Everyday Systems

As the username might indicate, I'm a bit sheepish about starting this diet. I'm kind of embarrassed that I even have to watch my weight. I used to be the kind of person who was effortlessly within the healthy weight range but, over the last 2-3 years, the weight has slowly crept on. I'm not hugely overweight even now - about 145 pounds and 5'2 - but I really don't want the slow creeping weight gain to continue and I like the look of this diet - simple and easy to stick to. Plus, my main problems are sweets, snacking and seconds so..

I made something of an effort to stick to this today but I was feeling pretty generally rubbish so it didn't go as well as I'd hoped.

I ate -

Meal 1 - muesli with banana chopped in.
Meal 2 - couscous with fried lentils/beans, leek and mushroom
Meal 3 - half a spinach/ricotta pizza and some salad.

I also ate 4 chocolates. I don't usually have them in the house but a friend gave me them at the weekend.

I very nearly ate the rest of the pizza because I was feeling so rubbish but I didn't. So I feel good about that . I need not to comfort eat.

So, this was a FAILURE, technically, but not too dreadful a failure so I won't feel too bad about it. Tomorrow is another day.

Hi Sheepish,

glad you're here and not somewhere else instead. This really works and it will definately do what you want it to do - maintain and gradually decrease your weight again in a sane and healthy way.

Your food intake looks pretty healthy and balanced on the whole, and you are right that your failure was not a bad one at all. You in fact had 5/6 success yesterday if you think about it.

Welcome to NoS. Hope it brings to health and peace.
C.

carolejo wrote:Hi Sheepish,

glad you're here and not somewhere else instead. This really works and it will definately do what you want it to do - maintain and gradually decrease your weight again in a sane and healthy way.

Your food intake looks pretty healthy and balanced on the whole, and you are right that your failure was not a bad one at all. You in fact had 5/6 success yesterday if you think about it.

Welcome to NoS. Hope it brings to health and peace.
C.

Thanks! I do eat pretty healthily - I've always been vegetarian and so I have a natural taste for vegetables, fruit, and pulses. Part of my problem has actually been that other diet advice says things like 'cut out junk food' which just doesn't work for me because I don't eat much junk food. I do have a sweet tooth but I keep this under control very easily by dint of just not buying any sweet stuff from the supermarket. This is the only thing that I've seen that might actually work for me because it gives me rules - I like rules - and addresses my main problems.

So, day 2. Very exciting.

Meal 1 - the other half of the aforementioned pizza and more salad.
Meal 2 - pasta with pesto, spinach, leeks, cnion, sweetcorn, green beans, mushrooms, feta and olives.

I'm so stuffed now that I don't think I want a third meal. That pasta was really filling.

On the whole, I'm going to aim for 2 meals a day since it's what I usually do and keep the third meal in reserve for days when I just need something a bit extra early in the morning or as a late supper.

Hi Sheepish!
Welcome to NoS and the group!
Boy you will love NoS for maintenence... It is really optimized for that~
I hope to one day be somewhere in the ballpark of where you are weightwise, and be able to say I am in maintenence mode!
Have a nice one!
Peace and Love,
Deb

gratefuldeb67 wrote:Hi Sheepish!
Welcome to NoS and the group!
Boy you will love NoS for maintenence... It is really optimized for that~
I hope to one day be somewhere in the ballpark of where you are weightwise, and be able to say I am in maintenence mode!
Have a nice one!
Peace and Love,
Deb

Thanks! Best of luck to you.

I wouldn't actually say I was 'in maintaince mode' as such. I know I'm not hugely overweight but I have a very small frame and I have quite definite excess fat right now. I'd like to get rid of it. But my primary desire is to stop gaining first.

Since I don't have a set of scales, to measure how I'm doing, my bust/waist/hip measurements at the moment are: 42, 31, 43. Ideally, based on the size I was a few years back, I should be more like: 38, 28, 38. So that's my rough goal. I know it'll take time but I like goals and rules and things so I thought I'd write them out today to make myself more accountable. I'll aim to measure every 2-3 weeks.

measuring sounds like a good plan. That's a much more reliable way of looking at things than a bathroom scale anyway. Scales are RUBBISH really.

Good job so far Sheepish. Glad you're off to a good start.
C.

Day 3. This has been a really weird day food-wise. I had just coffee in the morning as usual. Then was absolutely starving for -

Meal 1 - lots of salad with veggies, cheese and filled pasta.

And then I spent most of the afternoon being really hungry. I manged to stave this off by drinking lots of water and tea. Put something on to cook in the slow cooker but it was.. too slow and ended up with -

Meal 2 - muesli with banana chopped in.

Of course, after that, I wasn't hungry for the slowly cooked food so I'll have that tomorrow.

Despite the general weirdness, I think this counts as a SUCCESS. *grin*

Day 4 - going pretty well thus far. The main reason I wanted to post was because I had lots of lentils and peas in my lunch today and I'm far less hungry this afternoon. I figure, if I note that here, I can try and see if there's any correlation - I think what I had yesterday for lunch was too light to keep me going.

Wow we are about the same size. My measurments are a tad less and I weight 5 pounds less than you but I am only 5 ft. 1. I am also a vegeterian that doesn't eat cheese milk or eggs. I don't call myself vegan because I sometimes get a little milk in my bread. I never had a weight problem either. I was a skinny kid and a slim teen-ager. We ate 3 meals a day when I was growing up and got lots of exercise and freash air so this makes sense to me. I only weighted about 104-105 when I got married. I would like to weight 115-120 now. You are right as my BMI only puts me as 7 pounds overweight but I feel more overweight then that. Can I ask how or why you became vegeterian? For how long? I have only been one for 2 years in July. My son found the " Meet your Meat" video on Peta site and he became vegan that day. He showed it to me and I was shocked that I had been a part of that. I changed that day too. I think this diet will work but as I said I have only been doing it a few days.

Jan wrote:Wow we are about the same size. My measurments are a tad less and I weight 5 pounds less than you but I am only 5 ft. 1. I am also a vegeterian that doesn't eat cheese milk or eggs. I don't call myself vegan because I sometimes get a little milk in my bread. I never had a weight problem either. I was a skinny kid and a slim teen-ager. We ate 3 meals a day when I was growing up and got lots of exercise and freash air so this makes sense to me. I only weighted about 104-105 when I got married. I would like to weight 115-120 now. You are right as my BMI only puts me as 7 pounds overweight but I feel more overweight then that. Can I ask how or why you became vegeterian? For how long? I have only been one for 2 years in July. My son found the " Meet your Meat" video on Peta site and he became vegan that day. He showed it to me and I was shocked that I had been a part of that. I changed that day too. I think this diet will work but as I said I have only been doing it a few days.

My theory (completely unsubstantiated) is that BMI doesn't work well for people who are either very small framed or very large framed. I'm naturally pretty tiny - I look healthy and good with a 24 inch waist. I'm not aiming for that right now but, yeah, BMI is just not a good guideline for me. That said, it might also be because I don't have scales and so I'm estimating my weight..

I've always been vegetarian. My parents are Hindus from Gujarat originally and Gujarat is about 90% vegetarian. I've never had a real desire to eat meat, it's kinda repellant after you've been vegetarian for as long as I have and, since I don't know what it tastes like, I don't miss anything.

I don't cook with dairy very often at all because it wasn't what I was brought up to cook with but I love nice cheese so I'll never manage to be vegan, much to my shame..

Anyway -

Day 4 was a SUCCESS. Yay.

Wow, I wish I had been raised vegeterian and I wish I had raised my kids that way. I do have 4 small grandchildren that are being raised that way tho so that is a good thing.

Been away for the weekend

Friday (day 5) - success
Saturday & Sunday - automatic success. Just as well, really, since I somewhat overindulged -lots of nice food and wine and such. Still, I guess I feel properly treated.

Monday & Tuesday (days 8 &9) respectively - SUCCESSES. Both 2 meal days.

Today is a three meal day cos I woke up starving.

Today (day 10) also a success.

I'm finding this a lot easier to stick to than I thought I was, given that I used to graze a lot. I guess it's just very freeing not to have to worry about the content of meals.

I measured myself today out of curiosity and I appear to have lost an inch or so off everywhere. I suspect this to be just part of my monthly variation but I thought I'd record it anyway.

Nice one! An inch gone is always nice to see, even if it might be mostly just fluctuation. Who knows? Maybe when you get that tape measure back out in a couple of weeks it will still be gone! Maybe you'll have lost another half inch to go with it!

Glad to see it's going so well for you. You're doing great.
C.

Thanks Carole! I do appear to still have lost the inch but I still think it's a monthly fluctuation thing. We'll see.

Thursday & Friday - successes. I possibly need not to have a glass of port/Baileys after dinner in lieu of dessert though..

Saturday & Sunday - S days so no failure possible.

Monday was a success. I had nice Gujarati food for dinner and salad and stuff for lunch.

Oops, bit behind on the checking in.

Tuesday & Wednesday were successes but..

I failed on Thursday and had pudding.

Friday was fine as was the weekend, obviously, and today, so I think I'm officially back on track.

Ooops. I've been a bit rubbish at checking in. I've been away and busy and such. I'm still doing the No S thing, though, and it's going ok. A few slipups but nothing major and I've lost a couple of inches off everywhere so that's enouraging!