Everyday Systems

It has not been a flying start this last week for me. Last Monday was a SUCCESS, but after that there were always "little" failures - Tuesday I ate extra crackers after lunch, Thursday I had seconds after dinner. We had houseguests, so we did make dessert on Friday night when we had a special dinner for them, so I counted that as a NWS day.

But even with the failures and dessert, I did much better than I had the previous weeks, so by Saturday I was back down to my previous "best" weight. The weekend was full of S's, and I do feel ready to get back to N-days! I'm still encouraged.

Tactics I'd like to use this week:
- Check in here every evening.
- Always have a drink of something (water or tea) when the kids are snacking, if I am sitting down with them.
- Just keep busy when I am tempted to snack - cleaning, reading to the children, gardening - there is always something better to do if I just think about it.

Thursday (with houseguests) -
Breakfast - Oatmeal with raisins & peanut butter, tea
Lunch - Fried rice with egg & veggies
Dinner - Chard Cheese Bake (oops, had seconds when I was putting this away), baked sweet potatoes

Friday (with houseguests) -
Breakfast - 2 boiled eggs, 2 slices toast, a little jam, tea
Picnic Lunch - "Stoplight Salad" (peppers, corn, tomatoes, black beans), tortillas, crackers & cheese
Dinner - A big salad with walnuts, sliced hardboiled eggs, veggies, ginger dressing; homemade crusty rye bread; blueberry cobbler for dessert (no leftovers from this meal!)

Saturday I relaxed more -
Breakfast - whole wheat waffles with maple syrup (my husband made this and I had seconds!)
Lunch - ramen noodles with egg, grapes, fresh garden tomatoes
Snack - leftover pasta with raw tomato sauce
Dinner - Mexican Lasagna from the freezer, grapes; chocolate chess pie for dessert! And my son shared some birthday party candy with the family.

Sunday -
Breakfast - Muesli with milk
Lunch - More Mexican lasagna, chocolate chess pie with whipped cream, candy
Afternoon tea - Fresh figs! Crackers, decaf coffee
Evening snack - buttered popcorn, birthday party candy, more figs

Monday -
Breakfast - 2 Boiled eggs, 2 slices buttered toast (homemade oatmeal bread), tea

You sound like me. I also caved in a few times this past week. I had a snack when I wasn't hungry and when I knew the day did not begin with an S and also took Friday to be a free day. But we are still here and back to the plan so just don't give up!! You will do great.

Glad to hear you're making progress, even with minor setbacks.

And I love your user name.

I'm not proud to be the fat sister in my family but I will be proud to be the phat sister. I don't normally use the term phat but I found it fitting. Today was not so good. I need a good kick in the pants by a weight loss coach! LOL

We lost internet access for most of the week, so I would have checked in, but couldn't. But last week was actually really good!

Monday: SUCCESS
Tuesday: SUCCESS
Wednesday: SUCCESS
Thursday: SUCCESS
Friday: EXEMPT (my birthday was on Friday!) That's the 2nd NWS day of the month - not sure if I will be keeping it to 2 this month, but it depends on what we do for Halloween.

We also had a women's conference at church with the most wonderful gourmet dinner cooked by some very talented ladies. I was glad it was my birthday so I could eat everything without taking an additional S day!

Saturday and Sunday were full of S's again (with additional celebrations, etc.) I don't ever plan to change that, but I am thankful that even then, it was all in relative moderation - no chocolate by the 1/2 bag, etc.

I am so relieved to be officially No-S-ing again - it really feels better. I do want to check in every evening for now, because I do find it helpful to know that I'll be writing it down. (http://www.getfitslowly.com/2008/07/16/ ... ood-diary/ - seems helpful for me right now anyway.)

Thanks for the encouragements!

Way to go!! Happy Birthday!

Monday: SUCCESS

Breakfast: 2 boiled eggs, 2 slices homemade toast with butter, jam on one of them, coffee

Lunch - fried eggs over spinach, 1 pc. toast, string cheese, 1/4 PB & honey sandwich (kids leftover, I expected & budgeted)

Dinner - baked sweet potato with butter, big yummy salad (spinach, feta, blueberries, toasted chopped pecans, red & yellow sweet peppers, fresh celery seed dressing)

The nice thing is that I'm just not worried that I'm eating too much, even though it may be more calories than some others would want to eat.

Tuesday: SUCCESS

Breakfast: Oatmeal with PB, brown sugar, milk
Lunch: Salad, sweet potato, crackers, string cheese, a few bites of my daughter's leftover quesadilla
Dinner: Autumn vegetable stir-fry (baby turnips, mixed greens, sweet peppers, chicken broth, etc.), steamed rice

Borderline behavior: I did eat some of the children's leftover food, which at the time I thought I could justify (there being enough room on the plate, my expecting it, ...). I'm not sure if that's just a slippery slope. I do hate throwing food away, so maybe if there's a significant amount of food I will save it for the next lunch or a snack for them.

Borderline/failures the last 3 days.... small (like eating a few tomatoes I had just roasted for garden preservation, or tasting a few bites too many of the sweet potatoes I was mixing up, or just a few bites of the kids' leftovers... but failures indeed) until today, when I had dessert after the kids were in bed.. and that dessert was not small. My husband who is a No-S-er too, is a great example to me, and he is out camping. Oh dear. :/ Well, mark it and move on, right? I don't love those 3 red squares, but need to be honest if I want to get anywhere.

Blueskighs's blog is inspiring me though. Increasing productivity is a huge goal right now - I'm struggling to get everything done. I've added The Book to my Amazon wish list too.. looks like I need more motivation in a nice quick-to-read package. Maybe I'll use some birthday money.

Play_outside,

thank you for the kind words about my blog. I think the book is great and money well spent. I really don't know for sure if I would have gotten it the same way if I had not read the book. It's hard to say. But it's really well written, is an easy fun read, and really covers all the bases about questions and why and how the No S diet works.

As far as increased productivity, it has been the greatest unexpected by product of consistently keeping my N days green,

glad you are here!

Blueskighs

Monday: FAILURE (or NWS)
Tuesday: SUCCESS
Wednesday: SUCCESS so far.

Monday's failure went like this: we had a friend over and I made Korean food, and then my husband surprised us with a red bean dumplings dessert that he pulled out of the freezer and steamed for us. (Like baodze maybe?) Anyway, it wasn't too *sweet*, but it was seconds.

I was all ready for another week of 5 green N days, and today I am still confident, because I have spoiled myself at lunch with an open faced sandwich of fried green tomatoes on a slice of bread with mayonnaise and a fried egg on top! How could I be dissatisfied after such a great lunch?

I am also encouraged today to see some greater consistency in some other areas in which I want to grow (wanting is half the battle, but self-discipline seems to be the other half). Hooray!

Wednesday: SUCCESS
Thursday: SUCCESS! - skipped dessert at a meeting in the evening.
Friday: Halloween S-Day (we don't trick or treat, but there will be a party tonight).

This week was better than last week - great! I am hoping to get into the 21 day club one of these days

Monday: SUCCESS

Tuesday: FAILURE, but happy election day!

I think I'll start numbering my days in an attempt to get to 21!

Wednesday: SUCCESS - Day 1

Day 2 - good so far

Let's call this Day 0 again... I had a string of failures for about 2 weeks (not because of Thanksgiving). So far OK today... had a regular breakfast of eggs and toast. This diet can be hard to stick with at times compared to eating whatever you see - not saying much - but this habit of self-restraint is much better.