Everyday Systems

I had posted a long, revealing intro about who I am and why I'm doing the No S Diet, and that for some reason did not post.... will give basic details here.

23, 5'1, currently 138ish pounds, which is officially overweight for my height. To make matters worse, I actually work in the fitness industry, so my losing weight is important to my career. I am a "curvy" person; my lightest weight was 120-125 with a lot of muscle. I gained all this weight after an accident last summer. Hoping to get back to pre-accident shape.

I have convinced myself for a long time that I need to eat a lot because I do get a lot of exercise, and love to socialize (i.e. eat, with people, unfettered), but I have to get real and admit my current eating habits aren't working.

Day 1: SUCCESS/S
I tried to stick to the three-meal thing. This actually involves introducing a breakfast habit, too, which is an added challenge. I am actually sick today, so I had tea with honey two times outside of meals. And I made myself a chai tea latte with dinner- does that count as a sweet? Regardless, I mostly got it, and since "sick" starts with "s," I'm calling it a success.
yoga habit/exercise: ((I had already required myself to do a 20 minute home practice per day, regardless of other workouts, but changed it to 14 and added to my habitcal in order to make it fit with the systems here.)) fail... I did 5 minutes of sun salutations and felt awful. I know I COULD do another 9 minutes of restorative stuff, but I honestly don't feel like it. Did I mention I'm sick?

Day 2:SUCCESS
Aside from a cup of tea with honey, which I think is ok, because I am sick.
I was really hungry by 6:30, which is odd for me because I rarely eat dinner before 8:30. I avoided eating until 8, and I probably overate a bit knowing that the no-snacks part meant that once dinner was done, I was done.

Also did my yoga, which was not fun with my sick achy body that did not want to stretch or breathe, but at least I got a double-green day.

Day 3: FAIL
I wa soo hungry all afternoon. When a friend ordered dessert after dinner, I didn't feel like refusing.

yoga: Yeah, I did a full hour-long practice at home.

Day 4: FAIL
I took a second handful of crackers with my lunch. Felt a big too full later- although the rest of the day was fine, I knew I had to be honest and acknowledge my slipup.

Guessing this will become easier when it becomes habit. That's the idea, right?

Day 5: FAIL
Sweets, snacks, pretty much full-on-binge.

The good news is, I am having a pretty sensible weekend, having taken care of my pigging out on Friday.
So, week one, only TWO out of FIVE days got greens. But I did eat less in general (and Wednesday and Thursday were near misses), so hopefully I will see a difference.

Got on the scale Friday- somewhere in between 136.5 and 137.

Sometimes people gain a bit initially, mainly due to getting used to what you said - after dinner, you are done. Don't worry about it - it all evens out!

We are very similar - I'm 24, 5'2, and after No-S-ing for a couple of months hovering around 137 (I started around 145).

Stick with it - it gets better!

Thanks so much for the encouragement Marleah!

Day 6: OK- I visited a friend, and ate a light and very early dinner. So when I had a small, healthy snack later, I considered that ok. I know, I know, but otherwise I'd be starving (light dinner at 6 when I don't sleep until 2).

Day 7: SUCCESS

I am calling the day a success now, so I can't go back on it. God I want sweets. Bad.

EDIT: Still a success. I'm drinking unsweetened green tea which for some odd reason seems to calm the cravings. Doesn't make sense, but I'll take it.

I decided to list my food intake here, to make myself a little more accountable.

B: oatmeal with honey and cinnamon
L: tortilla chips with hummus, kumquats
D: roast beef hash

Day 8: FAILURE. I posted on the problem I was having, and came to some great insights, and got some great insights from others- most successful failure ever, I say.

Day 9: SUCCESS.
B: Banana with peanut butter, coffee.
L: whole wheat pasta with vegetarian sausage, olive oil, lots of parmesan cheese
D: spaghetti-os, trader joes variety, with some cheese, a cracker, and a banana
E/Y: 20 minute quickie walk on the treadmill (felt too icky to run, for some reason, but I kept my heart rate in the fat-burning zone. Hour long restorative yoga class, which barely counts as exercise.

Day 10: FAILURE. Just like last Friday, the wheels pretty much came off.

So I'm 10 days in (only counting non-S day) and have a 50% success rate. The internal criticism right now is pretty damn high, with voices that say "if you're not going to take this seriously, why bother? it's not that hard, if you even cared." Leave it to me to struggle with the supposedly most easy, idiot-proof diet method there is.
In Week 1, I only had 2/5 success days, and Week 2, 3/5. Next week will only be a 4 day long week (Memorial Day, visiting with extended family, S-day for sure). I'm going to go for broke. It can't be THAT hard. Can it?

I'm copying this from a previous post (actually I've posted this on several threads!--It seems to keep coming up!)

From the sticky thread of No S Catch Phrase Glossary on the general No S discussion page, here are a few great lines that might help you accept failure and be able to "mark it and move on" as Vicki says:

Fall down seven times; get up eight. (from Iggy)

Just pick yourself up, dust off the crumbs and keep moving forward. (from HowFunIsThat)

And from the man himself-Reinhard says in the book and on the homepage:

Sometimes it takes a false start (or 12) . . . (see No S main page for rest of this passage). . .So quit dawdling and get some failures under your belt!

Or Try Winston Churchill: "Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm."


Sounds like to me you're exhibiting human characteristics!

Most of us didn't just start doing No S and boom it was all good. We fell off and climbed back on multiple times. What's not helpful for you is to say such negative things to yourself. Your post indicates you've only been doing No S since May 10--geez, that's only two weeks! I worked toward building my habits for three or four months before I could really feel like I was really following the program. But it finally clicked. And I still fall off the wagon. . . but like the others, I just climb back on.

Hang in there!

And also. . .

You were right to call "sick" days S days. That's one of the rules. If you haven't bought the book, get it. It's available at most book stores I've found and ships from Amazon really fast. It's great to keep around as inspiration!

If you're trying to count your success days, as in the "21 day club," you DO count all days, not just non-S days.

An idea about your not usually having breakfast. The rules don't state "when" the meals should be. How would it be to still stick with three meals, but if you're having to "force" breakfast, just have it mid-morning or even elevenish--nearly like brunch. You could still have two more meals. Something I do for breakfast (my schedule is such that I have to leave my house by 6:45 am to get to work) is to take a yogurt cup and mix it with about 1/2 cup of high fiber cereal and some fruit when I get a chance at work. It helps me get some fiber in but isn't like a huge meal. And it keeps me from being ravenous at lunch.

Or if you just have an early lunch (brunch), have a meal a few hours prior to going to those social things you like to do, you could plate those appetizer things, etc. and call them dinner. The trick is to make sure you're only eating a "plate's worth." I often order a couple of appetizers or one of those combo appetizers for my meal because that's what I'm really craving. You just have to be careful if it's a never-ending basket of chips and queso! But I'm guessing in New York, that's not the issue?

Regards,

Thanks again LA Loser! I've given some thought to the breakfast dilemma and realized I was only forcing it to give myself the excuse to have my coffee in the morning (with milk and sugar). I figured I could have a late afternoon snack/smallish plate and call it one of my meals. Then I wouldn't be starving come dinner time at 9-10. Yeah, the coffee may or may not be (no disposable income to buy the book and figure it out, at the moment) against the rules, but I think this is a relatively sane mod.
I also grabbed some light/nonsyruppy juices in case I get the hunger pangs again.

So long as I succeed today, I'll be starting over again as Day 1 heading toward 21...

I think you're getting the idea. And actually, a HUGE part of the book is verbatim from the main NO S page. . . you just have to really read it closely. Before I got the book, I did print all the pages from the No S site and it was a great help to be able to go back and read and highlight the things you were wondering about.

Coffee with sugar and cream are totally ok no matter whether it's with a meal or not.

I suspect your situation with your friends and social life is somewhat akin to "the freshman fifteen" they talk about that college students gain when they first move away from home. I know you just don't want it to become thirty!

It's so smart for you to be mindful of these things now when you're young before those pounds get so "attached' they're even harder to get off!

I'll bet that if you can begin to manage snacks and sweets and can limit your meals to one plate of food, that over time, those pounds will disappear. As I've said before, with No S, slow and steady wins the race. If you lost one to two pounds a month between now and December, you will have dropped all those pounds, most likely. And if you lose them slowly, you'll be less likely to put them right back on because your habits will have been formed by then.

Good luck.