel very sad about that, but I'd rather she be big than endure what I endured, years and years of feeling like I was starving and then bingeing as a result. There has to be a better way, and maybe this is that better way. I've always had a long term perspective for dieting because my motivation has been to pass on to this child, now almost 17, the knowledge of another option. It will be up to her to decide to try to follow it.

6 PM: I slept part of the afternoon, since I am still recovering from the double job of work and home, and I feel just very different. There seems to be a cumulative effect kicking in from just two weeks of Friday fasts and skipping lunch on weekdays. I feel as though I am losing weight, especially now in my stomach and hips and face. I don't feel all that hungry. Applying what I have learned from a quick read of Why We Get Fat, I wonder if intermittent fasting results in the body circulating more fat in the bloodstream rather than storing it in fat cells since there is a possibility that the next meal won't be for quite some time. With very frequent and very consistent eating, the opposite effect could be true: the body can send the fat right to storage because the next meal predictably is right around the corner. I'll take my time on the reread of this book because its ideas of how and when the body stores fat seem very important for someone like me, a person intent on solving my obesity problem through study, a person on the hunt for the truth and convinced that conventional wisdom must be wrong.

Day 30 – Sunday, January 30, 2011: 200.8 I ended up deciding against the Sunday morning fast because sometimes we go to church on Saturday night or Sunday night. Today, I had a doughnut, a personal size coffee ice cream, and several Toll House cookies. That amount of sugar was too much for me, and I ended up skipping dinner. I wonder if the reduced number of meals is affecting how much my body can handle. I'm someone who rarely gets sick, but I seem to be really affected by this change in diet. I'm also still tired from the full time work stint, so tonight it's bedtime at 8.

Day 31 – Monday, January 31, 2011: 202.2 I think that my body can no longer tolerate a lot of sweets. Is this because intermittent fasting has caused my body to continue circulating fat in my bloodstream rather than in fat cells? I don't know, but something has changed.

[Eileen7316]

Kathleen, I'm so glad to see what you've written! I have been reading your check-in since the very beginning, so I feel like I'm invested in your story

I am going to suggest 2 books to you, since you are a believer, and you love books. One you can hopefully get at the library, one of them is brand new.

1. The Diet Alternative, by Diane Hampton. It's an old book (really small), but one I've found helpful. Her basic premise is fasting one meal per day, and how your faith can be a help.

2. Made to Crave, by Lysa TerKeurst. Ms. TerKeurst writes about turning our craving for food to craving God. Here is a link to the book's site: http://madetocrave.org/ There will be a webcast on the site each Monday evening from Jan. 10th to February 14th.

I think your idea of fasting is a good one, but maybe you should examine your reasons for it. Doing it to honor God and develop self-control are good reasons. Weight loss should be secondary. I know when I've offered a period of fasting to God, by george, I do it! I can't break it.

I know that traditional dieting does not really work for me long term, because it's just making the food behave, not my desires behave. My heart needs to be satisfied with something other than food. I'm still working on it, but I've found these books helpful to try to root out some issues I have. I sure don't have all the answers, but I'm finding that the self-discipline I'm developing is helpful in my spiritual life and in my eating situation.

I'm rooting for you Kathleen! You will make it!

[BrightAngel]

Monday, January 3, 2011:
On Sunday, a local Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist, Katherine Kersten, said:
"Honesty, generosity and self-restraint don't come naturally to human beings.
These traits are difficult to acquire,
and require suppression or rechannelling of base human instincts.
Only a society with a moral system based on claims of transcendent truth
can help its citizens overcome their selfish tendencies and successfully cultivate virtue."

I have been pursuing a method of eating that would allow me to eat as much as I wanted.
I have wanted to lose weight on a diet without portion control.
It was a noble venture to find a way to avoid
the misery I certainly experienced with coventional diets,
but now I realize that it was all a dream:
the key to successful weight loss is moderation,
and moderation means portion control.

Sometimes long-cherished beliefs are hard to let go,
and sometimes they are a relief when you let them go.
I've had a long break-up with this notion that portion control isn't necessary, either,
but I think the recovery is going to be much easier.

Way to go, Kathleen

[Kathleen]

BrightAngel,
Yeah, I know. You were right. It sure would be great it if were true, but it's not. I got a book on fasting and feasting during the middle ages, and guess what: that did not cure people of obsession with food. I think we are all naturally gluttons, but some of us get in the habit of being able to tolerate hunger.
Kathleen

[BrightAngel]

Kathleen, on January1, you posted:

I ordered it from Amazon. Thanks for the suggestion.
Kathleen

Have you received it yet?
I'm very much looking forward to discussing with you,
Gary Taubes' book, Why We Get Fat and What to Do About it
after you've read it.
I am especially interested in the possibility that this Theory...if true...,
might help you resolve your issues with Portion Control.
I think my statement about this will become clear to you
after you've read the book completely through.

[Kathleen]

BrightAngel,
Believe it or not, what has already helped is an out of print book on medieval eating habits that I got from Amazon for $5. I was under the delusion that a pattern of fasting would lessen desire. It was eye-opening to read how people celebrated Shrove Tuesday, an over the top S Day if there ever was one! The Taubes book is scheduled to arrive January 8.
Kathleen

[MDScot]

Kathleen,

Looks like your getting great advice and support from a bunch of folks already. I did notice in your last long post that one issue you had was over-eating at dinner. Here are a couple of ways that I have used to help with that:

1) Don't have extra food available - don't buy too much, don't cook so much. Having leftovers is now, for me, not a good thing.
2) If there is extra, then have others (spouse, kids) put it away. If others want you to succeed, then there is nothing wrong with getting them to do some more work!

Last comment - No-S is a simple program. I try to keep it that way.

[Kathleen]

MdScot,
I have found No S to be very simple and easy to follow. My problem with it is that I have tried to use it as justification for overeating instead of an easy method to assess that I am overeating. That's why I've been overeating so much this week. I've had to face that I actually have to reduce the amount I eat and not just move it from permasnacking to meals.
Kathleen

[BrightAngel]

Day 7 – Friday, January 7, 2011: SUCCESS! I fasted until 6 PM, having only water and coffee.
To my surprise, it did not affect me much at all. I was busy.
In fact, Tom and I went out to dinner while the kids were skiing,
and I think I didn't eat until 6:30 PM.

I'm reading Taubes' new book,
and one thing that it talks about is that you need to look at what you eat as causing overweight.
Well, fasting makes you not want to eat heavy foods.

Congratulations Kathleen on having a Successful Intermittent Fasting Day.

I'm so glad you received your copy of Gary Taubes' new book,
Why We Get Fat and What To Do About it.
What you think of the way he is handling the Concepts?

[Kathleen]

HI BrightAngel,
I have read the first three chapters, and so far I agree with his views that the current approaches don't work. I just finished the chapter on exercise, and it reminded me of the two week period when I went to the gym twice a day, let go of any calorie restriction, and gained 5 pounds! I probably won't be on the discussion board much until the end of January, but I will want to discuss the book with you then. Thanks for recommending it!
Kathleen

[Kathleen]

Eileen7316,
I just saw your post and ordered The Diet Alternate from Amazon. I'm thinking that a rhythm of feasting and fasting is what can result in being thin, and I think there is a religious experience associated with it. I looked back to last week and saw that I had fasted until 4 PM and binged the rest of the evening. Yesterday, I did fine. Maybe there's just an adjustment period. Thank you.
Kathleen

[BrightAngel]

Now I'm back to thinking that you don't need to control portions if you fast:
fasting is a natural alternate.

A cautionary note to me, however:
do I need to believe that fasting has this effect
in order for it to have this effect,
or does it actually and necessarily have this effect?

While I congratulate you on having one successful Eat Stop Eat 24 hour fast day,
You are planning today as a "Feast" (Binge) Day.
Portion control or not....there has to be an overall reduction of food-intake for weight-loss.

...that is....
.....UNLESS Taubes THEORIES about Fat Regulaton are Correct....
IF they are...THEN instead of an overall food reduction,
one would ONLY need a carb reduction.

It WOULD be nice...as a reduced obese person...
.....to be able to stay small
without continually craving more sweets and starches.


I posted a reply to your recent message on my Thread.

[BrightAngel]

You might be interested in reading this recent article by Tom Naughton,
(star and producer of the documentary FatHead – see links in my Thread)
in which he describes his first attempt at Intermittent Fasting.

http://www.fathead-movie.com/index.php/ ... t-fasting/

His site also has an interesting review of Taubes' new book.

[Kathleen]

BrightAngel,
I think Taubes does a good job of explaining why severe restriction of carbs (which can be accomplished with fasting) does not result in severe hunger. I would almost describe fasting as restful.
Kathleen

[BrightAngel]

Hi Kathleen,
Today I made TWO posts
in our Mutual Discussion Thread
on Chapter 2 of Why We Get Fat.
This note is just so you don't miss one of them.

[Kathleen]

Hi BrightAngel,
Clean clothes that haven't been sorted are piled high on the dryer, and my two youngest were digging through it this morning to find clothes for school. Tom started talking with me last night, and I teasingly said to him that he was interrupting my reading a post from BrightAngel! I wish I could devote more time right now to reading your posts because your willingness to describe the experience of cutting calories is so crucial to an understanding of the long term implications of this method of weight loss. I am wondering if functions of your body aren't shutting down to conserve calories. It's really troubling that you are consuming fewer calories because what's going on? With fasting, the fast ends and then you can eat to satisfaction so there isn't this built-up craving. I have to get the two younger off to school still and head to work myself, but I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate the effort you are putting into describing the predicament you are in of having to cut calories even more to maintain your weight.
Kathleen

[BrightAngel]

Hi BrightAngel,
I am wondering if functions of your body aren't shutting down to conserve calories.
It's really troubling that you are consuming fewer calories,
because what's going on?

Anything is possible.
I've tried eating more; I've tried eating less; and I've tried eating intermittently.
Plus...of course, I've experimented a great deal with exercise.
I believe there can be no doubt that my body wants to regain lost weight,
and this fact appears to be borne out by all the Reseach I've read on the subject.
I'd like to discuss this with you more as we progress through Taubes' book.

With fasting, the fast ends and then you can eat to satisfaction
so there isn't this built-up craving.

I have spent quite a bit of time during the past 4 years
experimenting with various methods of Intermittent Fasting,
and it has been one of the primary ways that has helped me keep my calorie averages down.
Unfortunately, I've learned that...for myself...."eating to satisfaction"....
before and after Intermittent Fasts,
results in a calorie average that is far too high for my own Maintenance.
Therefore, I still have to work very hard in an effort
to eat only "a normal person's small meals" on nonfasting days.

I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate the effort you are putting into
describing the predicament you are in of
having to cut calories even more to maintain your weight.

I find that in helping others, I help myself.
When you find time, I think you will be interested in reading
a rather detailed post I made on my Personal Thread this morning.

[Kathleen]

BrightAngel,
My eating to satisfaction led to months and months of significant overeating that has now calmed down. I think I had to make up for all the deprivation from years of calorie counting. Who knows, though? We are all, as you say, an experiment of one.
Kathleen

[BrightAngel]

Day 21 – Friday, January 21, 2011:

I look upon this diet as being something I can follow because it fits within my constraints:
1. No portion control: I can eat as much as I want every time I eat.
2. No blanket restriction on any food: I can eat whatever I want at least some of the time.
3. A weekly time of unconditional permission to eat: I can have as much as I want of whatever I want at least some of the time.
4. The ability to follow the diet with perfection: I can develop a habit that I follow 100% of the time.

Just a note to let you know
that I'm still reading your posts daily,
and I am hoping things go well for you.

[Kathleen]

I think I need to dial back a little... Thanks for the encouraging words...
Kathleen

[TexArk]

Kathleen said:

"I tend to binge if I break the rules at all."

Kathleen, I think this statement sums up most of your approach. Something to think about: You have many other "rules" in your life that have formed your character that you live by daily. I know you do not apply this all or nothing approach in these areas. That is why I do not think you have weakness of character or weak will power. Surely you do not think you have reached perfection in all other areas of your life.

You have seen over and over on this board many posts about perfectionism, such as "mark it and move on" "don't wreck the whole car after one dent" etc. Easier said than done, right? From reading your posts for 2 years it seems to me that you demand perfection in this area and have an aversion to the word "failure." I have had my own issues with binge eating and am just now finding an answer for me. This is just my opinion, of course, but I think this is the question: What triggers my binges? And if I cross over a line, why can't I stop? When I started analyzing the foods I ate instead of focusing on my feelings and emotions, I finally made progress. The"diet" professionals over the past decade seem to have decided that if we are overweight it is our fault and we need to understand the difference between hunger and emotional eating, etc etc. Excuse me, but we all know we are eating when we are not hungry! I think there is something physiological that sets off binges and not necessarily something psychological.

Obviously you are a thoughtful person who can work through this. I understand your desire to use your exception days as a way to achieve complete compliance, but I have watched you walk down this road many times before.

As usual, I just offer this as an opinion and hope I am communicating in writing the tone that I would be using in a one on one conversation.

[Kathleen]

TexArk,
It is something for me to think about. I expect perfection in some areas of my life and not in others. Fidelity in marriage comes to mind. I'm not sure why I classify eating as one which requires perfection and so many other things -- ask my husband! -- as not requiring perfection.

You should see the laundry piled on the top of the dryer. You should see the state of the refrigerator.

I'm glad I'm stopping work in a few days because I need to catch up at home!

I will consider what you say. It seems to work better for me to classify eating within rules rather than guidelines, and I'm not sure why. I did go a year following the Exception Day approach fairly well, and alternates have not worked well.

Kathleen

[TexArk]

I agree with you about rules instead of guidelines. Guidelines are too loose for me...that is another reason Intuitive Eating didn't work out well--I need boundaries.

When you are through with your job I would just like to see you analyze the foods you are eating to see if any of them trigger binges. And are some foods more satiating than others...that sort of thing. We are all obviously very different. I would love to be like wosnes and KCCC and just be moderate, well balanced, etc. I think wosnes says she has a cookie or two each day. That just does not work for me. But it works for her. You will find what works for you when you have time to look at it.

[Kathleen]

TexArk,
I think I already know: it is the simple fact of breaking the eating rules that triggers the binge. I've only had a very few successes with breaking an eating rule and not bingeing, and those have had more to do with circumstances than food eaten: in other words, I didn't have ready access to more food! I've shifted between calling these eating guidelines and eating rules, and I think it would be wise for me to call them eating rules.
Kathleen

[BrightAngel]

Tuesday, January 25, 2011:
I'm reading in Taube's book Why We Get Fat.
My job is done in three days, and I can hardly wait.

I'm reading the book to try to understand if fasting is a good approach,
so my read isn't exactly unbiased.

It's too bad because the timing is bad,
but Taubes is actually here at the University of Minnesota to promote his book.
I'd love to go but can't.
If he'd been here next week, I most certainly would have gone.

As you've probably noticed,
I've completed posting my Summaries on the book.

I'm hoping that after you finish carefully reading the book,
you will then read over my posted Summaries,
in order to "get-up-to-speed"
I'm looking forward to resuming our Discussion in a few weeks
after you've done your reading, and caught up with your household duties.

[Kathleen]

Hi BrightAngel,
It will be next week! I am reading ahead, but I want to go back and go through the book chapter by chapter. It is a very interesting book. I haven't been reading the posts in the book discussion thread because I am in need to getting things wrapped up at work and want to think through what you say. I do admit a bias right upfront: my main focus will be on trying to determine if intermittent fasting can accomplish what carb restriction accomplishes.
Kathleen

[Kathleen]

February 1, 2011: Cultivating the Virtue of Temperance

Aristotle, in his Ethics, argues that the practice of virtue is what leads to the establishment of habits of virtue which is what forms the character of a virtuous person. It is so obvious that it almost seems like a tautology, but it is not: the way to be thin is to cultivate habits that result in being thin. People often think dieting is a matter of willpower, but willpower when discussed in the context of dieting often means the superhuman effort to constantly restrict portions (eg. Weight Watchers) or types of food (eg. Atkins). Successfully following these types of diets means overcoming the body’s instinct to avoid starvation. There was just too much of a survival instinct in me because I managed to diet my way up to 215.0 pounds by the time I started The No S Diet on September 8, 2008!

For me, the focus is on establishing habits that are sustainable for life. The big question is this: "What habits should I culitivate?"

I was much influenced by two books: The Diet Alternate by Diane Hampton which advocates for eating breakfast and dinner only, and Why We Get Fat by Gary Taubes, which advocates for managing insulin levels as a way to manage hunger and succeed long-term in weight loss. Taubes has an interesting argument, which is that the body produces fat and then either stores it in fat cells or allows it to circulate in the bloodstream. If fat circulates in the bloodstream, then the person doesn't feel hungry. If fat is stored in fat cells, then the person does feel hungry. Taubes cites lots of scientific authorities as showing that consumption of carbs is what affects insulin, and insulin is what determines whether fat is stored in fat cells or allowed to circulate. If there is a restriciton of carbs, then fat will circulate. Not being much of a scientist, I'm not following a lot of what Taubes says, but I do believe that fasting is a way to eliminate carbs and keep the fat circulating. It may be that reliable and frequent eating means that insulin levels are such that fat can be moved to fat cells but periodic restriction of all food through intermittent fasting means that fat keeps circulating in the bloodstream. This would explain why my initial experience of just eliminating snacking back in September, 2008, was unbelievably difficult, adjusting to fasting took time, and now I find it downright easy to fast 24 hours. I don't feel much hunger at all and can be just as productive and energetic as on any other day.

This diet now feels like 99+% knowledge and <1% willpower. There is some willpower but very little. The real test is whether this diet will lead to long-term weight loss success.

Here is my current plan:

1. Eliminate snacks (except liquids) and sweets on all days except Sundays and a rolling average of two Exception Days per month: This idea is a modification of the plan from The No S Diet. When I was following conventional diets, I felt hungry all the time. Now I rarely think about food between meals because I only eat between meals on Sundays and an average of two Exception Days per month. I “tune out†hunger signals outside of mealtime. At each meal, I can eat as much as I want, but I don’t have sweets and everything must be in front of me before I take one bite. The elimination of sweets on all but an average of six days per month seems to have reduced the amount of sweets I can tolerate eating when I do have sweets.

2. Fast, when possible, between breakfast and dinner Monday through Thursday and from Thursday night until Friday night: I think there is a benefit to periodic fasting in that I learn to experience hunger, and I learn how much I need to eat in order to feel satisfied. My fast does involve the elimination of all calories, including milk in my coffee. By fasting, I am reaching back to Catholic wisdom that was practiced for hundreds of years. Fasting was the norm, especially on Fridays. I have found Fridays to be more days of rest and reflection, almost days of grace, and have not found them at all to be days of deprivation.

3. Allow myself a rolling average of two Exception Days per month: There will always be times when a diet cannot be followed, usually for social reasons. I want to have that dessert after a holiday dinner sponsored by my husband's company. I want to enjoy that special dessert prepared by my sister in law who is a fabulous cook. By having a budget of Exception Days, I am free to use the days for whatever reason but know that there is a cost in perhaps not being able to use them for an even better reason. As a result, I try to have a reserve number of at least five Exception Days.


The No S Diet:
(Month 1) Day 1 - Monday, September 8, 2008: 215.0 (goal to lose one pound per month)

Cultivating the Virtue of Temperance:
(Month 1) Day 1 - Saturday, January 1, 2011: 207.0 (Goal of 187.0 pounds: behind schedule by 20.0 pounds)
(Month 2) Day 32 – Tuesday, February 1, 2011: 202.0 (Goal of 186.0 pounds: behind schedule by 16.0 pounds)

Exception Days
Starting Number of Exception Days = 0 (Carryover)
+ 2 (This Month’s Allocation)
= 2.

Weights:
Day 32 – Tuesday, February 1, 2011: 202.0
Day 33 – Wednesday, February 2, 2011:
Day 34 – Thursday, February 3, 2011:
Day 35 – Friday, February 4, 2011:
Day 36 – Saturday, February 5, 2011: 200.8
Day 37 – Sunday, February 6, 2011:
Day 38 – Monday, February 7, 2011:
Day 39 – Tuesday, February 8, 2011:
Day 40 – Wednesday, February 9, 2011:
Day 41 – Thursday, February 10, 2011:201.4
Day 42 – Friday, February 11, 2011: 200.4
Day 43 – Saturday, February 12, 2011: 198.2
Day 44 – Sunday, February 13, 2011: 199.6
Day 45 – Monday, February 14, 2011: 203.8
Day 46 – Tuesday, February 15, 2011:
Day 47 – Wednesday, February 16, 2011:
Day 48 – Thursday, February 17, 2011:
Day 49 – Friday, February 18, 2011:
Day 50 – Saturday, February 19, 2011:
Day 51 – Sunday, February 20, 2011:
Day 52 – Monday, February 21, 2011:
Day 53 – Tuesday, February 22, 2011:
Day 54 – Wednesday, February 23, 2011:
Day 55 – Thursday, February 24, 2011:
Day 56 – Friday, February 25, 2011:
Day 57 – Saturday, February 26, 2011:
Day 58 – Sunday, February 27, 2011:
Day 59 – Monday, February 28, 2011:


Status and Exception Events for the Month:
Day 32 – Tuesday, February 1, 2011: I took an Exception Day last night when I reverted to an old habit of cleaning up leftover food by putting it into my mouth instead of the garbage. That's OK. I made a mistake, and that's why I have Exception Days. I'm still exhausted from working, but I did launch into volunteering and will be at the school all morning. That's OK, too. Life isn't always perfect.

4:30 PM: I spent the morning volunteering at school and came home at noon. Rather than face cleaning, I decided to have some popcorn. Popcorn turned into more food which was simply my way to delay, and then I got a call from a recruiter and needed to update my resume. The result is that dinner is made and that's about it. Now I need to be hauling kids: Anne to band, Tom home from swim team, and Ellie to Girl Scouts. I'm overthinking this diet. I need to just do it and not worry anymore about theories or research. Exception Day.

Day 33 – Wednesday, February 2, 2011: Groundhog Day. My favorite movie. Also, a reminder that sometimes you have to keep doing things until you do them right. Yesterday, I picked up Girl Scout cookies, and I ate a lot. Today I don't feel bad. I lost five pounds on the scale last month, and yesterday was my celebration. I'm trying to close the gap in weight loss so that I can be down an average of one pound per month since I started The No S Diet on September 8, 2008. As of yesterday, I was off by 16 pounds -- or 16 months. I am hoping to really push this month and get down another five pounds. To me, it is questionable whether skipping lunch is a good idea long-term, but I will try to do it this month to lose those five pounds and get down to being off by 12 pounds only. My goal for this month is to be down to 197 by March 1. I am going to try to not weigh myself and just follow the diet. I did find it very helpful to skip lunch when I was working so I could get to work by 8:30 and finish by 5 with two short walking breaks. Now, as of yesterday, a recruiter convinced me to allow myself to be submitted for a job downtown. There is no way I could get to work at 8, and he said the employer could be flexible. It's another short-term assignment, which is great, and I would want to be in a position to skip lunch again so I could work 8:30 - 5 PM. Meanwhile, all I'll do now is focus on following this diet and hoping it is enough that I can be down another five pounds from the scale, down below 200 maybe for the rest of my life!

8 AM: I think of the very obese people I know who are some of the most giving and caring people I know. Three in particular stand out for me: the woman who runs the church's youth group and the husband and wife who run the Scout troop even though their only child, a son, is now in college. These people have full time jobs and yet also give of themselves to help others. There is no way these people are slothful or selfish.

What I have come to believe is that the obese tend to be naive and trust in authority and follow what the authorities say is the right way to do things and that way is wrong. The current philosophy for weight control is frequent eating with portion control. I just saw in the last few days a recommendation to eat at least every four hours so that you aren't ravenous. Ravenous? Really? I have now had an adjustment to fasting that makes it easy to not eat for 24 hours. I did believe that you would be in trouble if you didn't eat frequently, and the adjustment to No S was traumatic.

So here's my theory: we've bought into a bunch of lies, and those of us who are obese were naive enough to follow the advice and it led straight to obesity. Now I'm doing the opposite of conventional wisdom: infrequent meals with no portion control -- none at all. It's easy to wait several hours to eat if you know you can eat as much as you want when you do eat.

1 PM: There goes my second Exception Day. I think I'll watch the movie Groundhog Day once again.

Day 34 – Thursday, February 3, 2011: It's time to fish or cut bait. So far, so good this morning, and it's already 11 AM. I decided not to weigh myself as a way to take focus off my weight and put it where it belongs: on following these habits of eating with periodic intermittent fasts.

2:30 PM: I blew it. I blew it big time. It's boring being home facing a messy house. I'm getting calls from recruiters and got submitted for one job with two potential. That's good. There's this window of time now when I can look at having a good approach to dieting, and instead I'm pigging out. Time to restart. I'm going back to two Exception Days and wiping out the past two and a half days. It's very interesting the various ways I justify to myself breaking these rules. Once I start, it's like a snowball rolling downhill. I just need to restart.

Day 35 – Friday, February 4, 2011: Three days of bingeing. Why? Frankly, I have no idea. I think it may in part have to do with my hoping to get to 202 by the first of the month, I did, and there was a sense of accomplishment that allowed me to let up. After that tumble, I need to pick myself up, dust myself off, and return. Today is a Fast Day.

8 AM: I laughed out loud reading an editorial that was a review of Taubes book in today's Minneapolis Star Tribune. "If you have been delivering the same message for four decades and it hasn't worked, the only explanation that can justify keeping the same message going is that you believe the problem lies in the poor willpower of fat people to follow your instructions, not the poor science behind the instructions themselves." I totally agree. I think fat people are more naive, and that's the character flow. It's not lack of willpower. It's the lack of confidence to look at the practical results of the calorie-counting methodology and realize that the nutritionists have something wrong because what works in theory does not work in practice.

2 PM: My knowledge of Judaism is limited, but I think that the days between the New Year (Rosh Hashanah) and the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) are called the Days of Awe. Yom Kippur is a day of fasting. I can't really disentangle my dieting from my faith, so I'm not going to try. It seems to me that fasting is a Day of Grace. It is, in fact, very easy, and I think that it might be so easy for the same reason that people don't feel hungry on the Atkins Diet. No carbs means no hunger. There is something special about fasting as well. It seems to give a different perspective. Over time, maybe I'll understand better.

Day 36 – Saturday, February 5, 2011: 200.8 I woke up this morning eager to know my weight and speculating it was between 202 and 204. To my surprise, it was at 200.8! The Day of Grace made up for three days of binge behavior! I was very happy about that. I do think I need to cut back on the number of days I weigh myself, but weighing myself once per month would be so little that I would be very concerned about what my weight might be. Saturday morning may be the best time, in part because it would be a reward for the Friday fast.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if this was my last time weighing above 200?

11:30 AM: I spent much of the morning reading about low carb, and I think I have a lot to absorb. There is a key idea in all of this which is that the body secretes insulin in anticipating of eating carbs. Could it be that intermittent fasting keeps insulin levels low even with the eating of carbs because the body never knows when there will be a fast? I don't know. It would make sense that there wouldn't be an insulin trigger if the fasting is intermittent instead of constant. I wonder if a "portion control" approach means that insulin is being generated in excess because the body feels like it is starving and wants to provide sufficient incentive to overcome the decision to restrict food. The dog wants a walk, and it's time for me to pay some attention to the family. Ellie is gone, Katie and Tom are gone, and Anne is gone, but Tommy is still home and Katie and Tom will be back soon. I am convinced of something from all of this reading: there is a physical explanation for the obesity epidemic. I just think that high carbs isn't the reason. I think frequent eating and a portion control approach are the reasons.

It's my experiment of one to see what happens with me. One month in to the experiment, I've lost much of the weight gained since October. That's a promising start but not yet a compelling argument for the approach. I'll have to see what happens over time.

Day 37 – Sunday, February 6, 2011: It's not quite 6, and I am stuffed. This morning, I had cereal with craisins. At lunch, I had a bagel with cream cheese and a frappachino. Then I took Katie and Ellie to Target and didn't get back until about 4. Then I started munching: some chocolate, some ice cream, two tacos, an ice cream drumstick and seeral York mints. I'm done. All I can say that is positive is that it didn't last long. I think fasting may limit how much I can overeat. This may seem like a lot, but it is also a lot less than I have eaten on S Days.

6:30 PM: I cannot eat another bite.

Day 38 – Monday, February 7, 2011: It was nice not to get up, weigh myself, and hop on the computer to post my weight. It's much more relaxing just to run the bathtub, get the paper, and make the coffee. I am contacting recruiters and working on the house. If I don't get a job before summer, that's OK. It's nice to be so relaxed about jobhunting. I took the idea from Eat That Frog of doing the least pleasant task first, so I spent time until 9 AM jobhunting and now I'm done for the day. I'll be getting our home organized for the next potential job and working on some skills. I'd like to continue learning SQL. I'll also spend some time reading about weight management, but my motivation is much decreased because I decided to commit to this diet until Christmas. This diet is nothing more than 12 meals with no sweets or snacks from Monday through Saturday (lunch and dinner M-Th, dinner only on Friday, and breakfast, lunch and dinner on Saturday), "unconditional permission to eat" on Sundays, and two Exception Days per month. I am wearing a pedometer, and I am planning to going back to strengthening exercises, but the weight management program is exclusively about when I eat with the only restriction being about sweets.

Day 39 – Tuesday, February 8, 2011: This morning I skipped jobhunting altogether so I could type in SQL tables in preparation for learning SQL, which is something I did while listening to Fat Head, a movie which supports my view that experts might not have the best advice. I've tried calorie counting. I've tried low fat. I've tried low carb, though only for a short time when I was in high school. I've tried innumerable diets, many of my own creation. Where has it led? To obesity and food obsession. Fasting seems to be a much more pleasant approach to reducing calories because the end of a fast is a meal in which I can eat as much as I want. I have an interview for tomorrow, so maybe I won't be jobhunting long. Right now, I am going to volunteer in the first grade classroom. Life is full of so many joys, and I feel somewhat robbed of many of them by my own stupidity in following experts into the land of never-enough.

7:01 PM: At about 5:45 PM, I decided I could have wine before dinner. That broke my rule of no calories between breakfast and dinner. I've inhaled a lot of food since then, and I feel downright sick. Maybe this is the right approach, but I have taken on too much too quickly. What to do? Maybe I can give up just Monday lunch for the month of February and then add a lunch for each month. Of course, if I go back to work, I may slip back into no lunches quite easily.

When I was reviewing my journal from summer of 2008, it included a review of Michelle May's book on how people choose to eat: some eat by rules (that's called restrictive and is what I would like to follow), some eat by internal signals (I tried that and never want to go back to that), and a third way is overeating (eat by trigger). There was no trigger tonight except maybe nervousness about tomorrow's interview. I think I'm moving too fast but this is the right direction.

8:30 AM: I have to remind myself that my first week of No S was four straight failure days before my one success on Friday followed by two days of binges. I need to adjust to fasting from breakfast to dinner. It seems easy, but then I was surprised by the overwhelming desire to pig out. I cannot believe that this desire came from nervousness about an interview tomorrow. I'm in the enviable position that I don't have to work. It would be easier on my family if I did work, but it's not essential to pay the bills. No, this isn't nervousness. There is some sort of physical reaction. I think the book Intuitive Eating talked about hijacking, and that's almost how it seems. For an hour, there was a hijacking. I have to keep on until I get into the habit of fasting. That's all. I have to keep my eye on the ball. It took weeks before I could go from one meal to the next without eating. Now I'm trying to skip lunches. It's not that it's hard because it's not. It's more that my body seems to have engaged in a revolt against this approach. Too bad. I'm set on what I want to do, and I think it will work with a little time allowed for my body to adjust to this eating schedule.

Day 40 – Wednesday, February 9, 2011: I did go ahead and have an interview this morning, and there is potential for a contract job starting at the beginning of next month. That would be perfect timing because I have obligations on three of the days in the last week of February. The person who interviewed me talked about a book that sounded so interesting that I came home and ordered it from Amazon. I also selected "insulin" and "fast" and ordered two books on dieting that had high recommendations. I want to dig down to look at the impact of diet on insulin production. Meanwhile, I've concluded that I need to continue with skipping lunch and just expect there may be some physical hijackings in which I dramatically break my resolve until I get into the habit of not having lunch.

9 PM: I decided to focus on the fasting and let the No S rules go for a time. I did not eat between breakfast and dinner but then ate after dinner. Is this a problem? Possibly, but I know that fasting is essential because it teaches me to tolerate hunger. An offhanded comment by someone I knew years ago has become, for me, an insight which perhaps is the key to the entire puzzle of why some get fat and others don't. She said something about how she thought those who had weight problems didn't know how to "tolerate hunger". Fasting is a way to learn.

Warning: another potential detour.

And that's OK.

Day 41 – Thursday, February 10, 2011: The interview went well yesterday. I lucked into being placed by a top notch firm who then placed me at a top notch company that gave me a great review! There are few short-term positions, but I think my career is off to a good start, or rather, a good restart. I was telling my husband this morning that a friend of mine decided to quit her part-time job. He said they don't need the income, and we do. Well, technically, we don't. We can live on his income, but the problem is that we can't have the extras. The kids are supportive of my career because that means Ski Club and bassoon lessons and maybe even a family vacation to Washington, D.C.

Meanwhile, I am having stomach problems this morning, not surprisingly because of two days of binges. I am standing back somewhat and observing my behavior rather than judging it, which is something that was recommended in the book Intuitive Eating. I think this idea of fasting from breakfast to dinner is a good one, but I just don't know how to implement it. I did not do well last week, when I had four days in a row of failure. This week, I've failed two days so far, but I'm not real interested in failing today because it's already 8 and I haven't even had breakfast yet! I'm meeting a friend for coffee and will have some food then along with a latte.

I think maybe I should stick to the two meals per day structure and just except and accept some failures during the adjustment period. The goal is remaining the same. It's just how to get there that is changing.

My husband watched part of Fat Head and decided to go low carb, I think. He went out last night to pick up milk and made himself some eggs this morning. He wants to go backpacking with our son this summer in New Mexico at the Boy Scout High Adventure Camp. He got upset with me because he thought I didn't approve because of the money. I told him that I would love for him to go and my parents wouldn't let me go when I was in high school, a very great disappointment for me who went on to take several backpacking trips when I was single. I didn't want him to miss out on the experience, but I am concerned about his not being in good shape for such a trip. He's decided to lose weight, the Mayo Clinic doctor who gave him his physical said that he should cut back on carbs, and now he is starting to follow that advice. As for me, I like the idea of just having to worry about meal-timing and letting my body decide what to eat. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few months.

3 PM: A stomach ache does wonders for appetite. I have no problem not eating now, and I will be going to a meeting tonight at which food will be served, so I may or may not get a decent meal. This is particularly dicey because tomorrow is a day of fasting until night, and I will be eating Ski Club food unless I bring some food myself, which I might do.

Day 42 – Friday, February 11, 2011: 200.4 I decided to weigh myself after all, and I weighed myself yesterday, too. Today was supposed to be my Day of Grace, but I forgot and had cereal. Oh well.

11:30: I somewhat overscheduled myself today, with two volunteer activities in the morning and two in the afternoon. One of the little first graders gave me a Valentine with "Thank you for reading with us" on it. How adorable! Anyway, I am thinking that it might be a good idea for me to nail down the fast between breakfast and dinner and then move to having a Day of Grace on Fridays (no food from Thursday night to Friday night). I stumbled this morning because I forgot it was Friday, but I think part of it was trying to form too many habits at once.

Last night, at the professional meeting I attended, one of the leaders was chatting with someone I know and was all excited that he had lost 23 pounds in 15 days using something called HCG, which he explained will make cancer worse if you already have cancer. I felt terrible sitting there listening to this. What has this guy -- the classic overweight jovial sort -- gone through because of his weight that he is willing to risk death by cancer? It just made me shudder. Fasting may seem dreadful at first, but it isn't, especially in comparison with other ways to lose weight.

My husband announced this morning that he is going to go on Atkins. I suggested he try fasting, but I'm not exactly the poster child for weight loss plans. It will be interesting to see if he gets some of the classic side effects like bad breath and grumpiness.

Actually, I wonder if that's the cause of my sister in law's grumpiness. When I first met her, I thought of her as being like Tigger -- bouncy and happy. Even when our last child was born 10 years ago, she was cheerful and she and her husband became godparents to our daughter. Now, she's just a crab. She has a disabled child whom she adopted as an infant not knowing that he had severe cerebal palsy, so I'm sure that it is a very difficult, never ending burden -- to know that your child will never be self-sufficient and to worry about what sort of care is in his future given the government's expansion of healthcare to everyone. Maybe it's not Atkins. Maybe Atkins contributes to her sour mood. If Tom gets in a sour mood, I sure won't put up with it. We'll see... I will stand back and observe.

Day 43 – Saturday, February 12, 2011: 198.2 Last night, at Ski Club, I was in charge of putting out food. I ate around 5:30 and then had to be around the food constantly until about 7 when the clean up people went on duty. During that time, I realized I had no desire whatsoever to eat any more food and it seemed to me that the reason was that I had had gotten into the habit of putting all the food I am going to eat in front of me before I start to eat. Habits are powerful things.

Yesterday, I allowed a submission and accepted an interview at the same company where I worked last month but through a different recruiting firm. After talking to the recruiting firm who placed me in November, I withdrew from the interview on Monday. I am in a consulting space in which there are no clear rules. The original recruiting firm had told me I can be placed a the same company through a different recruiting firm but only if the hiring manager is different. After talking with my recruiter at the first firm yesterday, I found out that this is a legal restriction but usually you only allow one firm to represent you at a company. How I loved working there, and yet I would have felt terrible had I interviewed and felt as though I had betrayed the first recruiting firm. My husband doesn't know I did this because his take on the situation was "you can't create ethics where there are none." Well, maybe so, but life is too short to do what you realize is inappropriate. I am reminded of my father's saying, which I have used in thinking about dieting: "If you find that you have dug yourself a hole, the first thing you do is STOP DIGGING!" The second recruiting firm is not going to be happy with me, but I needed to stop digging.

Tomorrow I am taking Ellie and three of her fourth grade friends to the Mall of America for rides and a super disgusting dessert at Rain Forest Cafe. It will be an S Day for me for sure.

Day 44 – Sunday, February 13, 2011: 199.6 I had my youngest at the Mall of America for her birthday, and some woman on a ride had to be asked to get off because she couldn't fit in the seat with the restraints. Imagine how embarrassing it would be to be that woman!

Day 45 – Monday, February 14, 2011: 203.8 That was quite a big jump in weight from yesterday, but I'm not going to fret about it. The Sunday days of "unconditional permission to eat" give me the motivation to go through the week as I have, and I will be eliminating lunch all week.
If I can get down to 197 by the start of next month, I'll be very happy. My hope is that I can be down enough by May (to 183) to be at the average weight loss of one pound per month since September, 2008, which is when I started The No S Diet. If I don't make it in May, that's OK because I'm determined to make it at some point and will just increase the fasting if necessary.

Day 46 – Tuesday, February 15, 2011: Yesterday was another failure, complete with a stop at Costco to buy caramel macademian clusters which are now hidden in the van. I did not weigh myself this morning, but I did have an interesting insight when reading a book that had been brought up in conversation with someone with whom I interviewed. The book is The Checklist Manifesto, and the insight came from this sentence: "You want people to make sure to get the stupid stuff right." The author, Atul Gawande, focuses on how the use of checklists helps hospitals to avoid making stupid mistakes that can lead to deadly infections.

What does this have to do with weight loss? Well, maybe a lot. I took entire year (two classes) of medieval history at college, and the only time I remember reading anything about fasting was when there was some disgust shown by people at fat friars who perhaps did not follow the fasts. Now I think I know why: it was such a part of the culture that it just was assumed. My grandfather has a picture of himself with Thomas Edison. The invention of the lightbulb is relatively recent in human history, enough so that my grandfather could meet the inventor of the lightbulb, and yet: Do we marvel at electricity and the benefits from having reliable sources of light even at night? No. It's just assumed.

People in the medieval period didn't obsess over their weight because the fasting rules provided a benefit that perhaps, scientifically, is the benefit of a low-carb diet: minimal hunger and a time of rest for insulin production. I'm not interested enough in the science behind all of this to investigate, but I think that fasting could be the key to weight regulation without a lot of effort or thought.

Now what do I do? Those in the medieval period had cultural support for fasting. I do not. I am not following anyone else's program but trying to create my own. How can there be a moral foundation to something I just created on my own? There cannot really be one, but I can pretend there is and try to create a habit which is followed with perfection so that, over time, both time and effort required to follow it diminishes.

I think I've going to view yesterday's fiasco as a learning experience and just go ahead now with two Exception Events starting today.

11:30 AM: I took Katie and Ellie to the dentist this morning, and Katie found the caramel macademian clusters. That was quite embarrassing! Meanwhile, I talked with another recruiter yesterday who more or less told me it was a mistake for me to back out of the interview on Monday. Consultants just move from firm to firm. This is totally bizarre to me. There is no sense of loyalty whatsoever. I'll have to adjust to this, but I don't think I want to be placed in the same company by different recruiting firms. I regret not having thought through this before I allowed a submission in the same company where I'd been placed by someone else.

3 PM: Katie and Ellie will get off the bus in a minute or two, but Katie won't find the caramel macademian clusters in the van anymore. They came into the house and then into my mouth.

6 PM: I now have an interview back at the same company where I worked last month, and it is through the same recruiting firm! The interview is Thursday afternoon. This is exciting!!! Meanwhile, I agree in theory with the idea of putting a diet on autopilot, but I'm having trouble getting started.

Day 47 – Wednesday, February 16, 2011: My husband was happy this morning that I moved to the couch last night because he finally got a good night's sleep! Between not knowing what to do with the recruiting firms and the diet, I have been too upset to sleep well. I noticed last night that Anne had piled food on her dinner plate, and I'm not sure I remember her snacking. Is it possible that she has decided to try The No S Diet once again? She went off it when I was going through experiment after experiment. Because I got down to 198.2, I brought up that we need to celebrate my getting down to 193, which is 10% off my starting weight of 215. I think she may be open once again to this approach to weight loss, and here I have been debating about what to do. Having observed her last night, I am inspired once again to put some effort into dieting.

Last night, on the couch, I thought and thought and thought about fasting and that dreadful life of calorie counting and focus on food. It is true that I have crafted my own program so it is not exactly Church law like attending Mass on a holy day and it is certainly not Biblical law like "That shall not commit adultery." It's hard to make the commitment to something which is more of a choice than it is a commandment.

Still, this diet -- I believe -- is a path out of obesity and gluttony. I do think that a person who is thin can still be a glutton, but I don't want to sort out the difference right now. All I want is peace and the ability to get a good night's sleep and to model behavior for my daughter that I would want her to follow.

I want her to be free to focus on her studies and her bassoon and her friends and her choice of a college, not calories. I want her to have a life that is not marred by a focus on weight management.

Could intermittent fasting allow this? Yes. I think it could. The problem with low carb and low calorie is that people tend to fall off in compliance. Both make socializing difficult. With this diet, you have a budget of Exception Days, and you can steer some celebrations to Sunday, like I did by having my daughter's birthday celebration on a Sunday.

Now is my chance to give my daughter some hope. Now is the time because now she is open to managing her weight. I think there may be a boy of interest to her. She does talk about him, and she has shown me him. It's not just her attractiveness to boys that is the issue. It's also her health. I'm concerned about the long-term impact on her health of her weight.

Is this sufficient motivation for me? I don't know. I'm scared about the impact on me of fasting. How will it change me? I noticed that I am calmer about food, which is good. What else, however? The Pharisee in the Bible who fasted was quite proud of himself. Would I become proud? I don't know. It is noon, and I have not eaten since morning. I will focus on getting through this diet today.

[oolala53]

Wow, it seems things are taking shape. I'm so glad for you!

[Kathleen]

oolala53,
I'm not yet ready to declare victory. I've had many experiences of losing weight, feeling great, and then being blindsided by a sudden desire to eat and eat to make up for the deprivation of the diet. It's happened countless times over 35 years of dieting. I am hoping that having Sundays of "unconditional permission to eat" will enable me to have the self-discipline necessary for the rest of the week. We'll see... I want to get to an average weight loss of 1 pound per month, and -- as of today -- I'm behind by 16 pounds!
Kathleen

[oolala53]

Oh, believe me, I know there's a big difference between shaping up and victory. I've been stalled for months, so much so that I cherish any green day, when last year I had a few months of all greens and yellows. But this is still the way to go, or at least I know that I'm not about to try anything more drastic until I can get back to moderate!

[~reneew]

Hi! I just stopped in to see how you were doing and I saw that you've read Diane Hampton's book! I told you that it was a good book! I'm glad you found it. I found mine at a garage sale once a couple years ago. It's definitely and old original book. I'm so glad you liked it too! I really think that it's a smart book and I do really really well when I am able to do it. My breakfast is more of a brunch, but it works well for me. Near the end of the book she also talks about (or maybe her husband does) how very overweight people do well on one meal a day. I like to do that too sometimes to jumpstart myself. It seems that every fall I do that and loose FAST, then gain in the winter. 2 years running now. I'm in need of a jumpstart right now. I'm kind of trying to do a combo of NoS, Diet alternative, and weighdown. I watch Weighdowns free videos online for incentive. And I wait until I'm hungry (WD) then have one plate, no seconds or snacks (nos), then keep it to 2 (DA). On Saturdays and Sundays I have an optional 3rd dish (nos) which usually ends up being popcorn. Too many rules gives me an excuse to cheat, so I have to be careful. I've just started to write in a book out on my counter at home that I record all of my stuff in. It really helps. I have a little calendar inside where I put a sticker for successful days and I only record feelings and not my intake.

Sorry for rambling on your page, just thought I'd chat since once again we seem to be doing similar things.

AND... I am definitely one of those overweight people that follow others' instructions. That's one of the reasons that I have a hard time following my own plans. Someone else needs to write it... or maybe I'll print this out and pretend someone else wrote it!!! Ha! I think I'll try it!

[Kathleen]

reneew,
Wonderful to hear from you! Someone else had recommended The Diet Alternate. I hadn't realized you had used it as well. It seems like an extension of No S in that it's similar but you just give up some meals. I've been waffling on this but am inspired to go with it since you have used it to lose weight. Great to hear from you!
Kathleen

[~reneew]

Hi again. I thought I was getting confused, so I looked it up. Last January 20th 2010 I was talking on this thread about it. First post at the top of page 12. The book From Diane that I have is called The Diet Alternative. I wonder if she just renamed it since mine is just such an old copy. I may have to order a new copy if it's updated.

[Kathleen]

reneew,
I had to chuckle. That was the English major in me who changed the title from what it actually is (The Diet Alternate) to what I called it, (The Diet Alternative). An alternate is one choice other than the primary, and alternatives are more than one choice. I am focusing on Why We Get Fat, but then I will return to this book. I find it helpful to give up lunch during the week.
Kathleen

[Eileen7316]

Kathleen,

Maybe look at the wine as the factor for overeating. I know, for me, alcohol makes me overeat. I don't know if it's because alcohol raises the blood sugar, or whether it just lowers defenses. Probably some of both.

[Kathleen]

Eileen,
You were the person who recommended The Diet Alternative, weren't you? It's a very interesting book, and I appreciate your recommendation. That's an interesting idea that wine might affect eating. When I investigated healthful foods, I learned that red wine is a food that can be beneficial to health. We bought 12 bottles of wine last summer through WSJWine, and we are down to our second to last bottle. We never have drunk much, but I've tried to make it a habit to have wine at dinnertime. Maybe I should concentrate on getting my eating under control before looking to make any other changes to my diet...
Kathleen

[Eileen7316]

Yes, I was the one who suggested The Diet Alternative. I'm glad that it has been helpful to you.

I read your posts each day and am following your journey with interest!

[TexArk]

Kathleen,
This is a quote from your latest journal entry:

He's decided to lose weight, the Mayo Clinic doctor who gave him his physical said that he should cut back on carbs, and now he is starting to follow that advice. As for me, I like the idea of just having to worry about meal-timing and letting my body decide what to eat. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few months.

And, this is a recent quote from Shamrockmommy on the WWGF discussion thread:

In WWGF, Taubes points out that : Sugar/carbohydrates affects the 'reward center' in the brain... you get a release of dopamine whenever you eat starch/sugar, so of course your body is going to 'tell' you that's what it wants.
If you were a cigarette smoker, and were attempting to quit... would it seem logical to you that because your body craves another cigarette that is it appropriate for your body? 'course not. Just because your body craves something does not make it a good thing for your body.

You have noticed haven’t you that when you give yourself permission to eat what you want after you come off of a fast or take an S Day your body wants so much chocolate, ice cream, and other high sugar high carb foods that you make yourself sick eating them. You have reported this over and over. If you look at your day’s regular menus they are also full of carbs. Do you think there could be a connection here? And do you really think you can trust your body to tell you what to eat? Our bodies can tell us to do many things that we shouldn’t be doing. You would not take that reasoning from your children I am sure!

TexArk

[Kathleen]

TexArk,

I had this discussion with my nine year old: She didn't want to eat something, and I told her not to eat what she doesn't want to eat. I told her how she had found an old baby bottle in the van and had taken one sip and not had anymore because the milk was sour, and that was good. She then asked, "How come I can't have sweets all the time?" I told her not to have anything she doesn't want but that doesn't mean she shouldn't have everything she does want.

I have noticed an increased desire for carbs, and I'm not sure why. It could be that I'm reading too much about carb restriction!

Time will tell. It is interesting that the Mayo Clinic doctor advice was to cut back on carbs.

This morning, I splurged on a blueberry muffin with butter and a skim vanilla latte. $6.89!

Kathleen

[oolala53]

Alcohol can definitely decrease inhibitions of many kinds, including the inhibition to eat too much for those who are prone to overeat.

Red wine does have health benefits that come from the dark grapes. You can get similar benefits from grapes or grape juice. Wine just keeps better.

I'm re-examining some concepts from a course in moderate eating i took years ago but did not implement the principles of. One idea was the difference between "teasers" and "pleasers." Teasers were foods that seemed attractive but which ended up not being truly satisfying and made you want more and more. Pleasers were foods that truly satisfied. A moderate portion was usually enough. I'm realizing it takes a long time to figure out and really accept which foods are pleasers.

[Kathleen]

oolala53,
The last bottle of wine from WSJWines is terrible, so bad that it will either be poured down the sink or used in chili. I think I'll just refrain from buying more until at least I am settled down in this approach. It never occurred to me that wine could be a problem.
Kathleen

[BrightAngel]

The caramel macademian clusters came into the house and then into my mouth.

I can't even tell you
how many times that has happened to me as well.

I finally posted a reply to your comments on Chapters 16 and 17.

[Teemuh]

Hey, Kathleen. Congratulations on breaking the 200 lb mark.

[Kathleen]

Teemuh,
Oh, thanks! I first broke the 200 pound mark 2 years ago in February, so it's not much of an event for me. Since then, I've been wandering in the desert trying to figure out what to add to the basic core of The No S Diet to allow me to lose more weight. To put it mildly, I found a lot of ways that didn't work. Now, I hope intermittent fasting with The No S Diet will lead to a lower weight still. Our family will go to Olive Garden to celebrate if I get to 193, which is 10% off my starting weight of 215 and the weight I put on my driver's licence!
Kathleen

[Eurobabe2]

Kathleen, I've been following your posts since September. I'm currently living overseas due to my husband's job, and the only diet support I have is this site.
We have a number of things in common. I'm 52, have 2 kids older than yours (25 & 22), am Catholic, and am looking for the answer to weight loss. I look forward to your updates because they motivate me to try just one more day.
Don't stop updating, or only updating once month maximum, please!

[Kathleen]

Eurobabe2,

Wow -- thanks for the compliment! Let me think about how to handle this going forward. I feel like I need to limit my time spent researching and analyzing. After all, I now have a plan but I'm not following it!

Last night, at the Boy Scout Court of Honor, I brought cheesecake from Costco. I love cheesecake, and Costco's bakery is very good, even better than bakery goods from the local upscale grocery store. Still, I passed on having any.

Maybe it will be OK for me to post. I think I need to stay away from weighing myself except once per month. Every time I stand on the scale, I open myself up to more information that could sway me to change my plan.

My focus has really been on Anne, my precious daughter. I've posted to get information from others but haven't thought that others could benefit from what I've posted.

Kathleen

[Kathleen]

February 17, 2011: Cultivating the Virtue of Temperance

The No S Diet (constantly tweaked):
Monday, September 8, 2008: 215.0 (goal to lose one pound per month)
Saturday, February 12, 2011: 198.2 (Loss of 16.8 pounds since 9/8/08; Goal of 186.0 pounds: behind schedule by 12.2 pounds)

The Temperance Diet:
(Month 1) Day 1 - Thursday, February 17, 2011: weight on Day 1: unknown (Goal of 186.0 pounds: behind schedule by an unknown amount)


Exception Days
Starting Number of Exception Days = 0 (Carryover)
+ 2 (This Month’s Allocation)
= 2.


Journal
Day 1 – Thursday, February 17, 2011: The interview did not go well, and I was completely bummed. It would have been an absolute blast to do the work, and I would have done well, but the hesitation was that I have "no formal use case documentation experience." OK. I came home and consoled myself with caramel macademian clusters.

It's time. It's time to stop the nonsense and "fish or cut bait". It's time for me to try this diet and see if it works. I will follow it until my incredibly joyful and relaxing week at Family Camp at Many Point Boy Scout Camp. That is in July. I'll see how I do by then.

In the meantime, I have too much that I'm doing, and I should just cut out the research and the analysis and just follow the diet, maybe updating once per month maximum. I want to live my life! The whole point in my finding a diet that works is so that I am not obsessed with food, but the temptation is to tweak, tweak, tweak.

Here is my current plan:

1. Eliminate snacks (except liquids) and sweets on all days except Sundays and a rolling average of two Exception Days per month: This idea is a modification of the plan from The No S Diet. When I was following conventional diets, I felt hungry all the time. Now I rarely think about food between meals because I only eat between meals on Sundays and an average of two Exception Days per month. I “tune out†hunger signals outside of mealtime. At each meal, I can eat as much as I want, but I don’t have sweets. I can have no more than what is before me when I have taken one bite of the meal. The elimination of sweets on all but an average of six days per month seems to have reduced the amount of sweets I can tolerate eating when I do have sweets.

2. Fast, when possible, between breakfast and dinner Monday through Thursday and from Thursday night at bedtime until Friday dinner: I think there is a benefit to periodic fasting in that I learn to experience hunger, and I learn how much I need to eat in order to feel satisfied. My fast does involve the elimination of all calories, including milk in my coffee. By fasting, I am reaching back to Catholic wisdom that was practiced for hundreds of years. Fasting was the norm, especially on Fridays. I have found Fridays to be more days of rest and reflection, almost days of grace, and have not found them at all to be days of deprivation.

3. Allow myself a rolling average of two Exception Days per month: There will always be times when a diet cannot be followed, usually for social reasons. I want to have that dessert after a holiday dinner sponsored by my husband's company. I want to enjoy that special dessert prepared by my sister in law who is a fabulous cook. By having a budget of Exception Days, I am free to use the days for whatever reason but know that there is a cost in perhaps not being able to use them for an even better reason.

Day 2 – Friday, February 18, 2011: Yesterday, I decided it was time to "fish or cut bait" I've done lots of thinking and researching and speculating, but I haven't actually followed through on a plan of intermittent fasting with The No S Diet to see what happens long term. I know that my body has adjusted to fasting surprisingly well, and here it is 4 PM on a Friday and I'm doing just fine having had no food since last night.

I will try my best to stick with the plan until at least July. During that time, I'll try to weigh myself once per month. I'll try to do some exercises. The core of the plan, however, is simply The No S Diet with fasting. I am building on The No S Diet rather than replacing it.

7 PM: Today was my first Day of Grace. I did not eat until dinnertime. I did have a salad before the meal, but I think that's OK. It was easy all day long, even though I was contacted by the recruiter to tell me that I am not being considered for the position for which I interviewed yesterday. What was the difference between yesterday's descent into a caramel macademian cluster stomach ache and today's ease in continuing a fast? A decision. A simple decision. I am continuing a religious tradition that was simply the norm for my religion for hundreds of years. There was wisdom in that tradition, and somehow it was marginalized.

It was incredibly hard, two years ago, to adjust to no snacks, and adjusting to fasting also took time, but now it is easy. Why? There must be a scientific explanation for this, but I don't know what it is.

Day 3 – Saturday, February 19, 2011: The Catholic Church has exactly two days of fasting, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. On those days, you can have two small meals with no snacks. That doesn't sound so bad compared with not eating until dinner. I failed many years to follow these fasting rules. For eight straight years, I was either pregnant or nursing, so I considered myself physically incapable of fasting. It was a struggle, so why is fasting no longer a struggle for me? I think that the reason why is I went through an intermediary step of giving up snacking, and that was tough...tough...tough. Going back to Taubes' book, is it possible that it was so hard because my body as used to a constant supply of carbohydrates? I don't know. I just now have more respect for the need for eliminating snacking and having times of fasting.

10 AM: My husband isn't happy with how long I spend on the computer, so I'm going to try to cut back on the amount of time I spend posting. I think I'm going to try just posting after my exercises. This would mean I'd post about three times per week. Ever since we got the dog, my husband hasn't wanted the dog on the bed. I let her, and she's gotten increasingly bold, even getting on the bed when I wasn't there but he was. Earlier this week, it occurred to me that the way to get her off the bed would be to brush her (which she hates) every time she gets on the bed. I started on Tuesday, and she got brushed about 40 times. On Wednesday, she got brushed about 30 times. Yesterday and the day before, she got on the bed two times each day. I can't brush her anymore unless she gets on the bed as a way to reinforce her staying off the bed.

With this journal, I want to write but it has become something of a bad habit because I neglect other things. Still, there is some value to it, and it breaks my heart now to see just how fat my daughter has become. I want her to live a different life than I have led, and I didn't get into weight problems until I was 17, all of 132 pounds, and finally went on a diet after being hounded by my father for being fat. Ever since college, my goal has been that high school weight, and I would get down to that weight by intermittent calorie counting.

My daughter has a worse problem because she is much, much heavier. I have tried on her jeans and am too heavy to wear them, but I think that it wouldn't take many pounds lost on my part for me to be the same weight. She's not yet 17! It just breaks my heart.

Weighing the lost time writing on one hand with the heartfelt desire to model good behavior to her, I will try to limit my writing by only allowing myself to write after those three times per week exercises.


4 PM: I just set up my exercise schedule. I haven't done those exercises in a long time, so it will involve a new habit to do them. They are very simple and very short and probably will take no more than 1/2 hour three times per week. I wrote "Journal" in the eighth column so that I could check that I have written in my journal. What makes me nervous is that I'm adding exercise to a new commitment to eating, but I have lots of time now and am not sure I'll end up employed until the fall. This is all a matter of priorities, and establishing this way of life needs to be my number one priority.

I'll take a moment now to think of the beautiful poem by John Henry Newman: Lead, Kindly Light. It has been more than seven years since I set out to research weight loss programs to try to figure out what is causing the obesity epidemic so that my children could avoid the fate I have suffered, the fate of having so much of my life marred by my dieting and bingeing.

The time of research is done, and now it is time to follow the diet. I took one step at a time in trying and failing over and over, and now -- ever since a Sunday night in January when I decided against eating the rest of the chocolate -- now I have the answer. My children have kidded me about this because I've thought many times before that I think I have the answer. Now I think I do. It's not really brilliant. It's more obvious as you put together the pieces of the puzzle: the feeling of starvation when restricting calories, the unpleasant side effects of carb restriction, the cultural assumptions that frequent meals and portion control are the path out of obesity, and -- finally -- the fact that eating carbs leads to insulin production leads to a feeling of hunger. The answer is not my own. I more found the answer in my own Catholic heritage. It is intermittent fasting.

So -- on this Saturday afternoon, I turn now to living out my life with more calm and more peace and less and less of a focus on weight loss and food. There are moments in my life that are like pictures in my mind: like the moment that little baby, now 16, was first laid on my chest.

Right now is a moment to remember, too. It's not as dramatic a life change as was the moment Anne was given to me, but it will affect the rest of my life. To mark this day, I printed off a copy of John Henry Newman's prayer and made it into a bookmark. Here it is:

Lead, Kindly Light

Lead, Kindly Light, amidst th'encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.
I was not ever thus,
nor prayed that Thou shouldst lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path;
but now lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years!
So long Thy power hath blest me,
sure it still will lead me on.
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent,
till the night is gone,
And with the morn those angel faces smile, which I
Have loved long since, and lost awhile!
Meantime, along the narrow rugged path,
Thyself hast trod,
Lead, Savior, lead me home in childlike faith,
home to my God.
To rest forever after earthly strife
In the calm light of everlasting life.

Day 4 – Sunday, February 20, 2011: It is now 8 PM, and I just finished my three time per week exercises, so I can write. I've done a lot of thinking about portion control, and I think it is well-intentioned but wrong.

An analogy is what happened last week when I backed out of an interview with one recruiting firm out of courtesy to the first recruiting firm. I now have figured out that what I did was wrong. It turns out that I'm more or less a dime-a-dozen business analyst, and the key in the contract business is to get the businesses to use you, not to find business analysts. I realize why I was confused. After all, my husband is a consultant with very specialized skills, and he is treated well by his employer. It's different. I was the breadwinner when we got married, and now he's the high-powered consultant and I'm the lowly contractor. It's humbling to recognize the truth. I did what was wrong when I was trying to do what was right, and I did it not for my best interest -- in fact, it went contrary to my best interest -- but because I thought it was what was ethical.

Turning now to portion control, I think it is the same: well-intentioned but wrong. I have a book published in 1958 by Ancel and Margartet Keys called Eat Well and Stay Well. Here is a line from the very first page of that book: "The sensible person who is getting fat recognizes that some dietary adjustment is necessary, and the most obvious solution is to eat portions smaller than promoted by his appetite." The author then goes on to describe the basis of "scientific reducing", which is a classic (and maybe the first) description of calories in and calories out.

I cannot help but note an arrogant tone throughout the book. Dr. Ancel Keys was a leading scientist and so well-regarded that he was on the cover of Time magazine at one point. There is something here that just makes me shudder. However well-intentioned he may have been, he argued an approach to weight management that has made millions miserable, including me. And it didn't work.

My Catholic faith looks at this scientific, almost mechanistic approach to management of the human body and thinks that it is cold and perhaps even evil. It leaves out the human spirit.

I have tried to find evidence that any sort of portion control was used by religions, and I have only found two bits of evidence: St. Augustine apparently tried it and was miserable, and the Catholic Church now defines fasting as "eat only one complete meal and two smaller ones during the day, with no food in between."

That's not how fasting used to be. It used to mean no food until 3 PM in the afternoon. Now you can have three meals, but two of them had to be smaller. Isn't it pathetic that I had such trouble with the fasting rules that I simply couldn't manage them?

This is what I wrote on March, 22, 2008, the day after Good Friday, when I once again failed at fasting: "Making the commitment to give up food for several hours (not snack) is heart-stopping heart-in-your-throat terrifying. Why? I don’t understand why I have developed such a panic regarding food. Why? Is it the result of years of dieting? Is it the result of daily hearing about the pain of hunger? Why? I need to overcome my fear of hunger by allowing myself to experience hunger and coming to the recognition that hunger is not some terribly painful experience to be avoided at all costs."

Fasting is not the same as portion control. My well-intentioned efforts at portion controls worked at first and, over time, failed more and more quickly. Today, my daughter was expressing concern about going to her annual physical and getting weighed, and I told her that I'd rather she be fat than go what I went through.

It may be my Catholic faith being imaginative, but I think a portion control approach may be downright evil. Those who try to practice it are well-intentioned in their efforts to lose weight and control their appetite, which means -- in a global sense -- that there is a desire to practice the virtue of temperance. The results, however, are heart-stopping awful. Almost no one succeeds long-term and those who do feel like they are starving all the time.

Fasting has such a different effect. I feel calmer and more in control.

There is a line somewhere in the Bible about "by their fruits you shall know them". I have practice portion control for enough years to know the fruits of that approach, and it is not good. I haven't practiced fasting long enough to know the fruit of this approach, but I think it may be promising. It really heartens me that the practice of fasting in Catholicism previously and in Greek Orthodox faith today is fasting as complete elimination of food until 3 PM.

If Taubes is right that insulin is produced with the eating of carbohydrates, then portion control has the effect of whetting the appetite: making a person actually feel hungrier after a little bit to eat than if they hadn't eaten at all. In contrast, fasting is a way for insulin production to be given a break, for the body to be given a break. My impression of fasting is now that it is relaxing, almost a time of reflection. That's why I call it a Day of Grace. This is in sharp contrast to how I felt with portion control.

Now what? I allow myself time to follow this diet and see the results. Today I ate an enormous amount, but it doesn't bother me. I am, after all, having to adjust to no lunches during the week, and Sundays are my way to prepare for the week and also to motivate me to last until the next Sunday.

Day 6 – Tuesday, February 22, 2011: This was something I posted on September 18, 2008, concerning my Hunger Satisfaction Diet in which I had to wait to eat until my stomach growled but then I could eat as much as I wanted: "I had breakfast at 6:30 AM this morning, and now it is nearing 10. I leave in about 1/2 hour to go volunteer at the school. I was just in the kitchen, and those nectarines and grapes are calling my name. I have trained myself to eat at the first sign of hunger. Well, what I found with my Hunger Satisfaction Diet is that my stomach actually would growl when I came into the presence of food. I thought that hunger growls were strictly an internal physical change and could not be impacted by external events, but I learned differently! Ever have a child run into a parking lot? The heart beats faster even though you aren't moving. It turns out, I learned, that stomach noises are responsive to the environment just like heartbeats are."

I managed to fast yesterday until 5 but then ate throughout the night except when I was picking up a child from swim team and taking another to a Girl Scout meeting. Why? Well, the answer is in self-deception. I love that the Catholic Church calls Satan the Father of Lies because so much sin comes from justifying your actions. Well, I engaged in self-deception yesterday because I had altered my diet to allow myself to start eating without everything being in front of me before I took one bite. The result was that I had two bowls of popcorn, dinner, almonds and -- after Girl Scouts -- who knows what but it included a bowl of Cheerios, bread, and an uncooked frozen waffle. I was definitely inhaling all food within reach. Why? Well, I had set up restraints to eating in that I have everything in front of me before I eat. When I decided to lift that restraint, I fell right into a binge. What's sad about this is that I noted the effectiveness of this approach last Friday night. Lesson learned... I changed my diet back to what it was previously. Hunger, it turns out, is a state of mind as well as a physical state.

Yesterday, someone asked me if I had lost weight because she could see it in my face. I didn't know what to say. I supposed I have lost 10 pounds since the beginning of January, but -- as my husband was only too willing to point out -- it was the 10 pounds I had gained since last summer!

12:15 PM: I'm certainly getting exercise shoveling the driveway! It snowed something like 18" since Sunday morning. Tom left for a business trip yesterday morning, so he got most of it. I just had to shovel about 4". It's also about time the kids helped, too. Meanwhile, I was outside shoveling and thinking about my experience yesterday with a fast followed by a binge. I wonder if food is processed differently by my body because there is an insufficient amount of insulin to handle it. I don't know, but I do know that I have no desire to eat right now, although I did have cereal for breakfast.

2 PM: I'm taking a break from painting Katie and Ellie's room. I just sent an apology to the recruiter I burned by backing out of an interview. I have a perfectionistic streak and can dwell on errors for months and even years. I made a decision which hurt the recruiter but which I thought was ethical, and I was wrong. There is such analogy to dieting. I spent years and years focused on portion control, and it was a wrong-headed approach. Should I waste more years regretting my stupidity? No. I need to give myself a break and let it go.

I am shuddering to think of all the agony of that approach. The woman yesterday who thought I had lost weight may well be right. Despite my binge behavior, I feel smaller. I think there may be some problem that the body has in eating a large amount of food after fasting. I remember that, after World War II, soldiers who rescued people in the concentration camps fed some people steak -- and they died. There obviously would be a less dramatic effect from a few hours' fast, but I think there may be an effect.

It's funny: what I am doing with no portion control and infrequent meals is the exact opposite of conventional wisdom.

Day 7 – Wednesday, February 23, 2011: I ate a lot last night after having dinner, and I'm thinking that's OK. Why? Well, I ate less than I had the night before, and this morning I had a stomach ache. Fasting alone may control weight. I'm intrigued enough by this possibility to try it even if there is a bump or two in the road. I have a calendar that I was going to use for daily weight loss, and now I'm going to try just to record my days of fasting. I won't worry about breaking fasting rules but will just record that I have. This sounds a lot like my recording eating outside of No S day rules, and it is. Even though that was a complete failure, I want to try this.

It would be great to have a diet that was simple and easy to follow that allowed "unconditional permission to eat" whenever I did eat. Here is what I am thinking: Fast at least 10 hours (no calories at all) on days except for Sundays and other days where there is a need to break the fast. Record reasons why on those days."

9:30 PM: So much for limiting my time on this Web site -- Instead, I'll limit my time on the computer while the kids are home. I am intrigued by my body's reaction to a fast from before 7 AM yesterday morning until about 6:45 PM followed by overeating. My body doesn't seem able to process the food. Fasting is perhaps the natural equivalent to "dumping" for those who have gastric bypass surgery. My stomach is now making noises, and I feel slightly hungry. Today is a school Mass, and Ellie has a part, so I'll be going to communion, but I won't have anything else until dinnertime. It was a big day for Ellie yesterday -- she got glasses for the first time and I painted the room that she and Katie share.

Life is so full of joy if you have children. She was so excited to be able to see well yesterday. Our pediatrician had said she should wait to see if her eyesight corrected itself, so she's had problems seeing the board since the beginning of school. Now she's just thrilled to be able to see. I told her it might have been a mistake for us to wait, but at least now she knows she definitely needs glasses.

I tried calling the recruiter who had gotten me an interview and the I backed out. I got put through to her voice mail and left a message. I didn't meant to but started to cry. The contracting world is full of people who lie to get jobs and then there are recruiting firms who get you to sign contracts that lock you into staying with them for a year even if they can't pay you. I have to navigate all this and am doing my best, but I clearly made a mistake in how I dealt with that recruiter. It's not regret at losing out on a job opportunity that bothers me. It's that I added to the sleaziness of contracting. I have a call with a recruiter tomorrow who told me he would tell me about what I should anticipate in dealing with recruiters.

What does this have to do with dieting? Something, but I don't know what. Actually, I think I do. There are all sorts of businesses which are dependent on providing certain types of foods to people to allow them to lose weight. Who would make money off fasting? I'm afraid I'm seeing an ugly side of humanity in seeing how recruiting firms and other candidates work, and I'm trying to establish what I could consider to be a way of working that has integrity. I failed with this recruiter, and it really upsets me.

"The moving finger writes and having writ moves on." I cannot go back in time. I can go forward doing my best. Right now, that means experimenting with fasting and applying for other jobs. If I don't get a job before the fall, I'll just concentrate on the home. There is just no pressure for me to get a job, which is a blessing indeed.

8:30 PM: I don't know if I ate less tonight or not, but I do know I enjoyed my food less. I'm giving this approach a week. I left a voice message for the recruiter whose interview I backed out of last week and told her how badly I felt about the situation. She called me back this afternoon and told me that they had placed someone at the position. That really made me feel good. My mistake affected me only. I've met and talked to lots of recruiters at this point, and there are four whom I think are really good. She was one of them. I doubt she'll work with me again, but the important thing is that she did get the placement. Contracting is full of sleaze, and I really don't like it. I told her that I must be the only parent at my son's school who insists he actually practice the number of minutes he writes down on his chart for trombone practice.

Day 8 – Thursday, February 24, 2011: Yesterday's sermon at the school Mass was Jesus saying that God is with you and you need not worry. It had the verse in it about how you should not worry about what you eat. With this diet, I am doing exactly that. I even am allowing myself to eat sweets. My thought is that I can have a 10 hour gap in my eating each day except for Sunday. Will this result in weight loss? No. Could this lead to an eating disorder? Possibly. Just like I thought I was doing the right thing in backing out of an interview, so I could be thinking now that this is the right thing when it is very dangerous and not even helpful. What I did with the situation with the recruiter was seek more information until I understood what was appropriate, and then I apologized to the recruiter. In this situation, I have conflicting information: information on how fasting was a way of life for hundreds of years, and scientific information on the impact of carbs after a fast. What to do? I think I need to limit the time of the experiment. This is already February 24th, and I can see where I am on March 1.

9:30 PM: Typical night for a stay at home Mom: lots of driving and kid activities. I did note, in the midst of the driving, that I got full fast. I do think that my body says "Stop!" much faster after a fast. This approach is so easy that it may be worthwhile to follow even if I don't lose any weight. There's no more Exception Days or trying to decide if a food is a sweet or not. There's just a block of time from 7 AM to 5 PM when I don't have calories. Next week, I'll have lunch with my sister in law and will eat during those times, so that will be interesting to observe.


Day 9 – Friday, February 25, 2011: 205.4 A wild ride is over. I need to consider lessons learned from this one.

Day 10 – Saturday, February 26, 2011:
Day 11 – Sunday, February 27, 2011:
Day 12 – Monday, February 28, 2011:

[TexArk]

Kathleen wrote:
I ate a lot last night after having dinner, and I'm thinking that's OK. Why? Well, I ate less than I had the night before, and this morning I had a stomach ache. ....

It would be great to have a diet that was simple and easy to follow that allowed "unconditional permission to eat" whenever I did eat.

Yes it would, but I cannot avoid telling you of some of the dangers of coming off a fast and eating unconditional carbs. You have described this pattern over and over for a very long time. I would define what you are doing as fasting and binging.

I know you are very determined to have no restrictions except the fasting and that is certainly your choice. I will not try to persuade you otherwise, but I want you to have the following information as you make this choice. And I know you do not want your daughter to go down the path of calorie restriction, but you need to be careful that you do not set her up for hormonal damage by following the fast and binge diet. If she is interested in science as you say you are not, she could read for herself and understand. Understanding the why makes decisions so much easier.

COMING OFF OF A FAST
I know that the fasts we read about in the Bible and throughout church history were part of the Christian’s normal life. However, I also know that when they came off of a fast they did not gorge themselves with Twinkies! And gluttony was still considered a sin.

Here are some thoughts taken from Mark Sisson that I have quoted and paraphrased for my own information describing what happens when we indulge in what most Americans would think would be a normal treat..a piece of birthday cake. (This doesn’t even begin to describe what a carb binge would do to our bodies).

When you come off of a fast and then eat carbs unconditionally within a matter of 10 quick forkfuls, you’ve gone from zero carbs during the fast to possibly 100 or more grams of pure sugar in one sitting.

Within a few minutes, your pancreas kicks into overdrive and sends out a flood of insulin to try to sop up all the excess glucose that’s suddenly rushing through your bloodstream. Remember, while glucose is muscle fuel when it’s in the muscles, it’s toxic sludge when it stays in your bloodstream. Your body knows that and does everything it can to get it out of there.

Perhaps you’re feeling flushed, a little high, spastic, or nauseous depending on how much you ate, how big you are, what your normal carb load is, and how acutely you tend to “feel†the effects of sugar and other substances. Ironically, if you were insulin resistant, you might not even notice these sensations.

And it continues. The gush of insulin now creates a see-saw effect. If your glycogen stores have room, some of the sugar goes into muscles. If there’s no more room, the excess goes into fat cells, where it is stored as fat.

In reaction to this quasi-emergency that looks like another life-threatening stress, the body steps up its efforts to achieve homeostasis by releasing both epinephrine (adrenaline) and cortisol from your adrenals. Your heart is racing, and you’re starting to feel uncomfortable, maybe even sweating. And we’re still likely within the first hour after you finished off those chocolate macadamia nut clusters or nutty ice cream bars, or whatever treats you have indulged in.

A bit more time passes. Burnout settling in yet? That’s called a sugar crash – when all the glucose is gone from the bloodstream and you start to feel sluggish, off-kilter, like the internal circuits are all fried after sparking in a heap of now smoldering wires.

But there’s more…. The havoc that sugar rush set off – the swing of glucose and insulin, the cortisol and adrenaline – they’ve sent your immune system into a tailspin. Research has shown that the function of immunity-related phagocytes is impaired for at least five hours after intake of simple sugars. Free radicals have their heyday as well within the first few hours after sugar increases oxidative stress on the body. Your blood even thickens as a response to the stressors.

Wait, you aren’t out of the woods yet. You go to bed and try to sleep it off, but you toss and turn as your heart continues to beat faster than normal. Hmm. Little surprise there. The old hormonal system is confounding in its interconnectedness.

As the sun comes up and you roll out of bed, you think you should be done with this sugar business by now. Maybe. Maybe not. Unfortunately, a hefty dose of sugar can compromise the immune system for more than 24 hours.

As bad as this sounds, it could be worse. If you follow a low carb path regularly and the†lemon cream cake†or whatever was just a detour, you’re a generally healthy person.

But if this is a normal day? Sigh. This presents a much bleaker picture. That see-saw of insulin and glucose? The process breaks down in your body until you develop insulin resistance. That rush of adrenaline and cortisol? That hormonal havoc over time fries your adrenal system. Your body is constantly in a state of “fight,†and inflammation becomes a constant state of affairs. Enough sugar over enough time (with the lack of exercise to boot), and you’ve gotten yourself into quite a pickle.

An occasional concession we make for personal and social reasons is not the same thing as giving yourself “unconditional permission to eat†sugar and loads of carbs just because you have been “good†and fasted.

Sorry to intrude and I will not bother you again, but my conscience would not let me leave you alone on this. You have shared so much personal information that I think of you as an online friend and I am only telling you what I would tell a friend. I also find it quite interesting that the Mayo Clinic doctor advised your husband to restrict carbs. Maybe he will be successful and your daughter will follow his pattern instead of the fast/binge diet. OK...I have overstepped, but at least I know that you can make your choices now with this information.

[Kathleen]

TexArk,
You most certainly have not overstepped! My hope is that I will not continue if I feel lousy afterwards. I noted a decrease in my eating between two nights ago and last night. I bet there is some damage going on with this approach, but would I continue it if I felt lousy? Anyway, I am not advising my daughter on anything, and she is understandably skeptical about anything I come up with. My husband does seem to have lost some weight, and I'll find out at the beginning of the month. It's really a tragedy that a girl that beautiful would be so fat. My father tells me over and over that she is a "classic Irish beauty", and she really is: almost translucent white skin, beautiful sky blue eyes, and long think curly hair. People can wish for world peace if they want. I have a much narrower wish -- that she be healthy. I will study what you have written and not push this experiment too long if I do not in fact cut back on food as a result of feeling lousy.
Kathleen

[kccc]

Kathleen,

I also want to respond to something in your long post...

It may be my Catholic faith being imaginative, but I think a portion control approach may be downright evil. Those who try to practice it are well-intentioned in their efforts to lose weight and control their appetite, which means -- in a global sense -- that there is a desire to practice the virtue of temperance. The results, however, are heart-stopping awful. Almost no one succeeds long-term and those who do feel like they are starving all the time.

(Bold added by me)

I take issue with this. Strongly. This board is FULL of people who have succeeded long term. They are not miserable: most talk about how much more enjoyment they have in their food now than before. No-S may be a form of portion control, but it IS moderate and temperate. That's it's primary virtue. That's why people can be happy on it.

In fact, I know of only one person on this board who says she feels like she's starving all the time, and that's BA. And she would be the first to admit that she has to take extreme measures because her body just doesn't behave in a "normal" way when it comes to food.

Like TexArk, I am concerned that you are heading down a road of severe eating disorders - a fast-and-binge-cycle that looks very worrysome.

I know you're a grownup and will make your own decisions, but I do wish you would think seriously about this - if not for your own sake, for your daughter's.

I'm speaking up for two reasons. One, because I regard you as a friend and I'm genuinely concerned. Two... it's National Eating Disorders Awareness week, so I feel sort of obliged. Here's some info on that: http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/ ... mation.php

Very best wishes. I mean that quite sincerely, and hope that you will listen and that I have not given offense.

[Kathleen]

KCCC,

I did lose 20 pounds on The No S Diet (without portion control but with a no seconds rule), so I have a lot of respect for it.

As for eating disorders, well, the alarm bells are just not going off for me. Maybe they should. I will monitor my eating closely and see what happens over the next week. If there isn't significant improvement, I'll end this experiment. What's really interesting about fasting is I don't feel much hunger at all. This afternoon, I gave an art presentation to 25 fourth graders. I didn't feel hungry or faint or in any way affected by not having lunch.

You didn't give offense. You showed care.

Kathleen

[BrightAngel]

Kathleen,
TexArk and KCCC have given you some good advice.
I suggest that you take it to heart.

The term eating disorder is merely a label
that is put on specific behaviors involving food.

Your current eating behavior definitely follows a binge-fast pattern.
You can define that behavior as an eating disorder or not,
it’s just a label.
Fasting is good….Bingeing is not.
Putting them together is a recipe for physical disaster,
which can also increase one’s emotional difficulties.